Confronting Reality
“Do you think we’ll work out? Tell me honestly.
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Now, I see a boy whom I adore, one whose gentle spirit and kind eyes make my world open up and my own eyes shine brighter. I see a brilliant mind and a kindred soul and someone who teases me just the right amount – enough so I know that he doesn’t take me or love too seriously, but not so much that I ever doubt he adores me too. I see someone whose strengths perfectly complement my own and who knows all my shortcomings but loves me anyway. I know the whole world says we won’t work out, and I know that the experienced world is probably right, but all of this knowing can’t stop me from desperately wanting it to be wrong and us to be right.
“I don’t know.” I say, finally responding to his question, but the lack of acknowledgment tells me he’s already drifted away. I stay up, pondering, and I decide that in a way we already have worked out. We’ve been there for each other through ups and downs and taught each other how to love – what more can we ask for at this point? And for as long as we both want to work out, exploration be damned. I’ll handle the changing and the growing apart when and if it comes. World, come at us. We probably won’t be the couple to prove you wrong, but we’ll have a damn good time trying.
(For full article, by By Elaine Greckknorth)
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If You Know Enough About A Person, Everything Will Remind You Of Them
These associations used to make me smile and go all warm and tingly inside until the next time I saw you. Then we’d hang out and we’d talk about some more irrelevant nonsense, and my brain would make more associations and I would think about you some more. But that was when I was happy. That was when I was glad I knew you. That was when you were a positive force in my life and not something that makes my heart ache at the very thought, the sound of your voice, the flash of your name appearing on my phone screen.
Now the happiness is gone. You’re no longer here, but the associations persist. I spent enough time with you to know everything you like and don’t like, the places you go, the music you listen to, the things you would say in most situations. I know, and I remember, because I never forget.
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But how do I forget, when it’s impossible to forget? The truth is that I can’t, or maybe I just won’t. From joy to memories and pain, you are a part of who I am. So much of the person that I’ve become is based on your influence. And the thing is, I mostly like the person I am right now. So why would I want to regress to my pre-knowing-you state? The answer is that I don’t. The solution is to reach a new level of comfort without you, where I can consider what we used to be as nothing but happy memories that changed me. When I can think of you without hurting, that will be when I won’t feel bad about thinking of you.
(For full article, by Meredith Murphy)
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The Past Is The Past So Why Can’t You Move On? by Kim Retuta Reyes
You go back to your high school and you suddenly see a very familiar face; you’ve memorized the lines on his face, his dimples, especially his smile. It’s warm but deceiving as usual. The truth is he cheated on you. Did he? Maybe not because it never became you and him anyway. But you see him, and the memories come back. Why so bitter? They say that past is past.
People say that ex-lovers never really forget each other. Others say that two people, after being in love, can remain friends either because they are still in love with each other or they never really were in the first place. But if you can’t stay as friends, I guess it’s either bitterness, or indifference.
If you were asked to choose between the two: bitterness or indifference, perhaps you would choose the latter. Normally you would. Nobody wants to feel stressed anyway because of resentment. But let me tell you this, you can never really feel indifferent towards a person if you have never felt full acrimony towards him/ her. You get bitter and then you get indifferent.
So how do you become bitter so that you can become indifferent? I say remember him now. Don’t force yourself to but each time he comes in to your mind, just let it be. Try to remember all the happy moments and all the hurtful ones. Let’s face it, there’s no real forgetting, just forgiving. Let yourself remember him and all those times you spent together, no matter how little. The more you try to push the thoughts away, it just gets harder. If remembering is hard for you, give yourself a reason to. Maybe you keep on remembering something because there is one thing in the past that you need to understand, and you haven’t since you refuse to recall.
Once you’ve started to remember, you might feel hurt. It’s fine, it’s natural. Or you may find the memories childish and just plain funny, then it’s better. But if it’s just bitterness, then just feel it. Donald Walters once said, you will have peace not by running away from your problems but by confronting them courageously. If a chance comes that you can talk to him, then do so. This way, you will know how you really feel towards that person. After remembering and maybe after facing him, then you can move on. The memories will just play in your mind but you’ll be surprised that they no longer mean so much to you as they have before. Eventually, you will realize that they’re just memories, nothing else. You’ll see that you have so much around you; people who actually care, and who actually love you. And so, you think of him less. Then you get it: the feeling of indifference towards that person. You can move on.
Some of you may say that indifference is too much since that person was a part of your life. If that’s what you think, then choose forgiveness. But remember, the only moment you could finally say that you have forgiven someone is when you remember all the memories, the bitter ones and the sweet, yet you feel no anger, no hurt, and no bitterness. You just smile to yourself and say, “Those were the times; WERE the times.”
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Love Is A Choice: The Gutting Truth About What Real Love Looks Like
Love is soul work. Love can be met and joined with attraction and infatuation and all of that, but love will not fade when those things do. You can choose to close your heart to love, and run away, and avoid it for as long as you can in every way you can think of but if it was really, truly, the other-worldly, almost supernatural kind of love that we can only hope to be graced with at least once in this life experience, it will not leave you. You can love many people, but at the end of the day, the love you need to choose is the love that, even if you close your heart to, still moves you. The love you still write about. The love you can’t face. The love you’re still not okay with losing, that you’re angry about; the love that uprooted your life and contorted your being. The love you ran away from because it showed you who you are without the guise of worth given from someone else. This is love because these are all signs that you are closing your heart and to be doing so, there has to be something going through you for you to be able to close off. Real love will be the love you realize that remains even after you close your heart to it, because it sustains itself. It drives you forward. It brings up all the unhealed parts of you that you have to reconcile.
You can choose to love someone for the rest of your life… and it can be nearly anyone, really. You can open your heart and let anybody in if you choose to. We just usually don’t recognize that we’re doing it. But the trick is, comfortable, uninspiring love will not give you the kind of life you’re seeking. It’s not that it won’t make you happy. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with it. But it won’t be extraordinary. It isn’t filled with possibility. The truth is, the real “fairy tale” kind of love is the love that you keep coming back to even when whole swaths of you want to run away. If love is what you’re made of, the love you need to keep choosing is the love that fuels you, and makes more.
It’s time to stop choosing the love that’s easy and painless, and it’s time to start choosing the love that grounds us in the nitty-gritty-tragically-beautiful-emotionally-stoking-heart-shattering-life-changing-I met you and I just knew in that instant kind of experience. We need to choose this not in spite of the fact that it’s difficult, but for that reason exactly. I hope you do choose that. I hope you choose it today. I hope you stop being afraid of what you know to be inevitably true.
(For full article, by Brianna Wiest)
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