In order to put myself in her shoes, I exchanged our names in my mind.  I traded hearts with her.  I called the unhappy soul whose fate I pondered her.  Of course, I already knew I wasn't capable of loving anyone passionately.  However, perhaps I was capable of loving hopelessly, capable of a love that didn't depend on me alone, but that fed off the resistance it sought to break down, that was ignited by the indifference of another, a love that literally had to be enough for two: for the one who didn't love, and who therefore was in no way bound by love and for the love of the one who did love, but would always be striving toward an unreachable goal.
It seemed to me you couldn't ask more from life than this: to be capable of such a grand passion.  I no longer mourned for  her.  I envied her.  Perhaps, like me, she hadn't known how to love; perhaps, like me, she hadn't known how to love; perhaps, like me, she hadn't known how to be happy.  However, she'd certainly known how to be unspeakably, unbearably, boundlessly unhappy.

from "am i a redundant human being" by Mela Hartwig