It’s said that everyone has that one great love in life. The type of love that is so all encompassing it consumes you. A love so great, all you can think of is this other person who so completely possesses both your mind and heart. A love whose hold on your heart remains even years after it ends.
In my twenty-nine years of life, my one great love just so happens to be a faceless stranger I met one night on the internet. Some say he was fake. A catfish that wanted… nothing from me? Others may think but be afraid to ask aloud if he could have been a figment of my imagination. Admittedly, it’s something I once wondered myself as the aftermath of our relationship left me in a questionable state of mind. One I struggled to escape for some time.
But to me, he was real. As tangible as the letters forming the words on this page. And he was honest. So honest. The type of love I neither knew I needed nor thought could ever exist for me. Yet somehow, it was what I had been searching for in the twenty-two years I had lived up until that moment. And I loved him. So much. I loved him more than life itself; as much as my poor broken heart could. And yet, it wasn’t enough.
So… I believed that I wasn’t enough.
In my experience, love does not conquer all. I believe that if it doesn’t work out, then it was simply never to be in the first place. Once upon a time I was hopeless romantic. But now? I’m just another girl disillusioned with the mystery that is love.
Telling the story now, writing it out for the first time, feels so final. So permanent. I’ve always been afraid of putting the words in my head onto paper. Of being so vulnerable and allowing others to see the real me. The lives I’ve lived, my secrets… my pain.
But it’s time now. So here goes everything.
Sunday, January 12th, 2020
It was a cold, dark afternoon when I found myself in an even darker mood than usual.
Another in a long list of Sundays that had left me loathing my life and the person I’d become. Not even two months had passed since I had been sobbing in my car, confessing all my sins of the past three years and promising God that I would give men up once and for all. And yet here I was, drowning. The voices in my head demanding to be unleashed as they craved a fix I refused to give them. The satiety that came only after compromising my values and giving men what they wanted.
My will being weak and me unable to calm my restless mind, I gave in to the darkness threatening to overtake me if i didn’t take back some control. I found myself on the website I both loved and loathed. A site that had brought so much darkness into my life in the years I had been using it. So many men that had used me. Broken me.
And yet there I was.
Back for more.
The first stranger it connected to just wanted me to satisfy his desires. Normally in the state of mind I was in, I would have just complied as I believed that I couldn’t say no to men. But tonight, I simply disconnected.
And then there he was.
The moment we connected I felt something…
Even now over six years later, I can’t explain what exactly it was- this inexplicable sensation. The sudden urge to leave, but this desperation begging me to stay, keeping me there. My annoyance and frustration was growing with every word this stranger was typing until something he said completely caught me off guard.
Stranger: Give me the chance to prove that I can be better than that.
Me: Why?
Stranger: Because you deserve it.
Me: Ugh. I hate it when people tell me that. I really really don’t.
Stranger: Alright. Sorry. I’m trying!!
Me: If you want something, just say it lol
Stranger: I want you to take a chance.
Me: On…?
Stranger: Me.
Stranger: What do you have to lose?
Me: Everything.
Me: My heart, my soul, my mind. At least what’s left of them.
In that moment, I chose to take a chance. One decision that cost me nearly everything.
Was it worth it?
I have no idea.
All I knew then was that my life would never be the same.
the elle words 