Unrequited Love by Mimi Mwiya

I’ve heard it said that the oppressed make the worst oppressors. 

 

I never ever thought the day would come when I thought of myself as an oppressor, and yet, here we are. 

 

Ten years. That’s how long it took to season what may have been my greatest love. 

 

I didn’t fall in love with him… I grew in love with him, which I think is a dangerous kind of way to love, because it’s a love that is near-impossible to uproot.

He liked me. And, while I enjoyed the attention of him liking me, I was too busy growing in love with him to truly like him back. I loved him; he didn’t love me back. He liked me in that way that boys sometimes like girls: for their pretty faces and the way they smile. He didn’t have the time to grow in love with my soul like I was trying to grow in love with his.

I loved him, I eventually learned to be happy just loving him, and I badly wanted him to love me, too. I convinced myself that if only I just kept on loving him, he would eventually see how no one could possibly love him like that and he would then come to love me, too.

Except, love doesn’t quite work that way. For starters, no matter the intensity of your feelings for someone, it’s quite laughable to think that only you could feel that intensely. Second, while your actions could possibly have an influence, your feelings for someone have absolutely no bearing on how that person feels about you if it doesn’t come from them. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, the least you’ll get is gratitude. 

I loved him, intensely. 

 

On the best of days, he barely tolerated me. I then came to realise that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t make him love me, so I gave up trying. He didn’t love me, I had made my peace with it, I wish that meant that I would stop loving him, but I didn’t, I kept on loving him.

Actually, no, I do not wish I had stopped loving him as soon as I realised he would never love me back, because that would make my love rather fickle, and I can’t bear to think of myself as someone whose affection is fickle.  

 

He taught me to love. Without reservation, without expectation...to just love. I loved him despite myself, I loved him in spite of himself, and I loved him beyond reason. I was grateful how this experience had taught me how to love. I didn’t for one second think it had or would ever have an influence on whether or not I knew how to be loved. 

All that love for the man who didn’t love me back meant I never got to prepare for the man who loved me just as much as I had loved. What this meant was, I now found, when love was given to me as freely and abundantly as I had given it to my unrequited love, I didn’t quite know how to receive it. That I knew what it felt like to have loved so desperately, one would have thought I’d know how to reciprocate when I was in the position of the one loved. But no,I have hurt some wonderful people because I felt they loved me too much. Me, who had believed there could never be such a thing as too much love, felt I couldn’t breathe, because someone thought the world of me. Me, who knew how easy it was to think the world of someone...but also how difficult it was. 

I had learned how to give love, even when it wasn’t wanted, but not how to receive it. I had instead learned how to tell love it wasn’t wanted, I had instead learned how to tell it, that it, love, was too much. I had come to believe I was difficult to love, therefore something must be wrong with someone who loves me too much, too effortlessly. Because my love had been rejected, I rejected love when it was given me.

My greatest lesson in love has been nothing but a ‘hopefully’; hopefully, someday he’ll see I’m the one, the one who has always loved him, and hopefully, someday I can be the one he always loves. My greatest lesson in love has been that I am capable of giving of myself, even when I had absolutely nothing left to give. My greatest lesson in love, has been one I was unable to show to myself, because I see now, that to truly know love, is to allow oneself to be loved.

I understand now, that while it is quite possible to love everyone who loves you (because love begets love), it is not possible to match the intensity of everyone’s love, in the same way everyone you love cannot match the intensity of your love. I wish I could say my reflection has brought me answers. I wish I could say, with certainty, what you are supposed to do when someone loves you just a little too much, but I cannot. 

All I can say is that I have gone from someone who was hurt because she loved someone who wished she didn’t, wouldn’t love him, to someone who wished someone else didn’t, wouldn’t love her. 

The oppressed make the worst oppressors? I don’t think we ever truly know better. The best we can hope for, is learn and strive to do better. We hope to be better than the people who hurt us and not hurt others, but we realise it’s easier to keep from hurting people, when there is no one putting his or her heart out, taking the risk of you hurting them, enduring pain, in the same way you did, because like you, they have loved. 

Because like you, they have chosen to hold on, for a lifetime, to a love that was meant to be for a season.

About the writer

Mimi Mwiya, 27, works as an administrative officer at a non-governmental organisation in Windhoek, Namibia. She writes about her life experiences in her spare time. Mimi is a new and budding Namibian writer. If you want to give her encouragement to continue writing after reading the story above, please comment in the section below or e-mail bookbuddynamibia@gmail.com .