People say it's better to have love and lost than to have never loved at all. I'm starting to wonder if that is true.

I have read studies that show being in love just once makes it easier to fall in love again. But is it really better to lose love than never know love?

I have experienced the type of soul shaking, Earth moving love that women read about in romance novels, see in movies, and hear about it songs. I felt the unexplainable hole fill up. I felt complete and solid for the first time in my life. I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with the person who made me feel this way. I thought we were going to get married and grow moderately old together.

Then everything changed.

He left. We both had a part in him walking away, but the fact still remains that he is no longer around to fill the void in my soul. Now, the hole feels bigger than ever and I'm stuck knowing what it's like to have the type of love everyone searches for and to lose it. I know what I'm missing.

So, as I go through my day pretending to be fine and happy, my insides are screaming at me. My brain never shuts up. And I'm angry with myself and with him. I feel deceived by the person I love more than I have ever loved anyone and I feel tricked by my own judgment. How did I not see this coming? How did I not know he was lying?

I think that quip is pleasant in thought, but is completely false in action. If Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind were a real thing no amount of money could keep me from obtaining it.

Maybe for some people it is better to have loved and lost, to have tried and failed, to seek other fish in the sea, but I would so much rather not know this pain or loss. I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy because this relationship and feeling has ruined it for me. I can never just idly enter into a courtship again. I can no longer casually date and get free dinner, go out on the town.

Yes, part of it is that I'm simply not ready to date, but part of it is that I don't know if I'll ever feel this way again and how can I be comfortable dating someone that I know will never live up to the feelings I had before?

My sister-in-law, being a scientist, brings up the completely rational argument that based on the sheer number of men in the world, I'm likely to fall in love again and I'm likely to experience the same type of love. And, she has a point. There are seven billion people in the world. If three and a half billion of those people are men, it's possible that I have yet to meet my soulmate and that he is still out there. But, do I really want to wade through those billions of people hoping the find something I've already lost?

Maybe I feel this way because I thought I was mostly over the hurt of this relationship, I thought that I was making progress in moving on, getting over it. Then, I saw him. I don’t know if he knows I was at the bar to watch the game, but I know he was there.

I picked that particular bar because I know he doesn’t really like the neighborhood it is in and he always talks trash about that spot, plus, he cares so little about football that I figured he would rather sleep through the NFC Championship game. But, as I walked up to the bar I saw his employee outside smoking, she saw me and ran back in, looking back twice to see if I was following. I saw her take a seat at the bar top and then I saw him. It was like being punched in the stomach. I just froze. I was not expecting to see the man who broke me, but there he was, with his friends, watching a sport I have never seen him care about. Watching football, drinking beer, like nothing happened, he had no idea my world had stopped for a minute.

I did the only thing I could do, I left. I was reminded of why I want to move, now more than ever, away from this city and this state, away from my friends and family. I need to leave because love hurts. Love hurts more than anything I have ever felt. Being single again, I never want to be in another relationship. I never want to risk feeling this way again because I do not think the risk is worth the reward. And I do not think it is better to have love and lost than to have never loved at all. At this point, I would give pretty much anything to never know what it felt like, to have never been in love with him.

Maybe I will look back on this post in a few weeks, or months, or years and think about how silly I am, but for now, I do not see that happening.

I wonder how many cats the shelter will let me adopt at once? 

Hey Facebook, Today is a Holiday!

Today is Memorial Day and therefore my social media is filled with people thanking those who lost their lives in uniform. Of course, the rest of the year most people don’t spend a single thought on the brave men and women fighting overseas, but today they feel socially obligated to publicly give their thanks, so they do. It makes me wonder why the need for these public declarations is so paramount to the lives of my friends. Everything needs to be public anymore. Public announcement of being in a friendship, relationship, engagement, marriage, child, miscarriage, divorce, break-up, break-down, promotion, hiring, firing, job change, college graduation, death of a friend or family member, working out, eating out, sleeping in, cleaning, and of course the obligatory food photos.

What happened to privacy and intimacy, thoughts without shouting them from a keyboard? I am guilty of plenty of these things. I have posted gifts from boyfriends and bragged about how much I am loved; The typical my-boyfriend-is-better-than-yours post. My Instragram is filled with food pictures and selfies. I have complained about college courses and teachers, tests and being forced to show up to class. I have mentioned my sloth habits more times than I care to admit and have more than once publicly patted myself on the back for doing the adult-thing of cleaning my room. I am not innocent of over-sharing or shouting my feelings from the rooftop that is the Internet, but I am getting to the age of asking why? Why do we do this? Why do we feel the need to display our thoughts, emotions, life-events, and gratitude to people who don’t care or will never see it? What happened to simply wearing a red poppy on Memorial Day? Quiet observance and gratitude, when did that stop being enough?

I have stopped posting my relationship status on Facebook and don’t post the cliché
“Merry Christmas” or whatever other holiday greetings, and I have found something really nice and freeing in that. My relationship is shared with my boyfriend and the people close to us. My family and friends know I am seeing him, but the world doesn’t know. It seems better this way, more personal and intimate. My holidays are shared with family and friends. Occasionally I will post a photo of the event (mostly because it is so ridiculous) or I will commonly post racist and absurd statements from my father (mostly because they are hilarious and should be shared with the world), but I try and live in the moment without inviting the rest of the world into my personal life.

Fortunately, none of my friends or family member has died while serving. I don’t know that type of loss. I don’t understand it. I know what it is like to be terrified for a friend going into war. I know what it is like to anticipate the phone call or email so you know they are still doing well in the desert. But, I have never experienced that type of sudden and traumatic loss. Hopefully I never will. Maybe if I had, I would feel differently about these broadcasts of gratitude. Instead, I would rather thank a friend for their service and provide sympathy for the friends and brothers they lost over coffee, drinks, or happy hour. I would rather send a text message or a card. I would rather let them know on March 5 or December 2 or August 12, or any of random day, because something inside me said so and I would rather let them know in more personal method, not via Facebook, Twitter, Google+, whatever, even if it is something as impersonal and private as a text message, I would rather let them know that I appreciate and love them without also having to broadcast it to the world.

I am starting to find the love and gratitude posted on the Internet to be disingenuous. It is a sad day when a text message is more personal.