Can anyone tell me how long you wait before...

While I have never known how long to wait before swimming after eating, this isn't that question. I need for someone to tell me how long you wait for things to work out. Right now, I care for someone who doesn't see me. And I am forced to wonder will he never see me as I would like him to or do I just give it time, time to grow. I know I have written about this before but for other matters. It is just now I see myself getting hurt a lot faster than I did before. Or I fear the pain that I once thought would be manageable. When you have proven yourself to be a person who inflicts pain on themselves for sport, how do you know you are making the right decision when someone else may be hurting you emotionally? I want to be loved and cared for. And I see in this person so much and I hurt knowing it probably will not work. I have done so many horrible things in my life to ruin friendships, to destroy dreams, to lose family. This time, I want to be strong enough to let someone love me and to give a friendship the time it needs to become something beautiful and unforseen. But how long? I can't say I have lost my best years, because these have been some of the worst. But if this time now is to be my best years, will I end up thinking I wasted them on something that was in my head, for the sake of having something else to beat myself up over? To those of you who don't know me, you probably don't understand. But to those who have known the way my mind twists things around into something so complex it isn't understandable, help me now. Tell me how to be patient. Tell me how to breath. Tell me how to walk away. Tell me how to dream.