Love Isn’t Always Enough

Since I will be single this Valentine’s Day, let’s theme all of February on love and on people. Don’t forget to check the socials to see the upcoming blogs and my fabulous picture with a rose.

Before we get to gutting our fish (this blog), let’s stroll down Anna’s memory lane. 

In case you do not know, I am a widow. My husband was my high school sweetheart and, when it’s real, you fight for it. 

Today, we are here to talk about what happens when it’s not real when you think it is or you want it to be. Or rather, unrequited. Unrequited is okay. What’s not okay is being selfish.

Before we release the hook out of this fish named, “Love Isn’t Always Enough,” let me tell you this story:

In 2015, Matt, my husband, and I were “friends” (I put this in quotation because my mother and best friend both rolled their eyes at that statement) after a while of separation. We dated in 2014, but it did not work out. He was always someone that I loved and would always love and it never really went away. And there was a reason that it wasn’t supposed to go away. I was meant to love him.

Matt told me that he was going to be relocated to a city outside of Nashville, TN that I had never heard of: Mt. Juliet. At the time, I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do with my major in college and I wanted to take a semester or a year off and just work and figure it out. I was scared that if we tried long distance, that it wouldn’t work since we had already had turbulence the first go round. And I knew he was my one, so, I packed up my sh*t and followed him to Nashville. Was that the smartest decision? No. Was I following my heart? Yes. Did it pay off? Hell yes. If I were thinking about myself and my mental health and my this and my that and I could’ve run a list off of reasons (excuses) why I wouldn’t, not could’ve, read the difference, do it, but that’s not what my heart told me to do and that is not where my heart was. Love was enough. I took a risk, followed my heart, started a life with my person, and it was one of the best decisions of my life.

They say you have three loves, Matt was my first love. Your second love destroys you and mine did to say the least. I cannot wait for the person who WILL love me and who CHOOSES to love me. Because even though we had great and absolutely magical moments, and even though I loved them as much as I did, the pain and the purposeful hurt and deceit outweighs. I will never regret loving anyone. But one thing I’ll never do again is allow any type of abuse. Or dull myself to my sparkle; we need the true confidence in Anna and to be Anna. Because there are a lot of people in my life that love me, who adore me, and who wouldn’t trade me for the world. Who aren’t leaving, ones who truly love me. And who understand what love is. Love is not pretty.

I just simply cannot deal with this situation-ship anymore, I cannot forgive it this time.

I want to take this moment to thank my readers for sticking it out with me and following my journey. Without you, we wouldn’t be here. Let’s gut this fish and throw away the hook. 

 Let’s talk about when love is not enough. 

“If they want to, they will.” 

The battle between the heart and the mind: there is, often times, a reason why the mind wins and the heart does not. If I listened to my mind instead of my heart, I would’ve saved myself a lot of heartache. Like I should’ve been done the second weekend we spent together. But I chose to take a chance, maybe they’d change, maybe they’d get better, maybe they’d choose me one day. But I knew the truth. And I still did it. I saw their soul and I was absolutely head over heels.

I am sad, disappointed, angry, mad, devastated, heartbroken, and finally done. After all this bullsh*t, I am done. It is finished. There are no more chances. I was blocking my blessings by trying to save a never going to happen situation-ship, a “relationship.” My worst nightmare, the emotional abuse from 2017, is nothing compared to this, boy, never in my life. I feel the effects in my mind, my heart, even my body. I have often felt like I was not enough. I gave basically my everything and got nothing. I have been mad about the fact that I had good intentions and I got sh*t in return. But, I’ll be rewarded for that. A nice, juicy emerald from God. In the end, the love I gave, the effort I gave, the tears I cried, were not enough. Even though the other people were, the first choice and the one they changed everything for, I was not to them. 

I truly believe that I was and am enough and that is not the reason I wasn’t ever chosen by the one that had my heart, the one who restored my heart, the one that will forever hold that place. I saw who they really were without the games, the walls, the bullsh*t, the player and manipulative ways, the clear facts in front of me. It truly is their loss. What a blessing it would’ve been for them to have opened up their arms to me and to have gotten to peel back my onion layers and see past the mask of mine. But, as my best friend Rick says, “people make choices everyday.”

Feeling not enough is a very hard battle and I hate I allowed this. Because all I did was love them and held them accountable less times than I should have. I was afraid if I stood up, they’d walk away. And I just didn’t want to loose them. I was truly not myself in that “relationship.” The closest thing they’ll ever get to Anna are my written words.

“I hope you get the help you need,” and, “Bullsh*t and lies, you always in disguise. Here is the bed that you made,” is in my girl Zolita’s song, “Truth Tea.” “Oblivion” is great too, also by Zolita. I relate to that song so much. So much! I love Zoe, she has really helped me so much. I love you, Zoe! If you ever see this. ♥️

There is a song by Ariana Grande that, in the beginning, talks about how you fell in love with a version of someone that you created in your head. Again, with the looking at what they show you.

It didn’t matter what I told them, what I said, what grand silver platter I brought to them, what gesture I did, it would’ve never been enough. But the facts are: nothing they could ever do right now would be enough to turn this around. A jester can simply not suit a queen. As my friend once told me, “Anna, we don’t mess with clowns.” 🤡

And what did I do? Messed with the clown. And then messed with more clowns. Where did that end me up? Therapy.

I’ve talked about in blogs before about seeing what people show you. There is a thin line between seeing people’s hearts and souls (gotta love being an empath, phew) and seeing what they have shown you because of the type of relationship or the effect it has on you. If it’s an emotionally abusive situation, you need to RUN with their actions. If it is just something they’re going through and they were mean to you, snapped on you, you need to choose their heart. There is an obvious difference. 

I’ve learned a lot of hard lessons over the past three years. I’ve realized just how much pain and suffering I’ve endured and just how strong I am. Another one of my favorite quotes, “You do not know how strong you are until you have to be.” 

The fact is: if I was their “one,” nothing would stop them. If I was their “one,” they wouldn’t tell me they need to do this, do that, they’re in this state, and then weeks later, date someone else. How could they not see that I question why I wasn’t good enough? I mean, hello. 

As my friend said, they will see a whole different side of Anna that they’ve only seen glimpses of. The one that stands up for herself and calls out bullsh*t. All this relationship has been is bullsh*t, but not for me. To me, I would’ve married them. For me, it was my life. For them, it was a game, a fall-back plan, a second option. 

As I am scrolling through Facebook, I see this, “When you finally learn that a person’s behavior has more to do with their internal struggle than it ever did with you, you learn grace.” And as Hannah Brown said to Jed Wyatt, “I do have grace for you. But this is not what I said yes to.” 

Let me tell you what I said yes to. I said yes to a new beginning, a new chapter, someone I thought would take care of my heart. I said yes to adventure, to the unknown which I thought that I would soon understand. I said yes to who I know they really are, not this clown; I said yes to who I thought they were.

Let me tell you what I did say yes to but shouldn’t have. The truth is, I allowed it because I was scared to lose them, we know this. But now, they showed me the same truth again, and now, I’ll make the decision for them: they finally lost me. “I said yes” equals I allowed. So here we go: I said yes to emotional abuse. I said yes to the lowering of my self-esteem. I said yes to the dulling of my sparkle. I said yes to being treated like a second option. I said yes to feeling not enough. I said yes to half ass effort. I said yes to half ass conversations. I said yes to crying my eyes out. I said yes to shadiness. I said yes to not so good intentions. I said yes to never being fully loved back in return when they had my heart. I said yes to mediocre. I said yes to not being taken care of. I said yes to not being paid attention to. I said yes to not being a priority, let alone the priority.

I used to think that love was enough, and it can and should be, but it isn’t always. Love is a big word, but has a lot of things that should go along with it. Like commitment, trust, faith, hope, respect, choice. You have to choose that person and I was never chosen. And BOY did I choose them. Do you know how many times I had to hear, “I’m not ready, we can’t, blah blah blah.” Or I had to hear the excuses they gave me. It was never, “this is too hard, but you’re worth it.” Obviously, I wasn’t. Obviously, they didn’t love me like I loved them; that is a great song lyric too (“Like I Loved You,” by Brett Young). 

Let me fill you in on a little secret: this was not love on their part. Because love IS enough. A little bit of distance didn’t stop me from chasing after Matt. But everything in the world stopped the new, now old, love of my life to not chase after me. And to not choose me. Now, I have to pick up all of the pieces that I knew they’d probably leave as well as all of my friends and family.

I had a good friend tell me how devastating it was to watch me go through this. To watch me be depressed, sad, upset, effected. My good friend has apologized time and time again because I have to go through all this when it is not their fault at all. And now that same friend had to witness me be upset, my friends had to hold me as I cried. They had to watch the pain and the agony as the other one only thought about themselves. The one who caused the pain will not apologize, really. It’s not like they can see what they did wrong.

How dare they?  

In the same gym that I bawled my eyes out in will be the same gym I rip up the pages out of my journal where I made time to write down our history and points to discuss. They will never be talked about.

Let’s cheer to healing. 🥂

I love y’all.
And remember, love is always enough. 😘

Anna