I Love You, but I'm Different

I keep finding myself at a crossroad. I'm at a critical point in my life where I need to figure out what's most important to me: finding the love of my life or pursue a career doing what I love, which is writing.

I'm currently 25 and I have yet to be in a relationship to this day. I haven't loved or received love the way couples give it. I haven't made love with someone the way couples who are passionately in love make it. I haven't been able to show or share my love with someone, but I crave it and I want it more than anything.

Now, my writing. That path initially started as a means to an end back when I was really young and yearned for a life that just wasn't possible, or affordable, for me back then. The more I wrote though, the more I grew to love it and the better I became at it. It was no longer something that I needed to achieve an impossible goal. It suddenly became something I needed because I simply just needed it. It became my talent, my passion, my saving grace even.

As I grew older and moved on from high school, that passion of mine got pushed to side burner one too many times. With trying to balance work, and then taking college classes here and there and also maintaining a social life, my writing suffered. Some great ideas for stories faded into the nothingness they sprang out of, and though I would have some good writing sprees every once in a while, it seemed to turn into a seasonal habit. It became more of a hobby instead of a passion, and a part of me was left broken on the inside because not only was it a passion, it was a dream. I dreamed about becoming a writer and writing amazing sagas that would rival the likes of Harry Potter or Twilight and get made into blockbuster hits, having huge fandoms laugh and cry and love with the characters I personally made. I don't think there's one person in my family that ended up doing what they dreamed of doing when they were younger. Same can be said for the people I meet and work with and try to date. Which isn't always a bad thing. Sometimes dreams change and evolve, but sometimes they die too. I can see it every time I look at them, every time I look at old pictures of them, talk with them. Maybe they were happy once a upon a time, but I can tell they aren't now. A piece of them died on the inside. Their dreams died and I'm so scared of becoming just like them; cynical, fake happy for the sake of others, surviving and not living. I feel it happening to me every day that I don't write. However, the same can be said for every day that I'm alone or at least the days that I feel the loneliness the most.

A part of me has always known from a very young age the kind of person I wanted to be with, aesthetically speaking anyway, but within the past year, I started to realize that there were some pieces to the puzzle of my soulmate that were missing and needed to be discovered in order for me to truly begin my search. As much as the blueprint in my mind slowly evolved, the basic idea never really changed. I knew what I wanted and a part of me always felt it, and it's that same part that never wanted to settle for less. I deserve honesty and loyalty, patience and passion, because I would give all those things back in return, without question or expectation.

The conflict between me being in love and writing is that being in love would make me happy, and I believe that when I'm happy, I lack the desire to write. Silly, I know, but I feel that way. It's not like I've ever been in love to test the theory out, but I know that a lot of the amazing stories that I've written or thought about writing didn't come from positive emotions. I was either sad, or angry, or lonely or depressed, and I feel like my best ideas stemmed from those emotions. I can admit that there is a certain beauty in pain, but I would hate to be one of those people who like to suffer for their art, but I'm afraid that I am. I'm afraid that being in love will destroy my passion, but it honestly hasn't deterred me any, not yet. I'm the type who's a glutton for punishment.

So I stand here, at the crossroad, tightly clenching a double edged sword, no hilt, in both hands as I slowly bleed out knowing full well that no matter which choice I make, if I let go of either end, I'll die. So I bleed slowly, die slowly, and realize that maybe writing itself is the love of my life and that I really don't have to choose at all.

The thought doesn't stop the bleeding however, only the pain.