on loving someone who is broken

Have you ever fallen in love with someone and know that no matter what, no matter how epic this love may be, no matter how meant for each other you are, it will never be? Have you ever been so in love that you thought that you could pull through everything and beat the odds? Have you fallen in love so hard that you thought you were strong enough to put together all the broken pieces of him?

I have.

I have fallen in love with someone and knew right from the start that should we have a relationship, it would go nowhere. I have fallen in love with someone so hard and knew that I would fall flat on my face on the pavement, equally hard. I have fallen in love so deeply that even when the pieces of him would cut through me, I let it and simply watched myself bleed slowly to death.

I have loved someone broken. I still love someone who is broken.

Loving someone who's life is a mess is painful. You think that your love would be enough to help them sort everything but it's not. It never is. When you love someone who doesn't know what they want in life, who they need in life, and what direction they want to go to, it affects you. You don't notice it at first but it affects you. It breaks you bit by bit, piece by piece, little by little. You don't even feel it but its happening.

Loving someone who is conflicted messes with your head. Is it me? Is it her? If she is this, what am I? What am I really in your world? Am I Tinkerbell to your Peter Pan? Am I a filler? Am I the 20% that's missing from the 80% that you are getting from her? How can you miss me and yet miss her as well?

Loving someone who is broken will eventually break you. You think that you can put them together piece by piece but you can't. You only end up cutting yourself. It may be that you were able to put together the pieces of him that flew apart but in the process, you realize that as you were putting him together, you were slowly falling apart.

When you love someone who is broken, the best thing you can do for you and for him is to let each other go. You cannot love someone broken. They are still broken. There is nothing of them for you to love completely.

All you can do is to give them space to fix themselves and to heal on their own. They need to be able to find the broken pieces of them and put themselves together one piece at a time. They need to do this themselves no matter how much you want to help them. They need to be able to patch themselves up one by one and when they do, when they are fully healed, all you can pray for is that you are going to be a part of their future.

If you are, then that person can go ahead and find you. If you aren't, then hopefully, you have already moved on in life. No matter what happens, you need to let go. It will hurt but if you truly love this broken person, you will give them what they need the most: a chance to put themselves together on their own and most importantly, LOVE THEMSELVES and FORGIVE THEMSELVES.

After all, isn't that what love is about?