Nine

For a long time, for many years I prayed for emotional freedom, for being emotionally free to me meant being rid of attachment to certain beliefs and desires. 

I felt tied down to a person no matter where I traveled to or who I grew to love, I felt like a prisoner and every life decision I made was based on whether it would bring me closer or further away from this person.

I blindly, desperately, sadly believed they would wake up one day and see me, see me for everything I thought I was, see me as this person they simply had to be with. And so I waited and waited through many seasons. 

I sabotaged my life, I did everything I could possibly think of to bring me close to this person. If I won a million dollars I would have given it to them, for I placed their happiness and well being above mine. I justified my actions by telling myself that I was doing it for love, doing it for the purpose of giving and sharing or to completely rid myself of feeling, for some days I wanted these feelings out of my heart as much as I wanted this person to be in my life at other times. 

I tried running away from these emotions many times, I tried fulfilling my need to share this relentless love and live these taunting fantasies, I tried realizing these desires with other beings, and the more I tried the more I bled. I forcefully tried to move on by falling in love again, and in the process I hurt and confused souls who at the time wanted to be with me though I was not ready. 

One day, about five years ago, I decided to stop, stop trying, stop resisting. I kept on waiting, I didn't stop loving, I remained in contact, and though I avoided relationships I never stopped asking for a chance to be loved and to love someone who could and would want to be with me. 

I don't know when it happened but it happened, my heart was washed clean of these obsessive feelings, the beliefs melted away, the attachments broke apart, the taunting memories became simply memories without depressing feelings attached to them. 

The wound where I had grown and cultivated that helpless and scared love closed. I don't know when it happened but I give credit to certain souls and situations for helping me heal. There were many catalysts in my story, I'm just not entirely sure which roles each one played in the cleansing of my heart.

Today my heart is light, when I think of that soul their picture appears in my mind, I see them as an almost transparent hologram and there's no feeling attached to them, only a thought of who they once meant to me. Sad heart breaking songs don't move me anymore, in fact they bore me because it's like a broken record to me, I've lived through it and made it out clean. 

I'm not jaded or bored, in fact I'm very interested in loving, there just isn't any sadness or insecurity attached to the love I desire, there's no preconceived idea of how or who I should love, there's only the desire to share myself and maybe a little fear that it will be short lived for it often is. 

Through this journey I learned that one of the worse ways you can betray someone is to lay with them while you're desiring another, that to try to replace a soul or fill your heart to the brim with another in the hopes that it will push out your feelings for another is utter stupidity. 

I learned that there was nothing to push out, there was no ghost haunting me, no soul trapping me, there was only me against myself, my character, my morals, my wounds, my fears, my insecurity, my obsession, my anxiety, my allowance, my acceptance, my love, my dreams, my heart and the way I chose to treat it. 

I can treat my heart like a computer that's programmed to follow a command and let it run in the same direction without maintenance until it crashes or I can treat it like its human flesh, I can respect it as a living being, I can see my heart as myself, I can give it free will and guidance and use it to enrich and empower, to feel and inspire, to heal myself and others.

I'm writing this for the people who think they'll never move on for I didn't think I would either, but I did. I don't know how I did it, I never foresaw myself here in this state in this time, but I made it and everyone else can too. I wish I could tell you how I did it, I wish I could list the steps, but I did so much and took so many paths that I'm not yet sure what worked. What I can say is that after I stopped resisting I felt at peace more often. But honestly my only advice is follow your heart, your heart knows the way to healing. It's you against you and no one else can save you from yourself. 

A.M