Most relationships are ruined because people expect too much and we are led to believe that if the other person involved cannot meet all of those expectations then that person is not meant to be a part of our lives.
There’s no room for second chances and no room for other options. It has to go my way or else.
He has to call every five minutes, he has to respond to all my messages, he has to do this, be that, be this.
I should stop expecting and start letting people be.
Which in true motherly fashion was true.
What this is is nothing compared to the immountable heart ache that I overcame without the help of a rebound last year.
But that doesn’t make the sting and missing go away, but that’s beside the point.
My parents, my mom in particular, is way too idealistic when it comes to the guys that I talk to her about and this maybe because, just like me, she fell in love with the first boy I took home to meet them.
He was intelligent, bright and well-educated. Someone who could do no harm to thier precious compassionate, ill-tempered, driven and highly-emotional middle child.
And yet he broke me. He broke me in a way that made Tortillos my best friend and for months all I could do was slumber in the world of Twilight because the real world was too painful.
And in my mom’s mind, If the wonder boy could break her daughter this much, what hope was left with the rest of men in the world?
Also, that specific situation proved to my mom that I was the fighter.
That among her children, I was the one who could stand on her own and who didn’t need a man or to be in a relationship to know her worth. My mom knew that I had enough fire and spirit in me to succeed without the help of a man. I was the daughter who only used men as accessories and nothing else.
Even before I had that realization, my mom already knew that I had it in me.
In her world, without verbalizing it, my mom believed that I had the strength that she never had and that I possesed this spirit of independence that she could only wish for my siblings (okay, i’m not the prettiest of the bunch, so give me this, okay?).
I told her the other day that I didn’t want to be ugly, fat and single and she told me that it was only a choice. You can be successful, beautiful and single.
And let me tell you, this is some hardcore pressure. My mom keeps reminding me that if he’s not going to do good in my life, what was the point of letting him in? And you know what, i’m starting to believe her.
Most people would tell me that if I don’t let people in, I’ll end up being bitter and alone but I detest.
As an example, I recieved an e-mail from one of my students from Korea and let me tell you, if that’s not love, then I don’t know what is. To be able to share love with more than just one person is incredible, it’s the best feeling in the world.
I would admit, I love the drama, but never when it comes to relationships, I have so much on my plate and so many dreams I want fulfilled that the drama that relationshits cause merely add an added form of stress that I could use somewhere else.
My mom believed this even before I realized all of it, which may be the reason why she was so careful the second time around.
She knew that her wise and independent daughter would fall for his own wise cracks and the games (oh why oh why does independence relate well with challenges) of the sweet boy. My mom knew my weaknesses as well and she knew that the boy would turn away because her daughter was too strong and too independent to be tied down.
My mom knew it all even before I went through all of it but she didn’t say anything (yes, believe it or not, my mom had nothing to say about him or what was happening).
I know my mom’s afraid. She’s afraid that her independent daughter will cave again and end up breaking her heart again because sometimes the broken daughter can be extremely emotional and stupid.
I wish I could tell her to not worry about me that much, yes I fall hard but I’m more cautious (I think that’s the reason why they never work) and I pick myself up and learn to dust myself off, a little wiser every single time.
I wish I could tell my mom that every battlescar results to an improved me, to the daughter that she claims to be proud of.
I get hurt, but I know how to use it for my advantage.
And as I close this entry, I hope she knows that she raised me well and the feist came from her.
And it’s because of her that I learned that nothing is sexier on a woman than independence and only the truly deserving guy knows this and won’t punish me for it.
So if you read all the way through, congrats and give yo’ mama a hug for me because I know she feels the exact same way for you.
I started this blog when I was sixteen, but I’ve been blogging since I was fifteen. It’s funny how ridiculous my entries were, but still they spoke of specific times in my life and whenever I look back, it always makes me smile.
I’m 21 now and there are some blog entries that I look to with hurt and hate (how could i be so cheesy) while there are ones that I look at with a hint of regret, as if thinking, where is that girl? Is she still in me?
I used to be so optimistic, even though I believe that my disposition is happier now but I used to have this crazy faith. This faith that believed that there was a greater purpose for great hurting and I used to have a stronger sense of self.
In my previous blog entries (as in really previous, circa 2005) I had this belief that God has this wonderful plan for me and I don’t know where I went wrong. What happened and when I started to become so negative.
When did I stop believing that God had this wonderful plan for me and if I believed strong enough and prayed for it strong enough, things will fall into place and I will experience God’s best in my life.
I guess in the duration of this little journey into adulthood, I succumbed to the evils of this world, which is present, no matter how happy or optimistic we get.
I thought that being immersed in the word would keep me from becoming so negative but I’m human after all and it takes me awhile to open up to people, so when I do, when I trust them, it’s only natural for me to expect from them but I guess, as my best friend said, I really can’t trust people that easily. Or I can’t expect from them simply because no one’s perfect, despite my idealistic view.
As I look back to what has happened to me, I really can’t point to a time where it turned around for me and when I started expecting too much from people and forgetting to simply enjoy what was given.
I also cannot remember when I stopped believing for God’s best and thinking that the scraps would do. I really don’t know when I lost control in that area of my life, I used to have it together, but somehow in between seventeen and twenty one, I lowered my standards without lowering my ideals and it always left me in a compromising situation since well, I can’t lower the standards I promised to abide to when I was thirteen but I was expecting people who weren’t God’s best to understand it.
Somehow, despite the fact that I put up a font of sheer happiness, I have all this grudge inside and for the life of me, I cannot get over it.
It doesn’t mean that I’m this bitter old hag, it just means that every time I get disappointed and every time, my heart breaks, I draw a bigger guard around it. So counting the number of times that my heart has been left disappointed in the past two years, I guess there’s a big barrier that has resulted.
This barrier caused me to stop believing that God is working in all areas of my life and it left me bitter, cynical and too expectant.
I was in my Education Class yesterday and since we were talking about sociology and different personality types, I couldn’t help but feel that I sabotage my relationships because I always find a reason to ruin it even before it has started.
I leave no room for improvement, no room for mistakes, everything has to go by my standards or my way before I believe that it is true.
And going through old blog entries, I cry for the wide-eyed seventeen year old who believed that her older version would make better choices.
People keep giving me advice on how to handle it and I understand their sentiments, I understand what they’re trying to tell me and that they’re trying to help but I hope that it doesn’t come with judgement. We all eff up sometimes you know, a little understanding would go a long way.
It amazes me how I have everything together in my life. My job, my career, where I want to be five years from now but when it comes to this particular area, I believe I’ve made so many boo-boos I couldn’t get up.
I want to discover that girl again and her belief in the greater good. In her belief that miracles happen everyday and that there was something wonderful awaiting her and that every trial equaled a greater blessing.
I want to be her again, only wiser and I want to appreciate the people in my life. I don’t want to cut them out just because they hurt me unintentionally the first time around.
I want to stop expecting from people and I want to simply be grateful for the little adventure and color that they add to my life, no matter how short or how long they lasted in my life.
I want to wake up every day knowing that something great is bound to happen every single minute of every single day.
I want to stop shutting people out of my life and I just want to live it.
Maybe, also, today is the day that I start keeping things to myself and see where it manifests from there.
Maybe, the reason why we’re being given this space is because we need to regroup our thoughts and see what we really want and how we want to act towards this.
There’s always room for improvement and I’m moving forward in faith.
If it’s meant to happen it will. I no longer have to make it happen. It will happen if this is meant for me. For us.
Something I dreamt of in the middle of last year materialized today and of course, just like with all the fairytales in my life, it wasn’t quite as par as I imagined it to be, but for my normal day to day as in living in real life existence, it was incredible!
And there’s no else that I’d owe it to but to Him, the reason why I’m here and the reason why all these things are happening.
Once again, God’s favor has shined through me and it was, His magnificence, and not my own that was evident.
It’s humbling to be used by Him, even in little encounters such as the one that I had today.
I’m brought to tears by the fact that He is involved in every area of my life and He does answer prayers in His perfect time.
I used to remember when I would sit in the computer lab in my high school and blog for ages. I would spend every waking moment in the extremely cold computer lab under the not so watchful eye of our creepy computer teacher and I would have a new entry to write every single day (sometimes, I’d even blog twice or thrice a day!).
And looking back, it sorta bothers me since, well, what really did I write about during those younger years? Faux broken hearts, pretending to know about politics (now, i just don’t talk about it at all, it’s a waste of perfectly good cyberspace, besides, the net is already saturated with know-hows and those pretending to be know-hows) and angst, a lot of angst.
I used to be so mad at the world and I used to dish it out every single day.
Now, I’m less angsty and I realized that I’ve been writing less. I’d write about random things but never full blown entries unless my heart is shattered or I’m really pissed off about something.
I’ve also come to realize that I hardly write when I’m happy, even though I have become a converted optimist in the past couple of years, I’m still afraid to write something beautiful down maybe because, in the tiniest part of my brain, i’m still scared that that beautiful thing would be snatched from under my nose.
Also, TWITTER has been a good outlet for the random things that i used to blurt out in my blog. And with my busy schedule, I really don’t have the time to write a lengthy entry explaining how my day went. I’m all good with 140 characters and usually, they’re enough to explain how I feel.
I’ve been busy. That’s saying it at the very least. I’ve been extremely busy getting my life together, daydreaming and possibly stalking on facebook in between that I haven’t really sat down and sifted through my thoughts.
Sometimes, I like them messy, but today, in particular, I felt like writing again. And there’s no particular reason for it. I just like to write, I like to verbalize my thoughts and none of them are interesting, unless you want me, in detail, to talk about photoshop, indesign, the video shoots I have to do and my class tonight, which aren’t particularly enthusiastic topics.
Some say that I’m living this superwoman life, going to class, dealing with things 21 year olds deal with, working full-time and they look amazed, as if i’m doing something right.
The reality is, i’m just a really boring person. Weekends are no longer comprised of drinking and dancing (oh gaa, i miss dancing) although i’ve never been one to over extend my drinking poweress, instead its Gossip Girl (or whatever show i’m currently hooked to), homework, family and friends ocassionally. I love staying at home and daydreaming. I love working out.
And the funny thing is I also love spending time with myself. Gone are the days when I wish there was someone for me instead of me always being that someone to somebody. I like where I am, but god am I driven!
I really don’t know the point of this long drawn out entry, but i guess, in a little way it reflects where I am at this very point of my life. Busy, but happy. Nothing else, nothing more. I guess I’ve gone past the days of complicated and I’m simply taking life as it is and taking risks on the side.
I’m happy. Which is all we’ve strive for when we get up in the morning and I hoping that as you read this, you are too.
