Losing

I've always considered myself to be a loser. I guess that comes with the territory of being a nerd, which I definitely always have been. Hard not to be when one of your earliest memories is waking up Christmas morning and finding a PS1 under your tree, and even though you don't entirely know what that is or what it does, you just start to get excited. And when you see that it lets you control some of your favorite cartoon characters, and move them around on the screen, and making them do dumb and crazy things, well... That just kinda sticks with you for the rest of your life. And it kinda makes you a loser.

But it's almost funny how, even when you're a loser, you're afraid of losing. I have never been a gracious loser. Especially when I was younger, and I had a lot more anger management problems, I would lose in a game and literally physically assault the person who beat me. I never really saw a problem with that. It's amazing I had friends. Even more amazing that some of those friends I had back then are still around. But I learned how to play cheap, and win dirty, just so I wouldn't have to experience losing any more. But that just makes you lose out on opportunities to play.

When I got older, loss became more real. I started to lose some of the friends I made. I would tell myself that it was ok, that the friends I still had were the important ones, and that they meant more to me. And that's not really a lie. But I think I gave more credence to that line of thought than I really should have. While it made most people less important, it did make the ones who were important all the more so. Which makes losing those people far more terrifying.

Especially when you fall in love with one of them. I've been truly, madly in love twice in my life. One moreso than the other, granted, because that's kind of how it goes, but still. The first girl I loved, I loved for nearly six years. We had our problems, though. And with her, I felt what it was like to lose someone you love for the first time. And it was devastating. And then I lost her again. And then a third time. And it never got easier.

But after the third time, I found a second love. A stronger love. A love that pushed that first love aside, and made it less important, less vital to my existence. That second love consumed me, gave me purpose. But I had tasted the loss of love before, and the thought of losing this love became all the more terrifying.

So when the possibility of losing that love arrived on my doorstep again... I tried my hardest not to panic. "You've been through this before," I told myself. "You believe in love. If it wants to pull through, it will. It will stare down the hard times and the bad times, and it will come back stronger than ever." But the words didn't mean much. They weren't even much of a coping mechanism. They were just there to distract me.

It wasn't until I faced that possibility of loss head on... It hurt. I felt like I was being crushed. Pulled apart and crushed simultaneously, being dragged through a space that was too small for me until I arrived at a place that was too large for me to comprehend. But I had lost before. I had been at that massive space before. And I had tried to pretend that it wasn't there. Ignore it, as though that would help. But not this time. I faced that space, that cold and empty expanse. And as I faced it, scared and feeling as though I would be alone... I learned that it was perhaps not so bad. That if I persevered I could reach the other side of it. And that, perhaps there, the loss could be returned.

So I travel that space now. I face my fear. I will face loss, and I will do all that is in my power not to be consumed by it. And I can only believe now that I will overcome it. Because I know what will happen if I don't. And I'd rather not go down that path again.