I wouldn't have loved any less

I know it's been a while. In journalism school they constantly nail it into us that we have to be present all the time twittering, facebooking, sending our stories to everyone and anything that can read and I think it frightened me a little bit. So much social media and so little privacy. So much attention to things that don't really matter.

Someone once told me that writing was cathartic to them but they didn't actually want anyone to read it. I am beginning to understand that a little more than I ever have. I always used to think the point was to get your work out there, to get it published because then it becomes some sort of accomplishment. Because it means that your words are somehow worth something if a magazine or newspaper wants to publish them. It matters so much to the ego whether some random person we've never met wants to pay us for our work. But why? I wonder if all the rejection is worth it? I mean that as a general question about life, not just writing.

When putting myself out there 90% of the time ends in rejection. Does it make that 10% worth it? yes, but sometimes that 90% starts to weigh heavy on my soul. With writing with love, with relationships with trying to be who I want to be. Is all life a series of rejections in the midst of a few defining moments when we actually feel redeemed?

I've applied for a million jobs it seems and pitched a thousand stories. Most of the time I hear nothing back, but for the ones that I have, I would never say it wasn't worth it.

I've loved with all my heart and I've given all my heart to someone. Twice. Only twice in my twenty seven years and both times I ended up in a pile on the floor with a deadening feeling in my chest and unmeasurable amounts of mascara running down my face. And after these two experiences would I have done anything differently? Maybe, but I wouldn't have loved any less. And I would do it over again in a heartbeat.

It always feels like I am never going to love again. Like falling in love with someone else is impossible and I am incapable of it. My love for this man is too strong to ever get over. It hurts too much and that feeling of devastation never gets easier to appease. I go to parties and the boys that I used to think were cute are just potentials for heartbreak, potentials for rejection and nothing more. I want nothing to do with them.

It's the smallest things that break my heart again. A missed phone call. A waiting text. A photograph. I still have hope for us, but I know that hope will someday soon turn into heartbreak at the realization that I am only fooling myself. Some day that hope I have in him will turn into hope of finding love with someone else. A love where "I love you" is not just three words, but actions.