Who you’re seeing in the mirror every day may not actually be the person you’re looking at.
But it can be; if you’re living for yourself, and not for other people.
We don’t get a whole lot of choices in life. We can choose where we go to school, where we work, and what type of apartment we live in. In college, they tell you the opportunities are endless, and they’re right. But what they don’t tell you is that your decisions ultimately become a giant domino effect. You’ll make one choice after another, and it’ll seem like this happened because of that, or that you have to do this because of that other thing.
It’s a sad concept really, to think that we can become trapped by our choices.
We do have some say in what happens to us though, even if in the smallest way. We can choose how we overcome our past decisions. We can choose whether we consider our choices to become our pain or our progress. We can choose our outlook on life, and we can choose how we spend our future days.
We can choose who is still in or out of our lives, and where it is we’re headed.
So you made some poor decisions along the way. Don’t think that means you have to keep making them, or feeling guilty because of them. The sooner you accept what happened and move on, the easier it’ll be to gain some composure and move on. Thinking about what other people are going to perceive you as? Stop that. It only matters what you think of yourself, and anyone else’s opinion should be thrown away if you know better.
Don’t decide things have to be a certain way because you’re not worth any better, or because you have to save face. You’ll never be able to break down the chain if you don’t try.
You do not, I repeat, do not have to be defined by your past decisions.
What makes life interesting is that we never know what’s going to happen. One day we’re going to class or getting our first job, the next we’re having a family or being promoted or getting ready to travel the world. I never would’ve though a year ago that I would prepping to leave for Africa, or that my best friend would be living in Tampa with me, or that I would be working a day job and writing in my free time. The reason all of that happened though is because I opened myself up to the opportunity, and if I had stuck around the things or the people that I decided no longer suited me, I never would’ve been able to achieve growth.
Maybe you’re scared of the opposition. Sometimes you have to have it though. The thing is, if we can make our choices in life, face the opposition and judgment, and still be proud of ourselves at the end of the day, then we know we made the right choice. For ourselves.
You’re not making choices for other people. For appearances. For things that no longer benefit you or help you grow. You’re making choices for yourself, and you have to live with them.
Remember that.
“The brights lights,
I was taken in by the spotlight coming from the stare
of your wanting eyes,
like a Vegas green glow.
Yeah, grasping, wishing I could roll the dice again.
You can can always love, but you can’t win.
A heart is like the money you blow.
Casino”– Casino by Clare Bowen and Sam Palladio (Nashville Cast)
When you’ve been hurt before, even just once in your life, it becomes hard to trust someone new.
But more than anything, it becomes hard to trust yourself again.
It’s hard to tell yourself that what you’re feeling is okay, and that what’s happening between you and this new person can actually go somewhere. Once you’ve been hurt, it’s the most difficult thing in the world to be able to muster up the courage to tell yourself three little words:
This has potential.
Once you’ve been hurt, you want to experience those moments that you felt before you were hurt. You want to be trusting, hopeful, and always blushing. You want to remember what it was like to walk into something new blindly, and without prejudice toward the pain you felt in past experiences.
You want to fall for someone again, but now that you’ve seen the end result, it becomes difficult — because you’re terrified that this next time will be your last fall, and you won’t be able to get back up this time.
Picking up the pieces is one of the most excruciating things that people who are in love have to go through. Whether it’s our own, or someone else’s pieces we’re picking up, we know and remember that feeling. We know what it’s like to feel like we’re not good enough, like we’re not going to be worthy of being loved by someone ever again, like we’re meant to be on our own because there’s no way we’ll ever find love for or with someone else ever again.
We’ve been hurt, and it’s made us more jaded than we ever thought it could.
Those of us who have been hurt: we can’t be saved by being told over and over again that we just need to get up and keep trying. We need to believe in our hearts that we can try again. Only we can save ourselves from drowning, and we have to give ourselves a reminder of what it is that we fought for in the first place.
We fought for those moments of laughter where we were able to hold hands and peck each other on the lips.
We fought for the morning texts and the afternoon hugs and the evening phone calls that reminded us we were on their mind all day.
We fought for the “I love you”‘s, the “I need you”‘s and the “I want to be with you forever”‘s.
We had them once, and we fought to keep having them again and again. They were the simplest moments that we remember, and there was nothing tainted or fake about them. They were valuable, innocent and pure. And even if we haven’t yet experienced those things first-hand before, we’ve seen them in other people and we fought for them because more than anything, we wanted them. We knew their worth even without having them, and knew from the get-go that those little moments were worth fighting for.
That’s the thing though that those of us who have been hurt always forget: we have to keep fighting.
We can have those beautiful moments again, if we keep trying. They’re probably not going to come back right away. They may not come back in the exact same way that they did before. And hell, they’re most likely not going to be with the same person that they were with before. But we can have those moments back, we just have to keep fighting for them.
We have to keep allowing our hearts to become exposed again. We have to keep allowing people to see the dark sides of us, and opening ourselves up to the pain. We have to trust, confide and hope again.
We have to love again. It’s all we’ve got.
It’s the only way we’re ever going to find those simple, innocent, pure and untainted moments again. The common denominator is love. It’s being vulnerable, opening ourselves up to anything thrown our way, and letting the people who care about us come in without fear. We have to expose who we truly our, so people can love us for who we truly want to be loved for.
If we fake who we are, and fake what we feel, we’re only going to get fake in the end. And there’s nothing gratifying about fake.
If you care about someone, tell them. If someone means the world to you, let them know. Now. Allow yourself to be completely exposed to them, because that’s the only way you’re going to be able to show to them that you’re fighting for them. If they don’t return the fighting in return, then you know there’s another battle out there that you should be out there searching to fight for.
And you won’t have to waste your time any longer fighting for the wrong battle.
Loving people is a lot of getting hurt. It’s a lot of trial and error. It’s a lot of wondering why you did what you did, what you could’ve done better and how things could’ve been different. It’s a lot of crying, wishing, praying. It’s a lot of venting to your best friend over the phone who’s hours away, and a lot of writing long paragraphs in your journal about why you’re upset. It’s a lot of late nights with no sleep, a lot of chick flicks with a pint of ice cream, and a lot of averting eye contact when you see those people in public again.
It’s a lot of nauseating things, but there’s also a lot of beauty in love.
There’s a lot of heart. A lot of happiness. A lot of laughter, enjoyment and fulfillment. There’s a lot of photos, videos and mementos that you get to keep, even if things don’t work out in the end. Love’s a lot of secret-sharing, story telling and trusting someone when no one else can be trusted. It’s having someone to hold when you can’t explain how you feel. It’s looking up at the stars every night and just being thankful you’re there with them, in that moment. It’s a lot of crazy things that many people haven’t been able to truly figure out, but we keep fighting for it because we know it matters.
So keep fighting for it, even when it hurts. Because the pain will be worth it.
Driven By Daydreams 