Too late, too gone, too wrong

The following story got related to me by the male protagonist. I for one thought things like this only occurred in movies. So I present to you a story that has no real happily ever after. A story of what closure looks like when we try to out run it.

There she was dressed in white. Radiant and breathtaking. Every bit of her oozed happiness. She looked at him adoringly, held his hand ever so tightly. A smile turned the corners of her mouth every time they caught each other’s eyes. That day, in that room, wedding bells were ringing and a love everlasting was to be sealed.

HE took to the right side of the room. On the very last row. On the very last chair. He watched the woman he loved marry the man She loved.

The vows were exchanged and she expressed her love and happiness. She made promises of forever. Promises HE once heard. Promises HE once made.

And when it came time and the preacher asked if anyone objected, her eyes never wandered. She kept her gaze in front of her, in front of the man she loved. And almost without pause the preacher went on. And someone cleared their throat loudly. And footsteps were heard coming down the aisle. People shifted in their seats. Their glares burning into HIM. And all around the room gasps were exchanged.

“Wait.” He said meekly.

“Speak up son, no one can hear you”

He walked closer to her and said “Wait” one more time.

Her face turned slowly in his direction. And her eyes narrowed. It was hard to remember his face. But it was him.

He felt red, and embarrassed, he knew he was making a spectacle and she hated those. So he cleared his throat once more, gathering up all the courage he had inside him. And he held back the tears. He looked down, almost wanting to run, but then proceeded to look back at her. He took a deep breath and began talking.

“I’m here to tell you that I love you. That I was wrong for ever letting you walk away from my life without a fight. I’ve tried everything to close our story. I’ve read other books, and I’ve ventured into unknown places. I met characters, and I saw many faces. But no plot held me tightly, no dialogue kept me intrigued, no chapter kept me tied. I tried. And I tried to reach some closure. But I didn’t know how many pages you were in it till I tried to close the book. Every time, a page appeared, and it was then I missed you. And I can’t. I can’t write this ending. So please, help me. Tell me I don’t belong here; tell me my words don’t bind a piece of your heart. Or tell me if there is a glimpse of hope that you might still love me. Tell me you love me. Tell me you’ll marry me. Pick me. Choose me. And I promise that happily ever after starts with you and I…”

The room stood completely silent, people on the edge of their chairs. There was a long pause. And no one even dared breathed. You could even hear the birds outside chirping on the near trees.

She looked at HIM. And back at the man she vowed to love forever. She looked down at her ring, and back at HIM. She sighed melancholy, deep from within came the sigh, and it filled her eyes with sadness.

There she was dressed in white, about to marry another man, and he wanted her to tell HIM she loved Him. So she did.

“You’re right” she began, and everyone gasped. And the groom looked stricken. She stepped down and came to him.

“You’re right” she said again.

“I knew it” He began. And she interrupted. “Wait, I’ve heard you. Now you’ve got to hear me.”

And he nodded as she went on. “You’re right, I loved you. I loved you very much. Much more than you deserved. And you took. You took all you could take and begged for even more. And you left me stripped, crumpled on the floor. YOU left the page and you never gave it a decent ending. So stop. Just stop. Because you’re right, we were intertwined in each other’s life, and you forget that means I know you well. So stop this charade. THIS isn’t you wanting to declare you’re undying love. Or you wanting to reconcile something you lost. THIS is the four year old child inside of you and his dire jealousy that someone’s picked up the toy, that he himself deserted. Don’t confuse your conscience for love. This isn’t it. I get it you’re sorry. And I accept you’re apology. But you’re too late. I’m far too gone. And this is far too wrong. I don’t love you anymore. I’ve reconciled with the idea that you were never meant for me. And I moved on. Sometimes all you need is a broken heart to realize that something even better is in front of your eyes waiting to be found. And I found it, in him” she said, looking back, taking the grooms hand. “So please understand when I say this. I choose him; I pick him, because it is him that I love, with whom I belong.”

He looked at her and nodded. That was all he could do. It took him a minute to compose himself. He mumbled an apology to the guests and to who ever heard.

When you can’t save yourself or your heart, it helps to be able to save face. So he did. He turned around. And walked right out of her life for the very last time.

HE picked up Volume 1 of his life and nostalgia had struck. It stirred inside him, made his eyes gleam in remembrance. He combed back through the emotions of how he felt when he read those words for the very first time. And it was enough for him to realize he hated the ending. But by then she was far too gone.

See it is true that the heart isn’t a juice box; you can’t squeeze the life out of it trying to remove all trace. But you can cause enough wreckage and damage to the heart that when it rebuilds itself all traces of that past relationship are put in a more appropriate place. That person becomes just a lesson learned.

For her, he was her past, and as much as he tried to make her his present it was way too late. Because anyone can say that they love someone, but true actions are the actions you take to prove you actually mean it. And he never truly had.

You can’t possibly re-write an ending no matter how many times you re-read a book. Sure, you can take away something new each time, maybe even noticed something you hadn’t before. But the period at the end of the last sentence is the closure of any “What ifs”. An ending is an ending. Maybe he held a longer version than hers. Maybe hers just ended abruptly. But regardless, eventually, they’d get to the same page. And “The End” marked its place.

Friendships aren't like Facebook

We sat in a cafe talking away the spring afternoon. We were mid deep into a discussion about friendships. She told me her story. The one about her “Best friend” and how overnight they had a fall out and where now barely speaking. She told me of her many attempts to mend the friendship, and though no matter how much time had transpired how she didn’t give up hope that her friend would come around.

“How can someone just do that? Don’t promises and vows mean anything anymore?”
“If I’ve learned anything about friendships is that you can’t force someone to want to be your friend. You don’t control their heart. If they want out, they’ll find the lamest excuse to exit”
“It really makes me sad that with the wave of hand someone can just give up on you, for no apparent reason at all.”
“I think that’s one of those startling realities we face as we grow older. Best friends aren’t Forever. People will come and go. Some will hurt us. Some will use us. Some will simply let us down in expectation.”

Later that day I got to thinking about friendships. There are people who will profess to have hundreds of friends just because their profile on Facebook tells them so. But out of those hundreds, how many do you really know? How many do you interact with socially in a day to day basis? And more importantly how many of them have been there when you’ve needed a helping hand?

Friends are supposed to be the siblings life didn’t give to us. In some way they make us more complete. They make experiences memorable, enjoyable or at the very least bearable. A real friend has seen you triumph, has seen you fail, and has been there to shoulder the weight of the world with you.

But the easiest way to realize who your real friends are is by noticing who is there for you when your days are gray. It is then, that friendships are tested. It’s easy to be there for someone when their life is going at full speed. But what if your life halts? What if there’s a down pour of trials and tribulations that leave you vulnerable and exposed? That’s when you know who you’re friends are.

When someone you love lets you down, especially someone you expected to be there always, it shakes your faith right where you stand. It leaves you in disbelief that someone can just choose to be a friend when it’s convenient for them. Because friendships aren’t supposed to be selfish that way. But we sometimes fall into relationships that are a one way street. We give, and they take, we need, and they flee. And maybe that’s where the heartbreaking disappointment sets in. In the fact that you would give the world for this person’s happiness but they wouldn’t do the same for you.

A real Friendship is not like Facebook, where you can sign in and out whenever you want. You can’t deactivate someone out of your life. Fall off the face of the earth and come back to pick up where you left off when you feel it’s convenient to activate them again.

The love in a friendship cannot endure that kind of indifference. It needs to be wanted. Like a lamp, it needs to be fed out of the oil of another’s heart, or its flame burns low. Truth is that it takes a few blows to distinguish a friend from an acquaintance. But even if certain people opted out of your life we must remember it was their choice. That the reality can be startling but not life defying. Because the truth is we are all imperfect and we all fail to live up to others expectations at one point or another.

I believe that every encounter in life is a journey, and every journey, a lesson in life. Some people stay in our lives forever and shape your ideals and our being; others stay a little while and shape our character and our strength. But regardless they become a part of you. Always engraved within you. We are the outline and they are the color that gives us depth. When people walk away from you, let them go. Your destiny is never tied to someone who leaves you, and it doesn’t mean they are bad people. It just means that their part in your story is over.

All we can really do is believe, against all odds, that if we keep our hearts open someone will appreciate that, and not take it for granted. And that in the end it’s not the quantity of friends that make life rich… but the quality and the depth of the relationships we see evolve, that truly will make us happy.

Love never returns void

Many years ago I wrote a piece on a dear friend of mine. At the time her story unraveled with a heartbreaking ending. But if anything remains true from that story is that she is and will continue to be the eternal optimistic… who always, always believes in love.

She paced back and forth, looking at the door and back at her watch every few minutes. She was nervous and her hands were sweating. Finally to catch a breath she sits down and lets out a deep sigh. And she closes her eyes. It’s surreal to her how years ago this was the exact same spot she last saw him. Where he promised he loved her and that love was everlasting. The last place before their story crashed and unraveled. She never thought shed be back here again after the way it ended. Years had passed and life and time had taken their toll on their story. One she thought was signed and sealed, shelved on a book case and had become dusty with time.

She got up at the sound of the announcer saying the flight had arrived. She looked down at her watch one last time. And said a quick prayer before looking up and walking right into his arms. She looked beautiful he thought. ‘Gosh I’ve missed you’ crossed her mind. But instead they just hugged and looked intently into each others eyes. It had been so long. They laughed and he held her hand as she began to speak nervously.

The next couple of days they spent pouring their hearts out. No longer spreading the blame for what happened but discussing their understanding and their true grasp of things. And just like that their hearts began to beat once again and the story they thought had ended showed instead an intermission and now miraculously a second act.

Their love had failed at a certain point. Failed so bad that it broke them both for a very long time. But here life was giving them another chance. And though statistics pointed otherwise there was love in between their gaze, in the way they talked, in the way he held her. For them love had returned once again. And a couple of months later surrounded by their closest friends they sealed their love with and I do.

We often hear the quote- “When you love someone let them go, if they return to you it means so much more”. My grandmother had her own version of it telling me often “el amor nunca regresa vacio”. Now I can’t say I am a believer of the fact that if you let someone go they will come back to you. But I do believe that love itself will never return void like my grandmother said.

I believe that we never truly hold the ending of a story… that life does. And I believe in love, in pure and honest, deep, and unconditional love. I never did, as ironic as it seems. Me the blogger of love? Yeah, I know. Till now. No, not for my own story, but for others. The truth is that love IS capable of overcoming obstacles, of forgiving deep wounds, and erasing heartbreaking tears and pain. Love is that powerful, that immense, and that glorious. And not because we are extraordinary people who extraordinary things happen to but just for the simple fact that we are blessed to feel and to need it so desperately bad to survive.

And my grandmother in her infinite wisdom is right. Love never returns void in any case. It teaches us lessons, makes our hearts a little bit stronger and our skin a little bit thicker. It pushes our boundaries and breaks down our walls. Makes pride fall into pieces and humbles us to just let it happen.

Now it would be amazing if our fates were sealed, if that person you are missing could just magically reappear and all those bridges that you burned where reconstructed, but well we all know that in our dreams of a happily ever after a dose of reality must be kept to keep a balanced point of view. But it is also true that if it happens, if love knocks on our door again whether it be with your long lost love or with a new beginning we just have to stop running and render ourselves to the most bittersweet feeling of human nature. Who knows? Life might surprise you and instead of a curtain falling and “the end” appearing… all you will have to do is turn the page.

The roller coaster ride...

The worst thing about NOT being in a relationship is having to give advice about love.

I love my friends and if there's something I can do to help. I'm the first one there. But at times having to give advice is a bit draining. Especially when you have to give advice about something you never followed.

It reminds you that at some point that's not something you believed in. And that if you had maybe there would have been a different outcome.

But there I was on a roller coaster, of all places, when my friend turns and looks at me and says "What do i do? What would you do?"

"Scream" I said. She says "Why?"

"Because we are about to drop" She looks down and realizes it. And we scream.

When we get off, she realizes I haven't given her any advice so she asks again. I look at her and say "Love is a bit of a roller coaster. Sometimes you're up and laughing with giddiness. At times you are down. Screaming inside, holding your stomach with nervous pain. Sometimes you feel like you are on top of the world. At times you feel like your feet are dangling in the air. Its a risk, its thrilling. But no matter how many times you loop or turn in ways you didn’t think possible at the end of the day everything will be okay. You need to realize that no love is perfect, that it can be a bit chaotic at times. But if you're fortunate you learn to hold tight. And to laugh after facing those drops. You learn that some rides are worth enduring."

She laughs. "You always know the right thing to say and the right thing to do". I smile because that is untrue. If it were I would of chosen a roller coaster instead of a 100 ft drop elevator for mine...