Running the Risk of Getting Personal

I've got a couple of thoughts about this 'ol life I'm leading. For one thing, I think that the purpose of life is all about learning how to love. I believe that this journey applies to every dimension of love. You are not born knowing how to be a good friend, a good son or daughter, sibling, girlfriend/boyfriend, significant other of any kind; you learn along the way. No one ever gives you manual for loving someone else - it is difficult, it is unsure, it is frightening, but it is beautiful. Thus, the reasons why life is constantly a struggle. I truly feel like learning to love people around you, truly love people in your life, is one of the greatest challenges and opportunities that we face. That being said, I'm not going to claim that I know even a fraction of how you go about conquering any of this - it's just what I think about.

In my life, there have certainly been times where I haven't been a good friend; I've been a bad sister, a bad daughter, and I've mishandled hearts. As a 20 something with the heart of an 8 year old, I have a track record of mistakes - crimes against other people as I acted selfishly, inconsiderately, or ignorantly. I've caused pain and I've struggled to make the right decisions, countless times, but despite or perhaps due, in some senses, to these falterings, I have grown in my understanding of what type of person I want to be. I'm learning how to love. I'm learning how to be good to people around me, to reciprocate love, and generate love from the embers of my struggles.

Not too long ago, and this is the attempt at getting personal, I found myself at a fork in the road and I began down the path of respect, openness, and childlike love - trying out vulnerability and love without all of the armor. I began with hesitation, some backpedaling, and much denial as to the depth of my actual feelings for this person. Eventually, a large amount of my attempts at being an ice queen and remaining guarded were chipped away by the presence of reciprocal, yet equally cautious feelings from the other side of this tumultuous relationship. It was the first time that I found myself trying to be open with someone (in a relationship-y way) in almost a year - something I considered a little bit of a personal feat, in and of itself. Spoiler Alert: He left. He walked away and absent a - I'm sorry that I hurt you, you didn't deserve it - phone call months down the road, I never saw or heard from him again.

Back to the present, I just finished a quick romantic beach read, One Day by David Nicholls, and if you are planning on reading this book - close my blog now. Navigate away! It is going to be made into a movie with Anne Hathaway, lah-dee dum, so you might read it at some point - who knows? Okay, well for those still with me, all I'm going to say is, here comes the climax of the novel, it doesn't work out! This couple and their relationship journey, consisting of years of missed opportunities and emotional struggles, don't work out in the end. It's too late. Mistakes are made, some intentional, some out of their control, and that's it. I sat there stunned. Haha - look I've grown up around Hollywood classics where you are left with something in the end - usually "happily ever after", right? (disclaimer: By the way, I'm aware that I sound like a little girl in this post, but my mom says I'm special....)Well this beach read screwed with my head and made me realize that the sappy and hilarious love story woven through the book is a brutally honest reflection of life - a conclusion I drew despite my persistence that everything happens for a reason and eventually works out - damn that pesky little optimistic attitude. Yet, sometimes we don't have the right answers, we aren't good to the people who love us, and at the end of the day, as my life moto and coincidentally, an engraved plaque at my friend Payton's parents house in Prescott, Arizona, stands, "It Is What It Is".

It is easy to be reckless with hearts. Just reference any Thai soap operas, music videos, and, well, Thai media of any kind; unrequited love is the most common theme. For my own story, some would pull the karma card, for as soon as I got to a point of what I thought was, more or less, some decent emotional growth, I was left standing, alone, asking - like so many before and after my own heart break - "What went wrong?"

Life isn't easy. Loving people isn't easy. I believe that we are constantly faced with choices as we stumble down the path of "learning how to love", attempting to get our barrings in this unfamiliar territory. Sometimes we miss our opportunities. Sometimes we don't know how to be good to people around us. Sometimes it is hard to know how to go about all of that love business and there will be casualties. I'm now an active participant in the learning process, not merely a bystander - I'm still feeling it out, still scared and guarded, still chilling in Narnia - ice queen through and through, but the ice is melting, my heart will thaw, and I will strive to love as a friend, a sister, a daughter, granddaughter, and significant other, etc. Though bruised, though shaky, though a lover with training wheels on, I can only hope to remain a student for the rest of my life.