Aching

So, I'm a psychology major at a small liberal arts school in the middle-of-nowhere Tennessee. I recently fell in love with a woman who appreciates me for who I am. (how very Bridget Jones) She did not reciprocate my feelings, and I did not know why, until tonight.

You see, she has her eye on the goal. And the life she leads is this unwavering line that flows straight for that goal. She knows what she wants, whereas I am still defining those goals. I lack the steady hand to draw such a line.

A friendship where each party appreciates one another and values one another without expectation has never occured in my life, with exception to my soul brother back at the university. The fact that this girl is gay and therefore a potential 'mate,' for lack of a better word, caused me to misconstrue her honesty and good intentions. Now, maybe I'm delusional and neurotic and over-analytical in Freudian terms, but the fact that I misconstrued and illusioned to the point that I have really says something to me. It's a wake up call to my existence. I cannot keep doing this to myself.

I am gay. I am 22 years old. I do not have all the answers. I allow myself to get walked all over and I suppose to some extent, I seek out people romantically who will let me need them. I am not perfect. And one of my goals is to not feel guilt, but I do, probably most of the time.

I need to be single, probably for the rest of my life, in order to live that life to the fullest. I want to be able to say and feel what I want and need to whenever I want and need to. I want to get drunk and high and have conversations and not have regrets, ever. And for the past four months, I have been able to do that, and I have grown so much in the past four months--more so than in the two and a half years that preceded the last four months.

I recently took a Cognitive Psychology class at the university. The course was all about Consciousness and Unconsciousness. How the conscious portions of the being think they know everything and really what's going on is the unconscious portions are guiding the conscious portions and so therefore, we, as humans, will never be able to fully understand ourselves. Therefore, we require a community of individuals to help us along our path through life. We require this in order to obtain a full understanding of ourselves. My problem is that I'm alone, with no one to help guide me because a)I'm too stubborn and b)I'm a misconstruer and c)I think I know everything.

So, I am sad and alone and broke and broken and continue to be walked all over. And I don't really know what to do about that. But I feel that my friend, the one that I was in love with on my own, without reciprocity, can help me to find those answers. So my questions are these:

How and when do I go about cultivating that soulful relationship? and how do I say I'm sorry for my misconceptions without feeling ashamed for them? and how do I learn to love her as a friend without the pain of loss for what I thought could have been? and how do I convince my conscious self that this is true, because I know it is, I know that she's a valuable friend that I just happened to meet in a really sticky portion and in a really icky context of my life?