Loving Until It Hurts and Not Turning Cynical

I was just having a conversation with Liz about how my continual running up against not-love has made me bitter and jaded.  Then I burst out laughing, because I was freaking lying.  The love story of my life is that I like someone and they don't like me back.  After twenty-five years of that crap, I thought I ought to be bitter and jaded, so I said I was.  But that isn't true.  All it takes is the fluttering beginnings of a new crush, and I am right back to gasping adoration and painfully hoping for a future.  My heart never seems to learn.  And I guess that's a good thing?  To hope, I mean.  That is the Christian story, that darkness leads to light, that death leads to life.  We are a people built on hope fulfilled and hope not yet accomplished.  So, it's good that I keep hoping for love.  But at the same time, it suuuucks.  And then I found a poem!

a tale about one single person

i wish this was the story of how i became bitter
cold-hearted
or evil

instead
it's the story of how i cared so much that it hurt
it hurt
it still does

(r.d.)

Since I'm also currently writing a paper on my Myers-Briggs personality type (INFJ), I can psychologically conclude that I am a classic F--I feel deeply and widely, and I am the absolute worst at turning off my emotions.  So I'll just have to keep living with this, I guess!