Fall For Someone Who Values You
I fell into my bed and immediately my mind flooded with thoughts of him. Questions, flashbacks, wondering where I went wrong, what did I miss, trying to understand why everything fell apart, wanting to jump into his head and dissect his thoughts.
He had feelings for me, I could feel it. But why did he walk away? He said I was so different from all the girls he’s known. If so, why go back into the arms of a past love not to speak to me ever again? In all this confusion and dead-end monologues going on inside my head, I hear a small voice telling me to be still and listen. Feeling utterly helpless, I stop and try not to think of him, but of me.
“I am a woman of value,” I tell myself. I do not deserve pieces of someone’s heart.
I deserve their whole self. I deserve someone who will give himself over to me entirely not because I am begging him to, but because he desires me with all his heart.
I deserve a man who loves me, who really loves me and shows it. Not a man whose feelings are fleeting, entirely dependent on circumstances and on the presence or absence of another woman.
I tell myself this, all things that I already knew but still, something was missing. A missing piece of this heartbreak story that was keeping me stuck. I wanted to let go, but a small part of me did not want to because I still believed in the illusion of a man I made him out to be.
I continue to lay still, calming my thoughts and my restless heart. I create a safe place that I crawl into, a space not immune to sadness and tears, but immune to lies and false promises that kept me holding on to someone who wasn’t worth it. And then it hits me. I realize with such clarity what the real issue is. The missing piece that kept me stuck. He never valued me.
A man can have real feelings for you, strong feelings for you, but if he doesn’t value you, it will all amount to nothing.
The realization left me breathless, as if I discovered something that was so blatantly obvious but that I kept missing. I realized that there is a sky, a sky I couldn’t see because I was so focused on the dust beneath my feet.
I began pondering how things would have turned out between us if he valued me. There wouldn’t be one-way conversations initiated be me. There wouldn’t be ignored text messages or forced phone calls. There wouldn’t be night after night of crying myself to sleep because I felt so alone. There wouldn’t be the endless pacing back and forth in my apartment trying to figure out what I could have done to make him stay. Oh, how I wanted him to stay.
No, for if he truly valued me, he would have never left. He would have never left me in a pit of loneliness seemingly impossible to crawl out of. As I journey on through life without him, I count my blessings and say a prayer of thanks because his complete disregard for my worth helped me value myself even more. It helped me understand how important it is to be with someone who not only has deep feelings for you but who values you.
If they value you, the effort will be there, you won’t need to beg for it. If they value you, they will make you feel special, you won’t question whether you’re enough.
And if they value you, they will be here for you, not leaving you empty with searching eyes longing for their presence.