L is for the way you look at me..

After a near completion of book 4 (of the Twilight saga) I've found myself absolutely HATING mushy, gushy love. Nothing says "vomit" like reading about how Bella "truly cannot stand being away from him for such long periods of time". For some, this may come off as "real love" or to say the least, "extreme devotion" but to me it just says "pathetic". What does love mean if you NEED the person in order to exist? If every waking moment spent away from this significant other leads to your own demise? How can anyone be so enthralled with the other person that all other cares just fly out the window? I guess, to me, love has (recently) meant something much different. I have gone down the road of giving everything I am to be everything THEY want & need. I've risked my friends, my family, my academics, my passions and my happiness for "love". And at the time, I was completely fine with it. Better, or so I thought. I had something most people longed for: somebody else. But that somebody didn't care about my happiness, my friends, my family, my passions. I didn't mind. I saw my other relationships dying and dying fast and I kept on living. Each day I would lose a part of me and think to myself that that is just what love is: sacrifice. And I was brainwashed enough to believe that we were BOTH sacrificing. Sad thing was, I was still happy. I had no friends. I had no fun. When I cried, he comforted me, even though the whole thing was his fault. His dreams were my dreams & I was not allowed to question them....

Maybe that changed me. Maybe that made me hate even the idea of love. To see it as something that would always be exactly the way I once experienced it, even though I know so much better. I can't stand imagining myself walking down that road again. I refuse to.

I'm doing things a different way. Different situation. Different meanings. I'm so afraid I can't be enough for this new me.... & the new 'him'. I don't know if I've built myself back up enough to be ready for this. To start over and not make the same mistakes twice. But maybe, at the same time, this is exactly what I need. Someone to show me what "real love" really means.