Everything happens for a reason.

So I finally did it. I told the guy of my ‘dreams’ how I felt about him and guess what? The feelings were not reciprocated. Yes, boo hoo-hoo, yah di dah di dah.

Aside from collapsing onto the floor with a tear or two rolling down my freshly powdered Bare Minerals cheek, I’m now “F.I.N.E”, no not ‘feeling insecure neurotic and emotional’, fine as in ‘feelings inside now expressed’.

After 4 years of wondering about the possibility of a relationship with ‘him’, I finally decided that there was only one thing more painful than rejection itself and that is looking at myself day after day wondering ‘What if?’. As a girl who hangs around with mainly guys, I have constantly been warned that confessions of the heart are a big ‘NO, NO’, so I followed this advice, but then realised that trying to suppress how I really felt was like working a 24-hour shift that I wasn’t getting paid overtime for. I also realised that as a girl, there’s only so much guy advice you can take concerning matters of the heart before you end up just doing what a girl does best, which usually starts with the infamous, ‘we need to talk’.

To tell someone you like them is more than just the literal ‘I like you’. It’s the build-up and momentum leading towards it. The whole idea of making yourself completely vulnerable for a moment in time, opening your heart, mind, body and soul to the possibility of ridicule, rejection, embarrassment and in some cases doing more psychological damage to yourself than Bambi’s mother getting shot did to four year old Penny.

I often convinced myself it’s better not to say anything at all – this was pride talk, which admittedly I can do an awful lot of when it comes to guys, relationships and love.

So we talked and I told him the truth (probably not in the most articulate manner), yes it’s harder than it looks – I won’t lie. Now it’s done. Just like that. And strangely enough, I couldn’t feel more free. Yes, I didn’t experience the exhilarating thrill of being told ‘I feel the same way about you too.’, but for once in my life, like Ariel, Mulan, Pocahontas, Bell and Princess Tiana, I was simply true to my heart and this is the most liberating experience in the world.

So the outcome of my four year overdue confession is clarity, I now know exactly where I stand and I can stop asking myself, why? What if or maybe? Although rejection may hurt, this particular circumstance has enabled me to see how the fear of vulnerability can stop you from chasing what you really want in life. I’m not saying you need to chase every Tom, Dick and Harry (there’s a certain classiness in being pursued), however four years of pretending to settle, when I couldn’t have felt more unsettled than Road Runner himself is just beyond unacceptable and the scary thing about this is that people settle every day, whether it’s to do with love, a job, opportunities and even their dream. So don’t settle ever, especially because of fear.

But wait, I haven’t told you the best part of my confession, his reason for not entertaining the idea of a relationship was ‘You don’t actually need me’, and you know what? This was music to my ears, because I knew he was right. I didn’t need him, and funnily enough my head knew this all along, it’s just that my heart is taking a while to catch up. Silencing it for four years didn’t exactly help either, but I believe that time is a healer and truth is, pain is pain but who’s to say it will last forever?

(C0ver photo via tumblr)