Don’t Let Your Feelings Be Synonymous With Fear

Life will take us in all different directions, but it won’t always guarantee that we will get to bring someone along for the ride. Sometimes life takes us away from those who we want to be with the most, and we are left wondering what to do. How can you walk away from someone you feel so strongly about? Will they still want you if you ever meet again? You can drive yourself crazy with the world of possibilities raging in your own head. But through all of that chaos, listen to your gut when it tells you-you have to move on.

You cannot put your life on pause for a person. It isn’t fair that they are able to be out living their lives while you sit at home wondering when the last time you even crossed their mind was. If they do not make it clear to you before they leave that they want you to be in their life, you don’t owe them all of these minutes you have spent waiting for them to remember all that they left behind.

It isn’t that they don’t care for you; I am sure that they love being with you when you two are together. But that’s exactly the issue. You have to want someone all of the time—not just when it is most convenient for you. If someone falls for you, chances are you are the only one who they want right now. They would wait for years if you told them to. But what I keep finding out is that sometimes this type of dedication to another person is entirely one-sided. I think we all fear being the one who cares more. No one wants to be so vulnerable, but no one really wants to be alone either.

We try so hard to distract ourselves from our own feelings, but it is rare that these distractions ever actually make us feel better. Trying to replace your person with another person will not change the fact that you still have feelings for them. Just as they shouldn’t put you on pause until it is convenient for them, you should not be doing this to other people until you see how things develop. No one wants to be another person’s back-up, and I think that in today’s dating culture, it has become way too easy to have someone on hold while you secretly hope that you never actually have to be with them.

None of this is fair to anyone. Feelings change every day, and there is nothing wrong with that. But we have to stop stringing each other along because we are so afraid to face our own feelings. Feeling shouldn’t be synonymous with fear. If you like someone, then tell them, show them, make sure they know because sometimes it is not as obvious to the ones we care about that we actually care.

Everything is going to have an end, but it is up to you whether or not you want to make the most of your time before it is over.