Penance.

God...the way he looks at me sometimes. 

Like he's been in the dark, and I'm the sun. I can feel it, like he's touching me from across the room.

That cliche of everyone else in the room disappearing is real.  I can't hear or see anything but him in those moments. It makes me want to hold my breath and not make a sound just so we can stay in that hazy bubble for a few more precious seconds. I want to cross the room and bury myself in him. I want to scream my feelings for him out loud. The spell always breaks, however, inevitably and inadvertently, and when it does, the physical loss of it is...fuck.

I have it so bad. I knew it would happen, but not to this degree. I'm fully, wholly, incredibly in love with Mr. Jones. I say this with my whole chest, and without the influence of physical activity. I know without a doubt in me that I'm not alone in these feelings....and that, despite them, we won't progress to anything more beyond what we already are. A tragedy of epic proportions, indeed. 

I love him enough to not want to upend the life he had before me.  I knew what I was getting into, and the risks that came with it. I treasure and protect the pieces of him I do get, and am grateful for them. They're small, but significant.  I can take comfort in knowing that he loves me too, even though I know, one day I will need more... and that need will be my own punishment for falling for a married man. 

Still...the thought of how things would be if we had met in more favorable circumstances...I long for something I can only imagine, and almost can't stand how much it affects me. 

Timing never has been on my side.

I'm trying to continue to live my life as a single person. Dating, sex...finding love.  The latter is by far the most difficult; my heart isn't in it, neither is my head, and my efforts have been apathetic at best. It feels wrong, and I have no desire for someone else. Loving someone you can't have essentially forces you to settle for someone else...but doesn't that other person deserve more than the runner up spot? It wouldn't be my intention- in fact, my hope is that I find something comparable, and maybe my feelings for Jones will magically bleed over to Potential New Guy.  It could happen, right?

Even as I say this, half serious, I want to scrub the words out of my head for how wrong they feel.

This is my burden to carry now.  I did it to myself, and if it results in me ending up alone at the end of it all, then my Karmic debt would be repaid. Maybe it's what I deserve.