In my last blog entry almost a month ago, I began writing a story. I totally forgot about it, but got reminded of it today and became inspired to write the next part. If you didn't read my last entry, this one will be easier to understand if you read the entry previous to this one first!
Let me know what you think, this is once again a VERY ROUGH DRAFT so any critiques, editing are welcome... although no one reads this, so it's just me editing myself usually. That's ok. :)
Read on!
Part II
She had fled the restaurant with fists clenched and her heart about to bust from its seams. She left faint trails of tears alongside her quick sloppy footprints in the sand. By the time she sat down, Chloe had composed herself — tears were weakness. She had reached what to most was just a rocky inlet of sea, but to her became a sanctuary.
She threw her head in her hands and sat down, so absorbed in thought that the sharp rocks kneading into her delicate flesh failed to distract her or prompt her to move to the nearby sandy beach. The gargantuan waves crashing against the Earth coincided with the frantic storm going on inside of her mind, and part of her wanted to scream. She wanted to just scream as loudly as she could, scream out the pain, scream out the suffering, scream out the nights of loneliness and heartache, scream out all of the scars she thought she had allowed God to heal, yet this MAN—this Daniel character—brought flooding back to her.
She breathed in the fresh air and held it in her lungs for longer than she thought possible. When she finally let it out with a sigh, she felt a little calmer. She licked her dry lips, which were salty from the ocean lightly breathing its mist onto her pale face. This added an intense need to quench her thirst to the growing list of things currently eating away at her. She realized she was thirsty for more than water and also realized everything eating away at her were ghosts from the past that she had not properly dealt with nor thought about in so long. She had surrendered them to God, had felt healed around him. She knew for a fact that she had done SOMETHING right, because the closer she became to God, the more million of miles away she was removed from the wretchedness of her past. Had she let him do everything he wanted to do with her yet though? Did he want to teach her more? Mold her into an even different person than she had already become?
No — I am sick of learning! Chloe thought to herself. I have been willing to learn for so long, willing to change and willing to be criticized for my flaws and willing to be hurt time and time again to become the beautiful person I thought I had become. God, why? I do not want to learn or change anymore. I was happy! Let me go back to that!
The haunting images came back into her head, and each time they did, it was just as painful as the first time she had lived through it.
She remembered how his face reddened as he clenched his fist at her, causing her little 15-year-old body to retreat backwards in such fear, such disappointment. Someone she loved full-heartedly and could never lay a finger on was thinking of seriously hurting her. That thought alone hurt her sensitive heart enough to keep her crying for days. He turned and his muscles showed through his tight black shirt as he slammed his fist into the wall instead. It was a lot louder than she had thought it would be and she jumped back again as her eyes swelled with tears.
“Ian, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Please, calm down. I’m sorry.” He looked at her, his fit of anger unmoved by her sweet pleas. “I’m sorry, Ian. I love you so much! I didn’t mean to make you angry, this just isn’t what I had expected tonight, I’m sorry!” Something about this had triggered him to do what had always raced through his head, but he had never allowed himself to do. She was so pathetic and annoying tonight though, he thought she deserved it. He raised his hand, and shortly thereafter her tears flooded her face and her cheek stung incredibly. And that is the moment of her life where she really began to feel as if she were worthless. When he came back a few moments later speaking as if he lamented his actions and trying to console her, he pushed her into getting what had began the initial fight. Afraid of more physical injury, and somehow so sure she deserved this and that they were really in love—it was just a phase of their relationship—she allowed him to rip off the outfit she had painstakingly picked and saved up for. She allowed him to push her against the wall and hurt her repeatedly until he was fully satisfied.
Her heart ached when she thought of that young teenage girl she used to be. She wanted to go back and help that girl, to show her all the beauty that would come from it, to show her that even though life got worse during the years she spent with him, and although there would be more hurt to come, there was a light! There was a savior and there would be healing. But right now, she wasn’t even sure if she believed that. Although she had experienced it, although she knew what she had become, right now she didn’t know what to feel. In her heart of hearts, she knew she had to give Daniel a chance, but it was the last thing she wanted. Why not? Because even the closest of closes had broken her heart! Why would this carefree soul named Daniel be any different?
Part III
Back at the café, Daniel sat momentarily; he was flabbergasted. God, maybe you were wrong about this girl. He slowly started cleaning up the huge mess Chloe had left behind. For some reason, he felt that was very typical of her. As he began picking up those pieces, he realized her beautiful vintage necklace had fallen to the ground. He picked it up and ran his fingers over the gold heart-shaped locket, which made him think more of Chloe and the real heart that lay beneath that necklace.
Most people harden their hearts after being hurt. There is quite a grand difference between that and what Chloe had done. She had built a wall around hers. The difference was that one who hardens his or her heart has a very difficult time softening it, there is no easy reversal for that. But a wall could be broken down! It could be slowly chipped away at allowing to be revealed the tender beauty kept safe beneath those barriers. Had he already began to chip away at the bricks and mortar? Would he soon be allowed even a small glimpse of this stunning creatures inner beauty? He left a 20 Euro note on the table and ran out the door, realizing that he couldn’t continue chipping away at a heart when its owner was nowhere in site.
Chloe’s mind continued to race with horrible ugly thoughts of the men who had abused her and the friends who had stripped her and treated her just like those terrible men, the time she had spent hiding who she really was. And in this moment, the tears came so easily and so naturally for the first time since that 15-year-old girl had decided to never cry again and to never let anyone get close enough to hurt her like that again. And though they had hurt her, she had never let it show before — especially through tears!
She practically collapsed into the water at the gentle touch on her nape. She didn’t have to turn around, she knew who it was.
----------------------------------------------------
Not sure where it's going from here...!!! Eek!
19.3.09
The Beginning of a Long Short Story
I have been doing a TON of reading lately... and it finally helped inspire me today while I was on my plane from Boston to Kansas City.
I actually have a plot line figured out and characters and their development and personal growth blah blah... I'm betting this will be like a 5 or 6 part blog series!
Wow! I know my 0 readers are super excited! Anyway... Here goes...
This is really rough. Not even I have looked through it to edit any typos or run-on/awkward sentences... whateverrrrrr
Chapter 1
“So what about you?” He said, smiling mischievously, leaning in a little closer to her over the small café table that separated them. “You keep turning the conversation away from yourself.” She tried not to smile, tried not to act surprised. “Oh, I didn’t realize I was doing that…I was just so very curious about you.” She lied. She knew exactly what she was doing. She was so sick of revealing too much to anyone, especially a handsome young European with piercing dark eyes. All too many a time in the past she had learned the hard way that men like this — no, men in general — used this same language, these same gestures, all the same tactics to chase after one thing. And when they didn’t get what they wanted, they abandoned ship. Although she had surrendered to them all of her precious love, time, pride, dignity, money and anything else they may have demanded, it was never enough to make them stay. She’d rather stay elusive, never giving away enough to let them past the wall she had slowly begun to build around her repeatedly damaged heart. Maybe knowing nothing about her could make her more alluring, not that she really wanted that either. She had finally prepared herself for eternal solitude.
“I really want to know. If you are trying to play the elusive card, you’ve played it so well to the point where it's no longer too alluring.” Her plush lips parted flashing a slight, flirtatious smile. How did he know her strategy? Was he honestly interested in what she had to say? She tucked a piece of her soft blond hair behind her horribly tiny ears, and in these small few movements she revealed more of herself than she had in so long.
Oh, God! Oh, God! What am I doing? Don’t let him fool you, Chloe. God, get me out of here. Why did I agree to this?
“I’m not very interesting. No stories of the effects of communism on my family, no rich history, no royalty in my blood, nothing to capture your interest for long I’m sure, Daniel.”
What she was trying to say is, “You’re wasting your time on me, Daniel.” As much as she was determined to cover up all of her pain and act as if she were some impenetrable threshold, he could see straight through that. He wondered if she were starting to realize that. Good. He wanted to frighten her a little, break the stereotypes she had placed on every man based on the few poor examples of them she had known.
“I’m not leaving until you give me something.” He looked deep into her eyes with great intent. He could see his own dark irises reflected in hers — oh, they were so blue and so full of unimaginable sadness. Did she know that her elusiveness added to her heartache?
She was beginning to grow irritated. What does he want from me? She wasn’t used to being pursued in such a manner. He was a frequent visitor to gardens where she loved to sit and read. She needed this quiet time in nature with God after seven hours of teaching crazed pre-pubescent 12 and 13-year-olds. She was typically the only one there, and that’s what made the spot so appealing. Daniel changed all of that.
It was rare that anything moved Chloe to tears, but one particularly gloomy afternoon, when the world seemed hopeless and her female cycle was at just the right spot, a particular novel did manage to provoke some precipitation. Little drops of liquid embarrassment she thought. Her face turned red as Daniel walked up behind her and asked if she was prone to crying in public. If that was a pickup line, she was far from impressed. His presence at the gardens enraged her, but there was also something about him that was almost believable, something real and trustworthy. She knew how unlikely that was though from past experience, but he somehow convinced her to come with him for just one meal. He had asked her out for Vietnamese food, secretly her favorite, but she would never admit to him that they shared something in common. She reluctantly agreed. Men had used her enough in the past, she might as well get a free meal every now and then; cooking dinner for one every night over the past year had gotten old anyway.
So here they were, tucked away in this exotic ocean side café with rotting floorboards, but a beautiful aroma of ocean breeze and exotic spices filled the air.
“What do you want to know?” she asked, trying not to let her irritation show too much. “Anything! Well, nothing boring. I want to know who you are really. How did a beautiful American girl end up here in Málaga? What are you afraid of? What was the cause of your last real cry? What is the last thing you think of before you go to sleep? Where are you going? Tell me your hopes and dreams. What are your nightmares?”
Was this guy for real? What happened to, “Are you in school? What are you studying? How old are you? From where in the US do you come?” Those were questions she could handle, questions with only one answer, questions on which she could elaborate long enough to last over one meal if she had to, and questions she could answer without having to reveal who she really was, where and what she had really come from, and who or what she was now.
She didn’t laugh this time. She pursed her lips. Her mind ran wild trying to make a hasty decision. He saw the invisible walls she had built, and wasn’t going to let her hide behind them. Of course…she didn’t want to be alone forever, but she had herself and God, and her two close friends — and that had been good enough for now. God was easy. He loved unconditionally, and around him barriers were impossible. He knew it all no matter how hard she tried to hide. But MEN — tangible men — were a different story. Unconditional, monogamous loving relationships were something she thought even women nowadays didn’t believe in. Plus, there were few people who could handle Chloé’s truth.
“Daniel, I can’t do this. I don’t need you to pretend to care about my emotions to get something else from me. And even if you were genuinely interested in how I feel and what I have been through in life, I highly doubt what I have to say would add to whatever you found appealing enough about me to ask me to dinner.”
Her cheeks grew red hot as her heart throbbed within her chest. It was so incredibly hard for her to be so blunt, especially when a part of her just wanted to let everything out to someone, but no man was trustworthy enough.
Daniel had known Chloe would be a challenge, and that was part of the great appeal, but he had no idea just how much of a challenge this was going to be. And he continued to tell her this.
“So you just want a challenge? Someone whom it takes longer to crawl into their head and heart until they finally think you love them and then throw them off to the side like a dirty dishcloth a few weeks later simply for bragging rights?” She was absolutely frustrated and offended, and as she clumsily stood up to leave the restaurant post haste, she knocked over the entire rickety table sending rice and curry all over. She didn’t care. She’d already made a fool of herself; she might as well leave in typical Chloe style. She would have to find a new garden for reading, but that wouldn’t be so hard.
I actually have a plot line figured out and characters and their development and personal growth blah blah... I'm betting this will be like a 5 or 6 part blog series!
Wow! I know my 0 readers are super excited! Anyway... Here goes...
This is really rough. Not even I have looked through it to edit any typos or run-on/awkward sentences... whateverrrrrr
Chapter 1
“So what about you?” He said, smiling mischievously, leaning in a little closer to her over the small café table that separated them. “You keep turning the conversation away from yourself.” She tried not to smile, tried not to act surprised. “Oh, I didn’t realize I was doing that…I was just so very curious about you.” She lied. She knew exactly what she was doing. She was so sick of revealing too much to anyone, especially a handsome young European with piercing dark eyes. All too many a time in the past she had learned the hard way that men like this — no, men in general — used this same language, these same gestures, all the same tactics to chase after one thing. And when they didn’t get what they wanted, they abandoned ship. Although she had surrendered to them all of her precious love, time, pride, dignity, money and anything else they may have demanded, it was never enough to make them stay. She’d rather stay elusive, never giving away enough to let them past the wall she had slowly begun to build around her repeatedly damaged heart. Maybe knowing nothing about her could make her more alluring, not that she really wanted that either. She had finally prepared herself for eternal solitude.
“I really want to know. If you are trying to play the elusive card, you’ve played it so well to the point where it's no longer too alluring.” Her plush lips parted flashing a slight, flirtatious smile. How did he know her strategy? Was he honestly interested in what she had to say? She tucked a piece of her soft blond hair behind her horribly tiny ears, and in these small few movements she revealed more of herself than she had in so long.
Oh, God! Oh, God! What am I doing? Don’t let him fool you, Chloe. God, get me out of here. Why did I agree to this?
“I’m not very interesting. No stories of the effects of communism on my family, no rich history, no royalty in my blood, nothing to capture your interest for long I’m sure, Daniel.”
What she was trying to say is, “You’re wasting your time on me, Daniel.” As much as she was determined to cover up all of her pain and act as if she were some impenetrable threshold, he could see straight through that. He wondered if she were starting to realize that. Good. He wanted to frighten her a little, break the stereotypes she had placed on every man based on the few poor examples of them she had known.
“I’m not leaving until you give me something.” He looked deep into her eyes with great intent. He could see his own dark irises reflected in hers — oh, they were so blue and so full of unimaginable sadness. Did she know that her elusiveness added to her heartache?
She was beginning to grow irritated. What does he want from me? She wasn’t used to being pursued in such a manner. He was a frequent visitor to gardens where she loved to sit and read. She needed this quiet time in nature with God after seven hours of teaching crazed pre-pubescent 12 and 13-year-olds. She was typically the only one there, and that’s what made the spot so appealing. Daniel changed all of that.
It was rare that anything moved Chloe to tears, but one particularly gloomy afternoon, when the world seemed hopeless and her female cycle was at just the right spot, a particular novel did manage to provoke some precipitation. Little drops of liquid embarrassment she thought. Her face turned red as Daniel walked up behind her and asked if she was prone to crying in public. If that was a pickup line, she was far from impressed. His presence at the gardens enraged her, but there was also something about him that was almost believable, something real and trustworthy. She knew how unlikely that was though from past experience, but he somehow convinced her to come with him for just one meal. He had asked her out for Vietnamese food, secretly her favorite, but she would never admit to him that they shared something in common. She reluctantly agreed. Men had used her enough in the past, she might as well get a free meal every now and then; cooking dinner for one every night over the past year had gotten old anyway.
So here they were, tucked away in this exotic ocean side café with rotting floorboards, but a beautiful aroma of ocean breeze and exotic spices filled the air.
“What do you want to know?” she asked, trying not to let her irritation show too much. “Anything! Well, nothing boring. I want to know who you are really. How did a beautiful American girl end up here in Málaga? What are you afraid of? What was the cause of your last real cry? What is the last thing you think of before you go to sleep? Where are you going? Tell me your hopes and dreams. What are your nightmares?”
Was this guy for real? What happened to, “Are you in school? What are you studying? How old are you? From where in the US do you come?” Those were questions she could handle, questions with only one answer, questions on which she could elaborate long enough to last over one meal if she had to, and questions she could answer without having to reveal who she really was, where and what she had really come from, and who or what she was now.
She didn’t laugh this time. She pursed her lips. Her mind ran wild trying to make a hasty decision. He saw the invisible walls she had built, and wasn’t going to let her hide behind them. Of course…she didn’t want to be alone forever, but she had herself and God, and her two close friends — and that had been good enough for now. God was easy. He loved unconditionally, and around him barriers were impossible. He knew it all no matter how hard she tried to hide. But MEN — tangible men — were a different story. Unconditional, monogamous loving relationships were something she thought even women nowadays didn’t believe in. Plus, there were few people who could handle Chloé’s truth.
“Daniel, I can’t do this. I don’t need you to pretend to care about my emotions to get something else from me. And even if you were genuinely interested in how I feel and what I have been through in life, I highly doubt what I have to say would add to whatever you found appealing enough about me to ask me to dinner.”
Her cheeks grew red hot as her heart throbbed within her chest. It was so incredibly hard for her to be so blunt, especially when a part of her just wanted to let everything out to someone, but no man was trustworthy enough.
Daniel had known Chloe would be a challenge, and that was part of the great appeal, but he had no idea just how much of a challenge this was going to be. And he continued to tell her this.
“So you just want a challenge? Someone whom it takes longer to crawl into their head and heart until they finally think you love them and then throw them off to the side like a dirty dishcloth a few weeks later simply for bragging rights?” She was absolutely frustrated and offended, and as she clumsily stood up to leave the restaurant post haste, she knocked over the entire rickety table sending rice and curry all over. She didn’t care. She’d already made a fool of herself; she might as well leave in typical Chloe style. She would have to find a new garden for reading, but that wouldn’t be so hard.
13.2.09
In a fraction of a second, your entire life can change — or terminate. Yet, so many of us often take our routine lifestyles for granted and even show feelings of hostility towards this!
I sat in bed contemplating some rather pathetic decisions I need to make in the near future. My eyes closed, the light flickered off, yet my mind continued to race. So, I turned on the TV hoping to watch something light like the Colbert Report. Instead, I see BREAKING NEWS and a burning plane crashed into someone's home. I sat dumbfounded, not wanting to believe it, praying that some how there were survivors. Anderson Cooper had no idea — he continued to say that there was only one confirmed death on the ground from the home crashed into. He announced the hot line for family members with inquiries to call. As soon as that sentence came out of his mouth, he continued to say he just received an update from the police saying there were absolutely no survivors on the flight.
I can't imagine that feeling. Both of the feelings involved in that. There is the feeling of finding out your parent, child, best friend, lover, whoever died in a chaotic fiery mess.
But what I really cannot imagine is being in that plane. How many times have I sat in a plane? Multiple times every year since I was a young child. So many times I have experienced such scary turbulence, but had so much faith in my God, the pilot and was just so naïve to believe nothing could ever happen — believing that I am invincible.
The truth is, that could have been me, and it still could be me. We are NOT promised tomorrow. And while many of us think "live today like it is your last" or "live for the moment" are idealistic and wish to apply it to our lives — how many of us actually do? We don't! We get too caught up in the mindless day to day chores.
But tonight, someone was one that plane to see a lover they hadn't seen in a while. Yet one of them is left alone. Never to touch those lips or that hair or speak to the one tangible person who understands them ever again.
Someone lost a mother. Someone lost a father. Most of these people probably feel like they lost EVERYTHING in a split second, while we sit here in our beautiful worlds, often only able to focus on the negative. What are our problems really? Especially in comparison to the majority of the world living below the poverty line, unable to experience the things even many of the poorest Americans take for granted.
What would my thoughts have been on that plane? What were their thoughts? I know all of this is morbid, but my head is spinning right now, and this is what is going through it. I was hoping some writing would help me to sleep, but it has had quite the opposite effect.
What would I have said to the person next to me? How quickly would it have all happened? Would I have had time to think at all? Would I have been frozen? Would I have been so scared that my heart simply burst within my chest? If I did have thoughts racing through my head, would I have had regrets? Would I have wished I would have taken more risks? Put myself on the line more often? Always said what I felt, even if it was completely scary and irrational? Because more often than not, beautiful outcomes come from those risks, yet we let previous wounds keep us from doing anything. We would rather be stuck with something bland than to run the risk of pain for something beautiful. And that is stupid, yet I find myself acting in such a pathetic, too-guarding-of-the-heart fashion.
So, terrible, depressing, awful plane crash, you have inspired me. I'm going to do it. I'll put myself out there one more time, while still being cautious with my fragile heart, but not so cautious that I do not let anyone else in.
But now I ask you to do the same, and to not take it for granted, because this is one of the hardest things I have ever done.
I sat in bed contemplating some rather pathetic decisions I need to make in the near future. My eyes closed, the light flickered off, yet my mind continued to race. So, I turned on the TV hoping to watch something light like the Colbert Report. Instead, I see BREAKING NEWS and a burning plane crashed into someone's home. I sat dumbfounded, not wanting to believe it, praying that some how there were survivors. Anderson Cooper had no idea — he continued to say that there was only one confirmed death on the ground from the home crashed into. He announced the hot line for family members with inquiries to call. As soon as that sentence came out of his mouth, he continued to say he just received an update from the police saying there were absolutely no survivors on the flight.
I can't imagine that feeling. Both of the feelings involved in that. There is the feeling of finding out your parent, child, best friend, lover, whoever died in a chaotic fiery mess.
But what I really cannot imagine is being in that plane. How many times have I sat in a plane? Multiple times every year since I was a young child. So many times I have experienced such scary turbulence, but had so much faith in my God, the pilot and was just so naïve to believe nothing could ever happen — believing that I am invincible.
The truth is, that could have been me, and it still could be me. We are NOT promised tomorrow. And while many of us think "live today like it is your last" or "live for the moment" are idealistic and wish to apply it to our lives — how many of us actually do? We don't! We get too caught up in the mindless day to day chores.
But tonight, someone was one that plane to see a lover they hadn't seen in a while. Yet one of them is left alone. Never to touch those lips or that hair or speak to the one tangible person who understands them ever again.
Someone lost a mother. Someone lost a father. Most of these people probably feel like they lost EVERYTHING in a split second, while we sit here in our beautiful worlds, often only able to focus on the negative. What are our problems really? Especially in comparison to the majority of the world living below the poverty line, unable to experience the things even many of the poorest Americans take for granted.
What would my thoughts have been on that plane? What were their thoughts? I know all of this is morbid, but my head is spinning right now, and this is what is going through it. I was hoping some writing would help me to sleep, but it has had quite the opposite effect.
What would I have said to the person next to me? How quickly would it have all happened? Would I have had time to think at all? Would I have been frozen? Would I have been so scared that my heart simply burst within my chest? If I did have thoughts racing through my head, would I have had regrets? Would I have wished I would have taken more risks? Put myself on the line more often? Always said what I felt, even if it was completely scary and irrational? Because more often than not, beautiful outcomes come from those risks, yet we let previous wounds keep us from doing anything. We would rather be stuck with something bland than to run the risk of pain for something beautiful. And that is stupid, yet I find myself acting in such a pathetic, too-guarding-of-the-heart fashion.
So, terrible, depressing, awful plane crash, you have inspired me. I'm going to do it. I'll put myself out there one more time, while still being cautious with my fragile heart, but not so cautious that I do not let anyone else in.
But now I ask you to do the same, and to not take it for granted, because this is one of the hardest things I have ever done.
12.2.09
Haikus en Español
En el semestre pasado yo tuve que escribir unos haikus en mi clase de español.
Claro que he escrito los haikus más bonitos.
Los encontré hoy cuando estaba limpiando mi cuarto...
Espero que puedan disfrutarlos también... a menos que no sepas este idioma magnificoooo. :)
Mi Ex Novio
------------
Eres tan feo
Tu corazón es hielo
Por favor, vete
Mi Nuevo Novio
--------------
Él es mágico
Su boca en mi boca
Dulces cerezas
Abuela
--------------
Antipática
huele a perra muerta
Mi abuela, ¡puaj!
Claro que he escrito los haikus más bonitos.
Los encontré hoy cuando estaba limpiando mi cuarto...
Espero que puedan disfrutarlos también... a menos que no sepas este idioma magnificoooo. :)
Mi Ex Novio
------------
Eres tan feo
Tu corazón es hielo
Por favor, vete
Mi Nuevo Novio
--------------
Él es mágico
Su boca en mi boca
Dulces cerezas
Abuela
--------------
Antipática
huele a perra muerta
Mi abuela, ¡puaj!
11.2.09
Blood Drenched Towel to Victory
It's a fragile circle, some things in life. Or at least I occasionally feel like I get myself trapped in this circle — going round and round, trying to break free and create some abstract figure, but my mind and heart just take me back around the same old path. Of course, I do not think my entire life has just been a giant circle, just certain aspects, decisions, feeling and actions.
I am a rather different person in comparison to who I was even just a year ago, yet I find myself struggling not to make some of the same mistakes I made before. Most rational people might see these situations and say it’s possible this time it won’t come out like a circle — that it might not ultimately end in my bleeding wounded heart.
But take a heart that has been stabbed over and over, and it begins to remember what caused those wounds and to avoid getting itself into that situation again. A woman with the heart of a little girl can only be wounded a certain number of times before she throws in the blood-drenched towel and calls it quits. She stops trying to find something that doesn’t need cleaning up. In fact, she stops searching at all. She’s been fooled into thinking she found perfection one too many a time, only to love and not be loved in return, or to have that love abused. And I don't know what is worse.
I don’t want to give up, but I don’t want to be hurt again either. Can I handle it again, so soon? What happened to the optimism I still withhold about all other aspects of my life? Why can’t I shine that light of optimism into this sector of my world? Because this is the part of my world where I have always had the highest expectations, and those expectations have been more than just unfulfilled, they have been lowered and lowered until I basically feel like maybe I do not deserve anything. I know that’s not true, but put your heart through the works like I’ve done to mine — throw your heart at anyone pretending to be interested and watch them laugh, and that’s what you begin to feel like.
I have prayed about these things and changed some things in my life, and I do know my heart has healed from these old wounds. It is a full-functioning heart capable of loving without holding back, but it cannot help but remember the old wounds when entering a new situation where the possibility of pain is inevitable.
I want it. But I don't at all. I don’t because I do not know the outcome, and I have somewhat lost hope in positive outcomes in matters of the heart — at least for me. But perhaps it’s not what I think. Not everything and everyone are here to hurt me. And not everyone or everything has hurt me in the past.
I want to learn to love again without holding back. I want to be fearless. I want to once again believe that the trial is worth the pain, because where there is possibility for failure, there is also possibility for success and beauty. And out of failure always comes a lesson learned and an opportunity to grow — so was it even really failure? Then what am I waiting for? Someone else to do all the work, I suppose.
I cannot be invested in any outcomes in anything in my life. I just have to live one day to the next and know that I am not in control and never will be. And if I do not get invested in an outcome, then that still leaves hope for a happy ending, but helps to guard my fragile and sensitive heart. I’m not as tough as I sometimes like to pretend, and I'm finally ok with that.
I am a rather different person in comparison to who I was even just a year ago, yet I find myself struggling not to make some of the same mistakes I made before. Most rational people might see these situations and say it’s possible this time it won’t come out like a circle — that it might not ultimately end in my bleeding wounded heart.
But take a heart that has been stabbed over and over, and it begins to remember what caused those wounds and to avoid getting itself into that situation again. A woman with the heart of a little girl can only be wounded a certain number of times before she throws in the blood-drenched towel and calls it quits. She stops trying to find something that doesn’t need cleaning up. In fact, she stops searching at all. She’s been fooled into thinking she found perfection one too many a time, only to love and not be loved in return, or to have that love abused. And I don't know what is worse.
I don’t want to give up, but I don’t want to be hurt again either. Can I handle it again, so soon? What happened to the optimism I still withhold about all other aspects of my life? Why can’t I shine that light of optimism into this sector of my world? Because this is the part of my world where I have always had the highest expectations, and those expectations have been more than just unfulfilled, they have been lowered and lowered until I basically feel like maybe I do not deserve anything. I know that’s not true, but put your heart through the works like I’ve done to mine — throw your heart at anyone pretending to be interested and watch them laugh, and that’s what you begin to feel like.
I have prayed about these things and changed some things in my life, and I do know my heart has healed from these old wounds. It is a full-functioning heart capable of loving without holding back, but it cannot help but remember the old wounds when entering a new situation where the possibility of pain is inevitable.
I want it. But I don't at all. I don’t because I do not know the outcome, and I have somewhat lost hope in positive outcomes in matters of the heart — at least for me. But perhaps it’s not what I think. Not everything and everyone are here to hurt me. And not everyone or everything has hurt me in the past.
I want to learn to love again without holding back. I want to be fearless. I want to once again believe that the trial is worth the pain, because where there is possibility for failure, there is also possibility for success and beauty. And out of failure always comes a lesson learned and an opportunity to grow — so was it even really failure? Then what am I waiting for? Someone else to do all the work, I suppose.
I cannot be invested in any outcomes in anything in my life. I just have to live one day to the next and know that I am not in control and never will be. And if I do not get invested in an outcome, then that still leaves hope for a happy ending, but helps to guard my fragile and sensitive heart. I’m not as tough as I sometimes like to pretend, and I'm finally ok with that.
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