universal truths about love

ph: weheaertit

I've found there are very universal truths about love...

It will happen when you least expect it.
Like discovering something awful sounding/looking food tastes yummy, or that that taco you had a few hours ago gave you food poisoning.

Example, I joined a dating site looking for friends. Before you beat me to it let me say, “Who the hell joins a dating site looking for friends?!”

Well, this girl of course! *Points thumbs at self*

I’ve met a few people whom I’m now friends with from there. Then I decided to meet with this witty chap one day, and unbeknownst to me, I received a shiny new boyfriend! He came complete with such amenities and features like an education, operational brain, and good sense of humor. I lie to you not when I say he looked at me one night and said, ‘you’re so my girlfriend’, then we were a couple.

It felt like receiving a present you didn’t exactly want at Christmas, like a pair of socks or new underwear. Then you totally appreciate it, the next day or someday, when you realized your laundry is not clean or you wore holes through all your socks and undergarments. GREAT FEELING!

Despite trying, sometimes you can’t help who your heart attaches itself to.
Some women like Prada bags, some chicks dig Vera Bradley, others like hobo bags … personally I have a soft spot for ugly purses. I own one that looks like I pulled the wooly upholstery off a 70’s couch and lined the sides with metallic green material that must have been recycled from a pair of 80’s hooker platform boots.

The thing is we fall for who we fall. My MO is usually funny nerdy guys and chicks with a pompous streak. The mind is so sexy; too bad the ones I meet come with this complex! I’ve fallen for the good looking ones, the bigger ones, the shy ones, the ones with 10,000 holes in their face, jerks, clingers, dependents, independents, and people with more problems than a college calculus final. It just happens.

It’s hard to control the velocity and trajectory of love.
Even aerospace engineers screw up sometimes, and they went to school for this stuff. Google NASA goofs or mess-ups and you’ll see. If you can achieve control over this, you are probably the romantic emotions equivalent of an angry birds master.

Some of my relationships built over years, then faded slowly. Others were quick to ignite and burned out just as fast. My last relationship took a whole week after meeting to officially be a couple. It also went downhill quick too. Like I said, uncontrollable unless you are some sort of zen master.

Love can change.
Like Baskin Robin ice cream flavors, there are many types of love, and the flavors can change often! One minute it can be an intense all-consuming love, and the next minute it’s gone completely off the menu. It can switch between and from intense love, friendly love, deeply passionate love, caring love, devoted love, etc.

I also find that things always change after the ‘honeymoon’ period is over and you really get to know who you’ve fallen in love with. Sure, sometimes it’s good change. You realize you love the true person they are, and maybe you think how they organize their underwear by color, year, and make is really awesome ( Hey whatever rocks your socks! I won’t judge!). Other times you realize their personality and little quirks, like being berated for not decompressing all the air out of the bag of a loaf of bread, will drive you up a wall.

Love will change you.
Emotional connections with people affect who we are and how we act. It can make us a better person, and it can drag us down into a hole; thus turn us into something we want or don’t want to become. This can be both a conscious thing and sub conscious. That is the nature of the beast.

Remember what I said above about the bread? Yeah, it’s one that happened with an ex. I realized after a while I started to squeeze the air out of the bread bag to appease my partner. Sure this was a good habit, it really does help keep the bread fresh longer, but this carried over to other things too. I realized I was changing myself, and I eventually became someone I hated. It’s like that LCD sound system song, ‘I Can Change’. The guy basically falls in love with a person because of who they were, then realizes their partnership is dissolving, so he changes himself to make them fall in love, or stay in love with him.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve gathered great hobbies, habits, lessons and insight into myself from love. Just make sure you define how love changes you.

Love brings both happiness and pain.
While love can be expressed through physical acts, Love is not physical, it’s emotional.

One night I got together with a girl just started dating. Oddly enough she wanted to exchange stories about scars. She pointed to one on her knee, and told me how her brother threw an authentic aboriginal boomerang at her. When it was my turn I pointed to a place on my arm.

She cried, “There isn’t a scar there!” I told her,” yes there is … but it’s not one you can see. “

I told her a memory from a past relationship that caused me pain and afterwards I explained to her that ,“ the most painful scars aren’t the ones you can’t see, they’re the emotional ones.”

Then she pointed to another spot without a scar and asked about that one. I told her the story of the first night she asked me on a date and how happy it made me feel to be wanted by this beautiful woman. So I said that, “ the same goes for happiness, we can see it physically expressed through actions but we can’t see the emotion. We can only walk around with these great memories and share them with others.”

Just remember, the memories we remember best are the ones attached to great emotion. I think that’s why love affects us so profoundly. We are human; we experience joy, laughter, sadness and hurt … but we heal, we move forward and we still love regardless. That is a wonderful thing.

Sometimes love is not enough.
Ever get to point in a relationship where you go, “ I love you but if I have to be around you one more second I’m going to do you bodily harm?” I’ve had a few of those … everyone has had those moments.

Love isn’t perfect, we will all have our bad days, drive each other crazy, and have disagreements. But when a relationship between two people goes bad, then sometimes love really isn’t enough.

Sometimes it hits you that the person you love may not feel the same for you, makes you unhappy, might cheat on you, prevent you from being you, hurts you in anyway continuously; despite how much you love them, you need to realize you might have to walk away. If the person you are with isn’t happy, or you are hurting them more by being with them, then sometimes you need to let them go as well.

I loved a man very much, and he loved me as well. Sure, he was kind, fun, smart, someone I enjoyed hanging out with, but things just started to fall apart. I wasn’t happy, I wasn’t me. I got tired of trying to make things work. So one day, enough was enough. It hurt, sometimes it still does.

Walking away from someone you love hurts. Sometimes letting go of someone one who loves you hurts too. You’ve got to do what’s best for you, and sometimes them. Love can be as easy as holding a hand, and kissing someone goodnight. It also can be as hard as walking away knowing your heart only beats for them.

Love is more than just a romantic relationship.
I bet you there is something out there you love that’s not just a partner, a boyfriend, a girlfriend. It can be the job you do, a hobby, a friend, a pet, a child, maybe you love collecting stuffed llamas ( who am I to say what you do or don't love). The Greeks had names for the different types of love, because love isn’t confined to just one definition or situation.

I love art, I love socializing with others, I love traveling, I love Ben and Jerry’s (ok maybe not love it but like it a lot!). I say love because these are things so deeply embedded in me … I just don’t like them, I really do love them with about as much and most times more than a partner. This is the type of love that is life devotion, and makes you who you are.

At the end of the day, we may lose a romantic partner or we may find one, but remember there are other things and people you love. The most important love of your life you’ll ever have is love for yourself. Love you.

And accept that love is.

-Eeka

that love story isn’t ours

ph: julialinnea

I think I may actually be over him. It just happened about five minutes ago. I can’t really explain it; I was looking through some old pictures of us in Italy and Paris together, and was staring at his face. That face. That gorgeous face. I actually zoomed in a little. But when I looked, when I really looked, and reminded myself of all the things he’s done, and all the pain he’s caused, that face got…uglier. Feels taboo just writing it. Feels like an almost lie. But you know how people say that a beautiful person can become ugly with their personality? I think that just happened for me.

I reminded myself of how he ignored me over Winter break, didn’t even call on Christmas. I reminded myself of how after a year and a half together he broke my heart and then started seeing Sara, my friend, our friend, just a few weeks later. That that was selfish and thoughtless and desperate. I reminded myself that I would never do those things to him.

I reminded myself of the times he’s been cold, the many times I’ve felt so alone, on my side of the bed, even though he is right there sleeping next to me. I reminded myself of the back and forth game he has played with me since we broke up, saying he wanted to get back together and then backing out. How he drove me home in tears after lunch with his parents and didn’t even bother to text me later on or see how I was doing, after we had just slept together the entire weekend before. How much that hurt me. How he came down for the fourth of July and we slept together again because he told me that the weekend and us being together would “clear up the confusion.” How it didn’t clear up anything. How he implied that we weren’t really one hundred percent broken up…reminded myself when I said broken up couples don’t do this and he said but that’s not completely where we are at. I reminded myself how we are broken up and how that is completely where we are at.

Now, I am thinking about what a fool I’ve been. How I want to be with him just for the sake of being with somebody. Now I am thinking about how one small mistake, like getting back together, could ruin a bit more than I wanted to admit.

Andrew, you were a lovely person to me once. Smart and funny and so beautiful. Now you are not so beautiful. You’ve done it, you’ve really done it. Broken my heart, and half-assed picking up the pieces. Now I think there’s just about a slim to none chance things will ever work out between us. Because I deserve better than someone who has to take half a year to figure out what they want. Because I deserve better than someone who is scared. Because I deserve better than someone who doesn’t want to be with me right now, this minute, no matter what the future brings, even if they are stuck with me forever.

I usually fall for the sappy love story where the two broken hearts realize how much they love each other, and get back together in the end. I usually want to be the leading lady in that love story. Sorry that love story isn’t ours. Sorry it never will be.

Except I’m not sorry at all.

sometimes

ph: weheartit

give it time

ph: weheartit + weheartit

i'd give anything to bring it back

ph: weheartit

I spent a good fifteen minutes just staring at the blank, white empty email awaiting my love story. Or not so love story. I wish I knew what i wanted to say, and it's not even that I have nothing to say, it's just my head is currently such a busy, crowded street with feelings and emotions bouncing off of each other.

I don't know what happened to us. It's like being in a car, driving down hill, and having the breaks go out. You just want it to stop, you want everything to be okay, you want to make it out alive but with the way things are going, it just doesn't seem like such a hopeful situation. But at this point it doesn't even matter because truthfully, I already feel dead. If my heart is still beating, i can't feel it anymore.

We started like any typical couple, except maybe we were jaded from the start. You were twenty one with a good heart, a contagious laugh, a huge fear of relationships, having never even come close to having one. I was healing with little to no hope in love, but you opened me back up and helped pick up the pieces. You were new and sweet and naive and just wonderful. I fell so in love with you, so easily. Your smile helped with that. I had never seen such a beautiful smile, and when you smiled my whole world just lit up. I miss that smile, I haven't seen it in quite some time now. We were just perfect together. We made people jealous and probably sick to their stomach with how cute we were. I miss us, I miss us so much.

But somehow, at some point, everything just started to fall apart. And now those old memories are like walking past your old home where happy thoughts and love used to dwell, and now it's just an old abandoned house with weeds and broken windows and an empty, hollow, sad inside. It absolutely started the day I had to go away to school. Distance kills love. I truly believe that. And especially with us just starting out. We had a month to hold on to each other before I had to be away from you, and i warned you that this would be hard, that it would ruin us, but we blindly took that leap together, ignoring every warning sign. We tried. We tried so hard but come May, things were so bad, and my homecoming- which we thought would save us- just broke us down even further. The insecurities and exhaustion from the distance carried over, the little fights began, then you started to give up ever so slowly. You started to emotionally pull yourself out of the relationship until I was basically alone. I felt like I was in love with a ghost. That beautiful, bright smile was so dim now.

I guess it just became too much for you. This being your first relationship, you had no idea how to handle the rough patches. You truly believed that relationships should always be perfect and that if problems exist, the relationship isn't right. You are a complete idiot to believe that, i hope you know. From then on you just turned cold, and angry, and void. You hated communication and the second I wanted to open up about my feelings, you would just shut down and ignore me or just yell at me. I think that is what holds us back so much. You need communication in a relationship and without it, you'll go nowhere. I felt dissatisfied and hopeless and foolish. I just wanted a sign from you, anything, a kiss, a touch, flowers, a text message- ANYTHING to show me that you still cared, that you still wanted this. I wanted you to fight for me instead of with me. But you can't make someone love you, you can't make someone fight for you. I'm not perfect, I had my flaws, but i never gave up.

And then I came home one night to flowers on my doorstep and a beautiful note. You told me you loved me and that you'd love me through any situation, that we'd work through this and "let's make this count." I still hold on to that note, i still read it every day because for a second I saw the boy I had fallen so deeply in love with. Just for a second though. It wasn't much longer after that you wanted space, and then you started saying you were confused, and then you wanted to leave. We sat outside on your porch, the rain falling down just for us, and you cried and cried and cried. I'll never understand how someone can leave someone, but be sad about it. If it hurts you to leave someone, why can't you just stay and put effort in the relationship? I don't understand it, probably because I've never been one to give up on love no matter how many times love wants to give up on me. I just can't. Once you have my heart, you have my heart and I'd do anything to keep that heart with you.

We've been together a year now. We agreed to keep trying, but it's been the same story ever since. You're still confused, you still want space, and my heart still doesn't want to let go. You keep trying to give up, but only because for you it's easier than working on something. I'm so sick of putting my heart fully into something just to be disappointed all the time. I think disappointment is one of the most painful emotions to deal with. I wish I meant more, I used to mean more. I wish I was worth something. All I've ever known is people leaving and i never wanted you to fall in that category. You're not even the same boy anymore. You're even starting to look different to me. I just wish I had the strength to walk away. I wish I could just give up on you, like you give up on me...on us. But no matter how many times you tell me you can't do this anymore, I end up back on your doorstep, fighting my ass off for you, trying to convince you that this will get better, that we can make it, because i have hope and sometimes that's all you really need. Call me crazy, or pathetic, or stupid... I am all of the above, but i can't let go, I just can't.

I have this stupid image of us in my head, hand in hand, looking back at this time and laughing it off like a bad dream. I just want everything to be okay, I just want us to work out, I just want you.

By the time this story gets published, I'm sure you'll have left me again, but I hope not. I hope just this once love is enough. I'd give anything to bring it back to the way it was in the beginning. Can that even happen? Is it possible for a relationship to hit such a low point and end up better than before? Probably not. And if it were possible, it'd probably require both individuals to want it enough and with your constant giving up, hope is paper thin.

I don't even want my heart anymore, you can just take it and run.

if we can share something beautiful

ph: weheartit

He is nothing special, but to me, he is absolutely perfect.

I can´t remember for how long we've known each other, but we have shared many moments together. During all these years I've just seen him as another guy. I remember how annoying he could be, how we used to be angry with each other and how I yelled at him. I also remember those times when we laughed together, when we stayed up the whole night watching the lightnings, and how we helped each other. This was many years ago, when we were young. Then we grew up and in some way we lost each other along the way although we never was very close. He was two years older than me and moved away for school. Also I started a new school and found new friends.

Years went by and occasionally we bumped each other but I never really thought about him until a year and a half ago. It was a friday night and I was out with some friends. We were dancing and having a really good time. I was feeling a bit dizzy so I went out to the bar and there he was. We started talking and so we did the whole evening. After that night I began to think about him more and in some way we started to run into each other more often.

Now, in the summer, I see him pretty often. When we meet those chilly summer evenings at the local pub he always puts his arm around me and I just feel so safe in some way. I've now been thinking and I´m starting to realize that I might be having feelings for him. The difficult part in this is that my friends don´t share my thoughts about him. They are making fun of him which makes it hard for me to admit to my friends, myself and of course him, that I like him.

I believe that all the things we went through as young kids makes me feel safe. Now I just have to dare to tell him, to see if he feels the same way, and see if we can share something beautiful.

H.

happy almost 1st year

ph: weheartit

It's been a year since he and broke up and this is a letter that I wish I could send me but can't.

Dear J,

If you asked me last year where I saw myself in a year, I can tell you that this, all of this wasn't what I had in mind. The way things are in general are nothing like I thought they would be. People I've kept close to my heart have now become complete strangers. And people who were once strangers now mean so much to me. This past year has gone by so quickly. It almost feels like nothing has changed and yet when I slow down and think about it, nothing is the same. It's hard to believe how much can change in just a year. This time last year, things were completely different. I was completely different.

We've broken up for a year now. Right now, we're more than acquaintances but less than friends and maybe that's why it feels so strange when I see your name flash on my screen telling me you would like to start a conversation. Don't get me wrong. I enjoy our conversations. Hearing from you always puts a smile on my face. Simple one liners about how your day went. It's nice to know that I crossed your mind but it feels like whenever we do talk, there's a set of rules that we both have to adhere to. It feels like we can only talk about certain things, non-threatening things. We can't talk about our past because it's threatening. It makes me as uncomfortable as it makes you. We can only talk about things like the weather, school, music. I can't and I won't ask you about your girlfriend and you won't ask me anything personal. I feel like I don't have the right to tell you that I'm happy that you've found someone new, that she seems really lovely, with her long silky hair and sweet smile. I feel like I don't want the right to ask you anything personal and I think you feel the same. I remember you used to say that we're similar people and that I always knew what you were thinking. And that's the problem isn't it? Similar people can never get it right.

I censor myself a lot whenever we talk. Like when you told me how stressed out and sleep deprived you are because of your October exam. I wanted to say 'It's so typical of you to frustrate over the little things, things that you don't have to stress our over. You're smart, you'll do perfectly fine.' But instead, all I said was 'take care of yourself.' I guess I did that because I realized that if I could notice that little detail about you, then so can your girlfriend who has been with you for a much longer time than I did.

It's not that I'm not over you. I've moved on. We both have. It's just that a small part of me still misses you. Sometimes I find myself wishing that you would call and ask to see me. Nothing dramatic or elaborate - just us meeting up. Just the sound of your voice saying "I'm sorry, I miss you."

Happy almost 1st year.

Love always,
E

sorting through the rubble of our relationship

ph: weheartit

My shrink told me to write you a letter, to tell you how I feel about all the shit that’s gone down the past few months. That alone is embarrassing. I can see you in our kitchen, just sitting at that dilapidated kitchen table you picked up on the side of the road and so lovingly restored, just sitting there with a cigarette between your fingers, shaking your head and taunting me: A fucking shrink, Louise? A fucking shrink?

Yes, I need a fucking shrink. I’m not like you; I can’t just pluck a few cords on a guitar, drink straight tequila and deal. I need to talk. Most relationships are based upon talking, but ours was never like that. I bet I couldn’t fill a one-subject notebook with all the words that passed between us while we were together. Yet we somehow knew more about each other than most people. Like I know that when you were 12, you were making out with Georgia Flannery behind a 7-11 and her father caught you. I also know that he chased you back to your house wielding his belt above his head, swinging it just close enough that the buckle made a whoosh sound next to your ear.

But that’s a verbal story. I could fill a five-subject notebook with stories about what goes on behind your eyes. I could publish novels based solely on the way you’d kiss me in the morning before I was even fully awake and the journeys your fingers made up and down my naked back. Ours was a love based on moments strung together by hand with emotions, like those ropes of popcorn we decorated our plastic red Christmas tree with in the middle of summer.

It was the most fulfilling, realistic, complete relationship I’d ever been it. It was also heart wrenching, twisted, blemished, rage-filled and nauseating. There were nights I would cry myself to sleep because I didn’t know where you were, where we were, what we were, what you wanted us to be or how we were going to pay our bills. But then I’d wake up with your curly hair in my face and know, somehow, that this was right. That we’d make it work, fill in the holes and sew up the tears. It would work. It had to work.

The way we met wasn’t glamorous or romantic like you read in thick paperback novels. I worked at an ice cream place on the boardwalk; you loved medium vanilla cones with rainbow sprinkles. The first time you stopped by, I fell in love with your big, crooked fingers that floated in front of your chest, waiting for your change. The second time you stopped by, I fell in love with your witty, sarcastic humor that I hoped you were putting on for me. The third time you stopped by, you asked for my number and waited around till closing. We drank 40 ounces on the beach. Our first date. We barely spoke, a foreshadowing of the relationship to come, but we spent the whole night lying on our backs and tracing constellation. Every once in a while, I’d feel those big crooked fingers wiggling through the sand, hesitating on whether or not to take the plunge and lace between mine. You told me you dabbled in photography and that you’d love to take my picture. I figured you were either a pornographer or the love of my life. I gave you a chance.

Our second date. You picked me up in your yellow Chevrolet Caprice from the 70’s that you had found on the side of the road and breathed new life into. I had a big Christmas bag filled with yellowing lace slips and oversized loafers. We drove to a junkyard and I changed in your backseat while you sat on the hood and smoked a cigarette. We spent the day taking pictures: me on a couch that was growing springs, me in a rusted out pickup truck, me holding an umbrella with holes like Swiss cheese.

With every click of the camera’s shutter I felt bits and pieces of my soul transplanting themselves in you. I was scared out of my mind, but I was drunk off the very idea of you. I knew in that instant that I would never be whole again if you ever left me. The truth is, no one truly understand that feeling until they’re standing in front of the person who has so neatly and completely embezzled their heart. No, not just their heart. Their entire being.

We were inseparable. It was only a matter of weeks before I moved into your place. Of course you would live in a trailer. It would be impossible for you to even think about maintaining a home. But I didn’t care. Our lives quickly meshed into one another, and before I knew it I was eating mashed potatoes with hot sauce, like you, and you were clipping your toe nails over the toilet, like me. We bought a cat and named him Tiddly Winks. He slept on a doll’s bed next to ours. You and I fell into a routine. I quit my job at the ice cream stand and started working at an antique store in Point. All day, I’d sort through old dresses and jewelry and spatulas and coloring books. I started taking old black and white photos of babies in basinets and big Italian weddings, framing them and hanging them around our house. We pretended they were our family, since we really had none: Aunt Madge, cousin Hector, grandma Natty. But we didn’t need a family. We had each other.

You got work at a furniture store and worked on restorations. I’d love rubbing your callused fingers after a long day at work. I loved you, and you loved me. You spent your days smoothing over cracks and imperfections in tables and chairs. But it was only a matter of time before our own cracks and imperfections started to show. We tried to smooth them over. But they were a little more stubborn. Your paychecks were minimal, which didn’t make sense because you worked 15-hour days. The nights we used to spend together watching Land of the Lost and drinking white wine started to dwindle. You’d come home, shower and go out. I didn’t think to ask you where you were going. Sometimes when you’d come home, your lips would be chapped. I tried to smooth over the cracks. I loved you so much.

The first night I woke up to you cooking crack in the kitchen, I wanted to die. Your eyes had been looking distant, and I wanted you to love me again. But you were just sitting in the kitchen, cooking crack. Next to the pan of uneaten lasagna I had made for dinner. I felt stupid, standing in your Metallica t-shirt and bunny slippers. Like I was in middle school again, and we were watching that sex-ed video, and everyone seemed to know what a period was and how a penis gets hard before sex, and I didn’t. You looked at me and gave me a scary smile. Your teeth were yellow. I went back to sleep.

Things got worse. I’d come home to the sickly scent of burnt Brillo pads and know. We’d make love, but it wasn’t like before. It was violent and painful. Sometimes afterwards, I’d look down at the twisted Superman underwear around my ankles and feel like a rape victim. Since I couldn’t hate you, I started to hate myself. I still loved you, and I hated myself for loving you.

I was alone, watching Land of the Lost with white wine the first night you hit me. I don’t even remember the reasoning, but it was quick and I saw streaks of silver. My cheek swelled. I left it like that. A battle wound. I deserved it. I deserved it for loving you. And it made me hate myself more.

The day I knew our relationship had to end was the day I had to charge American cheese to my Visa. The old lady behind the counter looked at me with sad eyes that seemed to say I know. Looking into her eyes, I felt no self-pity. All I could think about was how I never wanted my eyes to look old and tired like that.

I came home and made you grilled cheese, like you’d asked me to. It was one of those stretches of three days where your normal self would return. You’d be loving and attentive and you’d fix the kitchen table chairs you’d broken on your last binge. We’d re-hang the pictures of our imaginary family that’d crashed to the ground the last time you threw me into a wall. I’d make us Hamburger Helper and you’d make love to me like old times. Watching you eat your sandwich from across the table, I started to think, maybe, just maybe, you’d stay this time. I’d help you stay off the drugs, we’d move out of a trailer and into a cottage on the beach, we’d have a babies and name them after J.D. Salinger characters. Life would be good.

With a mouth full of grilled cheese, you looked across the table and said I love you.

I packed up and moved out that night. You were asleep with Tiddly Winks.

It’s been a month. You haven’t tried to look for me. Or if you have, you just haven’t found me yet. Maybe you didn’t even realize I’d left. Maybe you finally overdid it with the drugs. All I know is, I still love you. And I don’t hate myself for it anymore. I know that you love me, too. Maybe one day you’ll come back for good. Maybe the drugs will end. If that day ever comes, I want be here waiting for you. My shrink says that’s not a healthy plan, but I don’t care. I’m perfectly content with spending my days sorting through the rubble of our relationship, wondering what you saw that night on the boardwalk. And why you lost sight of that.

I love you, too.

Love,
Louise

i don't know what to think anymore.

ph: weheartit

i have 66 le love images saved, and too many stories to count. they all remind me of him. the good and the bad. the thoughts that go through my mind all day everyday are written in those little pictures. i love him more than anything, but my insecurities have made me have to convince myself that he loves me. i am always questioning it. even when he says it, he doesn't say it enough. then you wonder, well what if my insecurities are right. what if he really doesn't love me. so you get even more insecure. but maybe the insecurities are caused because i have always been 100% he has always been 50. maybe its because i have sacrificed relationships with family and friends trying to protect and defend our relationship when he doesn't even want one in the first place. in the beginning of our relationship he was perfect, almost a year later and it has disintegrated into "we are together without the title," i don't want to be tied down," "relationships have obligations and responsibilities and i don't want that" and most of all, "can we talk about this later?" throughout the secrets and the lies, i have ignored it all just to be with him. i kept my ignorance so i could pretend everything was perfect and he wasn't lying to me.

right now he has been going to these christian conferences. he called me and said that he has changed so much already and that he loves me but he wants to "renew our love" he wants to forget about the past because he has been manipulating me and hurting me without me even knowing it. but i have known it. i have had that feeling but i chose not to listen to it. he hung up. leaving me with 3 days of making up what his lies could be in my head. having imaginary conversations with him about how it might play out and thinking that maybe he has been cheating, maybe he has been doing the drugs he knows i hate. and he is going to stare me in the eyes and tell me that he has changed and lets forget the past. he is going to expect me to believe him. he comes home from these conferences in 2 days and i don't know what to think anymore.

do you forgive almost a year of lies in hopes of a trustworthy future with the one you love? or do you give up the insecurities you know will follow because you think he is going to do it all over again...

what do I do now?

ph: wehearit

I love love love your blog and love looking and reading all the little details, especially the comments underneath, it is such a great way to know your not alone sometimes and that everyone goes through these tricky situations. My current situation is a very long story, and a rather complicated one too. I feel I am so out of control and stuck and like everything has gone not the way I planned, and I have no idea what to do. What is real love? Why does the heart trick me? This is my story ....

When I was a 14 I fell for a boy older than me ( he was 18), we hung out for a few months one summer before his friends started to give him stick for us hanging out. Nothing sexual ever happened between us, although I was sure he was the one. He told me one day that nothing could happen between us because of our age and, what I see as selfless, he said I should go on and live my life and that maybe one day in the future when timing was better and age was not a problem we could be together. I was heart broken, that was that, done, gone, he stopped replying to my texts and calls. I was gutted and it took me sleepless nights of tears to get over him.

My darling lovely boyfriend, we met at school when I was 16, and it was fairy tale love from the start. Nothing kept us apart, it really was the best relationship. Honesty, friendship, communication, love. My first. It was amazing. He made me so happy, he adored me. It was perfect. Then we grew up, as childhood sweethearts, and now in my 20's I have the natural nagging feeling I get when he annoys me, or takes me for granted. After 6 years its not the same as it was. Same old story, my heart wanting to let go, his heart not letting me go. I feel trapped. But he is so sweet to me, he is so good to, too good that it makes it hard to want to end it, even though I feel trapped and wanting to fly my wings on my own without his loving restriction.

And then out of nowhere 'he' is back in my life, my friend from all those years ago, suddenly the chemistry is back, its so good, those butterflies which i hadn't experienced in years were back, with more force than ever. It was thrilling. But i made a mistake, a terrible mistake, not knowing what my head and my heart want I broke the relationship trust, I made an error in action, but not once, but twice, on two different occasions. And now i've become 'that' person. The person everyone in a relationship hates, the person we all think of in disgust, because I allowed myself to get caught up in the moment with an old flame during a rocky patch in my relationship.

What do I do now? Do i cut him out my life, my first real love who I never got to have anything with because of bad timing and age difference. He says he's sorry for putting me in this position, and that he'll respect whatever I decide. He hasn't put any pressure on me to break up with my boyfriend.

My darling on the other hand, had no idea, he knows that i've been a bit of a mess with deciding what i want in life, but he has stood by me waiting for me to come back and be his sweetheart. On some occasions I am on his sweetheart, not how we used to be, but we have an amazing history together which I never want to give up, or destroy or harm in anyway ... but i suppose I have already broken it haven't I ?

What do I do? i'm so split, one part of me says cut out the old flame and don't ruin what I have, and what could be amazing for a bit longer OR break off what clearly hasn't worked for along time, and take things slow with this old flame and see what happens. I don't feel like i deserve the love of my boyfriend, but i don't know if i can handle dealing with his broken heart on top of mine, it might kill me, i will be a mess.

Do i come clean about my mistakes ? Or carry on as normal ?

I've been so lost and confused for so long now, i am moving abroad for a year in a few months to get some head space, drastic I know, but that's what it has come down to. I just don't know if i can wait till then to decide what to do ...

a lost little soul x

do you believe in soul mates?

ph: weheartit

Do you believe in soul mates?
I didn't. I used to think that I would never find the person I was meant to spend the rest of my life with in this little town.
I thought I would have to leave and start over new somewhere else to start my life...I thought I would have to leave if I was to ever find my true love.
But then he came along... and it's like everything I ever knew changed. Everything I ever wished for, hoped for, wanted to do... changed.
Because of him. Because i knew that no matter what, he was the guy I was going to spend the rest of my life with.
We took a little while to get to know each other, even though we both practically felt like we knew each other inside out from the first moment we said "Hello."
What we found out though, was that we really were perfect for each other. Were he was speechless, I was there to say what he couldn't. Were I was sad and had shut down, he was there to make everything better again and to put that smile he loves to see on my face..
We had weird moments that I could only laugh about with him..our own little private jokes that we will never forget about. Everything was perfect...he was even into the same taste of weird music as i was into. Because of all this and more, I knew he would be the one.
But lately, it all seems to be changing.. I keep thinking to myself that he still loves me, and he reminds me of this as much as he can..but where I used to see him every day, I only see him about three times a week, maybe less.
Where I used to talk to him every day, now we go days without even a phone call. He got a new job. It keeps him busy, so it's not like he's out there doing things that could potentially break my heart...but all this separation is killing me. I'm proud of him for trying to make his life better, and I wouldn't tell him to give any of it up. But i do wish I would see him more...I wish there would be more hours in the day, more days in the week, just so I could spend a little bit more time with him...
This separation will be good for us in the long run. It will be a test of our love... So far we have had a wonderful 8 months together, and he has become my lover, my partner, my best friend..
I know that we will get through whatever obstacles we come across because I love him and he loves me..
So do you believe in soul mates? Because I do.
-M