[sooner or later]

I don't really think I'll be sleeping much tonight.
I feel like my stomach doesn't really have a top or bottom, and it's just kind of sloshing around my midriff. Perhaps that's what people mean when they feel something in the "pit" of their stomachs. To be honest, I haven't had this lump-in-my-throat, weight-on-my-chest feeling for a very long time, and to be honest one more time, I didn't think I'd ever feel it -in this context- again.

I find myself at a crossroads with a person I thought was running parallel with me. I didn't anticipate a situation like this . . . or if I did anticipate it, I definitely repressed it. I think the case is the latter.

We have this thing, this little ritual we do. It's really special to me. I put a hand over his heart, he puts one of his over mine. You are mine, and I am yours. It kind of started, if I remember right, when I turned to him that night in the car, in the dark; when I decided that I was going to leave everything else behind - all of my anger, fear, resentment, and regret. I told him that I was giving him my whole heart; not just a piece, a fraction, or a taste, but the entirety of my love and loyalty. No longer would I harbor any love for my past, and I wouldn't let a person who no longer needed me claim my affection. I was his, and his completely. I would lay down everything and be his, and his alone.  

So, apparently, my idea of "completely" is a little different than his.

I don't really remember when it all started to change, and I guess I just passed it off as one of those relationship "phases."
The man I adore simply doesn't adore me back.

True love doesn't prefer solitude. It doesn't believe in "loving too much" or "trying too hard." All I ever do is express what I feel. I do what I want to do, when I want to do it, and I always mean it to the last tiny details.

I was told that I am more passionate than most people. I don't believe that. I think that anyone who is truly in love will rise up to meet the one they love. I'm met passively, with a pleased but apathetic response.
He listens to love songs.
He knows every line, every word.

For the past year and a half, I've felt like my life is a love song.
And it was....it was just my love song, not his.

So where do I go from here? Do I try to sleep it off, give him some space, lay low, spend a few days without the phone, and then go crawling back and apologize?
Should I apologize for loving someone TOO MUCH?
Do I change how I love? Do I change myself to fit his mindset? Should I shelve my emotions, and my feelings, and bring myself down to his apathy? Do I ignore my inner thoughts and feelings, and express myself through a "filter?" Should I limit how much affection I give? Should I attempt to love less?

I am independent. I know that I can make my own choices, and that I have my own thoughts, dreams, opinions, goals, and personality. I do know, however, that I love him enough to not want to be alone anymore.

I'm so tired. Everything is flying around my mind faster than I can grip it and hold it down long enough to understand. All of it makes sense, but at the same time, I can't comprehend it at all.
It just hurts so much to be hit in the face with reality.

I feel belittled. I went and stood in front of my bathroom mirror, disheveled and flustered. My eyes were red from more than a few tears, and my hair was sticking up at odd ends from running my fingers through it: an expression of frustration. I counted the number of spots on my face, noted my puffy cheeks and tiny little double-chin, and surveyed my less-than-sleek body frame. It's so funny how a blow to the heart can make the self-esteem plummet. I pictured him. He'd most likely been long asleep. He was probably out like a light five minutes after he told me he was done talking to me. 

I can't even wrap my head around it anymore. I don't know what to think. I'm used to being confused. Dealing with questions that can never be answered is something I've become especially good at. I have many questions and blank spots in a story that can never be filled. A suicide story is one thing, and I've become accustomed to shelving and accepting that I can't possibly figure that story out.

I struggle with the fact that I can't read a person who is right here in front of me. I struggle with the idea that I don't know the truth of the one situation in my life that I thought was completely pure.
I never knew love had a double-standard.
Maybe I never even knew what love was at all.