Google defines an infatuation as “a short-lived passion or admiration for someone." It's not completely wrong. However, I'd like to define infatuation as “unrequited crushing" (because, let's face it, it always is). Anyway, infatuation is what I thought love was.
It’s a feeling unlike any other: picking someone out of the crowd and all of a sudden your mind is swarmed with butterflies and endless possibilities. The next time you see them, your feelings heighten, and before you know it, you're consumed by their being. Maybe you begin chatting or you exchange phone numbers. Maybe you start hanging out and maybe you become friends. Maybe your conversations dive a little deeper and, if you're lucky, it becomes more.
At this point, you're probably wondering if the feelings are reciprocated. There is no way you are the only one feeling the electric chemistry between you two. It's totally mutual, it has to be mutual. Except that it's not. Embarrassingly enough you're not aware of this, although it appears everyone else is. You profess your feelings, yet nothing changes. Your friends try to steer you away, but you won't budge. You stop eating and hope your body slims. You make yourself more available and you can't help but wonder if something is wrong with you. You look in the mirror and only the worst parts of you are visible. Anger, sadness, false hope and confusion consume you. No matter how strong you felt beforehand, you no longer feel you stand a chance.
You begin to try and separate yourself, but you just can't. The cycle continues and becomes the daily norm. You're a joke to this person. So you start to resent yourself and begin questioning the faithfulness in your friends because you don't know how much longer they'll stick around to watch you spiral. You do what you can to be noticed. You drink more because that's what's cool. You continuously sink closer and closer to rock bottom, but it hasn't hit yet. The torment continues, and you feel trapped. Still, a glimmer of hope drives you to continue trying to be a winner at a losing game, telling yourself the pain will all be worth it in the end. Without warning, it finally happens. Your delusional world comes crashing down... crashing hard. And you're left there, completely broken into a million scattered pieces.
So where do you go from there? You put on a brave face and pretend like you don't feel like the smallest person on the planet. You're angry, but that's when the healing begins. And only once you accept it all does the unexpected occur. You meet someone again... only this time everything is different. You can't help but be scared to put yourself out there. Imagining the same outcome reoccurring is something you can't shake, but somehow, you know this person is different.
He doesn't make you guess if the feelings are mutual. He reminds you of how truly beautiful you are inside and out. He calls you late at night, and you converse into the early hours of the morning. You fall in love. He makes you decorated cheese plates, laughs at every joke you tell, puts on your favorite TV show, sings to you (even when it doesn't sound good) and listens to everything you have to say. He, without knowing, heals every part of your broken heart. He restores your faith that a man can be kind. He never makes you guess, and the softness of his comforting voice is as smooth as his kiss. As he pulls you in closer to him, you wonder where he's been all of your life.
You wonder why you ever tried so hard with anyone else. He makes it so easy for you to be nothing more than yourself… Because it's enough. You're still challenged to better than before, but having them by your side makes even the things you struggle with shine.
Still, your mind can't help but wander back to a time where everything was the complete opposite. You think about the boy who played games with your heart and mind and you're engulfed in forgiveness. That boy, and the feelings you once had, no longer weighs you down. Every single negative emotion has vanished because the only thing you can think about is the man who was kind and reminded you to love yourself before anyone else. You think about the man you’ve fallen in love with and your heart is full. Love is a game that two can play and both win.
Infatuation taught me that I'd never be good enough, but love taught me I am perfect the way I am and encourages me to be the best I can be. Love taught be to be patient, and to forgive. Google defines love as “an intense feeling or deep affection,” but it's so much more than that. I wouldn't know how to put it into words, and I'm not going to try, because loving someone is just that. Love.
