I feel as though I am incapable of love. This doesn’t mean that I don’t wish that one day I will wake up and find the one that makes me believe in all the so-called feelings you are supposed to feel when you find someone who makes you believe in everything. This does not mean I don’t want the friendship that turns to romance that turns into the rest of your life. I want it. I swear. I just don’t know if I can. How do you place so much trust in someone to not run away when they inevitably find something they do not like about you? I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m scared, so scared that I don’t know if I’m willing to allow myself to love someone.

              I imagine that the relationships you witness in your lifetime shape the idea you have in your mind about what the principle of a relationship is. I bore witness to my parents’ marriage be in shambles since I was born, both already having failed marriages before this; my mum having 3 children before me that she brought into this and my father brought his broken idea of what being a husband is after he had not been successful the first time. As I grew up, I watched my parents continuously fight, feeling as though it were to never end and knowing that they went to bed still as angry and just a little bit less in love than the day before. I saw days where they were kind to each other, sweet, caring, and just maybe even slightly loving. But that still felt like pretend, because the very next she would be throwing bin bags filled with clothes down the stairs while he was simply shouting about not being dramatic and to simply put everything back. I say simply as if it was simple, but how could it have been? How could she simply put her clothes back in the draws while knowing that she was so easily persuaded back into this unhappy marriage? How could he simply go back to watching the football while knowing that his wife was ready to leave him? I still remember the silent care rides coming back from a day out that was cut short after them both saying something the other didn’t like, both silently agreeing the day was over and ruined; I still remember me and my siblings being silent too, like an invisible force that was telling us to not make a noise in case it starts something else. I used to stare out the window watching the fields fly by picturing what it would be like to be in a happy family. I was only 5. I watched my parents drag out a marriage that should have never been a thing to begin with for 16 years. I know now that she dragged it out for his sake, worried about what would happen if she were to truly leave him alone, but what is worse is knowing that he would have kept this marriage going despite the arguments and the hate, as though there was a chance that he still loved her.

              How can I still believe in love after seeing them slowly hate each other more and more? I don’t want love if it means there will be a day when they don’t want me anymore. I don’t want love if it means I become dependent on them and they leave, and I don’t know what it is like to live without them. I don’t want to bring kids into the world knowing there is a chance that I screw their perception of love up like my parents did with my own. Most importantly I don’t want to be the person to fall out of love and hurt the person in a way that no one should have to hurt.

              I don’t think I’m capable of falling in love.

No.

I don’t think I want to fall in love. I don’t want to try because I already know I am capable of loving someone. I already know that I could completely give my entire heart up to someone and let them do whatever they want with it. What I don’t think I can deal with is the after.

After love. The pain. The pain of losing someone, because no matter what happens in life, no matter how happy and in love you are, it's inevitable that someone is going to lose and be in pain. There is nothing you can do to stop it.

Maybe I am capable of love, but maybe I don’t want to take the chance of finding out.