A different kind of love…

A different kind of love.

Hi. This is how I start all my conversations. It’s a pleasure to be allowed to write on behalf of a friend. She’s still looking for the genie with her writing mojo which is besides the point. Anyway, because I’m not one for small talk I’ll get to it.
I’m what most people term a ” sad person”, and I’d like to tell you a little story about my ” sadness”. It’s supposed to be a love story of sorts, only it’s not the kind regular people experience.
I met a girl, she was all the things I wanted. She was pretty, smart, happy-go-lucky, she was outgoing, and she sparked crazy in me everytime we were together. To say the least, I loved being in her company. She was a queen,and I had a kingdom just sitting next to her.
For a month we remained monstrous, and how could I ever feel sad again. It seemed impossible to me at the time. In fact,the thought was ludicrous,something you’d laugh at like it was a good joke or how you’d make fun of a particularly funny clown.
There can be happy ever afters for sad people too but this wasn’t one of those times, actually I think it happens when there’s a real blue moon. Well… it came to an end,I fell into another mood.
A mood for me is a sadness and a deep hurting feeling that I can’t ever explain. If you asked, I’d tell you that I did not know why I felt like this and certainly couldn’t explain how I feel to you. She asked, and she couldn’t understand. She couldn’t understand why I couldn’t snap out of it and think happy thoughts, and be happy. She believed I didn’t love her anymore and wondered how anyone could be so negative about anything! Then it got worse. I became needy, feeding on her happiness, having fits of paranoia and self-loathing. I needed her around,needed her there when I fell apart and I was falling apart more and more often.
Depression is not gender sensitive. You don’t determine when or why you cry or sulk. You can’t control when the pain floods every part of your body making you cringe and be oversensitive. You want to lay in bed and never have to get out. Pull all the shades and curl into ball and cry all the hurt away. You need to stand beneath a hot shower and let the tears roll down your face, just as hot and as fast as the water droplets hitting your body. You want to listen to sad sad music and drag yourself around and be alone and think back on all the things that hurt you the most.
Most importantly, as much as you want to be alone… you want that one person to be there, to hold you or cuddle up real close. To tell you you’re sad now but it’ll end no matter how long it may last. To understand that you feel like you need space,but that they’re a super huge part of your world and it would mean the world to you if they stayed.
Then there’s the cold, hard truth. The one we “sad” people come to realize sooner or later. That a needle in a haystack is so much easier to find than one person who really,truly understands.
I read an article on medium, I’m a writer there, about ” how to stop loving people with potential”. A person with potential is essentially a person who is brilliant but broken. A person with so much potential( forgive my use of the word to define the phrase), who happens to also have have a habit they cannot break that hinders their brilliance. A hamartia of sorts. One of these people is the sad person, and the article advocated for women, and by extension men, to seek out people who were fulfilled, or who were taking giant strides toward becoming and to stop loving people who were damaged- people with potential.
The article was right… and I understood that damaged people, cannot and should not expect normal people to support what we are or cope with our shortcomings. It’s like asking for a babysitter for an adult. That’s really not realistic, and it’s a lot to ask for from anyone.
But, as right as the writer was and as needy as we are, there are people strong enough to love us. People who can be to us what we ask, and not take advantage of our weakness and leave us worse than we aleady are. I’ve seen it and I believe in it. There’s a different kind of love, strong enough for two and as I finish writing this, I ask every sad person to never give up and stop looking. A needle can be found in a haystack and that one person can be found too.
To tell you that you’re strong even if you can’t see, how and that because you can love yourself even in your depression, you deserve to be loved by another and to love another just as much as anyone else. Never apologize for your sadness and apparent pride. I hope we all find an amazing happily ever after.

~Toluwa~