It’s only one of the seemingly infinite number of fatal flaws we possess, that somewhere, deep in the idling thoughts hinged within our minds, that we can actually fight our nature, change who we are or what we can accomplish, even how we feel. How often did he wish she never existed just so he’d be spared this pain? How many times did he try to forget he ever met her just so he could sleep in peace? To fight your nature is to damn yourself to the Inferno before even embarking on the journey of self-fulfillment. No one could even ponder a guess what went on inside that thick skull of his, perhaps he felt like Alice, stumbling down the rabbit hole in a makeshift classic Inception, or perhaps it was more likely that he identified with the Mad Hatter and his uncanny ability to hide his lunacy from those around him, sipping tea like some British noble.

He fought himself, denied his nature, trying to understand why he felt this way and what she seemed to symbolize in his disturbed psyche. But no matter how contemplative he became or how apparently attached to the idea of her as the chosen one in his ordained tale, he couldn't change how he felt, nor where his thoughts seemed to roam, he simply…became the self-aware consciousness of the thing-in-itself, of becoming. Although he was smart enough to know that this process didn't make any sense, you can never truly understand emotions, they're different sides of different coins, it’d be like trying to drive a goldfish. He started to loathe himself for abandoning his ideals and principles just like that for a minute material object such as another person, but he eventually grew to recognize her as transcendental and complex, rather than physical and meek.

He was afraid that things were not as they appeared and his fear was not misplaced, he would come to realize that he didn't actually love the idea of her—disregarding all her flaws and deluding himself that she was some angel he was meant to be with—but rather, that he loved her because she was flawed…. It was her imperfections that strengthened her character; her broken past that furthered her resolve, and although his past was worse than hers, he came to recognize her as the personification of his own identity, of his reward for the seemingly life of valor he proclaimed to live thitherto. She reflected his strengths, weaknesses, and character. He wondered whether his proceeding generations would realize how bravely he fought, how courageously he thought, or how passionately he loved.

They were no longer two—as in him and her, but one—as in them, becoming extensions of each other, rooting themselves in the other’s tree of life, but it was her that became, quite candidly, the clearest expression of who he was, and who he could become.

Pablo Picasso, 1907, Head of a Sleeping Woman (Study for Nude with Drapery), oil on canvas, 61.4 x 47.6 cm, The Museum of Modern Art, New York — Pablo Picasso, 1907, *Head of a Sleeping Woman (Study for Nude with Drapery)*, oil on canvas, 61.4 x 47.6 cm, The Museum of Modern Art, New York