Tender Duality

You ever want someone’s presence so badly that all you can do is cry? The kind of crying that makes your heart hurt so much it feels like your body can’t hold it. The kind where you try to breathe through it, but each breath comes out jagged …..like you’re popping up for air after a 100-foot free dive.

That’s what attachment feels like for me.

But I read somewhere that attachment isn’t love connection is.

And that made me pause.

Because the truth is, I think I hold both when it comes to her.

There’s the part of me that loves. The part that sees her humanity. The part that wants good things for her, even if I never get to see them. The part that feels grateful that our lives even crossed.

And then there’s the attached part. The one that aches when I think of her, that feels small and lost. The part that can’t quite find solid ground without her in the picture.

It’s confusing to hold both at once.

To love her enough to not reach out, even when every part of me wants to.

Maybe both can exist.

Maybe attachment is just love in its rawest, most frightened form.