They call it "falling" for a reason. You don't do it on purpose. You don't choose. You don't jump. You fall. You're moving along in life, whether you're enjoying it or not, and then one day you wake up and you find yourself thinking, "What the fuck? How did this happen? When did this happen? Just... What...?" But it's the happiest confusion you've ever been in. You have no idea how or when or why or what even is going on, but at the same time, it doesn't matter, and you don't care.
Being in love though, it fucks you up. You don't come back from that. It changes your whole world. If you are one of the lucky ones, the ones who end up with the person they truly love... You are DAMN lucky. It doesn't happen for a lot of us. It leaves us... fucked up. That's really the only explanation there is. And you don't come back from it. You're never the same.
For me, it was the thought that I would always be alone. I was never really bitter. I watched good friends and family get engaged and then married and have families and I was never jealous of them regardless of how much I wished I had what they have. I just never thought it would happen for me, so I was simply happy for the people around me who it did happen for. And then it just changed.
All the good love stories happen the same way, right? They beat the odds, they overcome something incredible. For me it was simply being capable of loving another human being as much as I did. Never in my dreams could I imagine that feeling. Loving someone so completely that you understand every part of them. Having so much in common that a single glance tells you everything you need to know about how the other person is feeling. Being fully, 100%, head over heels, IN LOVE with someone.
I tried, hard, to get over it. I was in denial for a very long time. I ignored it. I pushed it away. I acted like it wasn't happening. And then I was mad. I was angry. And I pretended like I couldn't care less. And then one night it hit me. It hit me that I missed this person who was never coming back. The one person I thought I would spend my life with. And I would never know anything about him again. Just... gone. Just like that.
'Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.'
...I sincerely disagree.