yearning

one of the biggest issues i’ve faced in recent years is the fact i yearn for things that don’t exist, don’t happen and won’t happen.

for the longest time i saw myself as a hopeless romantic - yearning for something, a concrete idea of love that i wanted to fulfil. this idea fell short, when i in fact noticed i had nothing to yearn for, nobody to yearn for, and that my small dream of living “the perfect romance” was something, in the short term, unattainable.

but i still yearned. 

i yearned for someone i couldn’t have, for the longest time possible. i thought to myself “maybe this is love, the fact i just can’t give up on someone” … and blindly came to the conclusion that yes, i need to continue yearning. this is love.

just recently, after completing my 17 years, after being in countless relationships that never worked out, after living out my first true love and my first true heartbreak — that i wasn’t yearning for love. i wasn’t yearning for “the perfect romance”. i wasn’t even yearning for the person closest to me, no. 

i was yearning for the reciprocation i had never felt within my friendships, i was yearning to be someone’s closest person and confidant, i was yearning for that unconditional love that comes with having someone to love, and to lose.

i was yearning to be seen, to be loved, and to have someone think of me the same way i thought of them.

i’m still 17 and i can’t define what love is. i’ve felt it, once, and only once, and i can’t help but still yearn for that same love i felt.

but i know now, that love doesn’t need to be perfect. that i can feel the love i yearn for in my friendships, although not perfect, and that there is no need to yearn for something unreal. i’ll feel the unreal someday, and there is no need to rush it.

february, 2025