Not Loving You Led Me To Break My Own Heart

As I watched my plane pull out of my terminal and head to the runway thoughts of you came flooding through my mind. I couldn’t stop them as hard as I tried. I tried to push them out; I told myself this was all worth it. I told myself this is what I wanted all along. But all I could think about is how our love was lost with all the words we didn’t say.

All the words I swallowed over and over because I couldn’t admit that I liked you, not out loud anyways because then it became real; then it could have potentially turned into love.

It’s easier to flirt, to keep you in my life, but at a safe distance. Then there are no hearts involved, no games, there is just nothing. A good, safe, nothing that wouldn’t lead me to break your sweet, kind, loving heart.

I told myself you were never enough for me. I told myself I wasn’t ready for a relationship. I told myself I’d find someone else, someone in the future, when I’m ready to settle down. I told myself you weren’t for me. I couldn’t let myself screw up your life because no matter what I was leaving, so I continued to flood my mind with lies.

I closed my heart off to the idea of love for so long because it was always my plan to hop on a plane and fly away, as far as I could. Buy a one-way ticket to anywhere in the world and that’s exactly what I did.

I kept my promise to myself. I left. I left and I left you behind, unharmed and unbroken, at least that’s what I’m telling myself.

Pulling out of that gate, knowing that I couldn’t go back, that it was too late for you to come running to the airport was heart wrenching. I don’t know why I had hoped I’d see you face. I never gave into you, I never gave you hope because I didn’t want to rip it out from underneath you when I said my goodbyes.

I tried to swallow the lump in my throat; I tried to hold back the tears. I couldn’t think about it. I couldn’t think about you not in my life, but I knew in my head I did this to myself. I kept us from what could have been.

How could I have been so selfish this whole time?

All I’m certain of is that I want you, but I let my stupid, stubborn heart get in the way. I wanted my dreams more than I wanted you.

If I’m lucky enough and things work out like I’ve played it out in my head maybe I’ll see you again. Maybe in the future our eyes will lock and I will feel that skip in my heart again. Maybe you will see me on a corner coffee shop in the snowfall, just like it always plays out in movies. Maybe if I’m lucky enough our paths will cross again but for now they’re staying parallel to the perpendicular line I’ve been hoping would bring us together.

I hoped that fate would happen, I hoped that maybe you’d want me as much as I wanted you and that you would do something. But this isn’t a Nicholas Sparks novel, there was no one chasing after me on the runway, no one bringing me flowers, no one hopping on the next one-way flight, no one to even sent me a text message because I was too busy pushing you away and now I know that.

I know that I have to live with the fact that you could have been the one I let get away because of my selfish heart.

I thought I was protecting my heart. It turns out that by not loving you I wound up breaking my own heart.