On letting go

Letting go can be the hardest thing to do. It is not an innate human
quality. We want to cling, to fight, in some cases die for our dreams.
But sometimes a dream is nothing but a dream - intangible, unrealistic,
even impossible. We've all been faced with the choice of letting go (as
some call it giving up) or holding on forever. We encounter human loss,
which we desperately try to ignore or rationalize and we encounter our
own physical, emotional and psychological human limitations. We come to
crossroads many times throughout our short human lives. To protect a
dream we deny ourselves information and motivation. Yet, deep down,
deep, deep down, we feel the truth of the situation, which is our
forthcoming failure. Perhaps failure is too negative, too strong of a
word. For if some dreams are unattainable from creation, then wouldn't
letting go be more of a success? If this is the case, how are we to
know which dreams are possible, which stars we should shoot for? When
does an aspiration become fantasy? Where is the Aristotelian line
between virtue of perseverance and vice of obstinacy?
I find myself now in such a quandary. It is no great question of life
or death. It is no loss of friend or family. It is merely a crush, a
crush on a boy. He is tall, somewhat arrogant and rather intelligent.
His intelligence is really what attracts me to him. He challenges my
own intellect and I like to think that I challenge his. Smart though he
may be, he lacks any direct or indirect knowledge of the opposite sex,
and this has proved hazardous to our tentative attempts beyond
friendship.
There are things that a man should just know, right? They know
everything in all the books. Hm, I sound as if I am the inexperienced,
attributing my own knowledge of the opposite sex to men. This is not so
much the case. I have had boyfriends. I have tapped the troubled waters
of relationships only to find pain and discomfort. My ex-boyfriends
have felt pain and I have felt considerable amounts of discomfort from
their pain. A few have cried when I decided that once again
relationship life was not worth living. Outwardly, I cried with them to
assuage their pain, assure them of their worth to me, but inwardly I
wanted to shake these boys, shake them until their eyes popped. I am
not worth such pain and I am not so wonderful. I am not and was never a
"good" girlfriend.
This rather plain fact to me has eluded all of my previous male
counterparts, but he, he is aware. I am "trouble" he says. Trouble.
What does that word all entail? More importantly is it a defining
attribute, one that I will never overcome? I've done my best. I've
tried to be good, but things have changed little. I want him and I
think he wants me, no I know he wants me, but things have yet to come
to fruition and I find myself doubting they ever will. That is why I
have come to my crossroads. Do I give up? Move on? Or do I keep
fighting, hoping, trying; do I keep dreaming? "To dream the impossible
dream" is not nearly as romantic or poetic out here in real life. It is
painful.