Losing A Forbidden Flower __top__

You only see them at their best: the co-worker laughing at a joke, the friend’s spouse being charming at a party, the brief, burning glances across a crowded room. Your brain fills in the gaps with perfection. You aren't losing a flawed human being; you are losing a deity.

Your brain has canonized this person. You must consciously de-canonize them. Take a piece of paper. Write down three annoying things about them. Did they chew loudly? Were they shallow? Were they unavailable? Force yourself to see the thorns on the stem. The flower was not perfect; you were just starving.

Look away from the fence. Look at the empty patch of dirt in front of you. That is your life—unplanted, un-watered, waiting. The forbidden flower is gone. Good. Now, you finally have the space to plant something that is actually yours. Losing A Forbidden Flower

This is known as . It is the grief for something that has no tangible shape. You cannot point to a photograph of the two of you on vacation. You cannot listen to "your song" (because you never had one). You are mourning a ghost.

Stop telling yourself, "I shouldn't feel this way." You lost a future. You lost a version of yourself that was happy. That is a real loss. Sit on the floor. Cry. Acknowledge that the flower was beautiful, even if it was poison. Denial will kill you; acceptance saves you. You only see them at their best: the

In the vast library of human emotion, grief is usually a straightforward, if painful, process. We grieve what we had. We mourn the loss of a spouse, a child, a job, or a home. There is a map for that journey; there are sympathy cards for that specific ache. But what happens when the thing you lost was never yours to begin with? What happens when you are forced to say goodbye to a "Forbidden Flower"?

Because you cannot act on your desire, your brain does not get the "reality testing" that normal relationships do. In a normal dating scenario, you eventually see your partner leave the toilet seat up, snore loudly, or forget your birthday. The illusion dies. But with a forbidden flower, you never get that. Your brain has canonized this person

By Elias Vanguard