Unfulfilled love is the most romantic after all, isn’t it?

There’s a bittersweet notion to meeting the love of your life and knowing that many factors out there in the world are forcefully against the two of you. These days, a lot of people believe that the biggest achievement in life is buying a home, getting your dream job, having a glowing social life and in general simply making a great living.

However, I think that what we need to realise is that finding a person you want to spend every day with is the single greatest accomplishment a human being can achieve. Once that happens, everything else will feel like a lesser giant.

A young John Lennon was once asked by his teacher what he wanted to be when he grew up. He announced in his classroom that when he grew up, he wanted to be “happy”. It was clear that he did not understand the class assignment. What he did understand, however, was the goal to living a fulfilled life. Fulfilment in life comes from meaning. Meaning in life comes from love. But on some occasions, unfortunately, love does not conquer all. The sad truth is that timing in life makes all the difference.

The hardest thing about unfulfilled love is knowing that you were meant to be together, but your lives just weren’t aligned. The truth of the matter is that, when someone touches your heart in such a powerful way they will perpetually and unendingly always be there. The years can go by as you both shift your focus. Perhaps you get married to other people. You eventually live your life and learn to be happy without them, but deep down, no matter what you do you won’t stop loving them.

Life is not like the movies, the two that are meant to be won’t always be. Humans are more complex than that. They are emotionally multifaceted and understand that letting someone whom you love go is a painfully trying decision. You can’t say you haven’t tried letting go, because you both have. You both suffered. You both tried to stay away and you caved in.

You regularly try and use your logic. You look at the reasons to why you cannot be together and then you remember their kindness, you remember how happy their presence makes you. You remember that with them, any moment, no matter how small or simple has a tremendous amount of meaning. You love their drive and their ambition, you think about the way they smile when they greet you, or the sound of their laugh.

You appreciate their sense of humour and their energy, you love watching them closely as they hum to themselves or tie their shoelaces and you fall for them even more with every passing moment.

You can sense them trying to protect you from falling too deep. They sometimes pull away. You notice yourself brushing away feelings, and you both try and play it cool, so that you don’t say anything too emotive to each other in person. Your reason dictates that you need to back off and stop feeling the evident attachment. But during weak moments, you both admit that you simply just can’t.

You honestly ask yourself how you can imagine a life without them. You wonder how things will be in the future. It can’t be that hard, right? All you want is to eat burgers with them, ride in cars with them, go to the pool with them and fall asleep to the sound of their deep breathing.

You both agree that you’ve missed your mark, but life is a funny thing sometimes. You never know.