Learning to Love

There came a point where I realized all the ways I had been running from love. And all the ways I had obsessed over it the second my heart opened. Either I was too detached, rational and emotionally closed off, or too attached, dreamy and completely consumed by it. There was never really a middle ground. 

That’s not healthy, is it? Both extremes still signal to life that I don’t fully know how to love in a grounded, healthy way. 

I’m obviously not going to receive the kind of love I dream of only to repeat the same cycles again. That chapter of my life feels closed now. We’re apparently doing everything differently this time, from scratch. Which is honestly disorienting. It feels very “The Fool” and “The Sun” with a hint of “The Star.” If you know Tarot, you know exactly what I mean. 

So I started asking myself: how do we open our hearts to love without getting lost in it? How do we allow intimacy without disappearing into fantasy, over-giving, projection and the endless hopeless romantic spiral that ends up hurting more than reality itself? 

I have always felt split between two versions of myself. 

One is the hopeless romantic fairy with sparkly doe eyes who wants soul-level love, eternity, poetry, destiny and emotional merging. 

The other is detached, hyper-rational, emotionally guarded, uncomfortable with vulnerability, needing space and solitude, trying to control emotions, situations and outcomes before they can become overwhelming. 

For a long time, I thought inner union meant choosing one side or perfectly balancing the two. And in many ways, I have balanced them. But apparently, love was the final lesson. 

The truth is, both sides were fear responses in different disguises. One side escaped into fantasy and emotional intensity. The other escaped into detachment and control. 

And somewhere in between those extremes, I found the actual lesson: 

“I can feel someone deeply without losing myself in them.” 

That sentence changed everything for me. 

I realized healing wasn’t about becoming less sensitive, less intuitive or less romantic. It wasn’t about killing the dreamy, spiritual, deeply feeling parts of myself. Those parts are beautiful. 

The real lesson was learning to pair them with grounding. 

To pair intuition with discernment. Sensitivity with boundaries. Romantic depth with self-respect. Spiritual connection with reality. An open heart with emotional regulation. 

To stop confusing chaos with depth. To stop romanticizing inconsistency, ambiguity and emotional suffering as signs of “real love.” 

Because real love is not losing yourself in another person. It’s being fully yourself while loving them deeply. 

And honestly? It’s easier said than done. Especially when you’re naturally wired toward fantasy, longing and intensity. But I genuinely believe everything can be rewired with awareness and practice. 

Maybe balance was never about becoming half-dreamer and half-logician. 

Maybe it was about learning how to keep my heart open without getting lost in the process.