Self-Subterfuge, Success Saboteur.

It's hard.  It's hard for someone like me - someone with deep emotional wounds that are still healing... the scars so fresh I've got to be careful when I move lest they reopen - to let himself love again.  After so many years of pain... almost as a coping mechanism or a means to ease the pain, you sort of come to convince yourself that you deserve it.  That something you did... mistakes, transgressions; something you said... insults, hurtful things... either in this life or a past life... is causing this pain.  That it's karma, that it's just, that you deserve to suffer.  You convince yourself that it's okay to breeze through life eyes closed, never really investing yourself emotionally or otherwise because you know what you deserve and you know what you'll get... an enormous letdown.

It's hard to break out of these habits, even years after you've started bettering yourself and heading down the right path and improving your life.  It's hard to break away from ingrained attributes that you learned not just through repetition, but because you chose to... because you felt you had to, in order to survive.  And it's good to remember the past... to always be aware of what led you down the wrong path... to know the mistakes you made and never forget so that you'll never go through them again.

No, you should remember.  But you've got to let them go.  You've got to forgive yourself.  Especially when you're in love...  Not only do you deserve it (love, happiness, a good life), but your partner does, too.  It's not fair to them to force them to watch you go down that same well-trod path of pain and loneliness, making them wish the entire time they could take it all away... make you as happy as you make them, make you as happy as you deserve to be.  Because love isn't like other, lesser emotions.  It's strong, it's all encompassing, all consuming.  But it's also binding.  It connects you to your lover.  It attaches you... it welds you together so that not only do you never want to be apart from that person, you never really will.  Even if you sabotage yourself, and run from emotional success... convince yourself that it's not right and you don't deserve it so it will never work and why tear that great loving person down into your well/bottomless pit of anguish, they'll still be with you.

By trying to avoid hurting them and bringing them down you'll do just that.  Just because you want to run at times, that you're scared that you'll make the same mistakes... that things will just wind up bad because that's how things go (life sucks, then you die) doesn't mean she won't follow.  Your partner has no choice, but to follow.  Because just like you can't force love to start and you can't keep it from starting, you also can't force it to stop.  Once that dam cracks, the river's breaking through and you can never rebuild it.

Once you're in love, it's too late to run.  The only way to run would have been to never fall in love in the first place, never get close to anyone, never bond beyond simple acquaintances.  Because you can't keep it from happening and once it does no matter how far or how fast you run it's gonna stick with you.  It's gonna be by your side, it's gonna be in your heart, it's gonna be in your mind.  Love doesn't stop.  Real, god-honest love is eternal, everlasting.  By trying to deceive yourself into thinking you can run, thinking that what's best for your partner is to be as far away as possible... by trying to sabotage yourself and your own success... you're sabotaging hers.  And you don't want to do that...  You don't want to ruin your partner, you don't want to bring her down.

Now, even though love is everlasting/eternal... love can change/fade over time.  You love your partner now... but you don't know every last little detail/aspect about them, and people change.  They don't know every last itty bitty detail about him/herself, how can you?  Maybe in a few years you two will be forced into a situation that brings a change or brings a hidden quality (not purposely hidden) to the forefront... and you realize that this person wasn't quite who you thought they were.  And your love starts to fade.  Or die completely.  And you grow apart... you realize it's time to stop the relationship.  And that's okay.  That happens.  People change, people grow apart.  It's sad and you hope it never does because right now you always want to be with that person... but it's just a fact of life.  It might happen.

But if it does, at least you tried.  At least you gave it your honest, full, best fucking shot.  Maybe you'll stick with the person anyways, help them work what you're going through... and you'll learn to love the person they became just the same or love them even more for it (and they'll love you, too).  But a lot of couples don't do that, a lot of couples split at the sign of changes/trouble.  That's not for me, though.  If I'm in love, it's forever.  I'm sticking by my partner.  I can't run now, I never can.  Once you're already in love, it's too late to run.  Because you don't do that to someone.  But growing apart and drifting off after years of fun and happiness would be better than running before ever giving it a chance.  Better than sabotaging your happiness, better than sabotaging your partner's.

I love you, baby... and I'll never turn my back on you.  I'll never run.  And if I do, I know you'll drag my ass right back.  And if you run, I'll never stop chasing after.  I don't care if my knees give out and I'm coughing blood... I'll give everything for you.  I love you and I always will.  I won't go down without a fight and I'll never give up on us because WE deserve it.  WE both do.  I love myself and I love you, too... and the people I love are good people, I'll only love a good person.  And good people deserve to be happy.  We deserve to be happy together.  We WILL be happy together.  I won't rest until we're the happiest people that ever lived, and the happiest people that ever died... I know I'll be happy even while dying and even in death if it happens with you, in your arms.  I'm yours.  Forever and always.  I can't stop it, I can't end it and nothing either of us say or do can ever stop that.  I'll always love you.  Always.