excerpts from the book i'll never write

by Nadia Nell Starbinski

The thing no one tells you about falling in love is the loneliness of missing them. Falling in love with someone from across two bridges, a tunnel and state lines. There’s cravings that will never be fulfilled, a never ending lust for an interaction that is otherwise deemed impossible.

I’ve spent all hours of the night contemplating the words to say to you, but no combination of twenty-six different letters could ever accurately capture even a sliver of what this feeling is.

You are just unlike any other man I have ever met. You're open with me about what is on your mind. Whenever there is a conflict between us, you are patient with me and understanding. You always put me first. You remember what's important, and what's not. You always tell me you never want to lose me, and I promise I will never let you go.

Being in love with you feels like falling into your bed after a long day at work. Like this is where I am supposed to be. I just look at you and I am home.

I am sad. Not in this beautiful way that everyone romanticized. I am anxious. Not in this aesthetic where claiming to have mental illness is worth bragging about. I am lost. In every definition of the word. I am suffocating, yet I am the one holding the bag over my head.

Some nights I think about dying and some nights I think about living till I break.

Sometimes there are people who come into your life and leave a permanent mark. They paint your soul different colors and change the way you see the world. When they leave, you realize that somewhere along the way you lost yourself. You don’t even know who you are anymore because they made you into something completely different. I don’t miss you. I miss myself.

I think there are people that you are supposed to let into your life, and I think that by design they are meant to leave and you are never supposed to speak again.

But that’s the problem- I hold on to the memories instead of people. I love so much that I continue to fall in love with a person that doesn’t even exist anymore. There’s a certain thrill to it, the danger of falling in love with the idea of somebody rather than who they actually are.

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

All you need to hear is that it is okay to be sad for no reason, a billion reasons, or for one small reason.