So last night I was looking through some old books and I came across 2 cards- they were anniversary cards and one was addressed to me from my ex and one was from me to him. Ugh. Can you say "virtual punch in the stomach with no warning"? It's tough- looking at those old cards, reading the words that we once wrote to each other, realizing that, not only do those words no longer ring true, but the emotions behind them are long since gone.
Or are they? I'm not saying that those feelings currently run between us, but I have a hard time believing that love once had just simply disappears. I was listening to a Kenny Chesney song yesterday (because that's how I roll) and one of the lines really stood out: "The laughs, the smiles, the trials, the tears; it's hard to hate what got me here." Is it a coincidence that I heard that song earlier in the day and then found those cards later that night? I think not. I don't believe in coincidences. I think that song spoke to me so that I could hold on to that sentiment later that evening.
The loss of love is hard, but for me, the harder part is thinking that the love you once had has vanished into thin air. Thinking about lost love as if it never existed is simply unacceptable to me. Regretting - having been in love, having had those feelings, having committed to someone else- is worse than feeling the loss over again. Regret means that you wish it had never happened in the first place.
If we live our lives in regret, all we do is discount the past and what it meant to us, what it meant for us, what it meant for our lives. If, instead of regret, we look back with appreciation that all of those times- the falling in love and the holding onto love and the eventually letting go of love- means that we are who we are today, then wasn't it all worth it? If we had to go through it all over again to get to exactly. this. point. in our lives, wasn't the trip worth it in the end? If we had to make decisions based on what we knew at the time and if we had to take a chance at happiness and true love and forever-after at exactly the moment we did before, wouldn't we make the same mistakes again?
Because it made us who we are today. Because it brought the people in our lives into our lives today. Because it made our character and our hearts and our souls and our lives what they are today. And, if nothing else, there is nothing regrettable about that.
This is the life.
- a
Or are they? I'm not saying that those feelings currently run between us, but I have a hard time believing that love once had just simply disappears. I was listening to a Kenny Chesney song yesterday (because that's how I roll) and one of the lines really stood out: "The laughs, the smiles, the trials, the tears; it's hard to hate what got me here." Is it a coincidence that I heard that song earlier in the day and then found those cards later that night? I think not. I don't believe in coincidences. I think that song spoke to me so that I could hold on to that sentiment later that evening.
The loss of love is hard, but for me, the harder part is thinking that the love you once had has vanished into thin air. Thinking about lost love as if it never existed is simply unacceptable to me. Regretting - having been in love, having had those feelings, having committed to someone else- is worse than feeling the loss over again. Regret means that you wish it had never happened in the first place.
If we live our lives in regret, all we do is discount the past and what it meant to us, what it meant for us, what it meant for our lives. If, instead of regret, we look back with appreciation that all of those times- the falling in love and the holding onto love and the eventually letting go of love- means that we are who we are today, then wasn't it all worth it? If we had to go through it all over again to get to exactly. this. point. in our lives, wasn't the trip worth it in the end? If we had to make decisions based on what we knew at the time and if we had to take a chance at happiness and true love and forever-after at exactly the moment we did before, wouldn't we make the same mistakes again?
Because it made us who we are today. Because it brought the people in our lives into our lives today. Because it made our character and our hearts and our souls and our lives what they are today. And, if nothing else, there is nothing regrettable about that.
This is the life.
- a
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