Real Men Cry Alone

I have a confession. I cried over a woman this morning that has left my heart in a million pieces. I wanted this relationship to work so bad I was willing to do anything and everything to keep her. Giving her a monthly allowance because I thought that's what a provider does. Draping her perfect body with exotic linen she's never seen. Doing all I could to keep that beautiful smile on her face. I loved her unconditionally through thick and thin. Through arguments and disagreements. No obstacle would stand in my way. I wanted to be with this woman more then anything. I truly believed the reward was greater then the risk. I didn't love easily so when I fell for this woman I gave her my heart and soul to make it work. From the first time I laid eyes on her she gave me a unfamiliar supply of love and passion I never knew existed. I now recognize and understand the mistakes I made with her but I truly believed together we could conquer all. No distance or any distraction could stand in our way.

Another woman has held my heart for 13 years. The first time I saw her she gave me a peculiar feeling of curiosity with a gut wrenching invisible rope pulling me closer to her side. She was about 5'4" slim thick with piercing eyes that stare into your soul. Her hair draped down her shoulders like the cape of your favorite superhero. Her body was breath taking and she had a certain confidence that raised the hairs on the back of my neck everytime she touched me. She was undeniably smart and we could have the deepest conversations for hours without the need of weed. She had the same rare unique passions and deep thoughts about this chaotic world that kept me up at night. I was no longer lonely and unique in my own thoughts. She showed me that I wasn't weird because we both had similar worries and uncertainties about this world and about the people in it. Deep thoughts would float around my mind creating unanswered questions that I originally thought only I cared about. She would always prove that to be wrong. After 12 years of moving to two different states and navigating my way through her failed engagement I find myself in tears after finding out she was pregnant but the baby wasn't mine. As I watch her lips move and sadness invades my body, I thought is this a blessing or a curse? This woman was thought to be my future wife at one point and the mother of my children but now belongs to someone else. The only reason the baby wasn't mine is because I wasn't emotionally strong enough to handle her emotions as a woman. But who is to blame? Why can't I show or even understand my own emotions at the age of 30. I know and I understand my feelings for her but I am unable to truly express it to her the way that she needs me to. Does that mean the love I have for her is different than the love she has for me or do I not fully understand the concept of love? But how could I? What role models did I have to look to that showed me what love truly was. Being raised by a single parent there was no space to understand love. At a young age I watched my mom struggle to keep the lights on and the roaches and rats away. I watched as she had lonely nights because men in our area weren't interested in raising a kid that wasnt their own. Not being able to understand how to help my mother get through this pain I formed the idea that being alone was the only real way to live. In the end through sadness or happiness all you have is yourself. Relying on others to bring you happiness would only bring you pain. So I was given two options. Sports or the streets, and the streets never showed you love. So I received love from what sports gave me. Being athletic you were loved by the fans and hated by the other team. Loved by your coaches and envied by your friends because of your natural talent. But was that real love or just a bizarre fantasy interpretered as love. The game winning touchdown always came with cheering screaming fans. Home run hits and buzzer beater threes would always bring you groupies but it was all fake love. Sitting in my feelings listening to Drake his lyrics always hit home.

"Damn, damn, I wonder why I never learned my lesson

It's feeling like the second chance and its the first impression

And I heard it's nothing new except for someone new

But how you supposed to find the one when anyone will come with you."

I spent years training my body and shaping my mind to become the ultimate athlete. But with that came a certain coldness that I couldn't shake. It created a lonely, muscular, monster incapable of love or trust. After an all American college football career, dreams of playing professionally were now knocking at my front door. It became a fork in the road with only two paths. I would spend the next three years at numerous tryouts and professional camps fighting for this passion. But was always overlooked because my college years were spent at such a small school. Without enough exposure it became more and more unrealistic as I got older. Jumping from arena team to arena team, eventually bills began to pile as this passion and dream began to die along with my own happiness. Now again I was lost.

It was hard for me to force myself to smile even when I wanted to. I was told I had a mean face and was always considered to be sad because of it. But I'm not sad. I don't feel sad. But I can't change my face to make my peers more comfortable. I can't fake emotions to make people feel satisfied around me. I think back to the last time I actually cried. It was 6 years ago and my cousin was sick in the hospital and after a few months without talking to this woman I call her to tell her about my cousin and she ends the conversation with her being engaged to someone else. At the time I thought this heavy weight and sadness was love. Tears fell from my eyes and I thought the gut wrenching knot in my stomach was love. But it wasn't. Because if it was, I would've never left her side. Love for me was to find true connection and understanding but what I thought I had wasn't that at all. I went home upset with my life and distraught from this new found information. "We can't help who we love and who loves us" my grandma says as she looks up to me from her wheelchair. Fighting my hardest to hold back the tears, I think back even further to when I cried before this. I was in the 5th grade and Morgan Brown broke my heart. I could count on one hand how many times I cried in my life. It was always over a girl but this time it was my fault. I cried not because I was sad but because I knew I would lose the woman I cared so much about because I wasn't emotionally stable enough to only choose one woman. It took some time for me to really grow as a man and I regret all the pain and hurt I put her through towards the beginning of our time together in search of my own self realization.

It's crazy that women are attracted to the ambition and dedication they see in men. But once the man reaches that level of attainment and wants to find love he believes its the person that makes him forget his ambitions and dedicates his life towards this woman. But after some time without that original ambition that same woman doesn't like the person he has become. He lacks the desire and dedication towards a certain goal that attracted her in the first place. He either then loses focus on his work to regain his love or loses focus on his love to regain his work. Either way he loses her in the end. How does one find the right balance to not lose focus on work or love. And to not take either for granted. How do you know if that feeling is truly love or just a deep infatuation and craving in other words known as lust.