A Fighting Chance

This is filed under Lessons I’ve Learned in Love, yet I feel the need to express that I made an error when naming this category.  Lessons I’m Learning in Love would be the more accurate description because I have by no means arrived.  Still trying to understand some things, while grappling with others that only make me think that the more I think I know, circumstances invariably have a way of showing me I haven’t the slightest clue.  That being said I hope I haven’t misled anyone with the title of this post.  I really just wanted to talk about times in one’s life where you’ve fought for a relationship.  Be it a romantic one with someone who may not have necessarily felt the same way or even a friendship.

Someone approached me recently who seemed to be putting up a fight for our friendship, insisting that we pick up where we left off.  And while I’ll admit I was flattered, I was also saddened that I’ve never had the courage to do likewise.  My response was:

There are some people in my life that have walked away from me, and I let them even if I would have preferred that they stay.  I may have had tears in my eyes and a broken heart yet I let them go.  There are people I’ve walked away from; some I’m sure probably didn’t even deserve it (and I guess due to my unwillingness to put forth effort or even forgive it ended); then there are people that I pushed away that I’m sure probably still wonder til this day why (and sometimes there’s not even a reason, it just happens, lack of proximity, etc).  I’ve come to the point in my life where I don’t fight for people and relationships. I don’t know if it’s a good place to be or not.  What is messed up is that if someone doesn’t say anything to me I’ll just move on as if nothing.  Not that I don’t feel anything but I won’t allow myself to.  Yet at other moments I find myself frustrated because of it.  Frustrated because I don’t show the true nature of my feelings toward people.  Having said all of that, I recognize that as a problem (as it is a complaint of many people to me) that I just seeming cut people off completely.  And I’m learning that it’s a defense mechanism more than anything.

What do you guys think?  Are there any relationships in your life worth fighting for?  And under what conditions do you fight for one or just let it slip away?

What You Watching For?

They say watched pots never boil.  And although it is most applicable as a metaphor, things really do seem to take a longer time to cook when you’re eyeing it.  I can’t even begin to count how many times I’ve stirred a pot full of food on an empty stomach and it feeling like it took an eternity to finally be ready.   But this expression got me to thinking about how many other areas in our lives this concept applies to.   And the truth of the matter is that it’s all a matter of perspective.  In all actuality it takes the same amount of time to cook the same meal whether you’re hungry or full but your condition is going to color your perspective greatly and I’d argue that the same is true of relationships.

Why does it seem that the more you want a relationship, the longer it takes to finally come about?  The more you desire companionship, the further away all prospects seem to be?   I’ve come to learn that it’s the same principle as the watched pot, it always boils… eventually, just not as fast as we would have liked.  So what do we coin a new phrase?  Watched relationships never come to fruition.  Only they do, with time, they spring up from even the most deserted fields of singleness.  The seed of it had been hidden so deep underneath the parched surface it was almost impossible to believe it was there.  But it was and it does spring up when you least expect it. 

So what are you waiting for?  Get on with your life.  Enjoy it.  Single life is time you never get back once you take that plunge into the never-ending abyss of love, romance and coupledom.  Stop watching and waiting for life to start once you find a boo and start watering your life with new discoveries of you!  It’s only when you try to run on empty that you’re heightened to the emptiness that’s around you to distract you from the real emptiness that’s with in.

Time…..In

Took a little time out there for a minute. Amid the increasing demands on my life, i.e. school, work, and attempting to identify what my dreams are and to pursue one if not all them, kind of neglected the blog in the process.

*Sniff*
*Sniff*

I’m temporarily freezing my time out just to jot down a couple of things I’ve been thinking about since I’ve been away.

For starters I came to the conclusion that how one answers this question will reveal a great deal about what matters the most to you in your life. The question is: If you found out you would be allowed to do/accomplish ___________ but then the very next day you would die, what would you fill your blank in with? What would have to occur in your life for you to feel the ultimate sense of satisfaction that you could die the next day and feel accomplished or at peace?

An even deeper thought that stems from this is why then do we waste so much time, exhausting ourselves chasing after things (or people) that aren’t important enough to fill in our blanks. I realized that my answer to the above question very well could be:

1. To receive national acclaim for a literary contribution I’ve made or to make the New York Times Best sellers list
2. Launch my own successful magazine
3. Release one song that plays on the radio for years to come
4. Take an amazing photo that would be published in magazines worldwide
5. Design an article of clothing that becomes an instantaneous hit

Tings that didn’t make that list:

• Getting a boo
• Meeting the man of my dreams
• Getting married
• Having kids

Now don’t get me wrong, no disrespect to all who would choose to fill their blank in with that. Everyone is at different stages in their life and if that’s your blank than that’s cool. And I presume that that would be on my to do list at some point in time but for right now, I just didn’t make my Top Five. There’s a couple more important things I’d like to accomplish before that. What’s the first thing on your life’s agenda… maybe it’s time to take a time out from those things that didn’t make your Top Five. Perhaps if we didn’t spend too much time on the non-essentials, when we look back over what we’ve done with our time we won’t regret not using it more wisely. Now…identify what’s on your Top Five list and…time in!!!

Living La Vida… Boo-Less

I will attempt to provide a brief synopsis of the past couple of years of my “love” life, a chronicle of events that lead to me living la vida boo-less. I will probably not do a good job as I am condensing years of feelings, experiences and thoughts into an half hour summary, but here goes nothing….About four years ago I was convinced that I no longer wanted to be single. I was 20 and ready for love! With India Aire’s song, “Ready For Love” as my inspiration at the time, it was in heavy rotation on my CD player and it’s lyrics would almost indefinitely leave me in tears every time:

I am ready for love

Why are you hiding from me?

I’d quickly give all my freedom

To be held in your captivity

Indeed this song was written with me in mind, if not every song lyric, every strum of the guitar seemed to convey accurately, like nothing else could, the melody of my heart. I was young and while every one around me seemed to be enjoying a “boo-ed up” life, I was determined to leave many a lonely night behind me. Of course, I payed less attention to other of this same song’s lyrics such as the part that said:

Lately I’ve been thinking that

You’re (love that is) not ready for me

Maybe you think I need to learn maturity

They say watch what you ask for

‘Cause you may receive…

It’s only in retrospect that I can say that indeed I didn’t know the first thing about love and even the love I so desperately sought and professed to be ready for was rooted in selfishness. Love would have been right to hide from me a little while longer because I was not ready for it. Didn’t know how to recognize it, how to sacrifice for it, how it should be displayed and acceptably reciprocated. Desperation for a relationship, any relationship left me jumping at the first guy who made me laugh until it hurt, complimented me and whose company I enjoyed without even considering for a moment if we were compatible in any way. My mission was accomplished though, I was not boo-less any more. I had what I asked for…. a boo. By the time I realized the things that I had been blind to but were existent all along:

1. We had nothing in common and hence weren’t compatible
2. We weren’t on the same level intellectually
3. Our everyday normal conversations were non-existent because they were replaced with arguments over words taken out of context
4. I finally had a boo yet was still miserable

I was two years into the relationship, time had flew by more quickly than I intended it to and I was left wishing I had know sooner that:

1. I should have been just a tad more discriminatory with a man I decided to call boo
2. Jealousy will never mean true love
3. Just because a guy is great doesn’t necessarily mean he’s a great guy for you

I had a run in with a love from my teenage years when things really started to get almost unbearably rocky with my going-on-three-years-boo. He reminded me that there did exist a man who could be everything I wanted in a boo… or so it seemed.  He appeared to be everything my current boo was not and then some. He was my ticket to the love I had been ready for. I called it splits-ville with said boo and despite my desire to be single, I jumped at what I thought would be my chance at true love finally. Of course while I was operating under the notion that if you let a man go and he comes back to you he’s yours, he was operating by others, namely if you’ve never slept with a woman while you two were together, it’s a good idea to at least attempt to. Needless to say, it didn’t last very long….that was not the love I had sang about, cried about longed for or imagined.

Now I’m living la vida boo-less and I couldn’t be happier for the time to myself to grow, to mature and be extra careful with what I ask for in 2009!

Reservoir of Love

This year’s end is rapidly approaching and with that comes the inevitable reflections of a year gone by, coupled with hopes and prospects for a bright new year as it looms on the horizon.  And while this time of the year usually finds me deeply engrossed in reflective, retrospective thinking, this year, I’ve decided against it.  Not sure if that decision was made consciously or not but there seems to be an invisible barrier between me and being able to reflect on this past year as deeply as I should.   Maybe it’s for the better, but my suspension is that I really just don’t want to relive even for a moment some of the events that transpired.  Not that any thing painstakingly horrible happened but then again nothing extraordinarily amazing transpired either.  So I’m kind of in limbo.  I usually try to boil down my year into at least one profound statement of wisdom I’ve gathered with the conclusion of yet another year– this year all I’ve managed to conclude is that I’m as confused, undecided, and even more confused than I was last year– especially when it comes to love and relationships.  I’ll spare you the synopsis of my year in regards to love.  That’s mostly the part I’d rather not relive, LOL.    Of course this is all beside the point.  Digressing…..But I will say that I received a message from a boo from my past and while I try not to exploit my personal boo business on this page, I think the message is one that a lot of peeps can identify with. 

Nonetheless, I received a message that said something along these lines:

“It hurts me that you no longer love me the way you used to.  If you didn’t know I very much still love you but I don’t want to go on loving you, if you’ve moved on and are interested in someone other than me.”

And to that I had no response because it echoed my sentiments but just not in regards to the individual I received the message from.  Go figure!  But the notion of giving some one one last shot before you attempt to dry up the love reservoir you’ve maintained for them, is something I am sure many are familiar with and was the inspiration for this post.  While  some may criticize this person’s open transparent display of feeling, it’s something we may all have felt  and wanted to say to at least one person at some point in our lives but didn’t for whatever reason.  It’s honest.  What it signifies, at least to me, is that you want to love someone but that person is unwilling to receive that love.  And because you care so deeply for them (or managed to convince yourself that you do) you leave a spot for them open in your heart.  You reserve these feelings for them in the hopes that they’d be willing to receive them for what they are.  And just before you decide to pull the plug on this reserved love, you reveal it to them one last time because you really don’t want to let the water run dry.  But if there’s one thing I did learn, and am still having a hard time coming to grips with is, things usually never go the way you planned for them to.  It’s a true statement that you can lead a horse to water but that you can’t make them drink it.  And it is also true that you can lead someone to the reservoir of love you have for them but you can’t make them accept, appreciate or receive it. 

To Love, or Not To Love

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

I’m so glad to be back!

[cheers and applause]

Hope you didn’t miss me too much. What’s that? Didn’t even notice I’ve been away for nearly three weeks?? Well I’ll have you know that many a devout reader of my blog has been extremely disappointed to see that I have not posted anything in almost three weeks….. right?

[sound of crickets]

Okay so maybe not, but nonetheless, here goes nothing. The past couple of weeks have been filled with many time wasting activities namely work, the gym, thinking, re-evaluations, and more thinking. And one of the many thoughts that ran through my mind was the saying we’ve probably all heard millions of times over– it’s better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all. That is the question. And I guess above all the questions I’ve been asking myself as of late, is it really, is definitely one of them. And while I could have taken the time to research who penned that expression and what the circumstances were surrounding this assertion, I’d rather not. I’d much rather come to my own conclusions. And I’m going to say that whether or not one agrees or disagrees with this claim has largely to do with what the state of affairs is where his/her love life (or lack thereof) is concerned. Other factors that will effect ones response to this statement include: past and current experiences with love and ones interpretations and reflections of them as well. And assuming said expression only takes into account romantic love, sentiments may vary in regards to the validity of this expression depending upon a person’s perspective.

It’s better to have loved and lost

The person who says this is probably at peace with their past state of affairs where relationships are concerned, and they have favorable reflections. They have been intimately acquainted with what it means to have loved someone deeply, truly and wholeheartedly and they wouldn’t trade those set of experiences despite the pain of losing said boo for whatever reason. Perhaps this is the reflection of the mature mind. They have experienced love and loss and weighed the pros and cons of it all and have determined that the ends definitely justify the means and that even if that love ended in loss, it was worth while. This statement renders love a vital heartbeat in life and that life without it, is well devoid of… life. This is the person who understands that love and pain are often two sides of the same coin, inseparable entities, that can not be had one with out the other. But at what price is this lesson learned?

To never have loved at all…

The person who says this has probably either had some really rough encounters with “love” or takes one too many strolls down memory lane. This person would probably compare love to fire and will more than likely chalk love up to be a fire that they would much rather not get burned by. The beneficial warmth of that fire is not worth risking the horrendous burns one may encounter as a result of getting too close. Indeed this statement would almost unmistakeably be made out of deep pain, fear, bitterness and above all not releasing ones self from the memories of yesterday. But could you fault someone for doing this? I most certainly can’t blame them. In fact if we are all honest we can probably recall a time or two in our lives if we had been surveyed, we’d say without a doubt, it’s better to never have loved at all. The difference is, some people make temporary pit stops in that state, while others become permanent residents. I heard that much of life is not what happens but what you tell yourself happened

When love doesn’t end the way we’d hoped it would or expected it to, does the fault lie in the love or in our expectations? Does the notion of loving just for loves sake regardless of how it ends or doesn’t end exsist anymore? Did it ever? And are we even capable of that type of love?

To love or not to have loved, that is the question.

Broken Hearted Deaths

I was in a meeting at work last week and someone made reference to a famous actor [whose name I would have been able to insert here had I been paying attention] dying as a result of what this woman believed to be a broken heart. Obviously the meeting had taken an unexpected turn and veered off to some unrelated tangent for her to have said that. After all I work with middle school students at present. However, after the statement was made, I completely tuned out all subsequent discussion because I knew a new blog entry had been born, namely: Can people really die of a broken heart? I have heard of people suspecting it to be the case, especially when the elderly die. Be it as a result of a loss of a child, parent or a spouse, despite what the medical research and autopsy’s offer as possible causes of death, countless people are convinced of death due to broken hearts. I have never heard of this being the case with young people though, for obvious reasons I suppose, with all the vitality and resilience young people possess, it’d be hard to imagine that one could experience so much pain in 20 years of existence that would result in a death due to broken-hearted-ness. Or could it? I understand that that same pain expounded upon after 40 and 60 years, eventually takes a toll on one heart and I could see it leading to physical death. And while there are articles out there to support this, you will never find one that references the many people who have died from a broken heart and are still alive. And that’s because they have died in a different sense of the word.

Hoping not to get off to too much of a tangent myself, I think what was said in The Secret Life of Bees, can add some clarity to the above statement. I’ll spare you the movie review but will suffice it to say that it was awesome, and there was one line in particular from the movie that really stood out to me; and it was that in life people can start out one way but after life gets through with them they come out completely different. If I could rephrase that for the purposes of this entry it would be that people [for all intents and purposes] do start out one way in life: perhaps vibrant, loving, pure, trusting, honest. Let’s just say for arguments sake their approach toward love is sincere, open hearted and genuine but after having ones heart broken, their is some type of death, and there is some type of loss of these previously existent attributes. We know this. How many people have we known who were one way before “love got through with them” and then they have been stripped of everything that made them who they were, they are unrecognizable even. Maybe not in a physical sense but in personality and character. And while this may sound extreme, in our own lives I am sure there have been accounts of even us dying as a result of a broken heart. Dying to the notion of true love maybe, deaths of trust and sincerity.

Whatever the case, If we could record it, there are more deaths from broken hearts than we know. People die everyday, yet they live on. People who are dead emotionally, walking around entering new relationships with other dead people, or even worse, those who have yet to experience death from a broken heart. Walking wounded, most completely unaware of when they even died to begin with. Heart transplant anyone?

A Different Type of X-Y Factor

All men are the same. Wait, wait, wait…before you go preparing a three page response about how sexist of a statement that is, hear me out. And yes if a man were to say the same about women, I’d probably be offended and be drafting an entire rebuttal post in response to it. But let me qualify why I say this. There are certain things aside from a man’s physical makeup [which is the obvious] that make all men the same. And I’d like to submit that it is their genetic makeup, or the Y factor. There are certain character traits that are common to all men, certain behaviors, ways of processing information, ways of dealing with situations that can all be attributed to their Y chromosome. This is a scientific fact!!! Why else is it do you think that you can have a room full of different women, with a variety of personalities, various types of relationships with men from all different walks of life and they all have the same problems and complaints about these men. So, if I’m saying this, this perhaps pushes me into a corner where I’d also have to admit that the same can be said of women. And okay, I guess it’s true. I mean to some, this may not be new at all. But being boo-less gives you time to reflect on things and that is when you have your greatest epiphanies. Had I known this ahead of time, perhaps I would have approached some of my relationships a bit differently. When you are dating a man you think that the problems you have, the frustrations you experience, some character traits that you observe are unique to that one man but then you date someone else and you find that it is somehow all part of this universal male gene…that darned Y Chromosome. There are just some things that are present in all males, which could make the only culprit the Y Chromosomee. You begin to discover that the very things you faulted the previous man for, certainly are the things that you hadn’t expected to be present in the current boo, but surprise, surprise, there they are again. They are inescapable. The very things that may have contributed to break up with boo # 1, are staring you face to face in boo # 2. This could only mean one thing, whether you like it or not… it will be present in boos 3, 4 and 5 as well. Your options are to get used to it, understand it as best you can, not take it personally, or try to change some things that would require you to change the genetic makeup of the man altogether. In other words, it’s impossible. It all makes me want to apologize to the previous man. Like: Boo, those things I faulted you for… I’ve come to realize are completely beyond your control, are totally not your fault and can most definitely be chalked up to your y-chromosome. It’s embedded in your genetic makeup man and for that, how could I hold it against you. In fact if I were to hold it against you, I would have to hold it against all of the male species and that just would not be right. I understand a little better now why this preacher said at a wedding: there are some things that you two will never be able to see eye to eye on. Men and women have two very different predispositions. But it’s true that the same instruments that play so harmoniously in a band are the same instruments when played at the same time that that can also sound chaotic. Practice, dedication, patience, and flexibility make all the world of difference in the making of beautiful music together or the makings of discord…both in the world of music and in relationships.

Disillusionment

When you’re boo-less you have an awful amount of time to reflect on many things– namely, but not limited to, your experiences while you were “booed-up” [attached, in a relationship]. Of course while you can recount all the niceties of life with a boo, these reflections invariably include their share of negativity’s. There are times when these reflections are wrought with confusion, anger, remorse, resentment and disbelief. Other times they are laden with regret, tears, and sorrow. Obviously, perspectives of relationships and evaluations of people [boos] are subject to change dependent upon your emotional state and your relationship status. So here is a negative ranting of reflections on boo-loving, or life with a boo. So when the spell love has on you has worn off, this is relationships presented in a less favorable light…..

Relationships are tough. The fact that they assume so many different shapes, sizes and forms doesn’t help when trying to determine exactly who or what it is you are dealing with. You can proceed with caution and complete a thorough background check, inclusive of checking references, reading resumes on the person you call– or are considering calling– your boo, and it could all amount to absolutely nothing. You go to these great lengths to somehow ensure that things will be more secure and certain but you find out that there are no certainties….ever. Countless times we hear of these men who are leading double/secret lives unbeknown st to the women who are supposed to know them like the back of their hands. Instead the only hand the woman ever knows is the one that comes smacking her in the face, disillusioning her, as she’s left to deal with the reality called life that was going on while she slept in Never-Never-Land. But the truth of the matter is that a lot of women didn’t wind up in Never-Never-Land on their own. They followed the sound the fiddler of a boo they had played [and he played very well]. With such beautiful melodies, it’s almost impossible to even imagine that it could have been leading them into a trap. But before they know it, they are lured into a state of enchantment–convinced that they meant much more to the man than they ever did. Lauren Hill had a song, Forgive Them Father, where she said: They say nice things to gain their position, use your kindness as their ammunition and then shoot you down in the name of ambition. Could not have said it better myself.

The upside of being boo-less is the fact that you are free from the potential illusions of a boo. Any illusion-ment is completely self-inflicted. Boo-less-ness means there’s no one saying all the right things to strategically gain a position at the top of your list when in actuality you aren’t even a page in their book. While they are climbing the ranks of your heart, convincing you to fall for the supposed man of your dreams they present themselves to be, they are merely following a script. They carefully craft these heart-felt monologues where they profess your worth to them at the top of their lungs but when the stage production is over, their actions scream the complete opposite of their speeches. Actions don’t just speak louder than words, they scream. How do you know that you were enchanted? How could you possibly measure your worth to the boo? Do you measure it on the basis of their claims of your worth? Your interpretation of their claims or of their actions?

If nothing more boo-less-ness allows you to see things for what they really were, what they currently are and what you’d hope them to be, realistically speaking–disillusioned.