Coward

-Walking away from a conversation that an attractive man was courageous enough to start out of thin air when it would have been so simple to keep talking to him.
-Averting my eyes when someone was bold enough to allow me to catch him staring at me.
-Settling for a pitiful and utterly unexpressive hug when I've been aching for months to tell a guy how amazing I thought he was.
-Pushing them all away because I'm afraid they'll lose interest the second they figure out where I'm going in the fall.
-Ducking out of the conversation when a prettier girl bats her eyes at the local hottie.
-Telling myself that I'll find him someday and then hiding away in my room instead of sticking myself out where he can actually meet me.

When it comes to my heart, I'm a little bit of a coward.

I don't think these are responses or emotions that are unique to me. Most, if not all, girls probably feel this way at some point or another. We go through a lot of pain and heartbreak, and it makes us reluctant to pry open our wounded hearts and try to let someone else in.

I've been thinking about this a lot recently. Most of the circumstances I just described have happened to me in the last week. That, combined with a lot of goodbyes as I prepare to leave Provo, has gotten me thinking a lot about what exactly I'm afraid of. And when you think about it, it's a little preposterous to be afraid of getting hurt, because that's the game we all know we're playing.

We're going to miss the mark until we hit it, you know? Until we find the right person, our romantic relationships will all end at some point. What hurts is not that they end, but that we want each one to be the right one. (Hopefully. Some people date purely for the fun and sport of it, but I'm not really that kind of person, so I don't relate to it very well.) When they aren't right, we feel let down.

Some people say you don't have anything to lose, because you'll just go back to being single, and that's right where you are right now. And you know what? Surprisingly, I agree with them. In fact, I think you gain, no matter how many times you "strike out" so to speak. The lessons you can take from every relationship (including the platonic ones) will last for the rest of your life, even if the relationship doesn't.

It's tough. So very tough to pick yourself up and try again. Much, much harder than the words "pick up and try again" suggest. It's more than that. Sometimes, there are broken hearts that need to be mended, or torn or shattered emotions that must be pieced back together before you can even start to pick yourself up off the ground. Trust me, I've been there. I know what it feels like to feel a physical pain from the emptiness left by someone who is no longer there. I know how it feels to cry yourself to sleep every night for weeks.

But courage isn't about not feeling pain. Rather, real courage is about embracing all of that emotion and recognizing that you dared to feel something, knowing you could get hurt. Then, you continue to feel. Every day. No matter how afraid you are, you keep allowing yourself to feel. The good. The bad. The unsettling. The triumph. The failure. All of it.

I call myself a coward, but perhaps that's a little harsh. I'm just re-learning the lesson, is all.