If that isn't love, then I don't know what love is.

Hello! I’m 26 years old, female, and I’d like to share my story, though English is not my mother tongue (hope you understand). Be ready because it’s going to be a long (sorry):

My parents bought a house in a very small village next to the beach when I was two years old. Since then, every year we used to spend July and August there. Summer was my favourite season of the year: I used to be bullied at Primary School because I was very shy and an introvert, I had the best grades in my class and, above all, I was an easy target (I never fought back when people were mean to me for no reason). I remember feeling awful, really miserable, anxious and very lonely through those years, but when summer came... Oh, I felt like a whole different person, the happiest version of myself! Summer time at that village was a different world for me. And that was possible especially because of my neighbour. She was two years younger than me (I met her when I was two or three and she was a little grumpy baby lol) and we became inseparable in our childhood. We used to spend the whole summer together, day and night, playing at the street, on the beach, in each other houses; together we felt like heroes (lol). Everything was possible. I didn’t have to worry about what I said or did, because I knew she was never going to be mean to me or judge me; so I could relax and be myself. Every year, when school started, we sadly said our goodbyes and promise to send each other letters (I have a whole box with her letters from those years), and to pay a visit in winter (her parents’ house is in a village, 20 min away by car from the city where I live but, when we were young, it felt very far away).

One summer, when I was 15 and she was 13 years old, she told me she was a lesbian. Of course I had no problem with it and we joked around after that. I admit that her coming out took me by surprise; despite the 2 years age difference she was my closest friend and I had never met any gay or lesbian person before (that I knew), not even had thought about my own sexuality or thought about sex (I was so freaking innocent at that time that it was ridiculous). I remember lying on my bed that night she came out to me, questioning my own sexuality for the first time, thinking about if I could like a girl too like I had liked guys at school, and having no idea about the answer (lol), but I didn’t really care. If her coming out did something to our relationship was us getting even closer as a result. To me her family was like my extended family, and she was family for us too. I knew her friends, and she had met mine (everything got better for me when I went to Secondary School –no more bulling and I had good friends). We visited each other more during winter, staying at each other houses, talking on the Internet, etc. Those were our teenage days. Years passed and I thought I couldn’t love her more than I did. I was the happiest around her. The time we spent together was always memorable. We were always laughing, talking at night till early morning during those summers. We had more friends at the village, a small gang, but I remember I liked when I was alone with her the most and felt a bit annoyed when other people joined us (lol, silly young me), though I didn’t let it show .

When we were in the sea, I liked to hold her in my arms, like a princess, one hand on her back and another hand under the back of her knees, while she floated on the water. She asked me once “Why do you always hold me?” with a wary half-smile, and I told her that it was because I felt cold (which was true, I was always cold and shivering in the sea, but it was also because I liked to hold her, to be close to her). She didn’t mind, though, since she let me do it. But she, mentioning it at that time, made me feel a bit self-conscious: before that I hadn’t asked myself why I wanted to hold her. Sometimes, if we were on the sofa together, I would intertwine our feet or stupid things like that, searching for some contact. I don’t know, I loved her so much that sometimes I didn’t know what to do; I needed to express my love for her but at the same time I didn’t want to be annoying or anything.

I was very protective of her too, and all I wanted was for her to be happy (that was my priority). I spent hours hand-making special presents for her birthdays and Christmas each year (and she still has them and talks about how much they meant for her), I changed my plans many times for her, I’d have gone to the end of the world for her too if I’ve had too (I can say some examples of things I did to illustrate that, but let’s skip that part lol). I wanted nothing in exchange, just her friendship and having her around was more than enough. I felt good just making her happy and spending time together, but she also gave me a lot. And she made me feel special, worthy, witty, and a long list of good adjectives. When I thought about the future, she was there with me. I wanted to look after her and grow old together. I never gave a name to the feelings I had, though. I loved her to bits, but I never thought too much about it... We had a really strong bond.
However, there were those times that... I had these -somehow annoying- feelings and felt confused. For instance, once we went to the outdoor small cinema at the village. We were teenagers. We were watching a stupid horror movie and when the evil character appeared on screen, she suddenly held my hand, fingers intertwined, and we stayed like that for a really long time till the movie ended. During the time we held hands I had this feeling, this thing in my stomach, fireworks, or a snake twisting (lol, you choose). I know that it didn’t mean anything to her- she always talked to me about the girls she liked and told me I was like a sister to her. She never crossed the line with any of her friends.

Maybe I was eighteen (honestly, I don’t remember) when we were sitting on a bench at night one summer, talking as always while watching the sea. I remember looking at her and feeling so complete and happy I could explode in all directions. There was nobody like her, nobody that made me feel that way. I had been infatuated by boys many times before, but this was different: I liked those boys because I found them attractive, but this feeling I had for her had nothing to do with sexual/superficial attraction. It had to do with connecting with someone so deeply that I needed something more. The only thing I knew was that, suddenly, I really wanted to kiss her. I kept and kept thinking about it while we were talking under the stars, my heart beating fast inside my chest, so hard that I could feel it in my ears. I looked at her eyes and her lips. “Should I do it or not?”. My stomach churned. “Should I ask her if I can kiss her? Will she be mad at me if I do?” I almost asked her. Indeed, I opened my mouth and started the sentence but I couldn’t finish it (I was too scared because I remembered that a friend of us –a girl- confessed to her some time before and my friend felt uncomfortable around her and their relationship was never the same after that. What if things became awkward between us because I asked her for a kiss? In my heart I trusted her and thought that not even that would make us fall apart, that we could talk about anything. But on the other hand... What if...? No, I couldn’t face the idea of making her feel awkward around me). After that, she spent the whole walk home asking me about it “What did you want to tell me?” But I said it was “nothing” again and again. In the end, she was so persistent that I made up an excuse when we got home and she believed it (I guess). I was confused. I didn’t know what those strong feelings were about, I didn’t understand them. Whatever it was, I had to let it go. When I felt butterflies in my stomach, I ignored them. I didn’t want to think about it.

She had several girlfriends during her university years. I was okay with that; I mean, it felt weird but it was okay. I wanted her to be happy. I had my own flings with guys, but no boyfriends. I told my friend that if I ever had a boyfriend, I wanted him to be her male version. We laughed about it. What I really meant though, was that he would have to make me feel the way she did.

I know she used to keep me on a pedestal. She always showed admiration and praised me all the time. I went to study abroad at the age of 20. One or two years later she went abroad for a year to study too. Before she went abroad she wanted to say goodbye to all her friends. We went to a bar to have some drinks (no alcohol). I sat next to her. We talked and laughed. BUT, when we stood up to go home SOMETHING happened. I don’t know why, I wasn’t thinking, but I took her jacked (that was on her chair) to give it to her, and all her friends looked at me in that funny way. She looked at me too, awkward half-smile on her face, and flushed, like not knowing why I had done that (because, OBVIOUSLY, it was totally unnecessary) and thanked me. I knew it then. This was too much. The way I behaved, the way I cared about her. She was like a sister to me, but... The way I felt about her was total adoration –and I needed to stop being “too much”. I have this memory of me being in my room thinking about her, feeling plain happy. I felt a little nervous in a good way. I remember thinking “I think I’m in love” and “maybe I’ve always been somehow”. I wrote a whole paper about my feelings for her, enjoying the butterflies for once... It was okay to feel that way, nothing bad with that. I thought it was natural and it made sense to me. If I’ve ever felt love, it has to be that. But I decided to do nothing about it –ignore my feelings again- for the sake of our friendship. So I destroyed the paper and tried not to think about it.

I knew I was very special to her. I have never had any doubts about it. She said I was like a part of her, and I believed her, because I felt she was a part of me too. She said she always talked to her friends about me. I always had her in my mind too. The distance didn’t matter, though we missed each other (I think I missed her more than she did).

When I turned 22 years old I lived the hardest time of my life. I had spent the best year of my life abroad, working for the first time. I felt proud of myself, full of life and confident for the first time. It felt like my life was taking off. But when I came back home my grandma was very ill. She was like a mother to me. We had always been very close, but she was dying slowly and I couldn’t stop it. She moved to live we us, and I spent six month taking care of her in the mornings (my mum in the afternoons) till she died. I had decided I wouldn’t look for a job so I could help at home with my grandma. After she died, my mum never wanted to stay in the house at the beach again for summer season because it reminded her of my grandma. Before all that happened, I remember talking to my friend in her car when she visited me (she was studying abroad at that time but had come for the holidays). I think my grandma was at the hospital. I told her about my grandma, and she looked at me and through me and saw the pain, her eyes full of tears for my grandma and for me too.

After that everything got pretty bad. When my grandma died my whole world crushed. Watching her suffering that much for so long had destroyed me. I got pretty depressed for a whole year. My mum had depression too. I did nothing but hiding in my room having all these awful thoughts and drowning in desperation, loneliness, sadness and, sometimes, nothingness. After that year I made decisions I didn’t like about my life, feeling aimlessly and useless I did what people around me told me to do, but always felt unsatisfied about everything and myself. I needed my friend, but she was far away. She had her own life, how it had to be, and my other friends too. If someone had to save me, that was myself. “When you need a hand, you’ll find it at the end of your arm”, I remember I read somewhere. I believed that and started building walls around me, protecting myself from the world and from the pain (which was wrong, because the pain lived inside of me). I didn’t know how to function like a normal person anymore. It became really hard for me to express my feelings, so I stopped. I’m telling you all this because that affected my relationship with my friend too. I wanted her to be around, to hold me, to protect me. I wanted to bury my face in her shoulder and cry and cry. I had always been the older one, the one that had looked after her, but I needed to be vulnerable and to be held too. However, I couldn’t say it or show it. I had no words.

After my grandma passed away, summers were never the same either. My friend stayed abroad, working after finishing her studies. She had to help at home too because the economy of her family wasn’t good. It was a bad time for us, for our families and for the country. That was the first summer we spent separated (for many more to come). I went to the village the following years with some friends to spend some days there at the seaside, but that place without her was not the same. Indeed, a summer without her still doesn’t feel like summer to me.

The following years my friend had lived here and in other countries for different periods of time, working and studying. She met a girl three or four years ago when she was living in a neighbouring country, and they started a long distant relationship when she had to move back home. This is her first serious long-term relationship. They have had big arguments and my friend has told me many times love was not what she thought it would be (I think she had a Disney idea about it). They almost broke up but they are good now and this year they are living together in her girlfriend’s country, where my friend works and study at the moment.

This last year I was having a really bad time again because of my anxiety, depression, not being able to make decisions, feeling stuck in my life. So, feeling desperate, I took my luggage and went –run away- to the house at the village (that place is like a ghost village during winter because there are very few people living there when it’s not summer season). I needed to put some distance between me, my messy life and my parents to fill my lungs with fresh air and think things through. Being there by myself, seeing the grey skies, the wild waters –so different in winter-, the empty streets and the beach, the old houses... her empty house too, windows closed, withered plants in her garden, it hurt. I hadn’t been able to find the words to express how lonely and lost I had felt through all those years, so I finally found a physical representation of it. When I was there I heard that my friend’s parents were thinking about selling their house at the beach because of the economical crisis. They had stopped using the house years ago, anyway. They were always working. Although I totally understood the situation, it made my heart break a little more. I felt as if all the good in my life was disappearing little by little, piece by piece.

I finally came back to the city after a month and a half living in the village on my own (like a monk lol), and met my friend when she came for a visit last winter. I hadn’t overcome my problems yet (because I hadn’t faced them to start with) and felt miserable. Of course, she noticed. So she asked me about it but I tried to change the subject. We were having Chinese food for dinner with my brother, which it’s like a tradition for us three. I didn’t want to ruin things with my mood. I tried hard but I felt empty inside. I felt she wanted to go sooner than usual and that made me feel worse, because these past two years I had felt more and more this distance growing between us, and she told me about that too (we had texted about it before and she had told me she couldn’t afford to lose me). So that night I walked her to her car to say goodbye, and we started talking. She wanted me to talk about me, about life, and I managed somehow to do so. She listened and then told me that it was really hard for me to express myself, which I agreed. Then, I don’t know why –maybe because I had opened my heart and talked about what was going on in my life and was vulnerable-, I looked at her and told her what I couldn’t say before because I had been too busy trying to be strong by myself: “I miss you”, I said, and immediately my eyes were filled with tears. I felt embarrassed; I couldn’t look at her while I was crying, so I turned to hide my face. I didn’t want to need anyone, but I needed her. I needed her so much. When I calmed down we talked a bit more. She was very receptive because I’d finally dropped my mask and let my guard down, and she tried to make me feel better and talked about all the things we could try in order to be more present in each other’s lives despite the distance. She asked me if I wanted her to stay for the night (nothing uncommon for us, as she had stayed many times before) or if I wanted to get in the car and sleep at her parents’ house so we could stay together longer. But I refused (even though I was dying for more time with her). I thought it would be so much harder for me later, if I stayed so close to her (physically and emotionally) and then I had to say goodbye for another long period of time without being able to see her. Before she got in the car she gave me a hug. She held me in her arms for a long time and I hugged her back. I gripped her coat with my hand in a fist when hugging her, wanting to hold her so close but, at the same time, needing to stop myself... My fist was my reminder. That was the only thing I could do, not to show her, not to need her that much. She held me closer and I heard her breathing slowly and heavily by my side. My heart stopped at that moment and I carefully pushed her away where I had her coat grabbed. I had to let her go. I didn’t want to and I felt like crying (though I didn’t– I had my mask on again), but she had to go because, if she stayed a bit longer, I wouldn’t want her to ever go again from my side.

After that night, things got better between us. I tried to be the happy girl I used to be when I talked to her on the phone or when we texted. I still try my best. I want things to be the way they were before my life became a mess. And I want myself to be able to find my place in this world and erase all the waves of sadness that come and go. I’m always fighting for myself and, at the same time, against myself – against the dark solitary me (if that makes sense).

So this is it, a summary of my relationship with her for the last 24 years. She, who has been in my life forever, and who I hope will be in my life forever. Yeah, I still think of a future together, as friends, as sisters, as soul mates or whatever. She likes it when I talk about us being old eccentric grannies living and dying together (lol).
I’ve learnt she has flaws these past years, and she’s learnt I have mine. We are no longer kept on a pedestal, which is for the best, because there is love despite of that. I don’t love her the way I described before anymore though, with that intensity and adoration, but I do think I’ve learnt to love her in a more mature way.

She’s been everywhere, living abroad, having different life styles and experiences, but she has said to me that she never feels okay/peaceful/complete (?), no matter where she goes or does. Sometimes I wish she was with me so maybe I’d be able to make the difference, just as she makes the difference for me. But maybe I’m just a fool, right?

You know... All those times when I went to the beach in winter on my own and felt the loneliness of the place, I had this image in my head: I imagined that I was a lighthouse, calling her in the dark, waiting for her, crying alone for the old times and for her to come back to me, being the keeper of our memories together. But I can’t be that lighthouse any longer. Fortunately I feel I’ve already moved on and accepted the changes in my life. Summers like those when we were younger were magical, yeah, and there have been times in my life when I’ve thought my love for my friend was that kind of love too, the romantic one, and thought if I had her in my life I wouldn’t need anything else, but I had to wake up from my fantasies. I’m not sure if I understand love, or if I really know what it is.What I know is that now it’s time for me to find my own light within myself. Of course I want to be there for her, always, even in the distance, but I definitely need to be there for me too. I will always love her, though, in my stupid way I’m happy I’m able to feel this love for someone, in all its stages and shapes. And I’m happy it’s no longer under my skin. I can set it free, let it exist somewhere else. Funny enough, this is the only thing I couldn’t say to her, the only secret I kept from her: that there was a time I would have kissed her and held her in my arms and never let her go. But who knows, maybe one day I’ll tell her, and she’ll look at me with big eyes for a second, and then we’ll laugh about it and forget it. Or maybe she’ll tell me she has her own secrets too.

If you got here, thanks for reading, you, wonderful people (&&&) This was a very long post. I don’t know why, but I wanted to find the words and let it all out. I’ve never said this to anyone and it feels weird to post it because I feel that it makes it more real, if that makes sense... Like, I can’t deny it because is out there somewhere in the Internet. I’ll shut up now (lol). Feel welcome to tell me what you think or ask any question.

 

Hello again! Thank you very much for all your sweet comments (*hug*) I really appreciate that you took the time to read my story and I’m happy that I’ve shared this piece of my life with you. It feels good to connect with other people.

Feelunique, thanks for the link, I’ve always liked that song.

Prettyinpunk, you’re right, everybody should experience a love/bond/friendship like this. I feel very lucky that I have.

Confusedbubble: No, I haven't felt this way for anyone, guy or girl, just her. I've been attracted to other people, but that was all.

Answering your comments, my friend and I have talked about sexuality several times through these years and I’ve always told her what I thought my sexuality was at the time. I remember I said to her some years ago that I thought I could be with another girl, so I guess she knows. I don’t define myself as straight, bi or any other label. I don’t think that’s important to me. If I’m able to find or feel love, that’s a bliss itself. If I’m attracted to someone, guy or girl, it’s okay. I don’t give it too much thought. The problem with me has always been that I don’t let things happen. I don’t know how to say this but, it’s like, when someone is interested in me I feel the need to run away. Or if I’m interested in someone, I force myself to move on and forget about it. I don’t know if it is because of the bulling thing when I was a child, that let a print on me and on my self-esteem; or the walls I built these past years are too high and now I’m trapped inside; or if it’s something else. I have no idea. But I know I’m scared of being hurt. However, I’ve always felt safe around my friend and very connected to her. I felt loved and accepted. And maybe that’s why I let my love for her grow and expand freely. I think knowing she was a lesbian had an effect on me too, because it made me question my own sexuality and it opened my eyes to more possibilities and ways of loving someone.

On the other hand, I can’t go and tell my friend that I’ve felt this way for her, as some of you suggested. I mean, she’s in a relationship now, and they are okay. Her girlfriend seems to be a nice girl and she seems to care a lot about my friend. And I’ve asked my friend if she sees herself in the future sharing her life with her current girlfriend, and she told me she does. So, if they are happy together and they can look after each other, then I’m happy for them. If I could make a wish though, it would be to be able to see my friend, at least, more often. I miss her in my life. But she’s living abroad, so... There is nothing much I can do right now.

Thank you very much again for your comments :icon_wink

 

KorrasamiIsBest, thanks for sharing your story with me. I feel you. And I’m glad that you had this friend to help you when things got hard for you. I hope that the first meeting with your friend in October goes the best way possible and that you two make some good memories. Please, take care. Good luck and hugs