I really, really didn't want to write about my "personal life", like... my love life, but it feels dishonest for me to use this space to write openly and freely without including it.

Love is the greatest connection that I seem to be incapable of making. Relationships have been a huge struggle for me, my whole life. I've made and lost countless friends, and have attempted to love many women. There were only a few times where that "love" was reciprocated.

I've decided to write more openly about love in this blog because it's the thing I want most in life, and I think I've come to the understanding that my destiny might not include it. That feeling is soul crushing. But it's also useful.

Yesterday, I missed my habit of painting and writing daily. It goes along with those whole post, which will be long, but bear with me.

Yesterday was a snow day. The world here in SE Michigan shut down because there was snow. Not a lot of snow, but heavy snow. Like, the weight of it was impressive, not the amount of accumulation. It was a perfectly fitting day to receive the news that a woman whom I had met recently (like November last year), did not share the romantic feelings I had for her.

Last week we spent a lot of time together. Playing tennis, talking on the phone, sharing meals, and openly sharing our past. We had so much in common, like more so than I've ever shared with another person. She's an incredible tennis player, and we, as a doubles team played very well together, winning both matches we played on different days against 4.0 rated players.

The place I went to, the tennis club, to help me get well physically and mentally, then became a place where I found someone so seemly perfect for me that I couldn't have written a better script. She's into mindfulness and meditation, eats clean, sleeps early and rises early.

But in addition to the personal journey, she shares the identity journey as she happened to be an adopted Korean. Learning to live and love being Korean-American was a journey we could share.

I learned that she was a Libra, and that she was in essence "balance". The idea of finding balance is the focal point of my work and my life, and the scales of justice are the symbol for her sign.

The last time we spoke in person she asked me if I believed in soul mates, and in a very short period of time, I had come to the conclusion that I had found her. And it wasn't through my efforts, it was by chance (or destiny). She just became part of my life through me seeking to improve myself. We were on a similar journey.

But yesterday, she left me a video message informing me that her heart belonged to another man. It felt as if my chest was caving in, and my heart felt labored in its beating. The air became so dense that I found it hard to breathe. My body physically reacted to the news that I wasn't the man she desired.

I feel emotions deeply. And in the few romantic relationships I've been in, they've been so overwhelming that I could not control my actions. I barely knew this woman, and thought she might be the one. I felt like the weight of the snow, falling out side, was piling up on me, crushing my heart and soul.

So I took yesterday off to eat my feelings and shut out the world.

I feel like my life has been a tragic comedy. If God exists, and has a hand in how my life goes, I think God has a cruel sense of humor. It felt like God just decided to pull the plug on our relationship and went, "GOTCHA! Hahahahahaha".

It's so cruel because this time I wasn't looking. I wasn't trying to fall in love. I had tried that all of last year with the horrible experience that are dating apps. I was just minding my own business, working on becoming my best self. And then chaos.

Just when I start to feel I'm getting my bearings, something heart wrenching occurs.

I said early in this post I was trying to keep this stuff out of my blog. I wrote on paper last week about how I wanted to figure out how to love being alone, and then a few days later I thought my life was going to be shared with someone. Things changed in an instant, as they seem to always do in my life.

I can't take it. It's just too much. I want some routine. I want comfort. Some sort of stability.

But the thing I want most is love.

The realization I've come to, is that I don't think I can handle love. I'm so overly emotional, that I think I can't handle it. I legitimately become a crazy person, and my feelings take over. I give everything I possibly can to show my love, and hope to receive some sort of reciprocation with words or touch, but I'm just not good enough for the women I fall for.

I can't do it anymore. It really really fucks up my work. I shut down the world out when dating a woman ends. When we've had a fight my emotions suffocate me. I can't handle the emotions that overtake me when I'm in love.

So I think I truly need to focus on monk-ish behavior. I need to be celibate. To reject the temptations of the illusion that external forces will make me happy. No woman, object, or amount of success will make me happy. None of them will give my heart the comfort, happiness, and joy it desires.

Relying on others, or even worse, hoping others will provide for me something they cannot do has driven me absolutely crazy.

You know... I used to see a therapist. I used to talk to them about this stuff. Not sure if this is terrible or not, but I feel like this blog and whomever decides to read it will learn the things that I would only share with a therapist or a wife that I'll never have.

Because I have no one (and don't want anyone), I will share all of what I would with them, with this blog. Probably a terrible idea, but whatever. It doesn't matter if people judge me.

These experiences are mine, and they are real. And this is what I'm feeling today on 1.26.23.