The harsh light of day...

When the sun comes up and you open your eyes, the light hurts for that split second. Then, your eyes adjust and you can go on with your day.

When I wake up after a particularly good dream or a really good nights sleep, the light feels unwelcome. I want to go back to the place where things are dark and peaceful and there never seems to be too much unhappiness in that world. Here, the light of day is harsh.

I woke up this morning excited to see what today would bring. I posted before about hoping. I hadn't really decided if I was hoping for things to work out or not. Today, I decided. I'm not going to hope, but I'm not going to not hope either. I guess the way I see it, things will happen how they are supposed to. I can try to analyze it and figure it out or just wait and be happy now and let the chips fall where they may.

The value of thought

Everyone knows it's best to "think before you speak" "think of the consequences" "think about what you want" "think think think". Winnie the Pooh had it right. "Think think think".

There is a ton of value in thought. People respect intellectuals and the more school you have the smarter you are. So, this makes me question the true value of thought.

It took centuries for people to realize you think with your brain and not your heart. Why do we get all our ideas from something not centrally located and protected in our body? Why were we designed that way?

I think the answer is simple. Evolution does not favor thought. It favors survival, and conscious thought does not fit the bill. But, there are other reasons too. We think with our brain at the top of our body. It allows all messages and everything to run underneath it. It rules the body top down. Our brain is not a muscle like our heart. It is an organ yes, but it is a bunch of synapses that are built through our development and life experiences. The heart doesn't change, but our brain does.

Thought is valued because of fluidity and the ability to expand to encompass new ideas and new information at an ever increasing rate. Thought exists to let us find our opinions and form our morals. This is why it is important and valued. Society values thought because it allows the existence of society.

Hope is a dangerous game we play...

For a good solid year, I hoped for someone to come back to me. Then for another 6 months, I tried to be real about it. Now, I'm in a place where I want to hope but I know the danger it brings.

Hope entails putting your beliefs, life, and ideas on hold while you wait to see the outcome and wishing that it turns out like you want. Hope is dangerous. We wait on things that may never happen or may turn out very badly. We hang ourselves up on a potential possibility with no probability. The danger is the waiting.

Hope is good in times of despair. But when does hope go from being a good thing, to ruining the life we have now got to live?

I think we're all entitled to have a little hopeless hope in our lives from time to time, but we all need to reach a point where we see that hoping is doing any good anymore.

So, back to my place where I'm at right now... I have REALLY strong feelings that this might be different than before, but it never has been different in the last two years so should I quit hoping?

Am I so wrong to hope that things might actually be real when he says he misses me and is remembering old things about us and he tells me I'm on his mind like crazy and he wants to hold me and he wants to see me and he wants to respect my choice to say no to sex and he asks for my opinion and he texts me at night and in the morning and he genuinely is having a conversation for once with me?

Or have I manufactured this all out of my attitude? I did something different this time. I haven't pushed for him to always talk. I've simply been cheerful and cute and he's acting the same. I guess you get back what you give.

So this begs the question, have I been hoping for something without giving it a real chance to be different? Is my attitude the thing that was in the way the whole time? Did stopping my expectations change what he wants?

The last big thing that I've come to see is this. When Chris and I broke up, it was a mess for everyone involved. His family severely disapproves of me now and so do his old friends. My family isn't too fond of Chris either. What Chris and I have between us is great in theory and over text, but the reality comes inevitably and I think we both see that there is so much disapproval of us being together that it has tainted any future relationship if there ever was such a thing. This is something I can't fix. I can't take back what happened, nor would I want to. I'm happy on my own and so is he, but the fact still stands that after all this time we always come back to each other in some way. Maybe, just maybe, my hope, dangerous as it is, has kept something special safe from all the pain surrounding the thing that was US.

525600 minutes...

A year of minutes ... What happens in a year? How do we grow?

the value of the word no

Sometimes the simple word no is what a bossy two year old needs to hear. The bending over backwards to accommodate for her every whim is not OK. She is 2 Not twelve. She does not get to slam doors in your face and literally running start push you through the door because she doesn't like her Pajama choices. She is 2. Independence is great but I think this kid needs some serious realization about the way the world works real quick or when that baby gets here she's going to be an emotional and devastating wreck. Just my opinion. Also, no does not mean forever no. It means at this moment in time no. So no, I don't want kids but someday I might. No I don't have a job but someday I will. No is a word. Nothing more. Also side note... I feel very self conscious about my choices and words while staying here. I'm terrified I'm going to mess up.

Spacebound

This song by eminem always makes me think of Chris. Not sure why but it used to make me cry but now I just smile.

some more musings...

Over the last weekend, I've come to some realizations about how my life is going to be. I've seen that I will probably tell a life changing story someday. I will probably find someone I will love completely and want to be with them. I will probably have children of my own someday down the line. I love kids and as I get older I become more of my paranoid and overly cautious mother. I seriously would be one of those paranoid, helicopter parents. No joke. All these are things I knew already. The real realization is that these things will happen on their own time. I can't stress myself out over things far off in the distance. If I'm too busy squinting down the road, I'll miss the beautiful scenery passing by. I used to think that my heart was a broken mess and that the only way someone would love me was if they loved me for my broken-ness. But the reality is whoever is really meant to love me will love me for my whole self. In this book Amanda gave me it makes a great point, "You don't have to be broken for me". I can be a whole person broken parts and all and find a whole love that I will want to be a whole part of. Being broken is not my only definition of my self. Right now, my problems are a bigger part of my life than my triumphs, but as I grow into my personality and begin to find my way through the world, I will come to find myself happier than I could have ever been before. Chris has sporatidically been in contact since I failed to ignore his number on my phone. I haven't found myself crying about him at all. He may be part of my life forever and he may not be. We may date again someday or we may not. We may realize that our lives are going different ways and part, or we may always stay in touch. Whatever happens though, it's ok. I am happy on my own and I am happy to talk to him. I am no happier one way over the other. Yes, I loved Chris, and my teenage memories will always be filled with his smile and the smell of mcdonalds and cologne, but those are only my late teen years. If I can find a way to pay for it, my life is going to soar in the coming decade. So, I may not be your typical partying 19 almost 20 year old, but I will be me through and through. I'm going to be mature and take my life with more caution than most but I am making myself happy and along the way I will find others who are happy to be around me. Boys come and go and friends do too, but me is here to stay. That's the relationship I should work the hardest on.