Hello world and thank you Kelly Clarkson for providing me with an easy title. So, here's the new blog! My first request too!! Even though I'm sure this is something I would have written about sooner or later...love. Oh yes, I'm going there. Its time kiddos. It's a new year and time for a new perspective on life yes? Kay, well here goes.
My good friend asked me to write a blog about "love, heartache and pain." Hello! Three words I'm very familiar with. So I put on the Kelly Clarkson (who is also very familiar with these three words) and I'm getting to work.
Now, I'm my very humbled and honest opinion, you can't have good true love without heartache and pain first. I mean, how will you be able to appreciate the good stuff without the bad stuff right? I know this much from experience. Hell, who doesn't? Half of the conversations I have with my girlfriends is about men. The men we love, the men we used to love, the ones we could have loved, the ones we spurned, the ones who spurned us...you get the picture. As singer Willa Ford so brilliantly said "Fuck the men, let's drink to us!" It is so amazing that so much of our lives as women can be marked by the men that were apart of it. 'Sex and the City' is one of my favorite shows and Carrie Bradshaw's life on the show is really marked by her three big relationships: Big, Aiden and the Russian. You know what? I think I'm going to ease into this thrilling look at love by talking about my favorite show.
'Sex and the City' is practically a woman's guide. A handbook for life and love in New York City some may say. I mean, I definitely know a lot of girls who look at their lives through the lens of Carrie and Co. Hell, I do it all the time! First, Carrie has Mr. Big. Big never really goes away though does he? I know the feeling Carrie. The Mr. Big type is the guy who keeps ripping your heart out, pounding it flat with a meat cleaver and handing it back to you. And while you know that he's toxic and no good for you; you also know that he's your destiny so you keep going back for another pounding. Mr. Big serves Carrie her heart on a tray more times than we can keep track of. Calling her his "friend" in front of his mother, not being able to ever tell her she's "The One", marrying the idiot stick figure with no soul (the much younger Natasha), the affair, showing up just as Carrie thinks her life is finally going the way she wants it to (pre-Paris), coming to her rescue, leaving her at the altar (if you haven't seen the movie by now, what the hell are you waiting for?!) and then finally he manages to sit right and fly straight. Should Carrie have stuck around for all of that? No. But she did because Mr. Big was her destiny. But it proves that you have to deal with the bad to get to the good.
I have plenty of girlfriends who have man problems. I mean, what woman doesn't right? But sitting around and talking about it (usually over food or coffee or both) is the only way we can deal with and work through our issues. Now I've heard some seriously cringe worthy stories from my girls. The crazy stalker who called 6 times a day and showed up at my friend's house only to get chased away by her family; the alcoholic drug addict who caused a scene at my friend's place of work, the straight boy who acts gayer than any gay we've ever met (seriously), or better yet, the guy you think is the love of your life who turns out to be gay, the mixed message sender, the commitment phobe, and a sordid amount of other tales that would be pages and pages to tell. My personal favorite is the guy who tells you he loves you but you can't be together so he dates some wholly inappropriate girl (one with some nasal issues) or someone who has something in common with you (like your knack with the sarcastic comments, your wit when armed with a pen or your love for the stage) in a backward, lame attempt to get over you and/or make you ridiculously jealous. This last issue I can speak of from personal experience.
Now the reason I think my friend asked me to write about this subject is because she is dealing with separation anxiety. She is forced to be away from her boyfriend who she cares about more than she'll let on for longer than she'd like and it's killing her. Hence the pain and heartache part of love. It sucks to be apart from the person you love, no matter what the circumstances are for your separation. When you're forced to be away from your love, you don't really feel completely whole. It always feels like something is gnawing away at your insides and you just can't get it to stop. There is a constant dull pain deep down inside of you that no amount of social interaction, chocolate or booze will ever dull. It is truly one of the most unbearable feelings in the world. And yet when you can't change it, you are forced to deal with it. It's like being stuck between a rock and a hard place; there is no happy alternative. It's really just a matter of how long you can stick it out whether it be six months or three years. Again, this I know for personal experience.
The thing is when you begin to picture your life without that person and you can't. I had a friend who said that she knows the man who is her soulmate because there have been times when she's literally wanted to kill him but then in the next moment couldn't imagine her life without him. I had to say that I totally agreed with this statement. Or in a less extreme situation, when you can just imagine being with someone for a long time. Maybe not forever, but for the forseeable future. What do you do when that person is suddenly not there anymore? If it's time, or distance or circumstance that keeps that person away, their absence throws you into a tailspin of how to suddenly deal with your life and where they fit into it. You know that no matter what the circumstance, you aren't giving them up without a fight. Its hard because there will be mornings where you will wake up and ask yourself: "what the hell are you thinking by sticking around?" but others where you can't imagine being any other place, no matter how much it's killing you.
Please let me tell you, it will kill you. That pang you feel in your heart every time you think about him, that incurable dull ache, the dreams that haunt you at night, the moments where you can't stop smiling...its all going to get to you after awhile. The only thing I can say from experience is that it will get easier. You'll learn how to handle the good feelings and the bad. Or if you can't be with him, you'll learn how to get over being without him. You'll still love him of course but you'll be able to keep the thoughts from haunting you and making you want to rip all of the hair out of your head. You'll be able to look at him clearly an objectively again and tell him when he's done something that makes you happy or unhappy. It all comes with time.
And if it doesn't work out and you are forced to sit and put back together the pieces of your broken heart, you can do what another friend used to do. Picture all of your exes singing *NSYNC's "I Want You Back" to you. It will definitely induce a good chuckle.
But I leave you with these last thoughts. Remember, what's meant to be will be and if it wasn't, its because there's something better out there. Love takes time but you can't have great love without great heartbreak, heartache and pain.
