She is my here

Wednesday, August 16th. 2017

My parents like to keep their fridge full of random magnets, and my mom specially, adjusts her collection according to the holidays. Yet there's a magnet that has stayed consistently in the left door just above the ice dispenser. While growing up I would unconsciously read it every day, never really giving it my full attention. And even though I haven't been in their house for two years now that magnet and its words came to me yesterday, in full color and shape. 

The design is not the same but the words are.

Right now I am holding back, I can feel it. The fear of being disappointed again, the fear of loving more than I am being loved. I don't want to feel like this though, I want to love you fully and unapologetically. Right now I am on your back burner, somebody else comes first in your life. This scares me, it scares me that you might choose him over me. That you will look at me as a 'what if' and dismiss me only as a good dream. 

You tell me you are afraid of hurting him. You want to be with me, but the fear of being in the same school, the same small school with him, and risking seeing him often and reminding yourself of what  you would make him go through is what is holding you back. 

You see, I am in the same position as you are. I've been leading my ex on for several weeks now. I felt lonely and I went back to her, to what was known and comfortable. Now, I am in this spot where I truly realize she is not who I was waiting for, you are. But I don't want to hurt her either, I have made her gone through so much already. 

I guess I'm writing all of this to ask you to trust me. I'm asking you to take a leap of faith with me. To risk being uncomfortable and scared with me. I'm asking, of you and me, to do more than we think we can so that we can enjoy life to the fullest. Not settling for this half happiness, for this unexciting love. We don't like hurting others, in that sense we are the same. I can see that part of me in you too; the want to please everyone. The want to be liked and loved. But fear is not the answer, it never is.  

I never thought I would be willing to go through a long distance relationship again. The only time I tried I ended up with a broken knuckle and a broken heart, which neither fully healed. But now I would dare to try with you. You are worth the risk, the fear, the uncertainty. 

Yesterday I thanked you for allowing me to feel again, today I ask you to choose love over fear. 

I will let her go, my ex. I'll take the leap either way, because I know it's the right thing to do. I can feel it. And I only hope you will do the thing that brings you the purest joy and love. 

May we be mentally happy. 

May we be physically happy. 

May we have ease of well-being.

May we have acceptance of things as they are. 

May we be free of fear and sorrow. 

Miguel Nigenda Castillo