Chasing Amy-Lou

Well, when I say I fell in love, I don’t actually know if I did or not. I don’t know if I still am or whether it was just a crush and all those emotions I felt whenever said person was around were just make-believe in my head. All I know is that my feelings were and still are very strong, very real, unlike anything I’ve ever felt before.

This state of mind didn’t come on suddenly. It’s not something I planned, predicted or necessarily wanted to happen (ok, that’s a lie, I definitely wanted it to happen but perhaps not in the way it has and not under these circumstances).

This ‘being in love’, or ‘feeling very strongly about someone’ was a slow burner. When I first encountered the object of my now affections I didn’t really look twice. We got along, I thought he was a decent fella and I’m sure he thought I was ok too…for a pommy. However, I didn’t feel any kind of attraction towards him. And so we became friends.

They say the best relationships form out of good friendships (I don’t know who ‘they’ are but anyway…) and I believe this to be true. But before I go any further, trust me when I say: we were never and have never been in a ‘relationship’ of the amorous kind.

As our friendship blossomed and I spent more time with this person, my thoughts towards him changed and developed. I suppose I became fixated on him, although fixated is probably the wrong word to use. Obsessed is DEFINITELY too strong a word also. Whatever way you look at it I was interested in him: I wanted to spend more time with him; I enjoyed being around him; I liked his family; I thought he was funny; I liked everything he stood for; his work ethic; when he wasn’t around I found myself thinking about him…blah blah blah.

Then ‘stuff’ happened. You know the drill: a friendship develops and then alcohol comes into play and then…etc etc. Yeah, well, it happened on more than one occasion and that’s when it all changed. If a woman says she can just remain friends with a guy after something physical happens between them, and if she says that she will never feel anything towards him, she’s lying. I tried this, believe me, I tried hard. I didn’t want to have these feelings for him but it was impossible not to. Once you become close to someone, you invest emotions in that person; the whole dynamic changes. It definitely changed on my part anyway.

Now whether or not he felt the same way, I don’t really know for sure. He told me one thing and then he told me another. *Argh! Confusion!* I hoped he would, I really did but as the weeks passed I began to realise that he probably didn’t and I was kidding myself in thinking that anything could progress between us. I think he might have felt something, maybe, but it wasn’t enough. It could never be.

This became difficult for me. He was like my best friend. But I’d also fallen for him. And this is when I started to question things, when I started to question whether I was in love or not. Had I ACTUALLY fallen for him? Was I in love with a notion? In love with the notion and idea of being in love? Did I want it so much that my feelings and the way I thought about our relationship had become warped? Was the only reason I thought I wasn’t in love because he didn’t feel the same? Was I denying myself the right to love someone just because the feeling wasn’t reciprocated? 

This, I just don’t know. And I suppose I won’t know for sure until I leave Orange. As it so happens, in writing this I actually AM leaving Orange. And I miss him already. So much so that it actually hurts. I’m scared that I won’t see him again. I’m upset because I know he won’t just be down the road any more. I’m fearful that the text messages, the random snapchats and the friendship in general will dwindle. But most of all, I’m devastated that it didn’t turn out the way I would’ve liked.

It’s true that you can’t force someone to love you. But when you know in your heart that you could love a person unconditionally, that you could give your all to that person; that you’d cook for them, clean up after them, make them laugh, humour them, tell them off; christ, probably even wipe their arse if needed (well, maybe not that far), but the same can’t be said for them about you, it kills you on the inside. 

I said at the beginning of this blog post that I didn’t know whether or not I had fallen in love. It’s clear to see now though that I did. I fell in love. You can see that and I can see that. Bloody hell, I think most people I associated with could see that. That’s ok though, I’m allowed to fall in love. Everyone is allowed to fall in love. It’s a natural thing. The fact it isn’t reciprocated is shit and sadly for me, at this time, it’s just not meant to be. But that’s ok. I will pick myself up, I will carry on. To say I will get over him is not the way I want to look at it as I’ll always hope he’ll come after me. If he changed his mind and wanted me to come back, I probably would. Life isn’t a fairy-tale though, life doesn’t happen like it does in the movies, and not all of us get our happy ending when we think the time has come and we think we deserve it most.

Maybe something else is waiting out there for me. Who knows what the future will bring. All I know is that whatever happens, my heart is big enough; so I will and I can carry on loving, carry on hoping and carry on caring, because this, this ‘love’, whoever or whatever you love, despite hurting, it is by far the most beautiful thing you can ever feel.