RAMBLINGS

Is Two out of Three Enough?

You can spend all night talking to him, when you are spending all day trying to convince yourself that you just need another day or just one more night, before you can at last, tick off number three on your checklist. You tell yourself that it will happen, you will find your number three and that you are only moments away from adding that one final tick. That one last much-wanted, much-needed, and much sought-after blot. The one mark you start wondering if it would make any difference at all, and you stop thinking you really need. The one you can perhaps, live without, forever.

You want him √

You need him √

You love him ✘

But, from the innermost gist of you, you begin to realize that there is just no way at all, that you will ever love him, and there is not much else that could ever change the way you feel. You try not to be sad when you reassure yourself that you’ve tried all you conceivably could, to tick-off that one last checkbox. You hold on to your two-out-of-three’er, and zealously convince yourself that you’re not doing too badly. Each day, you wake up searching for number three in his voice, in the way he touches you, the way he gazes at you, the way he walks up to you, and holds you in his arms. You know that number three has to be in there somewhere, and so tonight, when you turn out the lights, you stare blankly at the ceiling, praying for number three to show up soon.

But, into the very core of you, you know that there’s just nothing more left to hunt or pursue, and there’s not much more you can say about that one final checkbox. It has gotten as good as it will ever get. You try to show how passionately you want him and how feverishly you need him, but after a while, you can no longer find the words to excuse the missing third, and final tick. The most significant of them all, love. You want love. You are owed love. Then, you question that missing link and how crucial it might be to your two-out-of-three’er. You know that if you walk away from your two-out-of-three-someone, there is more than likely, not another two’er out there for you. There might be a one’er somewhere, but not likely, another two’er.

There will certainly nowhere else be, another three-out-of-three’er, a perfectly ticked checklist. There will never be a three-out-of-three’er for you, again. Can you lie? Can you tell him he is your three’er? Will he settle for his rating if he knew he was only your two’er?

Because, to your once-upon-a-time “three-out-of-three’er,” you were only a two-out-of-three’er. You were once wanted and needed, but there was just no way he could ever tick-off that one last checkbox either. He could not make you his three-out-of-three’er. The most significant of them all, love. And when the nights are long and stormy, when the days are lonely and noisy, you want to be someone’s three’er. You need to be someone’s three’er. You want to love your three’er and you want your three’er to love you back. You don’t want to be a two’er. You were never prepared to settle as someone’s two’er.

And just then, it becomes that one mark you stop thinking you really need. The one you can perhaps, live without, forever. Is two out of three enough?

With love,

Alice VL

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