Crushes.. I thought I was done with these when I was done with high school but apparently not. Here I am, about three years after graduating still in the exact situation. I have a crush. That’s a statement that I previously would have been more than glad to say out loud but now it’s different. The idea of having a crush on someone is honestly a bit terrifying and it’s been happening a lot recently and I really wish I knew why because up until a couple months ago I didn’t care about other people in this way, I didn’t pursue relationships (in fact I actually avoided any opportunity that was presented to me). I was a closed off person who let people in, but only to a certain extent. I was guarded but seemingly over-night I became an entirely different person. I became open and inviting, and I let my heart and unstable emotions guide me and my ventures and almost immediately it invited people to try and take advantage of this. And they sure did. I have been manipulated and have at one point lost all sense of who I was. I suppose one can argue if someone could easily come into your life make you lose sense of who you are then you must not have had that great of an idea in the first place.. so what happened?

Honestly, I don’t know. I remember who the first person was though. I’m not going to use any names (not even fake ones like I used to) or go into too much detail about these, but the first crush I had after the 3 year hiatus was very fleeting and overall kind of unimportant. The person definitely isn’t, they are are still a part of my life and I care for them but that feeling that “hey I really like this person” came and went in the blink of an eye. While this didn’t really affect me much, it did sort of open the floodgates for the all these future feelings and crushes I would soon come to have in the coming months. There was the next one, she wasn’t someone who I would have normally expected to have feelings for, for many different reasons, but despite that I did. This crush, unfortunately, was not fleeting and did not arrive nor go away quickly. In fact, this one took a really long time to go away. There was one which I assumed and had been told repeatedly was mutually shared, but it wasn’t. Unlike my other crushes, this one seemed to actually be heading somewhere but something felt off that entire time. That feeling slowly faded so by the time we stopped talking I was okay with that. Well I thought I was, but that’s a story for another day. There’s one more, which I’m not sure was a crush or was just me needing some attention/affection after the past couple months have just been beating me ruthlessly, I don’t know. I wish I could tell you, but I can’t all I can say is I’m sorry. I’m sorry for all of it.

I’ve sort of stabilized since then. After all this shit happens to you, you don’t really have it all together but I have been able to get through it. I’m okay now, at least when it comes to the subject of crushes. There’s still a long list of reasons I’m fucked up, but one thing at a time, right? This all brings me to the crush I have now. I’m thinking that’s all it’s going to be until it fades because it will eventually and hopefully I can focus on more important things when it does. This person makes me happy and my heart races whenever I see their name pop up on my phone, but it won’t work. That’s assuming that they would even feel the same way towards me, but chances are they wouldn’t because why would they? I’m… me. I’m not going to tell them, I want to and I think about doing so but there’s no point. I’m sure they already know, I’m not the best at hiding it, but if I say it it will legitimize it and that’s something I’m not really sure I want to do… I feel like I wanted to write this with some sort of moral or insight as to what I’ve learned about the subject in my years of “experience” but it ended up being just me rambling and ranting. Oh well.

T.J.