you know how when you break up with someone, certain things that you loved become associated with memories of that person and, as an extension, the pain that eventually came from them? and then these things that you enjoyed now make you hurt because, ironically, they remind you of being happy- but in a way that you can't be again because it was a uniquely patented happiness distributed by that particular relationship over which you've lost the rights. if this sounds a little official, it's because it feels official. divorces are settled in court and everything is legally divided and dissolved. but when you break up with someone you're not married to, you still lose things; they still get half of what you shared with them rendering your half useless and painful to look at because it's so obviously no longer what it was. anyway, the point here? a few years back, i had one of these emotional severances which left me feeling that i'd lost things i had loved- like places i'd gone to, music, and even mutual friends. some of my favourite songs were lost in that breakage because they were all tied up in the memory of this relationship. after not listening to some of my fav songs and bands for about a year, i slowly started reclaiming them by forcing myself to listen to them and allowing them to be associated with happiness and enjoyment once again. it's really sad when hellogoodbye makes you cry! and now they don't:) i wrote a song a couple years back that had this part that said, "i no longer cry when i hear hellogoodbye. i don't even see you when i'm in my own guestroom. babe, i'm not sure where you are, but it's not in my guitar- these things are mine." it's important to disentangle the things you still need to live a functional life from the pain of memories you can and should no longer live with daily. but i was watching Made of Honor the other day which i hadn't seen since it came out in the cinema and i remembered how in the end, when the credits rolled to this song, i'd left as quickly as possible. so, watching it the other day made me realise that, in my musical therapy a couple years ago, i'd forgotten to reclaim this particular song!! i haven't heard it in years, so, i now made sure to do that and am listening to it, as i type, with nothing but appreciation for its wistful nostalgia. you stole my heart many moons ago, (btw, i also got that back;) but you can't steal my music, thank you very much!

don't let things you loved be lost to you forever. chances are, the person or situation which took custody of them from you in the first place isn't worth denying yourself something that was a part of you and has the right to still be.

I'm jealous of the people that see you every day,
Including those unknown to you who pass you on their way,
I'm envious of blankets that embrace you while you sleep,
And oxygen that skims your lips each second that you breathe.
The happiness I see in you provokes my wanton heart
'Cause I am not its source and I cannot take part,
But when I know you're in distress, my anger's e'er more piqued,
Because I know the tears you shed can stroke that fancied cheek.
The air that surrounds you, thick-laden with your scent,
The days when you're alone; the days when you're with friends,
Begrudgingly these I'm denied not knowing which is worse:
That you might be lonely right now or you might be with her,
Whoever this 'her' may be, it need not be a she-
Whoever gets to see you smile has robbed the joy of me.
I resent each object that, lifeless, feels your touch
For surely it is not in need of your warmth half as much,
And all of your surroundings that, heedless, catch your gaze
Have made an enemy of my envious face.
The presence of what occupies you is depravity,
For nothing merits having you any more than me.

(♬)

I am worth the effort;
worth the risk.
How do you expect
love to subsist
when you keep it to yourself?
Fight for me
and together we
will fight whatever's left.

(happy alone♬)

This might be kinda long, so if you'd like to opt out of reading this post, go ahead guilt-free. I just need to get it out. I've been thinking a lot recently about who it is I want to be in terms of who I am now. My facebook 'about me' section says:

"I'm a crazy, passionate romantic. I'll dance with you anywhere. I'm a good mother cuz I have a great son. I'm a good friend. I'll go the whole 90 yards for the people I love. I love too much, but I don't think that's a flaw. I love God and find I'm stronger for depending on Him. I'm still a little bit of an idealist and I hope that never changes. I get lost in music. I feel free when I'm horse-riding. I see pictures in everything so I take as many as I can. I think any surface can be a canvas. I'm overly verbal but prefer that to miscommunication. I never think that it's too late for anything. I aspire to always be able to say that I am currently the best version of myself. I have been broken down, but with God's help I have risen from the ashes every time so far. So bring on the next potential heartache cuz I haven't even begun to love to the full extent and I will always refuse to hold back. Always..."

That was long, huh? Kinda like this post...I wrote that a couple years ago. I'm not sure I'm always moving in the right direction. Sometimes, I think I'm just taking steps back and I look at the person I used to be, the girl who wrote that, and think, "I wish I were still her." I aspire to always be able to say that I'm currently the best version of myself. I don't know that I can say that right now.

I am someone who can say truthfully, in understatement fashion, the phrase, "I've been hurt before." I heard Shontelle's Impossible recently and felt like it was a tribute to my last heartbreak. I know what it's like to feel like someone made a fool out of you simply by making you love and trust them. Somehow you're the chump because you opened up and allowed intimacy. I know what it's like to be in so much emotional pain, you can hardly move under the physical weight of it. But I don't want to be someone who lives my life like someone who's been hurt. I've already played the role of stupid chick dating the jock jerk who doesn't deserve her as the cinema audience roots for the nice guy best friend she seems to always overlook. Problem was, I went for the nice guy best friend as well, in a conscious effort to no longer be stupid chick, only to end up being more hurt because the trust was higher and expectation for pain lower. I felt like a whole new kind of stupid chick. I'm now in no mood to assume another clichéd role of damaged chick who's been hurt before.


I don't want to not have learned from my past mistakes or others' mistakes perpetrated on me, but I also don't want to be jaded by my past either. My heart is worth guarding, but not hiding. I'm definitely someone who qualified as a hopeless romantic. I'm not normally the kind of girl who thinks any romantic gesture is too 'mushy' as long as the right feelings are behind it. Despite my sarcastic veneer, I'm hard to gross out on the love-meter and fully acknowledge I can be a yucky, ooshy romantic myself and was always defiantly proud of it. But I wonder if at this point in my increasing singledom (and yes, singledom does increase with time!) I'd even know how to react to any of that. Those who know me best say I give off a 'no, thanks' vibe. Now, that's definitely something I project purposefully when I'm out for the night with my friends and some strange guy approaches me. But do I give off that vibe always? Am I so unprepared to risk getting hurt again that I also can't risk being happy again? If that's the way I've behaved, I haven't meant to. I also didn't mean to become this version of me I've unraveled into. Am I still someone who deserves to be with the guy who deserves to be with me? (If you didn't get that, read it again but it doesn't entirely make sense, so don't worry if you're still lost;)

I'd like to feel that I'm getting to that place of balance where I can accept my past hurts for how they benefit me and can reject them in the ways they'd hinder me. Maybe I can't entirely be that girl again. Maybe it'd be unwise to be as open as I used to be. There should be some effort involved, I'm worth that- and maybe acknowledging this is one of those beneficial lessons I needed to learn. But I've been listening to Paramore's The Only Exception (still not sure if it's a good thing that I relate to it) and I'd like to think that when the right exception comes along, I'd allow it and that we'd find ourselves mutually deserving of the kind of love that's worth the risk and merits my trust again... and some yucky, mushy ooshiness.

The bumble bee doesn't know that, aerodynamically, it shouldn't be able to fly. So it goes on flying anyway. When I was 4, I didn't know that, according to gravity and the incompatibility of circular surfaces on a corrugated plane, I shouldn't ride my bike down the stairs. So I got stitches anyway.

The point:

DON'T be stupid, but DO defy the odds.

(♫ the future's in my hands ♫)