What Unattainable Love Feels

Unattainable love was explained to me by a man, who even though we loved one another, we knew we were never to be together forever.

He was younger than I and he wanted children, I already had grown children and knew I moved on from that stage of my life.

As painful as it was, we couldn't help but fall in love with each other.

He wrote me this and I thought, this is exactly what this feels like.

"Unattainable love is like reaching into a rose bush to grab a beautiful rose, you know there are thorns and you know the thorns are gonna hurt you, yet you still do it.

You want that beautiful rose, no matter what the cost, no matter how bad you know it may hurt, you still go for it. The biggest lesson I've learned is what love truly feels, by grabbing that rose, I've learned that. I know I can’t have it. It wasn’t mine to pick to begin with. My time wasn’t right. That’s what my love for you feels like. It hurts but I want it anyway"

That is what unattainable love feels like, you know you are going to get hurt. You know it will never work out the way you wish it would. Yet your heart overrules your head, you charge ahead, forgetting the thorns that will tear you up.

Maybe you think you're going to get hurt anyway, so let's just go for it. Either way, we will end up hurt, let's just enjoy the moment. Not knowing that the more time you spend together, the more the thorns will stab into your heart.

There is a legend that comes to mind when I think about unattainable love. It's from one of my favorite movies about unattainable love, The Thorn Birds.

It's about a bird which sings just once in its life, more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. From the moment it leaves the nest it searches for a thorn tree, and does not rest until it has found one. Then, singing among the savage branches, it impales itself upon the longest, sharpest spine. And, dying, it rises above its own agony to out-carol the lark and the nightingale. One superlative song, existence the price. But the whole world stills to listen, and God in His heaven smiles. For the best is only bought at the cost of great pain... Or so says the legend.

Sometimes true love, love that is so pure, the best kind of unselfish love is only brought at the cost of great pain.

That is what we shared, that is what he was trying to say in his message to me.

Sometimes we meet a person for a lesson. His lesson was to know how to be loved without any expectations, to learn to compromise and to truly love someone even through your pain.

My lesson was that all men aren't the same. I learned my self-worth from him as he showed me how a real man should treat me. He showed me that I am able to open my heart again even after it was trampled on and that I can love unselfishly, putting someone's else feelings above my own.

These were lessons we both needed to learn and there was a reason we were brought together, no matter how painful the lessons were.

I will always look back on this relationship as one of my fondest as this was pure love. This was a love that overcame all obstacles, age, color, upbringing, this was a soul connection that passed it all.

We both knew this was not a forever thing. We were realistic from the go and yet we gave our all while we were in the moment God gave us.

Yes, it hurts but I would never wish it didn't happen, I wish him nothing but the best and know he will always hold that special place in my heart.

So today my friends, sometimes we can't help who we fall for, sometimes it is our souls that already know that person, that comes together again to teach us what we need to learn to move on. To give what we've learned to someone who is supposed to be here forever and not just for a lesson.

That my friends are the definition of unattainable love...

"Be the change you want to see"