Life hurts. People hurt us. We hurt ourselves.

For a long time, I kept to myself out of fear of being hurt. Sure, I had friends and even boyfriends, but I made sure to never let them get too close to me. Even to this day, I still (to some degree) live the life of a loner but I’ve definitely been much more conscious about being more open to others than I ever have in the past.

Today, however, it really bit me in the ass.

I had opened up to another person even though we had something going against us – a vast age difference. He was much younger than me. At first, it bothered me but after getting to know him, I gradually didn’t care about the age and only cared about the person. I thought he had felt the same way until I learned today that was not the case. And it hurt. I had exposed myself and thought I understood someone only to realize I didn’t. At all.

As I walked out of his life, I thought about the pain that comes from liking someone who decides not to like you back. How it’s enough to make you put that drawstring right back on your heart so that you don’t have to feel such pain because man, it stings like a bitch. But then, I stopped myself…

Yes, this whole trying to be open to people is hard enough on its own and then throw in someone else, who ends up hurting you, and man, you want to down a bottle of vodka, but I can’t help but be happy with myself for not pulling up that drawstring around my heart like I had so many times in the past.  All these things are so incredibly new to me that yes, I am dealing with pain that can bring tears to my eyes in seconds, but at least I’m dealing, putting myself out there, being vulnerable, not settling and searching for the gold.

Pain.

It hurts.

But would we know happiness without it?