
August 15, 2019 at 04:02AM by CWC
My boyfriend is hanging upside down when I realizeāholy crapāIām head over heels in love with him.
Weāre at a rock climbing gym in Queens, and Iām gawking up at his six-foot frame alongside a group of his closest friends as he scales a perilous course known as āthe cave.ā It should be impossible, but not for him. Suddenly, I think, āThat person picked me! I picked him!ā I want to cup my hands around my mouth and shout āHey, you! Iām in love with you!ā in a Say Anything-style boombox moment. Heās my first love and this should be it; this should be wonderful. Instead, my mind reels back to a conversation weād had two weeks before.
You see, my boyfriendāletās call him Loganārecently accepted a job offer in the midwest thatās no hop, skip, and a jump away from me. In three monthsā time, heāll whisk himself away to a new life far from my home in New York City, and the inevitability of that move has made the subject of our āfutureā together sticky and painful. To make an apropos analogyāit now feels like I, too, am gripping precariously to multi-colored climbing holds against gravityās better judgement.
In three monthsā time, heāll whisk himself away to a new life far from my home in New York City, and the inevitability of that move has made the subject of our āfutureā together sticky and painful.
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Spending time with Logan now feels like a heady contradiction. On one hand, Iām in love (need I say it again?!) and itās everything I hoped it would be. The looming expiration date on our shared zip code now makes me hyper-focus when Iām around him. I appreciate every moment we spend together that much more. At the same time though, this gripping, ecstatic, andāyesāpainful whirl of emotions will soon have a thousand miles to contend with. āWell, Iām happy for you, but this f**king sucks,ā I told Logan after he accepted the job offer.
Iām dying to say āthree words, eight letters.ā From rom-coms and real life though, I know that āI love youā has a silent āandā after itāa suggestion of the future. To me, our āandā sounds like: How will we make a long-distance relationship last? And while I think weāre on the same page, itās impossible to know for sure without uttering the short sentence and hearing what he kicks back in reply. The ever-lapsing timeline has strapped and odometer to the meaning of āI love you.ā What if he doesnāt love me enough to ignore the 1,000 extra miles in our relationship?
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Because some things never change (even with distance), I texted my mother, who lives in Charleston, South Carolina, to say something dramatic. āUgh, I love him, mom,ā I wrote. āAnd heās going to leave.ā Of course, her first question is: āHave you told him that?ā And her second: āWhy not?!ā Both of us (try to) live by the words of author and researcher BrenĆ© Brown, PhD, who studies vulnerability. In Daring Greatly, she writes: āWhen we spend our lives waiting until weāre perfect or bulletproof before we walk into the arena, we ultimately sacrifice relationships and opportunities that may not be recoverable, we squander our precious time, and we turn our backs on our gifts, those unique contributions that only we can make. Perfect and bulletproof are seductive, but they donāt exist in the human experience.ā
While I think weāre on the same page, itās impossible to know for sure without uttering the short sentence and hearing what he kicks back in reply.
By keeping my love for Logan under wraps for fear of rejection, Iām doing him a disservice, sure. More importantly though, Iām barring myself from the opportunity of living out what isāquite possiblyāthe most vulnerable, quintessential element of the human experience. The only thing scarier than saying āI love youā and knowing full well I might not hear it back is never saying it to him at all.
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Letting him say āI love youā and taking it up as a refrain would be the equivalent of stalling for that āperfect and bulletproofā moment. Waiting to be escorted into the arena when I could have just stepped right insideāno RSVP needed. Texting my mom makes me realize that Logan is the first person Iāve fallen in love with, but heās certainly not my first love. Iāve cherished storytelling and reading for as long as I can remember. I fought all my doubts to get to New York City and get my foot in the door in the journalism industry. Iām running a marathon in a few months, and I can honestly say that Iām actively trying to shape what my life looks like on a daily basis. So why, oh why, would I stop being honest about what and whom I love now?
As Dr. Brown always says (and my mom, bless her soul, often reiterates), the magic happens in the arena. Not in the stadium. There are a million-and-one clichĆ©s that hit this very same note and Iāve had most of them plastered to my wall at one point or another. Yes, saying āI love youā is a transferenceāthe verbal equivalent of strapping your heart to your sleeve. The act of stating my emotions despite my fear, despite the geographical hurdles, embodies who I want to be. I long to be the person who says the damn thing, even when the āandā afterward hasnāt been sorted out yet.
When fall arrives, we will be forced to decide whether the mileage drives us apart or brings us closer together. But this first, āI love youā belongs to yours truly. Itās all mine and I want to offer it in the most daring, true-to-me way that I possibly can.
Not sure if youāre in love or in lust? Hereās how to tell. Plus, the truth about soul mates.Ā
Author Kells McPhillips | Well and Good
Selected by CWC