Once upon a time I knew this woman. She was quite incredible, in fact some would say a wonder of a woman.

The thing about this woman was that she didn't quite believe in her own powers.

This presented a few problems for her and for building us. One was that she didn't believe in herself and those powers and another was that she didn't quite believe me when I would show and share how clearly I could see them.

And I understood where she created her disbelief - in her life her heart had been abused and lied to and used and disregarded. It was not treated like the jewel it is. Heck, she was not treated like the jewel she was, so she began to believe that maybe she wasn't one.

Even still, her radiance shone through without question.

So this woman had a fear of being all in because, well, because experience is a hell of a teacher and pain can be one hell of a motivator. So she played both sides and kept a foot out the door, "just in case".

That's where things began to fall apart.

You see, when one person is all the way in, anything but all in seems like, at best, a desire to get out. And even the strongest person can't stand in the face of being with someone who is continually looking for other options and fostering other options - options kept in part because her past conditioning. Other options kept just in case things don't work, or worse, in case things go as they have before.

Like I said? Even the strongest most confident person would only be able to endure that for so long and I am far from being that strongest or most confident person. I needed reciprocity. I needed all of her.

Days became weeks and weeks became months and months became years and through all this time nothing really changed. She kept her plans a secret, she kept her moves a secret and she kept her secret admirers a secret... well she tried.

I saw message after message of her back and forth and was told time after time of her lunch and dinner rendezvous. The thing is, I didn't care. Because I thought that it, like all things, would pass.

It didn't. And neither did her making plans with other people or building life for herself. And, oddly, the hurt began to grow and my drive to go above and beyond for this Queen began to subside. And, eventually, I simply had to leave in order to stay whole.

When I left she accused me of not wanting her physically anymore because she'd changed - not realizing that I was never attracted to her because of what her body, though banging, looked like.

I loved her soul. Truth be told, I still do. But love, sometimes, isn't enough. Especially when it isn't reciprocated.

An excerpt from "Learning To Love" by me, Mark Sparks.

Thanks for reading.
See you next time.
M.



www.MarkSparks.com
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