I've come to the conclusion that I don't really know how to be loved.

I know how to love other people. I know how to cry and grieve and pine away for the people I love. Noticing and cherishing all the little details, the nuances, all the tiny things that other people don't see....and hiding them away in my heart's treasure box....I'm very good at that. Keeping the spark or the ghost of a spark alive for years, for decades....I can do that, long past the point where others would have given up hope.

But accepting love....that's a problem. Believing that I'm lovable or good enough to be loved...I don't even know how to get there. I've spent years of my life engaged in unrequited love affairs. When someone wants to love me back, what? What's that? That can't be real. There's a catch somewhere. It's a trick.The pain is coming, I know it. I see the hints of impending heartbreak where others don't. I can smell pain a long ways away....and I'm ready for it, because pain is what I know intimately, deeply. Gut wrenching, mind numbing, crippling pain...I dread it and hate it...but it's oh so familiar and I know how to deal with it. Being loved? I want it more than anything in the whole world...but then when I get it, it's so hard to believe and I have no idea what to do with it. :-/