When I was a little girl, I never knew or gave much thought to relationships or men or anything of that calibre. All I wanted to do was play with my barbies, my pets and collect and swap fancy paper with my friends. Oh…and read too. Wherever I was, I was in a book and when ever I wasn’t in a book, I was thinking about a book. Or just day-dreaming in general.
Every report card from my school stowed neatly away in my Fathers “important papers” folder, reflected truthfully everything about me. The head-in-the-clouds youngster with the boisterous nature and the funny laugh, but the ability to read and understand anything that was put in front of her, with a huge imagination. A creativity beyond her years.
Fast forward a few years, and here she is typing into a laptop, publishing stories about everything and anything and hoping that someone somewhere out in the world of the great big internet, might read her thoughts and agree with what she has to say. Sometimes it is hard to sit down and write about things, or to create a story of your own. I remember it was said just a few weeks ago at the Oscars, that writing is one of the most difficult jobs out there. But I wouldn’t ever think of it as a job, or a profession. I see writing as my birthright. It is in me to write. What I’m supposed to write I don’t know yet, but regardless of that fact, I’m not afraid of it. I will keep chasing it. I just didn’t wake up one day and say “Oh I think I’m going to be a writer now”, and 5 years from now I probably won’t be even close to where I want to be. And thats cool with me because I believe I can never be completely good enough at something. I have this inherent thread running through me that makes me want to be the best at whatever I put my hand to.
This hasn’t served me well at certain times in my life, and in certain areas of my life. And I have set myself up, unknowingly, for disappointment many times. A victim of my own convictions; maybe. But, like writing, this was a learning curve for me. And I’ve tried to not be so hard on myself. And my affliction for wanting to be good at everything I do isn’t out of some pig-headedness that comes from some character flaw. I believe it is from a want to be a better person, to be a better human being, all round. Not just when I am sitting down and typing something into my laptop for the whole world to see.
I believe there are two types of writers out there in the world. The ones we see, read and love and the ones we don’t see. I never knew this before, or even gave it much thought, but there are so many writers out there in the world, who have the most amazing and gifted minds, that think up the most amazing characters and stories. And guess what? We will never get to read their story….their creation.
How scary is that?
Could you imagine if J.K Rowling never wrote Harry Potter? Or if Jane Austen never published all of her works? The same could be said for William Shakespeare, James Joyce and W.B Yeats. I dread at the thought of these masterminds not being confident enough to publish their works, or worse, their talent being blighted by their greediness for something else, or an inability to make their gift a priority. I couldn’t imagine English Literature without Ulysses. I couldn’t imagine poetry without Yeats or Dickinson. It actually makes my heart sad, because I would never have been able to retreat into my blanket fort with their stories, their poems and their reassurance that everything was going to be ok. They understood.
I watched a motivational video on YouTube for athletes recently and there was a guy speaking and he said something that completely changed my outlook on who I am, and where I am going. He said that the graveyard is the wealthiest place on the earth because it’s full of the ideas, the inventions, the brilliant thoughts, the most beautiful stories, the best talents. But they will never be known because you might have doubted yourself or foolishly thrown away a talent or a passion or love because of some distraction that you felt was more important. Imagine if your parents had never met? Imagine if you never told your husband or your wife that you loved them and wanted to marry them? I don’t want to be that person in the graveyard. I don’t want that written on my stone. I want to leave this world knowing I took every opportunity and made some go of anything that came my way. I want to be able to leave this earth happy that I gave everything I had in everything I did.
This entry seems quite scattered, and you may be thinking where is she going with this? But I am trying to explain a topic so crippling that I can only describe it through my relationship with books. I don’t believe that everything in this world happens by chance. I believe everything happens for a reason. I believe we meet people and we make connections everyday, for a reason. Those people you meet are one of two things; they are a blessing or they are a lesson. I also believe that you have two choices when you meet someone, whether that be in the street, or in a close relationship with those we know. You can either smile at that person and change their day in a positive way, or you can be ignorant to the connection and just get on with your busy life and your “schedule” and continue to be consumed by your daily stresses. I’m going to say something I am probably too young to say but; you don’t have enough time in this life to be distracted. You don’t have enough time to ignore your life, to ignore the kids for an hour while you get a report finished for work, to ignore her text message about the state of your relationship while you do something else, because you’re too busy. You don’t have the time to say your life can wait. There are no traffic lights in the crossroads of life. No one is going to stand in front of you waving a flag, saying now is the right time. There is a photograph of my Aunt sitting on the windowsill looking at me while I type this, and she reminds me everyday how sweet life can be, but how short it is too. She died 2 years ago from cancer.
When I was growing up I was a hopeless romantic; I still am. I still pine over the fact that I will never have to wait 3 days to receive a hand written letter from Mr. Darcy, and be swept up in a whirlwind romance of dances and engagements and happy ever afters. I will never have the romance of the 80’s films. John Cusack will never hold a boom box outside my window, nor will I ever ride off on a lawnmower with Patrick Dempsey. Someone like Judd Nelson will never punch his fist in the air because he got me. But that doesn’t mean I can’t dream about it, or wish for him. Which takes us back to my day dreaming and impossible ideas of what romance and relationships are supposed to be. Or is it impossible?
It doesn’t make me a bad person to want to be loved. To be loved without condition, or limit. To never have to play second fiddle to something or someone else in my significant others life. Maybe sometimes we give too much of ourselves to someone. Maybe innocently we take everything we have in our hopeful hands, saying “here take it, take everything I have. I just want you”. And we never realise the risk we take when we do so.
You’d think that even though your heart has been broken many times, probably by the same person, that it would change your outlook, make you a bitter person. But it doesn’t, and I hope every person in my future will be like this. I will still willingly give everything I have in everything I do, and keep my heart as open and as loving as I possibly can, because I know someday, it will fall into the right hands. A lot of us don’t know where our paths are going, or who is supposed to be on it with us and I’m sure there will be plenty of times that the loneliness and self doubts will creep in, for all of us, but thats only because we are human. I will take the chances as I get them and I’ll jump into the unknown with a bravery and a belief that I have no idea where it came from and I will have hope. And I hope you do too. Theres a quote from a film that I remind myself of in times like these, it goes like this –
“Finding someone you love and who loves you back is a wonderful, wonderful feeling. But finding a true soul mate is an even better feeling. A soul mate is someone who understands you like no other, loves you like no other, will be there for you forever, no matter what. They say that nothing lasts forever, but I am a firm believer in the fact that for some, love lives on even after we’re gone.”
I don’t think anyone should be afraid to start again, to wipe the slate clean, to let go of things they’ve been carrying. It is never too late to make changes to the life you’ve been living. Especially if it is the life you don’t want to be living. We all get lost once in a while, and sometimes some people get lost by choice. I didn’t write this post to get across that a man or a woman is all you need to complete your life because that is not true. The only person who can fully live your life, is you. But we all deserve someone who will love us with every beat of their heart, who spends every minute of the day thinking about us and wondering if you’re alright. More importantly, we all need someone who will help us reach our dreams and protect us from our fears. Somebody who brings out the best in us. Somebody who treats you with respect, and loves every part of you, especially your flaws. They may not be your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your husband or your wife. They could be a close friend. But I believe it is a fatal mistake to shut someone like this out of your life, to not see them for their value because you are “too busy”, or too interested in something else. I don’t think it’s healthy to keep a close eye on things, sometimes people or things just go from our lives, and there is nothing we can do about it, and there is no explanation. And that hurts, but it happens for a reason.
So whether you feel all alone or not, it doesn’t matter. Everybody has to keep moving forward one way or another. I like to remember that even though I might feel alone, there are others feeling it too, and we are all together in that.
There are all different kinds of love out there in the world, so don’t shut yourself out from any of them because of a bad experience. This is my one and only life and it is a cruel, scary, and wonderful thing. And none of us get out of it alive. I don’t have a plan, I think the best of us don’t. But I know I’ve learned everything I have just spoke about for a reason. I just know that none of us can afford to keep waiting. Life is happening now and we should all smile and notice the little things, because its those things that are so very important.
wherethewordstakeme 