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I know that as time passes, my biggest fears grow in their chances of becoming reality. I set myself up for failure if I do not prepare myself now. I know that I tried to love someone and I tried to make them feel special, and I know that I need to accept what is. I have spent the last year having other people tell me how I should feel and what decisions I should make. I can’t change who I am, I can’t change what I feel inside, I can’t change all the good I see in people. I can’t change who I love. If I love someone, it is because I once saw kindness. I once saw struggle. I once appreciated their state of being. Once I fall, I can’t will myself out of it. I can’t let go. I have learned over the years  to live with the loss. It just switches another part of me numb. But I can’t forsake what I fell in love with.

The first boy I ever loved, I still love today. His face is pictured clearly in my mind. I fell in love with him because he was quiet. He held my hand in 6th grade and his presence made me feel warm inside. He lived in a typical Puerto Rican household, 16 family members in a 2 bedroom apartment. He never invited me over because he was ashamed and I never invited him over because I was abused at home. I still love him for his life struggles and I miss him.

The second guy I ever loved took me four years to move on from. He was the hardest break-up I ever had. He had abnormally long arms, highlighted his hair, but I loved his passion for racing. And not just for racing, but for me too. He always included me. He surprised me with a new pair of Doc Martins to match his own. I had never been gifted a new pair of shoes before, I had always worn goodwill shoes. He and I worked on his car through the night, and he taught me a lot. We frequented car shows together with his truck and even though we lived quite a ways apart, we somehow made it a priority to see each other. Things went South fast…I didn’t know why then, but I do now. He started hanging out with the wrong crowd, got into drugs. His entire personality changed. Bad break-up happened when he tried to drive off of a bridge in his truck with me in the passenger side. We ended up wrecked with him screaming at me. I was scared for my life. He went on to marry and have a kid with his neighbor. She died a year later after overdosing.

The third guy I ever loved had bad posture. He reminded me a lot of my first love. Quiet, pensive, a lot of depth once you gave them a chance to show it. I fell in love with his silhouette as he sat at his bedroom desk in the middle of the night. I would lay there quietly and wonder what he was so pensive about. Something about it was so beautiful that it made me want to cry. We both had feet that looked the same. We would find ourselves wrestling and calling a truce so no one got bragging rights, and spent Sundays together watching cartoon and eating cereal. I fell in love with his eyes mostly. They were the type of eyes that you stare into and you forget where you are…which also reminded me of my first love.

These were three guys that I confessed my love for, and three guys who are no longer in my life. But they’re three guys that I will unconditionally love forever and my heart hurts so much when I think of them. It’s so painful.

I can’t let go. I’m too hopeful a person and far less cynical than I lead on. I hope they’re finding happiness in their own way.

I think the answer for myself is to focus more on my art. If I may spend the rest of my life alone, I at least want to make art that can be felt, understood, and appreciated by others. Maybe pouring my feelings into my art will let someone else know that they aren’t alone in their suffering of such great losses.