One year ago, I wrote a journal entry. Here is what it said.
In all my 18 years of life, however long or short that may be, I have found it incredibly hard to find people who are hard to let go of. If people have died, moved away, switched schools, or simply stopped talking to me, the worst I've found myself doing is crying. Crying is not a significant sign of grief. I cry for fictional books and movies, for people I've never met. It is insignificant.
Of these stories I love so dearly, I've known many examples of a love so great that it is debilitating to lose. I've read of the decline in motivation, the lack of smiles, the anger, the fight to hold onto what is so dear to them.
Having known all these negative reactions to loss vicariously, I find myself guiltily jealous.
Who am I to long for something so seemingly awful? Who am I to assume that I wouldn't react so negatively to the loss of those currently near to me?
The truth is beyond that, hidden beneath. It is not the strong grief that I truly long for but the strong love. As much as I know I love my family and they in return, I'm uncertain of the extent of it. I know they love me but how much? Would they go through all this treachery for my sake? Would I for them?
Family aside, I've read of friends, mine I'm sure know me about as little as I know them. My friends are not close to me, many of them quite literally thousands of miles away from me. I hide from them often, behind a screen where they can't see me flinch at a misplaced joke. If the conversation steers in a particular direction, I turn away with a quick apology and an easy to believe excuse.
If I were to die today, I doubt their mourning to be long-lasting. Maybe for my parents, for my sister, but I doubt for either of my brothers and I doubt even moreso for my friends.
If they were to die instead, would I do anything more than weep?
To love strongly enough, to be loved strongly enough that the grief may be equally as strong.
That is what I long for and what I fear most of all.
Since then, I have both found and lost a love as strong. I've truly grieved. It wasn't a death and so I will not mourn for very long but it has been a month and I've just barely moved on.
I do not regret anything. In fact, I'm glad for the experience. I'm glad it lasted as long as it did.
Now, looking back, I can take comfort in the fact that I love even more deeply for my family than for the love I've lost. I can be assured, having lost as I have, that I have loved and continue to love that amount that I had envied before.
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