love someone.

ph: weheaertit

something i have to do for me

ph: weheartit

D,

I’m writing this letter to tell you goodbye. I will never admit to writing this, much less ever give it to you, but this is something I need to do for myself. After our nearly four-year story, I’m letting go. You let go a long time ago, and I realize that it is time for me to do the same. I’m letting go of everything I thought that we would become. I’m letting go of thinking of you every single day, more than once. I’m letting go of secretly hoping that we will one day end up together. I’m letting go of waiting. I have realized once and for all that I am not meant to be with you. You know how much I cared about you, so I will not go into that in this letter. I have told you how I feel about you for years. I allowed you into the deepest part of my heart. I allowed you to know me better than I knew myself, and for that I am extremely regretful. I have learned that no girl should ever open up as far as I opened up to you. Nothing is forever, and there is no reason to be so vulnerable. I gave you parts of myself that have taken many months to get back. I put you above myself…something that I will never do again for the rest of my life. I am my top priority, no one else. I look back on our relationship and sometimes find myself wishing that it never happened. I’m not sure if I actually mean that, because, after all, everyone says it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. I’m not so sure though, because you hurt me in a way that I didn’t know was possible. I loved you with every single part of me. And when we were over, I felt as if I had lost all of those thousands of parts. You left me broken... I still feel broken sometimes. Maybe we went wrong because of the timing. Maybe it’s because we were still growing into ourselves, although I guess there is no use in speculating why things worked out the way they did. I firmly believe that everything happens for a reason. I want you to know I think you are an amazing person. I don’t blame you for the way you hurt me. I recognize that was not your intention. I know you will do great things in life, and you deserve every inch of it. God has taught me so much about myself this past year. In hindsight, I consider our break up a blessing. But, despite the fact that I have been growing a lot, I still have a lot of healing to do. In order to do that, I need to tell you goodbye. Because every time I make the decision to be your friend, I fall harder. When you kiss me, or call me, it is different to me than it is to you. I have learned that the way I care about you is much deeper than your present feelings for me, and I can’t truly move on until I cut you out of my life completely. I hope you don’t take this the wrong way. This is something I have to do for me, in order to love myself again, and someone else. Thank you for everything you have taught me. It’s been a long, crazy ride. Goodbye, D.

Best Wishes & Love Always,

M

never regret you

ph: weheartit + MaryJane'sBedroom

i can't unlove you.

ph: Paula Repezza + weheartit

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

unfinished business

ph: Amber Marie Chavez + agni

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

don't allow those bastards near your heart

ph: this isn't happiness