Love. Loss. Lessons. Life.

2012 was planned out. I had it all figured out. What I was going to do. The places I was going to visit. The trips I was going to make. The achievements I was to add to the list. The things I wasn't going to do. The people I was forever done with.
2012 started out with a review if this blog in the Sunday Vision. 2012  started out with all these writing offers, and me promising to take them on.
2012 is more than half-way gone. I've hardly written.
Writer's block, severed friendships, lost semi-love, home-front drama and 7 months down 2012, the list is still unchecked.

I thought I was done with it all, I thought I had mastered the art of self-love, self-forgiveness, survival and bouncing back. But life...oh, life. The un-warning visitor. Bearer of news both heavy and light.
It's been 7 long months. Of sighs, questions, prayers, semi-depression and just when I thought I was all dried up, tears. The anger, pain, loss, disillusionment of the past months have manifested in rivers of tears I thought long dried up.
 Reviewing; Life in lessons

1. You don't ned your entire phone book of friends.

At my lowest and darkest hours, 6 people stood out. Make that 7, for Stella who left this sucky place 6 years back. But yes. I have been the un-official mother to tens of friends. Which means I have done the friending, checking-on part most of the time. When the tables turned; the sad but liberating truth came to life. Tabitha, Liza, Joel, Stella, Peron, Peace, Sarah N. And Steve, who eventually gave up on me. 8 people fought for my life and sanity. 8 people begged, coerced, confronted, prayed and cried until bit by bit, we got me back.
8 people saved my life. And that's not an exaggeration.

  2.  I give too much.
In "Bed of Lies" by Matchbox 20, Rob Thomas sang; "I tried to be more than me, and I gave until it all went away..."
I gave my love, my time, my attention, my...all to people, yes, people. Who took, and took, and when I was dried up, they all left. One by one, I watched the people who'd claimed so much love and care for me, walk away. 
Because I had no more to give.
Because I asked that dammit, for once, could I be on the receiving end? Could I be given the time, attention and love I was giving out?
I asked for more. I fought for more. I begged for more. And they walked. Because I was asking for too much. Because I wasn't understanding. Because I was dramatic.
Because I was exhausted.
I gave too much. They gladly took it and left me empty and dry.
But then I learned. C'est la vie.

3. People always leave.
In One Tree Hill, Peyton lost so much. To death. To other girls. And this became her mantra' "People always leave."
It's weird how after one breakup, you believe you'll never feel the same amount of hurt. Until the next break up. The next walk away. Then you know. That each breakup takes it's own piece of you. Each walk away brings in its own flood of tears.
Each goodbye comes with a dozen "Please don't leave mes." 
Each "I can't do this anymore" brings on a fresh unwanted supply of "But what the fuck is wrong with me's?"
Each" I am not so sure about us" leaves you drenched with countless " Why won't you be so sure about me, instead?
People leave. Your heart gets broken.
People forget you. Your heart hardens.
People move on or, go back. Your heart dissolves in low self-esteem and "I wish I was prettiers"
People make their choices. And it's not you.
You tell your heart to be still. There's only so many cracks-and aches-it-can-take-on. For the same people.
People leave. People leave. People leave.
And you live.

4. We invented the drama.
Maybe not so knowingly, but we did. We got into and stayed in places we shouldn't have gotten into in the first place.
Some wise fellow said that when actions and words differ, believe the actions. Actions don't lie. I am a writer so it's no surprise that I am a sucker for words. How word-love turned to foolery is...is human, I guess.
Your true friends love you even when depression means you don't want to party for months on end. When you're not so cheery and smiley, the people who love you will still adore you. Even when your self induced house arrest comes in, they will adore you. Over texts, calls, IMs and prayers.
This is cliche but true; when someone wants to be in your life, they make room for you. No amount of promises, flirting, sexting or pleading will get you onto the schedule of someone who doesn't want to make time for you.
You don't need to beg for the time of someone who wants to be in your life. Rain or shine. Miles be damned, someone who wants to see you will see you.
It's that simple. And that difficult.

5.  I tried self-sacrifice. I botched the job.
Because life is too damned unpredictable. Because I consider myself to be fairly clever but Lord, have I screwed up. And the worst screw up is, I lost the love of me. Somewhere along the way, I thought it romantic to be self-sacrificial. Asking. Begging. Taking crumbs. Not demanding for what I deserved, what I was promised.
I asked for promises to be fulfilled, I got accusations of not being understanding.
I asked for a break from the night life, I learned who my true friends were.
When I thought over giving wasn't stupid enough, I took on self-blame. Blame for a failed relationship. A relationship that needed two people to make it work. I shouldered all the blame. Blamed myself for "tying...insisting..." I believed them when they said this time, they'd make it work, then I took the blame when the promise fell through the cracks. Again. And again. And damned again.
I blamed myself. And hated myself. And questioned myself. And apologised, when I should have held my head high and asked for better treatment. For more sensitivity. For understanding.
Until a brilliant woman forced me to question my self doubt.
Until she held my crying face and forced me to look into the mirror and understand. Once and for all.
My only fault was loving too much. And forgetting the simple truth; when someone truly loves and cares for you, it shows.
You can't hide love. Also, love doesn't hurt. It feels good. Really good.

6.  Ever after.
It's been a tough road. The last 7 months haven't been easy. But I learned. To let my friends in, because they're God's earthly angels and life savers.
To forgive. God, it's hard. To forgive yourself.
To forgive someone who you've come to realize, never really cared.
To forgive the small things like not calling on your birthday to breaking promises on end.
To heal. I have taken time off for me. For once in years. I shut out the bars, the parties.
And read. Slept. Prayed. Cried. Fought with God. Wept.

Until the blackness started to lift. Until I stopped judging me by looks or, lack of looks. Brilliance or lack of enough brilliance. On who loved me and who left me.
Until I learned to take it one day at a time. One item, one list at a time.
Until I learned, again; to put me at the top of each list.

Because nobody can love me like I can.

Blocked.

She believes he blocked her.
She never saw this one coming, but she believes he blocked her. She's been through the motions, the pain, the anger, self-pity, the emptiness.
She's been through all of that.

Sadness, when it comes, cannot be escaped. It must be faced. She was never going to be perfect. She was always going to cause him a bit of brain and mind ache.
And because she knew her weaknesses better than most, she was going to keep trying to become better. And when she failed, she'd make up for it with...an intensity that would make him forget.
That was her intention, anyway.

But this, she wasn't expecting. Because she was passionate about him-yes. Because she showed parts of herself she'd never shown to any other, because she hadn't been ready to let go, or be let go of... but because she thought he understood.

That she wanted freely-given love.
Truly-given and shared passion.
Laughter. Smiles. Skipped heartbeats.

And even if she missed him until sometimes, it hurt,
She finally understood that for him, she was just...well, not really important,

And she really thought he knew. That with all she felt, she was never going to beg. For attention. Love. His heart.
She felt too much sometimes, but she wanted to be wanted back.
And that, she would never force. Not even out of him.

So it shocked her that she'd been...shut out that way. Mostly, it hurt.
To think that he believed that she was that much without pride, that unless he blocked her, she'd be falling over his life.

But then again...maybe he just got tired. And blocking her was one more way for him to tell her that they were over.

"Let's re-arrange, I wish you were a stranger I could disengage..." - "Over my head"- The Fray.

borrowing a title; for women who are "difficult" to love.

I have not written, well typed in the longest time. I have written though. On paper. I have gone back to writing the way I used to know it. Maybe its because of this job that requires I jot down just about everything. There are post-it notes around me. Two work notebooks. Two fill-my-bags-all-the-time personal ones. Filled with to-do lists, bucket lists, blogs to read, books to buy...and then the real words. Phrases that drift by during hour-long briefings. Sentences that come through while I try to re-word pages-long work files. Paragraphs that I sneak in during the first 20 minutes of the lunch break.
There are scattered and incoherent lines all over my notebooks.

I am writing the way I used to write in high school and at university. I wrote on the covers, mid-pages of my class work books.On my palms. That used to infuriate my mother.
Now I buy my own clothes, so I take more care.

Words are the only constant in my life. Even when I behave in a way that makes Blair Wolforf seem pretty tame, they never leave. They are not like my sleep patterns which are highly unpredictable. Nowhere to be found all night, all over my face at 10am.

Also, I have the world's bestest bestie.

She sent me a link to some of the most beautiful writings I have come across. Not the heady-in-your-face kind, no. The...flutter-by, settle-upon and touch-the-most-core-parts-of-you sort.
So I read a poem. I read it and just sat there...staring. Re-reading. Wondering. How someone else could capture so clearly, so simply and yet so honestly, your entire mesh of fears, insecurities, worries and lonely thoughts. How another woman on another continent probably sat down to write about herself and ended up writing about me and several other women. How another woman put pen to paper and brought to life all the aches, all the self-doubting questions, all the years of masking, of trying to be..."normal"...just so someone (usually, some man), could love you. Could accept you.
Could stop to try changing the chaotic mind and not-willing-to-be changed spirit that is you.

There are women who are born..."normal". They're pretty.
And soft.
They play keep-house. They like dolls(urrrghhh). They don't question. They are quiet. They dance without barely moving a limb.

Then, there are the women who always grabbed at the pens in their father's shirt-pockets. They played scrabble. They could not understand dolls. They understood books. A LOT. They found peace in their solitude because it was easier. Easier to lock yourself in your cousin's room at her birthday party and read a good book, because the other girls are playing house and dear Lord, that ish was just so common, so dull, so exhausting, so un-original. Francine Pascal was your best friend. And Elizabeth Wakefield was the character you felt closest to.

And when you started to dance....

Some women are born to have it easy.
God gives them the traits that make it easy to love them.
Lucky, lucky women.

Some women burst onto the planet with so much energy, searing passion and the inability to master the art of slowing down.
Fast walking. Fast reading. Fast writing of class work so they could go back to Enid Blyton.
Wonder how I got the scar under my left eye.
Then the world asks them to stop. When they don't listen, it punishes them and says it will hurt them some more if they do NOT stop.
Bruises. Scars. Permanent sadness. Constant failure to settle in. Majority of your friends are boys. They don't try to make you giggly.

Until they start to bring on the pain.
The worst sort.
You fight and damn near defeat the demons that nearly snuffed the life outta your spirit, only for the people you think will help fan them to full brightness to walk in and stamp out the small, delicate embers you'd began to light.
You shut out anyone with the makings of a light dimmer, you let in people who you believe get you.

And then, you hurt them. Badly.
Your entire world is falling apart and you hurt the one person you probably need around the most.
For the first time in over four years, you break down and cry. And the only person you tell this is the one who walks away. The one person whose hug you need the most will not give you their shoulder.
But you hurt them. So why would they want to make your day a bit brighter?

Because you would never walk away at the time when they most need you.
Because you tried.
Because you were in pain.
Because you opened yourself up at your most vulnerable and told them you were d.y.i.n.g.
Because you're styupeed.
Because walking should NOT be that easy.
Because you're searching for the pain that you thought would consume you and its not there.

Because you met a stranger, a woman who called you beautiful.
She said you deserved deep, committed, will-last-through-the-ugly-days sort of love.
She told you to wipe the pain from your eyes. To let the hurt go. She said you needed to forgive yourself.
She reminded you that you deserved to be happy.
Good, bad, perfectly put together, t-shirt and sweats, hair perfectly coiffured, messy tousles, you deserved to be loved and cared for and worried over.
No half measures.

And you believed her :-) Really, you did.
Then your bestie sent you the link and you thank God for the constants. For the friends that never go away.
You make each day easier, prettier, smile-ier and I am a lucky woman.
Difficult to love on some days. Easy on others.
Deserving love on all.

"For women who are "difficult" to love"- Warsan Shire( Look for the poem. Its the "For colored girls" of 2012.)

Moe.
With love.

Striking a bargain.

Because God is a no-bargainer.
He doesn't kusaala ko.
Endless prayers, novenas, litanies and threats later, she's still in the same place. Ranting doesn't scare God. She has sent grown men to near-madness with her tantrums. God just looks on and goes,
"Gabriel, come watch. She's learned some new cuss words and stinging phrases."
And then He goes on doing the business of perfecting other people's lives while she falls into a deep, dreamless slumber. Listening to The Script. Danny O'Donoghue. She's thinking of ways to let him know that she'll have his babies, listen to him sing all day and feature in his videos at no cost and tattoo his name onto every available space on her body without sounding too desperate.
Or obsessed.

Smitten

She wishes God would make His mind up. That He would find another brilliant hottie to mess around with. But then, how many of those are in existence? Un-roll your eyes, Liz Kobusinge.
The curve balls He's throwing are not good news for her hotness. They kill her smile and dull her witty self.
How can she start being full-time melancholic when the world is used to bubbly and vivacious her? Sigh...

God does things His way. God is not moved by tears or  her threats to pile a ladder onto the highest chair possible just to get to heaven, part the skies and shake her fist at Him and tell Him to QUIT trippin'. Enough already.

First, that chair.

Why won't you give straight answers? Why are you allocating the not-bright-at-all grey colour to theme her life?
Because while she has sinned-greatly, while she has allowed sloth to get in the way of getting to the very top and while the lusty-thing for Clooney will not go away, she's tried. Real hard.
To believe. And trust. And hope. And be nice to people who write "I am" as "am".
Who knew God did things by the half? That he does something, you thank Him and walk away believing it was divine will at play. Sad maybe, but smug. And comfortable in the knowledge that you just obeyed God.
Then, WHAAAM!!
MAJOR FREAKING WHAAAM.
She was not meant to apologise for walking. She wasn't meant to look into his eyes and see the pain she had caused.
No, she was not meant to kick her strapped ankle and want to die. Because she asked you, God. She did.
The doubts that she might have let go a  good thing-albeit all its complexities is not a nice thing to carry around.
She was not supposed to think the dreaded "What if???" at any one point. She was not meant to feel styupeed. But she does. Extremely styupeed.
She should be in self-righteous and its-all-your-fault mode right now. Because it was his fault. He screwed up. Botched the job. Slept on duty. Tripped. He messed up.
Except it turns out, she messed up.
And is blaming it on the Almighty.

That's just to emphasize the point. Not going to happen.

But He just goes on going on. Sending cloudy skies on a Friday evening. Because threatening to write bad things about God doesn't shake Him one bit. Mbu, He's been through worse.
So she kulamuzaas.
This drama just cannot go on. Her heart is out of whole pieces to be plucked out and chewed up then given back to her. To try and erase the damage. She is a writer. Not a magician.
She needs clarity. And pain erasing balm. And direction.
She needs to stop getting past him and then having him come back, if only to show her what a mess her mind is.
She needs him around forever. Or gone for good.
In return, she promises to let him go for good. Or try and love him the way a woman should love a man.
She will even make his evening dose of what-it-takes-to-close-a-particularly-bad-day;

She needs closure.
And a gin and tonic.

Ni Furahiide.

Dealing. Faith. Breathing.

I have the most murderous thoughts going through my mind.
Gruesome images of body-mutilation and stabbing and choking. Not of myself please. I am way too narcissist to consider putting my pretty self through any physical pain. I want to hurt you. In ways I haven't wanted to hurt anyone since the day they went and cancelled Friends. Okay. It wasn't that bad. Still.
I want to hurt you for hurting me and for being the biggest asshole this side of the planet. I want to hurt you because you re-define callous and reckless. And heartless. Yes. You, the-one-that-I-just-let-go-of are the universal definition of heartless.
And I am the universal definition of proud and strong-headed and mentally-loose-ish. At least by your standards. So, what the hell was a brilliant girl like myself even doing getting close to a...person like yourself?
Brilliant girl is not seeking answers. It is a rhetorical question.

This is meant to really hurt.

Alcohol is my drug. Gin is my bestest friend. Somewhere up there next to God-when I am not venting and telling Him to leave me alone.
And those Black Russians? Man, oh man...Vodka and rum are my comforters. Especially when it seems all my guardian angels are taking a very long and extended break from me. Alcohol helps me deal.
Stella used to. Then she just had to go and die. How so real-life-like. For the one person you allow yourself to be broken with, the one person you can cry with, to die in the year when real life and all its complications start to happen.

I miss you. Always.

There is Celia. But then she works in Nairobi. Convenient right? I should learn to cry over the phone. Except that will be quite frustrating for poor Celia and damaging to my smart phone.
Where on earth is Michael when I need him desperately? What's a woman to do when the very persons who are her warm arms and I-can-be-my-messy-and-currently-weepy-self with people are not within a boda ride's reach?
Said woman turns to alcohol.

My bestest....well. One of...

Dealing is difficult. Dealing is painful. Letting go is exhausting. Moving on sounds so easy when Oprah says it. In real life, moving on first of all requires you get out of bed in the morning. And getting out of bed is the hardest thing to do when you have to move on. There should be a warning manual for the twenties. Life gets foggier, friends get...complex and judgmental, God becomes a disturbingly distant figure and the Bible ceases to make sense.
Snogging people you have no right or business snogging becomes well....very likely.

Dear God.
At what point did life take such a ferociously dramatic turn? How did the aches, pains, sores, wounds pile up without me realising it?Why the hell does my spell check thingie insist on me spelling realise with a z? I am a product of British, NOT American colonialism.
Bloody Americans.
I am a victim-self-made victim of stoicism, facade(ing), first-bornism( that one's on the parents) and the psycho illness a friend described as the God-complex. Saving everyone and pushing me aside until I wake up and realise I have created my own hell.
Shadows don't make for nice company. Aching hearts don't make for easy breathing. Especially if one is an asthmatic. Stoic natures don't make for easy crying. And this does not make for easy dealing.
Because crying doesn't leave bright and sunny spaces in one's heart. It squeezes out a good deal of the pain.
But it leaves despair. Dark, empty and bottomless despair. I am not one for crying. But I think its about time.

Time I took the mask off, rolled aside the thick rock across my heart and cried.
Real, deep, gut-wrenching and heartbreaking sobs. The sort that would send my demons packing. Because my demons are of that nature. The lets-pretend-and-play-fine. They hate emotion.
I think its time. That.I.Cried.
I do not need company please.
Stella's ghost and gin bottle are quite enough.

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."-Hebrews 11:10.

 And in that one verse, the good-intention(ed) apostle Paul went and made faith the most forsaken, challenged and ignored substance of life.
Because faith is the very basis of all things-faith in a better day, true love, totally accepting friendships...faith for the dark in all its forms to finally go away.
How does one expect mortal and fallible beings such as the 6 billion mass of pain-ridden, wound-carrying and fearful human species to have faith enough to last one through the tragedies that most of us call our lives?
In a world of cause-less wars, starving children whose only crime is being born of parents who have failed to master the concept of co-existence, in a country where class-differences are slowly building up enough reason for war, how do you speak to us of faith?
Faith in what? or whom?
A deity that walked away from this place centuries ago? Governments that plunder, loot and then stand by their patriotic albeit hypocritical and clearly-wrong decisions?
Excuse me please.
We might be made in God's image but surely there is a reason God took His own away from this just after 30 years. He should have stayed. Keep encouraging the rest of us mere mortals along.
But what sort of loving parent leaves their beloved son in this forsaken place?
So pardon my cheek God, but when do you plan on coming back for the rest of us? We also are your children.
Right?

Say Paul, ya think you could write letters to this day's peeps?

There is alot to be said for life's happy moments. But in summary; they do not last. Love dies. Or fades away. Or burns you.
Friends leave, friends move, friends die.
I will miss you Yasmin. Come back soon. Please. Please. You're one of my rocks.
Dreams die or take the life out of you as you fight for them.
Men can be real scum-of-the-earth-characters. Not all of them. On this, I will always insist.
Happiness is fleeting. Joy is something we all write about. Way less than all of us actually believe it.
The truth is, it is as elusive as happiness. Pain and hurt are lacking in the etiquette department. They do not call before they show up.
So we smile. We laugh. We kiss and make merry when we can. We grab at our dreams the first chance we get. Because deep down we are painfully aware of this-that this minute's happiness most likely doesn't have any intentions of making it to the next minute.

So this girl turns to alcohol. And mentally challenges the now sainted-and-heaven-residing Paul.
And reaches for her inhaler.
No one said this was going to be easy.

Drunk, achy and...waging war. Mbu.

Self-Love; A Delicate Art.

"Love Thy Self." With flowers, if necessary.

"I love you, Maureen."

That is me sending myself off at the start at each day. Yes, I look myself in the mirror,try to look beyond the new zit that has comfortably lodged itself on the most visible part of my forehead, and tell myself or my mirror reflection that I am loved. It is sorta corny. It has a desperate ring to it. And I will be the first to tell you that it works. Not the mean-staring at the zit in the hope that it will melt away. Pimples do not respond to psychological torture.

The expression of self love. That works. We as human beings are greatly flawed. We have shortcomings, laced with quirks and to top that off, a pile of sins that would call for Christ's second crucifixion. Yes, we as a species can be very unlovable. Most humans in fact, go out of their way to make themselves especially unlovable. 

I believe for most people, it would be okay if the lack of love was limited to the rest of the world. Who cares if the girl at your office loathes you because you have all the major designer labels as permanent residents of your closet? Eish!!Find a good knock-off dealer.

It IS the real thing.

But when the lack of love for self emanates from the self itself...well...Trouble looms.Trouble that can be spelt in many different ways; low-self esteem, self-depreciating thoughts, self-hate, negative self image, and in the case of Gilbert Arinaitwe, plain old stupidity. If you're going to vandalise private property, attack defenceless political figures in full view of TV cameras, wear a hood, or cap. I mean, there's a reason all these crime series are all over our TVs. And it has nothing to do with mastering forensic science.

The majority of us lucked out when we majored in literature and divinity. Self-love is necessary, as necessary as breathing. In the long run, anyway. Self-love means you look your majorly-injured self in your impaired-eye and learn to:

Fully Accept

That you will forever be 5"2" tall or short, that your hips are actually dependant on bone structure&; no amount of dieting will lessen their width. Or girth. For one to even have a slight element of success in loving one-self, one needs to fully comprehend that most of our flaws, or assumed flaws cannot be overcome. You cannot change the fact that your father decided his love& commitment came with a shelf life. You will not change the fact that you gave years of irreplaceable time to a man that woke up& decided those years were not enough. He had to take your heart& belief in all men good. No, you will not change the fact that your only show of family wealth is your university degree. 

But you have an education, and so you can start a whole new family drama where your name will be a force to reckon. You can grieve over that man and understand that loving someone with all of you is no guarantee they won't walk all over you. You can realize that while you missed out on fatherly love, you maxed out on motherly affection& sibling rivalry. Which teaches you self control.

Acceptance doesn't mean you let yourself stay in mediocrity. It doesn't mean you remain in an unhealthy relationship-romantic or otherwise, because you feel its your " Burden to carry." 

It means, you allow that the powers that be already decided how your body will look. The people you love have their own minds (even when you know you have a better mind)& most importantly, we cannot control most of what happens to us or change what happened. We can forfeit denial. We can accept it.

At least the tape still fits.

Forgive.

My very first lesson in forgiveness involved forgiveness of another. You know, the Bible story where Jesus tells those people that they must forgive one another in multiples of seven? That one. I believe that to forgive others who have in some way, caused us pain is noble. I mean, how could they stop writing "Friends"? That took time to get over. I know that to forgive spells maturity in character and spiritual evolution. But I also know that when someone causes me any sort of harm, I prefer revenge. Served frozen. With second helpings; my anger has a healthy appetite. Forgiveness of others is difficult. You're telling the one that caused you irreparable damage that you're choosing to grant pardon. That you're willing to put away their painful act as one of life's lessons. Okay, while at it, don't lose the lesson. Forgive. NEVER forget. Not me. I am-an-eye-for-an-eye-woman. I do not owe any one any forgiveness. You hurt me, I deal how I know; frozen responses.

But to forgive others is not my problem here. My mother has made it her life mission to instil this virtue in me. There's hope. She did get me to start cooking. I am at the sausage-grilling stage. 

The greatest lesson in self-love is forgiveness of oneself. 

So, no one else will....

You need. No, you MUST learn to forgive yourself. It is easy to cast stones at others. It is easier to point fingers, since stoning might damage one's recent manicure.  But how do you cast a stone when the finger is pointing at you? How do you look yourself in the mirror and reconcile the reflection to that insensitive thing you just did? Like look that girl in the eye& tell her you are not kissing with her boyfriend. Then proceed to send said boyfriend a text. Complete with a kissey smiley.

Say," Auntie!!!"(Stock Photo)

To get past the fact that you have caused hurt. You, have broken a heart. You, are the reason someone else is crying. Not because you just keeled over& died, but because you are bringing their world down, passionately. Heartlessly. To forgive yourself for poor choices, for opportunities not taken, for decisions that took the lift and life out of your character. That is difficult. Because it is kinda norm for people to disappoint. Expected even. But when you are the disappointment, that is....sad.

Since I can't serve myself iced reactions to callous behaviour, I have learned that forgiveness of self is best. It soothes my guilty soul. It makes it easier to point fingers at others. But it is no easy task. Mostly because I have such high standards of behaviour for myself that when I fall even remotely short of them, I freeze. 

And panic.And hate myself. Then I drag me from the mud I've slung at my sinful self. And make smarter choices. You grant yourself permission to be human. You walk away from other girl's boyfriend.

Un-cautioned borrowing affects the borrower. Ditto unforgiveness. Of self.

Moving On.

Anyone that has read any of my posts knows I am kind of stuck in that time zone. I miss Schweppes. I miss, miss "Friends" I have failed to move on with "How I Met Your Mother." I love Sean Connery.

I love you, I love you, I do.

Enough said, I believe.
So it is no major wonder that I have failed to fully let go of things and people that in the first place, had no business being in my life. That I let them in is shocking enough. That I am still attached is beyond shocking. 'Tis baffling. And liable to make you feel really silly. Not in a funny way. Me?? I granted myself full permission to be silly eons ago. That was when I realized my affinity to the past. Probably why I still am stuck. Because moving on requires for a sound reality check. It means you have to look at the phone& realize he is NOT going to call. Again. Ever. And then stop yourself from wondering what you did wrong.

To move on calls for courage; to leave that familiar office job& start at a new venture, doing something you truly love. Drat less money& hence, less new shoes. Inner satisfaction is a greater treasure. I believe half the issue with moving is is the getting out of the familiarity zone. The cheating boyfriend still knows which spots to kiss best. The never-there-when-you-need-them friend still knows your darkest secrets and greatest fears.

And the said-brighter future which is promised for those that move on is...well, it is the future.
Why move on when you have the comfort of old hurts, the solace of beautiful-turned painful memories? Why move on when your heart says it doesn't think it can do it? The poor heart has resolved to love meanie boyfriend just as he is. Why not let it be?? Why move on to mountain dew??

Because Schweppes is NOT coming back.

Because if he missed me even an iota of how much I missed him, he'd have called. Because if he didn't love the other girl enough, he would not have married her. Because the new job will start to pay off majorly. The universe blesses all work done with love. Because staying in a  bad situation, actively or memory-wise is wasting precious time. Because self-love requires you pluck yourself out of the past.

The future awaits. It favours those who carry no remnants of previous bad times. Nanti it is also on a roll. No time to back track.

One past step at a time.

Self-love is a delicate art. Because mastering it today is no promise you'll remember how-to tomorrow. Because practice doesn't make perfect in this case. It makes acceptance. It brings forgiveness. It leaves the baggage behind. Self-love requires you to daily perform small acts of compassion to yourself, because each day brings more reason to dislike yourself. Self-love is looking in the mirror and loving the unique magnificence that is you; flawed, broken, chapped, bruised and sinful.

Self-love is doing this each day. Self-love is the greatest lesson you can learn.

Also, it is the one easiest to lose.

And what a biiig hit, it is.

"I love you, Maureen."