What I Learned from Longing for Someone Who Never Chose Me

How my addiction to the spark kept me from seeing my power and light

Photo by shahin khalaji on Unsplash

There’s a story I’ve carried — one that’s been living in the cracks within my heart. I’m only now beginning to understand how much it has shaped me, and I’m finally ready to release its grip.

It started when I was just graduating from high school. We met, and the pull was instant. Magnetic. Otherworldly. I can’t describe it any other way. It was like meeting someone I’d always known — this inexplicable force between us.

Whenever we were together, it was like a dome came over us and no one else existed. Even when surrounded by people, it felt like we were in a world of our own. I’d never felt anything like it before, and I haven’t since. And though I’ll never know what it meant to him, I know what it did to me.

I never truly expressed my feelings to him — I could never find the words. And he hasn’t either. We never defined anything. We weren’t a “thing,” and that, more than anything, broke me again and again.

We’d see each other, and it would feel like th…