"And I am done with my graceless heart
So tonight I'm gonna cut it out and then restart
So tonight I'm gonna cut it out and then restart
'Cause I like to keep my issues drawn
It's always darkest before the dawn
It's always darkest before the dawn
Shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, ooh whoa"
My mind replaying all the times I wish I could have cut out my heart and just hit restart. Sure we can learn them sometimes it takes 5 tries just to learn the same damn lesson you didn't learn the first 4 times. Yes that's growing- but it's also pain.
What do you want to say I kept asking myself??? I was thinking about how hard is to be a dreamer when the world just tries to make you conform. Just write it down I would tell myself from the one block to the next. But what is YOUR point I'd contour. I was running to think- I was running to escape- I was running so I felt the cool heavenly breeze stream across my face- I was running to feel free. I finally came back to the one word that's been nagging at me the past few months and was a straight up a nuisance to my psyche the past 5 years- HOPE.
Most of the time hope is associated with beautiful things "the hope you'll get into a good school" or "the hope you'll have a good time at the party." But what happens when hope actually becomes the thing that holds you back?
After reading the above paragraphs it shouldn't be too surprising that I do some of my best thinking while walking. 2 months back I was on a stroll with a friend discussing her wedding and my love life. First of all, I was struck by the juxtaposition of our two situations as I always am when around people who are committing to each other for eternity and how far from that I am. In regards to a particular situation she asked "Is it done now?" to which I replied " Yes, I mean it's not totally yet but I want it to be." In her most therapeutic (you can leave the Center but it never leaves you) voice she says "If you really want it to be over.... you have to kill the hope." "Whaaaaat?" I gasped laughing as I tried to process the concept. "I know it sounds harsh but as long as you have hope it will never be done." It wasn't like that at the precise moment in time it happened but it's always the seed of an idea that changes everything- doesn't it?
She learned the idea from a book When Thing Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times by Pema Chodron and thanks to the power of the Internet I found the exact quote:
“Hope and fear come from feeling that we lack something; they come from a sense of poverty. We can’t simply relax with ourselves. We hold on to hope, and hope robs us of the present moment. We feel that someone else knows what is going on, but that there is something missing in us, and therefore something is lacking in our world.” SO by holding on to the hope in the future this person will love me/will change/will awaken to their feelings or whatever therefore you are completely limiting yourself to the potential present experiences.
From this point on this idea marinated, then sunk deep into my brain, the result being I have actively tried to kill all hope. Every time even a glimmer of hope happened I allowed the realist in me to crush it like a bug. I told a friend (again thanks to the power of the Internet I can quote myself directly) "I'm no longer a romantic time has made me a realist. Safety and security over grand gestures and epic moments of bliss." I meant it as much as a romantic who is trying to see her world for its realities could. I meant that with every fiber of my being I do not want to hope.
For awhile it worked quite well. Sometimes it takes you a month to learn the lesson sometimes years. I started talking to someone amazing and every day I'd check in with myself are you being present? are you focusing on the here and now and not some imagined future? Every time I would daydream about us together specifically having him coming with me to my friends pre-mentioned wedding in Santa Barbara (possibly one of the most well known romantic weekends away in LA) I would stop myself and think "is that a present reality- NO"and then I would do everything in my power to let it go.
Would I say I have mastered this life lesson? No not in a million years. A romantic will always under all the bullshit, all the broken hearts, and all the disappointments still be a romantic. However she can get up every day and try to not let her imagination run wild, to try and understand peoples actions are always more telling then their words, and to en-grain in her heart that if someone truly wants to be with you, all malarkey aside, they will. So when I ask myself when does a romantic become a realist....when she finally kills the hope.
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| Just for laughs |
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