General

It’s Okay To Be Grey

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I don’t remember what compelled to take a thread and tie it around my wrists four years ago, but I’ve had them ever since. For me, they are a constant reminder to remain balanced. Left and right hand, black and white band, left is black because it is is the hand that I write with, the one that knows my thoughts and does its deeds. My right is white, because its the one I take action with, that knows my feelings and offers a helping hand.
Ever year, when one of the breaks, I spend the time to consider how my life fairs on the grand scales.  This might seem strange from the outset, but there is a great solace in knowing that I am a mixture of both.

I realize anytime I look down at my wrists is that I am as equally capable of doing good as doing bad, but it is up to me to make a choice as to what I do. Left or right, black or white, wrong or right is the choice I know I must make. I am then the gray, the piece of the puzzle that can see the intricacies of the two decisions at hand. The one who must make a choice and has done the best we can with it.

I don’t think people are made innately for balance, there are some people are more sure-footed than others, but it takes an effort to get to a place where this balance can exist.  Each day we can decide to break with this structure, throw ourselves to one side and hope not to tip the scales too much out of our favor. It takes energy to continue to fight for it and the whole universe is conspiring to bring about the grand entropy of life, to break down the systems we put in place.  Life takes a sense of effort, a sense of work to be able to support it the way we do and yet we throw ourselves into situations that are lopsided, unbalanced because of how it makes us feel.

This world we live in is getting better and better at giving us weights that take away our balance, compelling us to keep weighing ourselves down to compensate.  Forces push us to let go, let our world return to disorder because it’s so much easier not to care and let ourselves lean to one side.  It does this quietly, easily, through the messages of pleasure and avoidance.   There can be too much of a good thing when it starts to take away from us being functional.  It’s a hard line to draw, having fun but also knowing when to sit down and work.

We are all capable of finding balance in our lives, and it’s almost essential if we want to be healthy. It’s a life long struggle, and at times I don’t even realize things are off kilter. I think it’s important to take a second and reevaluate where we are, realize that we are capable of both right and wrong and it’s okay to be somewhere in the middle.

Depression

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A cacophony of chemical course through the cords connecting your mind at any one moment.  At a slight imbalance our mood, perceptions, and lifestyle can be irrevocably disrupted.   We find ourselves in an endemic epidemic of the first world.  More than ever are being diagnosed with the potentially fatal condition to which there is no consensus about the proper treatment and cure. This is depression, and it’s a problem.

What you need to know is that depression not fully understood.  The brain remains a large mystery that we are still working to uncover.  It is in some ways believed that depression is linked to certain brain chemicals such as serotonin reuptake in the brain. The lack of serotonin receptors in the hippocampus (the part of the brain which helps regulate mood) making it harder to control negative moods though this is just a working theory.   The question remains why this happens in the first place. It could be life stress, an unfortunate batch of genetics, medication, chronic pain, or chronic disease. There are many other reasons as well, but it’s said that everyone in the modern world is likely to have three bouts of major depression in their lifetime.
How can something that affects so many of us not be understood?

Mental illness such as depression has plagued humanity for as long as we’ve had the words to write about it.  The problem is, the science of psychology is under 150 years old making it a relatively young science, and the biological study of the brain, neuroscience, is even younger than that.  It’s only in the last 50 years that we started to develop the technology to map the living brain.  The ability to pinpoint depression is difficult and to find a singular cause is almost impossible with the knowledge and technology we have today. Each day people are pushing forward towards the understanding depression completely and curing it quickly.

One of the big issues with studying depression and other mental illnesses starts with the diagnosis. The symptoms of depression include:

  • Loss of interest or pleasure in your activities
  • Weight loss or gain
  • Trouble getting to sleep or feeling sleepy during the day
  • Feelings restless and agitated, or else very sluggish and slowed down physically or mentally
  • Being tired and without energy
  • Feeling worthless or guilty
  • Trouble concentrating or making decisions
  • Thoughts of suicide

One of the most telling signs I’ve heard is a loss of vibrancy in the world, everything is just clouded by some sort of fog that keeps you in this negative space. From the outset, these symptoms are hard to identify in passing, which makes it even harder for people to get help.   Mostly internal feelings that have to be spoken or they will go unnoticed. This leads to fewer people being diagnosed. You may ask yourself how do you solve a problem that stems from emotions and doesn’t have a common cause?

There are some widely used methods of managing depression.If going to see a Doctor, they may prescribe you antidepressants.  Antidepressants act on the brain to increase the amount of serotonin and other brain chemicals that are diminished during depression.  They do not work immediately but taking the over the course of many days and weeks they can lead to improvement and disappearance of symptoms.  These medicines don’t work forever and should be used in conjunction with other types of therapy.  In the cases of severe depression, they may attempt to use electroconvulsive therapy as a means to reset your brain and the chemical production within.

Other less invasive methods such as cognitive behavioral therapy and psychotherapies concentrate on relieving people of life stressors and working to reframe moods and life events.  They work by allowing people to redefine and re-engage with life in a different way and are useful to finding the linchpins that keep you in this depressed state of mind.  Each different type of therapy comes with a different approach to the problem and finding the method and tactic that works well for you is important because it’s you who has to follow through with the changes.

These types of therapies are by no means miracles cures, they take time and effort but are ultimately still the best way of curing depression over the long hall. Each person needs something different to manage their depression so it’s important to choose the method or methods that works best for them.

I’ve made it no secret that I have experienced some form of depression in my life.  For me it came it came in the guise of a constant feeling of tired and desire to sleep all the time, a feeling of a loss of control over my environment, and feeling negative emotions (sadness, anxiety, feeling numb to life events, and crushing self-doubt) almost continuously.  Depression is not something that happens overnight but is a well you fall into over the course of many days and weeks.  The problem with mental states like these are that they change so slowly we start to accept depression as the new norm without knowing any better.  By the time we realize something may be wrong we are might be in the middle of it. It’s like having flu-like symptoms and not going to the doctor, sure you still might suffer through the flu but if you get help earlier chances are it will be shorter and not as bad in the long run.  By the time I have my second bout with depression I knew the symptoms so it was easier to recognize and make an effort to avoid the worst of it. The problem with depression is at times it takes away the motivation to act upon your life.

Like with all mental illness, there is always a social and personal stigma that people associate with having the condition. A lot of misinformation and lack of understanding has fed that fire.  There are significant efforts to destigmatize, but there is a still a ways to go.   The way I see it, if something is preventing you from being all you can be, and every day you wake up and feel worse about life there may be a problem, and regardless of how you feel about it, you should seek help, because it’s not the ‘you’ of right now but the future ‘you’ who can finally live their life outside of the cloud of depression that will thank you.  It’s okay to ask for help, no one is perfect and that’s okay, your health is more important.

If you or someone you know might be suffering from depression, reach out, sometimes it can mean the difference between life and death.  If you don’t know where you can get help, start with the basics, go to a doctor or trained licensed psychologist for a consultation. If those options are not readily available, consider.
Talk Space or Better Help: These services offer online and mobile messaging of therapists allowing you to get in contact with help at any time of the day.

If you are having thoughts of suicide, thoughts of doing something drastic or know someone who does call the national or a local suicide hotline or visit their website.

National Suicide Prevention Hotline:  1-800-273-8255
Crisis Text Line
National Suicide Prevention Website
International Suicide Prevention Website

Depression is not a life sentence, it can be helped, it can be managed, and it can be cured. You have the power, you can make that change, you can beat this. Good Luck.

A Sense of Grace and Happiness

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There is something to this world, its strange comings, and goings.  I might be strange to say that I have fallen in love with this world, and things in it.  Every day is a new adventure, some novelty that arises from the ashes of yesterday.  I find myself looking at the sky and its magnificence knowing that in those few moments that I capture in my memory the glorious magnitude of all that I see that the heavens had had never looked quite like that before and will never look that way ever again.

There is a great solace in the world, and its ability to continue moving unimpeded by the minuscule moments that rule our lives.  Its ability to continue to change, I can imagine if the whole universe was ruled by us that time would stop at every moment because someone wished it to never end.  It makes you appreciate the moments you have, and when we take it for granted, we find ourselves on the other side of a bitter regret. Our curse of walking through our collective time with only emphasizes the clock we have hanging above our heads.  People around us are all experiencing time at the same rate, but they started at different places.  Around us we see where we were as well as where we want to be in the eyes of others.  I’ve decided that I want to sit down with the clock, appreciate the time it reads, know that the seconds that tick by are ones I can never get back, so each one becomes more precious than the next.

There is a lot of beauty out there, ones we need to take our time to see. Slowing down for a moment and actually looking into the great void.  There is a hope that we find something to appreciate. Like the cloud in the sky, or just a nice drive to work, a pleasant smile from a perfect stranger. It’s a state mind that we fall into, one that becomes unreceptive of the world around us.  We think of bad things and thats all we begin to see.
I realize that there is a really ridiculous nature to life.  We can explain away life’s events and find out all the reason why things happen, but that won’t change the fact you might be on your way to potentially the most important life event you have ever come across and yet you are stuck going 5 miles per hour on a freeway as the seconds tick away.  How can we not smile and laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation you find yourself.  An easing of our hearts and minds is in order.  To find that peace in the world, that graces that seeps into our sink.  That’s what I want, just to allow myself to be happy.

In the phrase “the world is what you make of it” you can find a particular truth of this happiness, but when I was younger, it meant hat world can be changed into whatever I want it to be.  There is an infinite nature to that idea, the ability to bend the world to yourself.  Anyone who has tried knows that doing so makes the world a hard and frustrating place, where failure is all but guaranteed. As I’ve gained more perspective that it’s changed its meaning to see the world and choose how I should feel about it. We in some parts only in control of ourselves completely so in us that we must change to make us happy.  As long as we are willing, we can feel the grace of the world, and be satisfied with all that is in it. I choose to look up and see the

I choose to look up and see the splendor that the sky has to offer and be happy.

A Dampened Expression

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This happens every time! Something good happens, and I should be jumping for joy and be screaming to the heavens, but nothing moves within me.  It were much colder and calculated wondering about the next step to take. It’s infuriating!
Not to mention the slight overhang of matters of emotion and the hearts that seems to overhang like an overcast day, why won’t you at least let the sun in for peak of how bright the future might be.

I find this whole emotional state to be incredibly bothersome and a bit of an annoyance. My body is tired along with my eyes and yet with the mere mention of what should make me happy I feel nothing. Maybe it will hit me later when I least expect it, but intuition is telling me to wait for the clouds to pass, for the wind to come and blow them out of my otherwise bright sky and then finally I will be happy with the ray touching my face.

Maybe a good nights sleep will do it, free me of this mood, free me from feeling as happy as everyone seems to think I should be.  Allow me to be excited.  My heart controls when I get excited, unfortunately, and it will only move when it wants to. So for now, I wait to see if it will move for me or perhaps someone else.  Either way, it doesn’t change the amount of work I need to do, I will keep at because I am finally starting to hear the winds of change.

The World In The Life Of A Guy: Part 3 – The Cost Of Connection

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Back at the end of high school, I remember how beautiful the day was when I asked a girl to be my girlfriend for the first time.  The rosy moment was dampened when I was informed that some of her friends had thought I was gay.  I laugh about it now, because of its ridiculousness but it highlights a whole can of issues about being a guy.

You have to understand, I grew up surrounded by women, let me tell you, it’s not all rainbows and unicorns.  I remember coming home from school on a regular basis to Pride and Prejudice playing on the tv.  It was my sister’s favorite movie at the time, and she played it every day.  Now whether she watched it or not is an entirely different story, but it was always playing.  She would get mad at me if I turned it off or changed the channel, so I ended up learning to enjoy it.  Though it makes for a great story, it doesn’t actually work toward my “man points” when I can name all the major characters from all the Jane Austin movies and quote some of the lines. I have stories and anecdotes all throughout my life like this, ones that without context make me sound very strange or somewhat effeminate.  I have struggled with that balance, at times hiding these things that I might be part of my past or who I am just because it doesn’t make me out to be a tough guy.

With that, there is a lot of pressure to forgo things that are seen as girly, a lot of pressure to act tough and harden your skin.  As a guy, you’re supposed to take it, shoulder it, carry it, deal with it. That’s what you grow up with, pressure to stay strong and stern.  It shows in our relationships, girl talk about their feelings, how they’re doing, and confide in one another.  Guys, at least in my experience, don’t talk much about feelings and emotions, and there’s a struggle to finally divulge information to one another. There are many things are left unsaid, hell, my father and I don’t even end phone conversations with I love you (I know he does so that’s not a problem).  The point is there is a barrier to connecting with one another on that level. It permeates our activities and even if something crosses that line if both people aren’t willing the event will leave a hole in the friendship. It’s seen as strange to act that way and only when special times arise are you actually allowed to connect on that level.

I just remember watching the show Scrubs back in the day and relating a lot to the main character JD.  He was a bit more effeminate and was treated as such because he was in touch with his feeling and acted with some “girly” mannerisms. The thing I liked about him is that he was unabashed at showing that part of himself, unafraid of going in for a hug, talking to people about what they meant to him. Sure some of his likes weren’t really tough or strong, but that didn’t really matter, he was who was he was.  It was a very different type of strength that he showed, a strength of character.

The point being that we’re not all wood working, car fixing, super outdoorsman like Ron Swanson, nor should we be.  Just because I know how to cook and at somepoint want to be completely and incandecently happy with someone doesn’t make me strange or gay it just makes me different.  There are things I do like fix electronics,  and being handy around a house that would be considered much more manly but what I find is that these labeles we give things only get in the way of us being who we want to be and limiting outselves.

After many years being this way I’ve come to accept these differences in perception of who I should be and am okay with how I am.  I just hope that these labels and pressures don’t drive people to the edge and that that people know its okay like both westerns and flowers but what do I know, I’m “just a guy”.

Night Tour

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There is something night, the calm coalescing of the late hours that extend seemingly forever.  It’s in the stories of great thinkers and artists, in the modern fairy tales of entrepreneurs and innovators. It’s a symbol of both frustration and hard work. The image of a team sitting around a table tired and overworked, squeezing out ever last drop of thought in hope it brings some sort or revelation has a kind of romantic twinge to it. The lonely soul walking the empty byways illuminated with the amber streetlamps and neon signs searching for some sort of solace has a sweetness to it. Truth be told, passion is just not as dramatic at 8 am.

I find myself wandering the night more regularly now, be it in my mind or in my car.  The night allows me to wander in a sort of anonymity.  The constraints I would have around my thoughts weaken, the tasks I had to do are all but done. So it then falls to me to let my mind saunter into the imaginary, to blur the lines of what is acceptable. There is something about the state of mind, that is so tired that it decides to focus solely on the one thing before you.
The unfolding nature of night strips away these waking selves which we so carefully prune  ], it allows us to interact with these quiet mental forces that would normally never have a voice. All the thoughts unfolding and opening into a much larger scope and view. All the questions and discussions that happen after a certain time of night, without fear of reprocussions. In thought, we find purpose, we find motivated frustration, a swell of emotion, a connection and destruction of relationships, and a time for truth from within and without.   When driving down those dark roads, the world becomes tangable metaphore for life. Seeming endless roads with hundreds of avenues to travel down but can only happen one at a time, much like our choices.  There is an ease to it, no expectation of making the right choice, and when you find youself face to face with a dead end, you just turn around and start again.

When I find myself behind the wheel there is a sort of serenity to it.  Seeing the city lights pass me by, the neon signs lit up into the night even after the stores and buisnesses have all been closed. The people walking about, all trying to get somewhere but taking their own time to do it.  We can observe the autonomy that continues to exist in the night without anyone around.  The way the lights sometime change for no one. There are endless reason to escape into the night every once in a while to free yourself.
I am fortunate enough to live in a city driving is a way of life, so I learned to enjoy the countless hours I may have spent behind the wheel going somewhere I don’t know yet.

Sometimes we need these moments, these moments when all things deconstruct and we are left facing ourselves. The moments where we can let off the burdens and find a sense of peace. The moments where two people can really connect and go beyond the facade of our lives. The night isn’t a miracle cure but it’s something that ushers in the new dawn and another chance in the form of a new day.  Perhaps all you need to change is a night tour.

A Sound Dissonance

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There I was, sitting in my car parked in the mud, fog all around and the thick beams of light dashing by as the road was illuminated for only a moment then dark again.  I had hoped to come to some sort of resolution sitting there, away from it all but I couldn’t concentrate.  I tried writing, but everything I wrote sounded like a shallow drop into the bottomless bucket. I felt so off inside, and I didn’t know if anything I did would make me feel any different. I was desperate, and I continually thought “I can’t live like this, this can’t be my life, I have to change.” It was then that the tears began to flow, and I could finally hear my heart once again.

I’ve spent much time on the edge, the brink of my personal existence and for a while, there was a disconnect, a dissonance, between where to be logically and where my heart and soul wanted me to be. This dissonance, which I can only describe as what it would feel like to be a 3D movie without the special glasses.  It just feels wrong, nothing is in the right place but so close to where things should be that it’s hard to tell where things should actually be.  It was brought about but the lack of self that I have so neglectfully not infused into my action. I have only done, but never acted on my own accord.

This began because I have spent so much time trying to learn how to follow the right path that I have ignored the path I was meant for. It’s only now that I realize that the ways of other people only go so far. My desire for a good life obscured my true self behind the good intentions of others. This is not to say life will not be easier if we follow the solid advice of others, but there is a type of medicinal quality to making decisions for yourself. A genius is least likely to understand the steps and process it takes to get to an answer.  The answer simply makes sense to them, then as to people who have come across the answer and have lost connection to what it took to arrive at this solution, the answer just is.  So in following the solid but seemingly unsubstantiated advice, it ends with action that is has a sense of emptiness behind it.  A life that is lived solely on the suggestion and path of others will allow you to avoid troubles, but it also removes you from what it is to be a person.
This is in no way to say that advice should not be heeded, it’s merely to remark that in every piece of advice that we take, we must infuse a sense of our own essence into action. Do this or it will feel as if you are are not actually living life, and you will lose the passion and the path.
Now for me, it is to find learning through listening but also doing for myself. I am the only one who can live my life, and if I am emulating other people then how will I really get anything done.  It’s the conscious effort towards what our hearts want and our minds dream of that we can in some way feel fulfilled as ourselves.  It’s that friction of living a life untrue to ourselves that weighs and bears upon our soul.  We find that sometimes we cage ourselves in the institution that will ultimately lead us to success in a material sense but ultimately starves the soul.  If we live a life that doesn’t belong to us, we are in some way doing a disservice to ourselves.  I know if I were to walk through a life that had no passion or no promise of future would feel like dying continuously until all that would be left is hollow.
At this point, I have no more excuses, I have expended them all. All they are now is a way to avoid life and be okay with it.  I have to stop and listen to myself and with the aid and advice of others step forward into a new dawn.

That night I spoke to my heart, we had it out, I began yelling at it, and it started screaming back. It was all to keen to expose what I had pushed away, what I had been ignoring. It told me about all my worries and my fears. We argued my excuses, wounds, and shortfalls.  As time went on, and the conversation deepened, I felt like I was finally letting go.  Letting go of the reins that I had held on to for so long up to this point. Letting go of all the troubles I had been dragging along with me. My heart could not be with me because I had filled myself with debris.  I finally to broke the fast that I had unknowingly put my heart through.
When my tears dried, I felt one with my heart, as if it was right there back within my chest. I felt like I was where I was supposed to belong. Like how a small child out exploring hardly ever feels lost, instead a feels a sense adventure, the world once again felt like the grand adventure I knew it to be.

We can’t avoid making mistakes, and traversing familiar lessons but thats part of being alive, we just do the best we can out there. I understand the a great fortune to be talking about the ability to choose and the pusuit of dreams.  At the end of the day, I can only speak to what my heart tells me “Follow your dreams or die”. It really is just as unreasonable as I am and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

A Train of Thought

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I spend all this time writing and thinking
truth be told
Sometimes I want to remain silent and listen
But my mouth gets in the way
how will I ever learn if I am the only one speaking
It’s a habit I mean to break
Maybe I should just decide.
That seems to work well
can I just decide to be different
is it really that easy
Will the unrelenting force of nature and habit quiet them just based on a decision
I don’t want to be a half measure
but am I really able to make myself immune to the coming tide but saying I will not be affected
that seems naive
but maybe that’s what I need
to be naive
to lack that understanding and go full force
to go beyond who I am and just let the world happen
to become exactly what I want by choosing to be that way
maybe that’s what separates people from being great and grand
that we wallow and can’t just choose
I want to be great
so I must choose
to be great
and to do
great
things.

It would be easy to leave it up to the future
to let my future self
make the choice
but will they really?
because they are me and if I am unwilling doesn’t that mean
they will be too
maybe that’s the secret
be the future self you are always looking towards to get stuff done.
If I put it that way
it almost seems like I am a hero
the hero I always needed
be the man you always wanted to be
by doing the things you’ve always wanted to do

I hope I don’t lose this lesson
I hope that I can hang onto it
but even if I do
if I found this place once
it will always be easier to find this place again
there is always hope.

The World In The Life Of A Guy: Part 2 – Decisions

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There is some unspoken part of being a man, a requirement to have a firmness of choice.  It’s confusing to me because I am expected to make decisions and stick to them even when I am unsure. To cut through the fog, and smoke like a sword, swift and with purpose.  It would be a false bravado, and maybe that’s what I need, to fake it until I make it. If people are to give me the power, perhaps I should learn to wield it, and do what I think is best.

The decision, that force that tears through the cloud like vengeance, requires me always to have the tempered blade ready to use in moments where it’s do or die, and I may have to kill.  That what decision feel like at times, subjecting myself to the fog of war, where left, right, up, and down seems negligible to the enemy in front of me. Trying my best to survive, as each choice takes its toll on me, I am just like others, not wanting to make decisions all the time.  I sometimes push off the responsibility to others so that I can go along with the ride.

The expectation is a guy I will make and stand by my choices, sway people like waves on an ocean to my choice. To be the lighthouse that brings the boats in during the dark nights and rainy days, a constant to turn to. It becomes the responsibility of the one making the decision, the one making this choice, to keep everyone in mind.

I don’t know how many times I’ve sat across from people trying to figure out what to eat and looking for that evasive input that would point me in the right direction it eludes me once more.  Seeking to narrow down the multitude of places that all swarm my brain and are all equally good.  Even sometimes when I make a decision, they tell me to choose again. It’s effortful and taxing in situations where the decision is much more significant, but maybe it’s a matter of learning to get stronger and more resilient so I can go further along.

I know that I overthink most things, and not every decision is tantamount to a national emergency, but like most people, I don’t like being wrong.  I guess I should learn to get over that, learn to make decisions the best I can with what I have.  I am an academic at heart so collecting information is my go to, but I need to know when enough is enough. When it doesn’t pay to squeeze out that last drop. It’s all part of growing up isn’t it, making do with what you have, and embracing the limitation and coming up with something new.

Maybe I shouldn’t put that much emphasis on what I do, and maybe I shouldn’t care as much about others think when I make decisions. Maybe I will just choose and let the cards fall where they may. I only know so much and am working with what I have because I’m “just a guy” right.

To: Love

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Dear Love,

I haven’t heard from you in a while, and trust me, I knew after our last encounter we needed some space.

It’s just been strange without you around. I remember you, and I having been inseparable since I first met you around 6 or 7.  You used to play with me whenever I felt lonely or down.  All through school, you accompanied me through my awkward phases and social situations, nagging me in the middle of class, diverting my attention.  I didn’t mind, I always enjoyed myself when you were around even if things didn’t work out as planned. I remember how charismatic you were, telling me stories and tales about others people who knew you and dreams of the future you had with me.  You were always there, pulling at my heartstrings, making me feel the true immensity of being crushed by the unrequited feelings I had in my chest.

Years went by with this persistent feeling, as I got older, our relationship deepened. I came to better understand you.  I took some time in high school to grow on my own without you around, knowing that we would reconnect as old friends when I got back. That period I learned not to lean on you, that I needed to learn to stand on my own two feet without you around. I couldn’t expect you to carry me in the future, especially if I didn’t have anything to give you in return.

Through heartbreak, I found you, through experience and a desire to not make the same mistakes I sought you. I thought you would leave me disappointed again, but this time you came back in spades. It marked a new depth to things, you really got to know me, and I really got to know you.

We were around each other for a while, taking a break every now and again. My college years were full of experiences with you, learning and growing.  It started to feel like this was what growing up and maturing felt like. We hit a groove, a rhythm, an understanding that maybe this would be something that continued without pause.

Then it happened, you and I got into a bit of a disagreement.  It wasn’t something unusual, and normally I would bounce right back, but this last one didn’t sit right with me. I knew we needed some time to figure things out.  I had taken you for granted, and you hit me where it hurt. It became heavy when you were around, and I just couldn’t handle the strain, there was too much memory, too much complication, and too many unresolved feelings.

I realized we couldn’t just keep going on like we used to, that I needed some time away from you. There is no blame to be cast, it just one of those things that happen.  Without you around, I could figure out myself and grow. Part of me knows that if you were around, I would get comfortable and complacent. Part of me believes this is the best for both of us, that one-day things will work out okay. Part of me is afraid you might do the same thing to me again, so I don’t know how much to trust you.

Time will mend these wounds, the experience will overwrite the pain. In the end, I know sometimes you treated me like crap, pushed me into situations where I would be let down, but I don’t regret any of my moments with you because you gave me memories I will cherish forever.

One day we will find each other again when the time is right, we meet like old friends who bump into each other at the supermarket, and without skipping a beat, we will reconnect. Until then I wish you well and hope you are okay. Know that I’m not gone for good, I will figure things out.

I miss you love, and I love you. I promise I’ll come for you again soon.

Sincerely,
Me