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I wonder if people who are loved back by those they love know just how blessed they are, how really, really and truly and Heavenly blessed. Aside from that, because for me the point is really rather moot and I have always just kind of instinctively known I would never find mutual love, I also wonder if people who know they are loved by someone they do not love know just how hard that person is trying not to love them?

Maybe that makes no sense...in my state of mind right now and how I am feeling as I write, I doubt that it does. But what I wish I could explain with complete clarity is that the heart really does want what it wants and that there is no reasoning with it otherwise, only quietly retreating from anything it may want you to do...like telling that person how you feel (which is, of course, a big fat, resounding NO-NO thing to do)

My relationship with God has often been shaky because I have so often told myself He could just not love me because I am gay. But as I have come to truly and fully accept and know that I did not ask to feel this way and as I continue to pray every single day for my gayness to go away and it does not, I have understood one thing to be unshakably true: my being gay is not what makes me a bad person. My inability to let go of how I feel about someone who came along and unexpectedly and unknowingly sucker-punched my heart and so clearly does not feel the same is what makes me a bad person.

When one year becomes two and then two becomes three, with four well on its way...it so very much feels like the ship has really sailed on wondering just when you will get over this.

Just as I did not ask to be gay, I did not ask to feel the way I do about the person I do. There was a very short number of how many women I liked before I met who I have feelings for now and I do mean very short...as in you could count them on less than one hand. One thing that really gets to me about homophobia is how much of it centers on this mistaken and ignorant idea that being gay is about sex. I cannot speak for every lesbian, obviously, but I can speak for me and if my list of women I have had feelings for in my lifetime is very short, my list of who I have ever been with is non-existent...as in a big fat 0. I say this not to be sharing overly personal information or to be inappropriate, but because having the feelings for the woman I have feelings for is most definitely not about sex and it never will be about sex and not just because she is straight and happily married and very old-fashioned. I have always believed that you just cannot have sex without love, but that you can have love without sex and that, one-sided or not, love can be soul deep without any bodies ever being involved.

Maybe I am an asexual lesbian or maybe I am just 19th century and have the kind of heart and mind that just does not go "there" when it comes to love. My feelings for her, for the woman I am really worried I am totally in love with, completely skip anything involving the body and go straight for the heart. They are deeply embedded in my soul and I worry that is why I just cannot get over her and that I will care about her forever.

I will not lie that I have felt deeply happy when I have had the rare chance to get to hug her. But this is a soul-infused happiness and not a lust-one. Because we know each other in a setting that is friendly but does not necessarily make us friends I am extra guarded about sharing my affection, no matter that I think it is pure and coming from the heart and only wants the best for her, always.

Sometimes, the very best and the only thing you can do when you care about someone is pray to yourself, wish them well and keep quiet otherwise.

On the other hand, if you love someone and you know it is okay to tell them that and they not only will not get upset or uncomfortable but will gladly and warmly welcome you and your feelings, tell them every single day and consider yourself one of the very luckiest people on earth.

If you're like me, deeply caring about someone and totally alone in that caring, well...I know this is not much comfort, but know you are not alone and that there are more of us out there in the world than you might think...alone together in our unrequited feelings.