On Love, and Happiness

In the past, I've been rather coy regarding my happiness, and the cause. Or at least, I thought that I was. In hindsight now, I think that it would be obvious to all who read my previous posts that the happiness that I spoke of was in fact love. While my last post was titled "The Last Post", I have in fact been struggling with the situation since.

I am in love with a woman who is unavailable to me. I first saw her 16 years ago in college, standing alone on the quad, obviously waiting for someone. I tried an unbelievably corny but original pickup line. "You know, if you're waiting for him now, he'll keep you waiting forever." It was the only time that a pickup line has ever worked for me. She was the first woman that I really, truly loved. The first woman that I ever proposed to. My first lesson in what happens when you stop paying attention, and take someone for granted. We lost touch for almost 15 years. When I began my journey back into freedom, I looked for her, because she was the last woman in whose life I felt that I had truly made a positive difference. When I reached out to her, I hoped to hear that she was happy, that I had indeed made a positive difference in her life. Her story is her own to tell, but chance and circumstance conspired to bring us back together at a time when we were both in pain.

The Greeks have several words for love. The two that we most commonly would identify with are agape and philia. Agape is unconditional love, commonly reserved for reference to the love shared between spouses or family members. Philia is brotherly love, commonly used when referring to the affection between friends. I mention this because, when I give someone agape, I love them with all of my being. There are few things that could bring me to break that tie with someone, dishonesty being paramount, and the giving of that love has been very rare for me.

I have loved no one in my life like I love this woman. I can tell you her favorite author. I can tell you her favorite book by that author. I can tell you what her favorite band is, what the side projects of the band members are, and what bands the members came from to form that band. I can tell you who her favorite baseball team is, what her favorite football teams are (pro and college), what her favorite car is, what her favorite comfort food is, what her favorite adult beverage is, what her favorite cologne is, what her favorite candy bar is, and how she likes her tea. I know where she likes to be touched, and how she likes her massages. We've decided what to name our dog, and our child, if we should decide to have one. I will spend over a third of a day driving in order to spend 15 minutes with her, then turn around and drive back. I call her before I get out of bed in the morning, and I listen to audio on my phone of her telling me how much she loves me before I go to sleep. I want to wake up next to her and go to sleep with her every day for the rest of my life. She has been my everything, and I want her to be, because she is amazing.

I would like to say that this love is not unrequited. Because of the nature of the situation that she finds herself in, I'm limited to talking to her while she's at work, when I call, and she has time. I'm limited to hearing from her via email while she's at work, and when she has time. I'm on her mind, though, she tells me, even when she can't communicate with me. She's coming someday, she says. She just needs time, to find the right time to break away from the comfort of everything that she's known for the last 14 years and make an incredible leap of faith. My solace in the off hours is to read her Facebook status updates, and watch her banter with a man who tells her that she's blackhearted and judgmental, and that she ruined his life. It's been 3 days now, since last I've heard from her. It will be at least 5 before I do, and that's if I'm lucky.

I know. I know how it looks. I know how it feels, on the bad days and the good. I've tried to look for someone else to fill the void. At the end of the day, though, no one can take her place. She is my puzzle piece. When I close my eyes, I see the light of love that fills her eyes for me, and I know that I could no more turn my back to her than I could stop breathing. Agape. Unconditional. Even when conditions aren't always what we would like them to be. Because that's the way that I love.

I create those conditions for myself, though. I let them control me. By letting my anxiety, my low self esteem, and my impatience create a feedback loop that pulls me down ever further, I move further and further from the positive place that I should be bringing myself to. I have to learn to recognize that I can do nothing more to have a positive effect on the outcome of the situation that I find myself in. If who I am is enough, and if the situation that she's in hasn't made her leave by now, I can't be "more" of that person and make her decide to come sooner. I can only make it worse by trying, and can produce no positive outcome at all through the sheer amount of worry that I go through over it.

Several of my friends have counseled that I should stop trying to find my happiness through my relationships with others, and instead try to find my happiness within. That until I can find a way to be happy alone, I will never be happy with someone else. I don't know how to do this. My waking thoughts are occupied by what I could be doing differently, what I might have done wrong, how I could make her happier. One of my friends has told me that I need to quiet all of the inner voices and listen for my own, the one giving me the answer. I'm afraid of letting go. Afraid of focusing on myself. Afraid of what the answer might be.

Besides, for now I have plenty of other things to think about. My children, first and foremost. They need me now more than they have ever needed me. They should be my everything. There is a real possibility in the near future that I may need to take them. To find a way to give them a stable, responsible, and orderly home. To shuttle them to school, to find a way to pick them up. To be everything that they need me to be. I only hope that I can be. I only know that I will never give up on trying. Because that's the way that I love.