“The war between the mind and the heart is not about love — it is about survival.”
I saw his name pop up on my phone on a Friday evening. My heart nearly skipped a beat and a thousand thoughts were racing through my mind. I wondered what it could be especially since we hadn’t talked in months. I picked up the phone and just hearing his voice made my blood rush. It was almost like he never left, we talked as playfully as we always did before. We had the same humor and I fell in love with how easily our conversations intertwined, an hour went by and it felt like whole world stopped just so we could have our moment frozen in time. I missed him. So I said yes when he asked to come over some time this week. Well, the day is now tomorrow. The more the day approaches the more uneasy I become. Its hard to forget the pain. My heart aches remembering how many nights I cried myself to sleep, how many times I begged him to care, how he broke me and I had to pick my myself up piece by piece just to feel sane. Then my mind reminds me, ‘He doesn’t deserve you Kathleen.’
And so the war begins.
My mind is right, I’d like to believe so. My mind echoes the advice of my friends and what I’m supposed to be implementing in my so-called ‘healing journey’. It reminds me of what I need to do to finally find the right people, the opportunities I deserve and the life I’ve dreamt of. Its the logic so it is right, right? Though the thing is, love is nothing but illogical.
Even yet as my heart aches, my heart aches for him. My heart wants to go back to what felt familiar, my heart wants to finally be chosen. My heart wants to go back to the validation she so desperately wanted now she knows how easily she can get it if she just says yes. My heart hopes for a better outcome, maybe this time he will actually value me and love me or even better yet, this time I won’t get as attached and I can get revenge or it can just be casual sex, knowing very well through past experiences how horribly that went. But still she goes back hoping the love she gives will be reciprocated but that is not how it works, is it? Love reciprocated isn’t always guaranteed.
Underneath it all, there is a gnawing feeling, the kind that never leaves and follows you around like a shadow, the darkness that carries my shame, guilt and the feeling of never being enough. She whispers that maybe I didn’t love him right the first time, and if I give this another chance I could fix myself and love him harder in a way that leaves no other option but for him to finally notice me, chose me and love me (writing this I realize this man lowkey turned me into a pickmeisha lol). Then you remember how since you were small, all you knew was to prove yourself to be worthy of love. External validation made you feel worthy. You felt chosen and seen and valued by others, but at what cost? You lose yourself trying to mold yourself to be the person you think you should be to be loved. Until you get tired of it and you start wondering why you can’t be enough just as you are. But even as you get so tired of it, it becomes so familiar that you don’t know how to expect more. So your heart remains in denial even though your mind knows what right for you and tries to show you how beautiful it can get.
In these moments when my heart and body still craves for him, I have to remind myself to protect my heart because she needs to know how beautiful it can get. She needs to be loved just as she loves. So in the war between the mind and the heart, today the mind wins.
