Love doesn't need a "spark"

Chemistry.

Sparks.

We think it’s the big prerequisite to lasting love. Without it we’re nothing more than roommates, moving peripherally through one another’s lives. We chase the “spark”: that elusive glimmer of attraction which, if shared, could lead to forever.

But love doesn’t need a spark to begin.

Relationships based on attraction are a cultural norm. We are drawn together like magnets, seeking physical fulfillment. The thrill of mystery. We think chasing attraction is the way to lasting love; that if we get that part right, everything else will fall into place.

But we have it all backwards.

Chemistry isn’t a prerequisite to love; it’s the product of love.

Love is the staying power that makes attraction so strong. The magnetism of attraction increases as intimacy deepens; as our hearts – less our bodies – are bound together by common experience and time. The spark is a part of love, but it’s not the cause of it.

Chasing the spark defeats our relationships. We move from person to person, eager for that “feeling” but unwilling to commit. We don’t understand what love really is so we keep failing at it. We’re emotional thrill seekers, trying to gauge forever by the most unreliable of means. We can fix this. We can know lasting love. But we have to stop chasing a feeling and embrace what love really is.

Love is the one who stays when no one else will. Love answers the late night call and listens on the line. Love is the shoulder you cry on and the arm around your pain. Love is the slow burn of friendship and faithfulness, a fire unquenched by distance or time apart.

Love is less of the spark and more the ember. It's always there, ever burning under the surface, ready to burst into flame once you recognize its potential.

True love doesn’t need a spark to last forever. It needs people who choose love when the feelings come and go – when emotions fade, and the seasons change. True love burns slowly, but it burns brightly – and unlike the spark, it takes a lot to put it out.

Date someone who brings out the best in you

Date someone who truly brings out the best in you. Who highlights your best attributes. And who brings out the kind of smile in you, that is 100% genuine.

Date the person who recognizes your weaknesses as strengths. Who watches you fail, and gives you a reassuring smile to get back up again. Date someone who believes that your goals will come true. Date someone who knows they will come true.

Date the person who brings out your rosy cheeks from laughing so hard, and who brings out your goosebumps when they tell you that they love you for the first time.

Date someone who looks at your imperfections as perfections and who never sees your downfalls in a negative light.

Date the person who brings out the wildness in you. Who dares you to be the best you that you can be, and who dares you to live outside of your comfort zone. Date someone who brings out the fire inside of you. Who lets you know that you should stand up for yourself when you need to, and who realizes that you are a strong, strong human.

Date someone who brings out your youth. No matter what age you are, date the person that makes you feel young again and who makes you forget your worries. Date someone who tells you that it’s ok to play and that life should be more fun anyways. Date the person who brings out your giddiness and enthusiasm. Date someone who lets you know how to truly live.

Date the person who reminds you that you are important. And who makes you realize that you are truly special. Date someone who lifts you up when you need help, but who also recognizes that you can do it by yourself. Date the person who cherishes time with you and who feels grateful that you are in their life.

Date someone who teaches you that life is worth living. And shows you that life is so, so precious. Date someone who makes you realize that live is short, and that you might as well date someone who actually gives a damn.

Please don't tell me I look thin

I remember it very vividly. I’m in fifth grade when I notice the way my belly sticks out. I can’t say why I see it now and never before, but I can’t un-see it. And I hate it. Round, plump. Childlike. Determined to make it go away but still blessedly unfamiliar with the language of dieting, I try to simply suck in my breath, tucking my little extra belly into itself. I find that it’s a delicate balance to suck in enough to look flat, but not so much you get short of breath. Sometimes I forget and I notice the roundness protruding when I glance down. It requires constant vigilance.

I’m twelve when I start my first diet.

I’m thirteen, trying on bathing suits with my mother. I come out of the dressing room and she says “Yep, you have my thighs.”

At fourteen I lay in bed in tears, clawing at the circle of pudge around my belly, and vow not to eat for a week. The only thing that can make me hate myself more than I do in that moment is when I eat dinner a day and a half later.

Sixteen: I craft elaborate ‘zero net calorie’ diet and exercise plans with the help of a fun new weight loss app. I say, “I’m getting healthy,” instead of “I’m getting skinny.” I’m hungry all the time. I learn a lot of nutrition facts, like how many calories are in a stick of gum.

Nineteen: I’m at a friend’s graduation party. I can’t say no to the cake. And I try, I really do, but it’s like an out of body experience. I actually watch myself accept the cake, say thank you, and attack it like a ravenous hamster with a tiny burrito. As soon as I regain control I’m in the bathroom retching over the toilet. It’s the first time I’ve done that.

So yeah, I wouldn’t say I have An Eating Disorder, specifically, but my eating has pretty much always been disordered.

My experience is not important because it’s unique (it’s really, really not) or even especially dramatic (it’s not). It’s important because it is the context in which I view my body and it’s very painful. It shapes the lens through which my image passes every time I look in the mirror, or see a photo of myself. It is the filter through which every compliment or criticism passes. It’s the residual guilt I feel when eating carrot cake, and the unshakable compulsion I have – to this day – to walk around my own house with my breath half held in for maximal tummy flatness.

I’ve basically accepted that the factors that influenced the way I grew into my body as a young girl are not going anywhere. The fashion and entertainment industry is going to continue insisting their army of size zero, 5’10”, light-skinned women are a reasonable and healthy representative sample from which to shape our collective global understanding of The Ideal Female; fat shaming will continue unabated from all quarters; fad dieting will continue to find easy prey in women whose very insecurity makes them most vulnerable to the destruction these diets invariably cause.

What I find difficult to swallow is when shame and pain about my body is triggered by those closest to me.

Coming home for a family reunion and hearing from twelve different smiling relatives that, “Sweetie, you look so thin!”

Friends taking it upon themselves to tell me that they’ve noticed how good I’m looking recently – always just a little too quick to add, “like, not that she didn’t look good before… just, well, like, you know, maybe you've lost a little weight or whatever.” Having my lunch evaluated by every coworker who passes by as I’m eating – “wow, so healthy – good for you!” – their voices tinged with the kind of congratulatory admiration usually reserved for the recently sober.

I know that in many ways it probably seems logical that a woman with lots of image issues wants constant reassurance that she is achieving her aspirational body. And there is certainly a voice in my head that whoops gleefully every time I receive a weight loss related compliment. It is the same voice that still reminds me daily how disgusting my cellulite is and still suggests regularly that maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to just, you know, stop eating for a while.

I often spend a significant part of my day arguing with that voice, trying to convince it that no one actually takes note of the subtle roundness that grows and melts away in my face and hips as I fluctuate ten pounds here, five there. But I never sound very convincing, even to myself, and the instant a well-meaning uncle asks approvingly if I’ve been working out lately, the voice becomes so smug and self-satisfied that it doesn’t even have to say I told you so.

What I wish more people (and men, especially) understood is that for many, many women a compliment is not simply a compliment. It is an unneeded reminder that our appearance is under constant surveillance. It is too often a reinforcement that the constricting beauty norms we have spent so long trying to eschew for kitschy benchmarks like “health” and “self-love” are in fact the first – and maybe only – thing that anyone really notices anyway.

And underlying this is a much darker fear: that our adherence to a very narrowly defined ideal of beauty is the one thing that will be allowed to define us as women, as individuals, as people. That our accomplishments will never matter as much as the amount of space between our thighs, or a letter on the tag of our underwear.

I cannot begin to communicate the horrifying helplessness of this fear.

If you want to compliment the women you love (and compliment them you should) I would challenge you to ask yourself, what is it really that makes these women beautiful? What makes them unique? Is it her eyes – the bright flecks of gold right at the edge of the brown? The way that the lines at the edge of her mouth make it seem like she’s been smiling all her life? The warmth of her laugh? The strength of her convictions?

All I can say for damn sure is it’s not a number on a scale or a tag or a calorie log or a BMI index. These numbers are the cage we’ve been told to live in all our lives.

She doesn't believe she's beautiful

She is uncomfortable with compliments, because she never believes them. She avoids having her picture taken, because she knows she’s going to hate the way she looks. And when someone actually sneaks a shot in, she untags the photos of herself, because she doesn’t think she looks as pretty as the people around her.

This girl is beautiful. But she doesn’t realize it. When she looks in the mirror, her eyes skim past her strengths to focus on her flaws. They zone in on her insecurities.

It’s not like she’s never been told that she’s beautiful before. She has been — by friends, by family members, by strangers that pass her on the street and offer their smiles.

Some of these people have asked her out. They’ve tried to get her into bed. They’ve looked her in the eyes and told her how gorgeous she is.

Boys like her. But not the boy. And his opinion is the only one that matters.

As long as she’s living life without him, she won’t feel good about herself. She’s looking for love in the wrong place. She’ll keep chasing the one boy that doesn’t want her instead of looking around and seeing that there are dozens of others that realize her worth.

For some unknown reason, her heart wants the boy that makes her feel ugly. The boy that refuses to give her the one thing she needs. Confidence.

But boys aren’t the only reason she feels unattractive. She won’t let her self-worth rest entirely in the hands of men.

She’s too hard on herself. She lets one little thing destroy her self-esteem. If she likes how she did her makeup, she’ll only be proud for a second, because as soon as she tries to take a selfie and it doesn’t come out well, she’ll be convinced that she’s ugly. That she doesn’t look as good as she thought. That the mirror was lying to her and she’s secretly a monster.

She doesn’t want to care about social media, to be sucked into an online charade, but she can’t help how she feels. If she uploads a selfie and no one likes it, she’ll scramble to take it down. To erase it from existence and hope that nobody realizes what she’s done.

She’ll actually be embarrassed of a photo that she originally loved, because it didn’t get enough approval. Because the likes were too low.

She knows that it’s crazy to care so deeply about social media or mirrors or dating, but she does. She wants to be pretty. She wants to turn heads. And most importantly, she wants to be comfortable with herself. She wants to stop waking up and wishing she was someone else.

And she tries. She tries so hard to see herself in a positive way. She can see the beauty in every other woman that walks by, but she’s blind to her own beauty. She doesn’t realize how stunning she is. She never has.

She can’t magically change her self-hatred to self-love and her self-criticism to self-acceptance. But every single day, she’s trying to silence that voice that tells her she isn’t good enough. That she isn’t pretty enough.

And slowly but surely, she’ll see what everyone else sees. A beautiful girl that deserves everything the universe has to offer her.

You are only human

You are only human.

So when you are hurting, tell yourself this. That you are only human. You are not made up of metal that refuses to break. You are not made up of concrete, that can withstand the strongest of storms. You are not made up of the harshest wind that can knock down even the strongest of foundations. You are allowed to take a break. You are allowed to feel.

And when you are feeling sick with heartache, tell yourself this. You are only human. You have one brain, one heart, two hands, and ten fingers. You ware made to produce salty tears when your heart feels to weak to keep on going. You are made to feel with every bone in your body. You are supposed to ache with loneliness. You are supposed to feel everything that is terrible and everything that is beautiful.

Because you are only human.

And when you feel like you can’t go on any longer, when you feel like you can’t live another day, please remember this. You are only human. You break, you bleed, you bend, and you crack open. And yes, you are not made up of bricks that refuse to fall even during the darkest of hurricanes.

But, please, know this. You are made up of water, of the sea, that can drown the most terrible of feelings. You are made up of currents that can cleanse your soul of your darkest thoughts.

We say we are only human, and that we are weak because we are breakable. But my dear, we all break sometimes, but we always can find a way to be reborn.

You have lungs that work day in and day out to give you inhales and exhales that you don’t even have to think about. You have bones, that protect your every muscle, enclosing your body in a safe haven. You have one heart that pumps blood throughout your body, and you have your brain, that makes you, you.

You are human. But you are so much more than that. Because you see, while your bones and heart can break, while your lungs can weaken and your muscles can grow weary of this life that you live, your heart still beats. Your cells will still be reborn. Your lungs will still move in and out, no matter how tired you have become. Your bones will heal on their own, slowly but surely. And your body will begin again.

So while you are just a human, you are stronger than any natural disaster, than any army of wolves, than any man made metal, and than any tornado. Your body will keep working, even when you don’t want it to. Your body will keep you awake, even when you just want to sleep forever. And your body will keep cheering you on, even when your heart has dropped to the ground in despair.

So when you feel like you can’t keep walking, when you feel like life isn’t worth living, and when you think that you aren’t worth another day on this earth, just remember that you are human. Remember that you are mighty. You are the vision of strength and endurance even when you feel like throwing in the towel. And remember that you are beautiful, you are beautiful with all of your flaws and insecurities, even if you can’t see it now.

Sweet human, you are a masterpiece of cells and bones and heartbeats. You are nothing short of a miracle, because you are here, breathing in this air and this life. You are nothing short of perfection, because you are your very own person.

You are stronger because you are human. You are stronger because you have strengths and weaknesses, and you have insecurities and marks etched into your skin. You are stronger because you can break, and still get up the next day. You are stronger because you can die, and be reborn again. And you are stronger because after all of the time, you wake up each day and continue to climb this slippery slope that is your life. And you must know, that you are worthy of waking up each day, and breathing in this beautiful and crazy world.

So please, don’t stop climbing. Don’t stop breathing. Don’t stop living. Keep on going. Keep on walking. Don’t stop trying. Don’t stop inhaling. You are worth today. You are worth tomorrow. You are worth, a beautiful, masterpiece of a life. And you are worth giving yourself a shot to do more, to be more, and live a better life. 

Change how you react

So much of life is dependent on how we choose to react to what happens to us.

Each day, we subconsciously choose how things will affect us. In positive moments, it’s so effortless for us to be happy. Yet, the moment something doesn’t work out the way we intended, we automatically shift back to the negative.

Change how you react to the things that didn’t work out the way you intended.

That job/internship/position you wanted and didn’t get? Realize that maybe this is your life steering you towards another direction where a new opportunity will arise.

That person who didn’t love you back? Recognize that they are not in a point in their lives where they are capable of giving you the love you deserve.

That bad day you had at work? Acknowledge that this is a case of mind over matter. Was it really that bad of a day? Or, did you let one little incident ruin the entire day?

Our society as a whole is so inclined to think negative. What if this happens? What if that happens? What if this isn’t good enough? So many times, I overhear people complaining about this, that, and the other thing. Yes, things happen in life, but negative thinking will only cultivate more negative occurrences.

It’s in your hands. You can choose to stay down, burying yourself in a deeper hole by telling yourself you’re not good enough or that only bad things happen to you.

Or, you can be upset about it for a little and then change your thinking. Acknowledge that you can move forward. Establish how you can make things better or what else you have going for you in the moment.

Your reaction is everything. It says more about your outlook on life than anything else. I’m not saying this is easy because it’s not. In fact, it’s a day-by-day process, but so much of our lives are impacted by our thinking.

When things don’t work out, don’t look at it in a negative light. Instead, look at it as a “shift” in your life. A “shift” to something or someone new.

A positive attitude will give you a positive life.

A negative attitude will give you a negative life.

It seems so simple yet, we make it so hard. Change how you react to situations and you will change your life. 

Living with Ana

There is a voice living inside my head and it’s making me knock on Death’s door.

It tortures me every waking day — pushing me to run on the treadmill for an hour just so I could burn those calories I have gained for eating that goddamn apple for lunch, making me ditch all my plans with anyone just because I still have to do a hundred push-ups, and filling me with a furious desire to lose more than just my weight. This little demonic voice that always finds its way to my head is called Ana.

She penetrated me without preamble. I have no idea how or why she was born and I’m not sure when she arrived, either. All I know is that she made her nest in me. She huddled inside my head — made roots in every part of me and now, my body is possessed.

Ana is everywhere. Her perfect silhouette followed me wherever I go — in the kitchen, looking at me with disgust as I stare intently on the freshly baked cookies in the oven.  Inside the bathroom, eyes fixed on me as I strip, mocking me for the body that I have, laughing at me for not making my bones stick out, and whispering that food is evil. Her voice was so low, yet so trident. She nourished herself from my dark thoughts, from my biggest fears.

The smell of burning ginger and cloves reminded me of my fate. Of how different I was from a normal teenager. Flashes of disgust can be seen right through my eyes and it’s becoming more visible day by day.  Ana flourished and I felt her inside me.

She blocked my veins with filthy words and I could hardly breathe. I lived with her. No, scratch that, I survived with her.

Ana was no friend, but a pretentious bitch companion. She fed me with lies and tricked me into believing that I deserve every filthy word there is. I drank her remarks and wept. Ana grew — like a flower watered with my tears.

The frustration brought by her presence was killing me and the pressure to be perfect was destroying me, in any way one could be destroyed.

I completely have no idea on how to cut her roots out of my body. I don’t know if there is a way I could drag her from my rotting form to the deepest, darkest depths of hell. Because every time I think I got rid of her, well, it turns out I’m wrong. 

Love without escape plans

What really is love?

Most of us rub our heads and track our soul down for this one question, but never do we get to a conclusion.

Is it a feeling or is it a decision?

Love is unquestionably a feeling, when you see someone and your heart races when they walk by you, your heart skips a beat, glaring at their face is your medication. A feeling of wanting to be with them all the time , wanting to hear their voice, wanting to wrap them in your arms , wanting to touch their lips , wanting to be the one for them, wanting to never fail them but honey is this feeling enough can we call it love. Will this last forever?

Love is more of a commitment; a decision of risking everything you have, everything you want and everything that you want to be in this life for one soul whose voice you choose, whose body you decide to keep close, whose happiness you know you wanted to share, whose problems and misfortunes you know you had the guts to bear, whose name you know you will be proud to have along your own even if they are meek in real, who you choose among the million choices you have in this star.

Don’t promise them the moon and the stars rather stay with them in their difficult times. Love is an intangible force that can be both a motivator and a destructor. Feelings don’t stay forever. They can never be forced. They can duel at times. They can be misleading. They can take you to the wrong. They can drown you in grungy, Feelings are as permanent as a baby's memory. What really counts is how strong you can be to stay with this one person in every situation.

Can you spend a lifetime with them without an escape plan? Can you love without abandon? Love at times can be confused with lust or attraction. True, intimacy is a way of showing love and building up the relationship stronger but it is never enough. Loving someone not only means touching their naked body but also their naked soul.

You should know about their fears, know about the things they admire. You should know about their shortcomings, know about their desire. You should know about things they long for, know about the things they hate. You should know how they like their coffee, know their scent. But most importantly, you should not know all this after they tell you about it. You should discover all this on your own and if you can’t simply ask them about it.

Loving means knowing when they need you the most. Loving means knowing when you should give them space. Loving means showering them with affection when they are annoying as hell and this is the time when ‘you’re commitments and promises’ come in picture.

Don’t promise them the moon and the stars rather stay with them in their difficult times. Love means staying in a partnership agreement with where you share everything equally but where you are always willing to give in more whenever needed.

All this might sound really one-sided but if you give this little to the one you love you are sure to get even more in return. Love is not a hormonal call but strong-headed decisions. The only time you should listen to your heart is when you decide the one you want to stay committed to the one you should love with all your heart.  This concept or this definition of love is really old school but this is what “LOVE” and “LOVING” is really about.  Love without escape plans. 

A love letter to my body

I want to love you. I want to love the way you ebb and flow to maintain my vibrancy and my health, but I don’t.

I’ve tried—not as hard as I could have, but hard enough. I’ve looked at you, begging my mind to dig through the depths of the insults and criticism, searching for some measure of appreciation for you, but it finds none. It discovers, instead, a deeper hatred for you and the way you let those purple marks etch themselves upon the skin that covers you, or the way you let yourself become an ocean of ripples when I walk.

I love the ocean, but I don’t love that ocean. I love being connected to the sea, with the sand and water mixing and melting in between my toes, but I hate being connected to you.

I think there was a time in my life where I liked you. It definitely wasn’t love; some form of infatuation, maybe. I loved the way you changed based on how I treated you. I loved the way you did what I asked in those years before the betrayal. I fed you exactly 10 almonds for a snack and didn’t let you have any carbs after 3 pm. There was this one day when you demanded more; I was in 11th grade and I had just come home from school. I grabbed an extra handful of something from the pantry before you kept asking me for more, again and again until I couldn’t resist your pleading. I caved before the tears let themselves seep from my defeated eyes, the salty proof that you had won staining the fair skin of my cheeks red. I looked at the nearly empty can of cashews in my hand as I wondered why I had let myself throw all my hard work away just because of you.

I hated you so much in that moment, but I hated you more when you betrayed me in those years that followed.

The betrayal—that’s all I know to call it. If I called it anything else, it would be on me. I have too much pride for that. You gave me an ultimatum, life or death, and I chose life. That life wasn’t what I thought it should have been, and that’s why I can’t love you right now.

The life I thought I chose isn’t the one I’m living; you transformed without my permission and became my greatest fear.

I used to climb out of bed and into the closet, stepping on a scale that showed me a number I wasn’t ashamed of. As you made that number grow higher, I began waking up earlier. I rose before the world was awake, groggy and exhausted, and walked into that same closet. I didn’t want the world to know what you had become.

It feels wrong, you know. It feels wrong saying I’m ashamed of something that is, inherently, me. You and I are one, but I forget that. I separate myself from you sometimes, believing you might be the only one with anything to offer this world; I am merely your guest, living within the walls of your house until I can find a way out. Sometimes I start thinking about the way I treat you and how I wish I could treat you, and the disparity between those two things. If they could just coincide in your favor, body; if I could only love you the way I want to, with love and appreciation through lenses of adoration, things would be different.

We could do so much if we were only on the same team.

Be with someone that makes you happy (even if everything is going wrong)

The saying goes: It’s not where you are, it’s who you’re with. And it couldn’t be more true — as long as you’re with the right person.

Find the person you want to be with no matter what, because being together is so much better than being apart. The one who makes your surroundings slip away because their presence is the only aspect of your surroundings that really counts. The one who inspires you to abandon your routine and all of your daily comforts in the name of togetherness because there’s nothing more comforting than the way you feel when they’re nearby. The one who makes swimming a thousand miles with a cramped leg, crossing the Sahara with a single canteen of water, or traipsing through a foreign land with $20 to your name sound like totally reasonable measures — if that’s what it takes to reunite.

This person will never fail to make you smile in the least likely circumstances. This person will make every leg of an unpleasant journey totally bearable, even pleasurable. This person will push you to find happiness where you’ve long forgotten happiness exists, nudging the dormant pieces of your soul residing deep within.

They will move you to wake up at sunrise even if you’re not a morning person so you can tear off your clothes while running through the sand and skinny dip. They will motivate you to stay up long past midnight for a late night stroll even when you’re exhausted because one more hour of wakefulness together is always worth it. They will make you forget the pesky concerns that typically stop you from doing certain things — all those little worries that filter your ability to truly embrace the world.

This is the person you need, because not all of life is actually all that fun unless you grab it by the horns and tame it as you go. Real life involves countless hurdles, both big and small. But if you can tackle those obstacles head on — not just grit your teeth and bear the difficulties you’re destined to face, but approach them as good times waiting to be discovered — you will always be fine. The right person will help you see this.

Couples that know how to smile together in the least likely circumstances don’t have to rely on anything but each other. Even when things go terribly wrong, all they have to do is feed off of their love. Nothing can stop them from finding the rose buried deep inside a pile of thorns, the never-ending depths of their bond an oxygen tank they can always draw upon.

They don’t need fancy hotel rooms. They don’t need big celebrations or elaborate feasts or good weather to enjoy themselves or to craft lasting memories. They don’t need a wifi connection or social media feeds to help pass the time. They take life as it comes — bliss, devastation, boredom, and all — because as long as they’re together, nothing else matters. At all.

There is so much power in loving someone with all of your heart and letting that love guide you day in and day out. So go find the person who helps you adjust the lens through which you see life’s darkest parts. When you do, you will feel automatically stronger. Better equipped to live. Better prepared to take risks. Better positioned to smile, even when it seems impossible. 

Is love a risk worth taking?

Jumping out into the horizon with nothing more than hope and a parachute—it seems like one of the biggest risks a human can take. The security of solid ground gone, you are caught in the battle between gravity and air resistance—and for those few seconds you are completely vulnerable to science and chance. But, the truth is, out of every 101,083 skydives there is one fatality. Not really as risky as it sounds.

Yet, across the world, billions of people participate in a bigger risk–not with their physical safety, but their heart: falling in love.

With all the thrill and risk involved with that sky dive, truth is, you’re likely more “safe” gliding with a parachute with a statistically predictable safe ending, than you are in a relationship. Humans are too much of a variable to place any bets on.

It’s like a game of emotional Russian roulette. When you’re successful at it, it’s a beautiful wonder. When you’re not, it’s an excruciating tragedy.

To strip down your defenses, to show all sides of yourself, to feel without guarantee of reciprocation, to give yourself to someone without any predictable outcome, to become completely vulnerable to heartache at the hands of another person—that, to me, is true risk.  And billions of people are emotional dare-devils, blissfully diving into the unknown, feeling that exhilarating rush of endorphins. It’s the necessary risk that drives the human race. We all, in some capacity, want to love and be loved in return.

Yet, some of us walk around in a suit of armor–trying to protect ourselves from the unknown. We hide behind a veil of independence because relying on yourself is easier than facing the disappointment and rejection from someone else, but, the truth is, we end up hurting ourselves. We deprive ourselves of life’s most precious and rewarding resource–love. Sure, mining for it can be a bitch in this world, but when you find it in it’s purest form it’s worth every risk and effort.

So, to all you risk takers out there, enjoy and celebrate your love.

And, to the rest of us who are a little battered and bruised from this journey—keep on being daredevils. There are no great rewards without a little bit of risk.

When a Writer Falls in Love

When a writer falls in love, their work blooms into a form of art that expresses the deep emotion they feel for their lover. The word “difficult” doesn’t reach the intensity of trouble that comes with any attempt of writing. It is in every way challenging, a complexity you cannot understand enough to overcome. It becomes onerous. Because somehow, every idea, every thought, and every word that escapes my mind, written by pen onto paper becomes something influenced by you. This influence, this love, it becomes impenetrable.

My focus could be the beauty of the sun. The bright, radiant light it provides that gleams over us all. I could inform my readers about how much I appreciate the sun due to my fear of the night. How the sun is the star located at the center of the solar system, and how without the sun there would be no earth. Yet quickly, the sun would become a synonym for you. For the comfort you provide me with, for the way there would be no me without you. The sun would become you within a few sentences. I would get lost in my writing, convinced that I am writing about the sun when in all reality I am writing about you.

I am able to begin a memoir on the life of a sad young girl. It would focus on her running away, the way she survived a rape, or how she overcame depression. There would be so many different life lessons and memories I have the chance to touch upon. However, I know somehow I’d find myself fast-forwarding to the moment she meets you.

I could take on an assignment in which would involve writing a review on a book, a play, or even a movie. An assignment that would involve my opinion and nothing else yet somehow, I’d discover another approach to mention how I had discussed it with you.

Incipiently, I created this belief that you had clouded my thoughts. Becoming a voluminous mental block for anything other than you. Though, I realize now that you have become nothing other than my biggest motivation. On one occasion I read, “If you make a writer fall in love, you will never die”, and never before did I make sense of this quote meant until I met you. In any lifetime and in any story, you have become my biggest inspiration. On the days I love you unconditionally, through the good and the bad. You have become my main character. My muse. My creative influence.

A writer in love can be oblivious to this unconscious need to convey their intoxicating love for another. A writer in love could be dangerous. But what danger exists without some form of beauty? 

When I say "I love you"

When I say ‘I love you’, it means that I treasure your heart. It means that I value you. And it means that I see a future with you.

When I say ‘I love you’, it means that I trust you with my whole soul. It means that you being happy, makes me happy. And it means that I would never ever want to do anything to hurt you.

So, when I say, ‘I love you’, please do not take it lightly.

For me, the word ‘love’ holds weight. It means something to me. It means something more than ‘I like you’ or, ‘I have a crush on you’. To me, ‘I love you’, means that I see my universe pointed in your direction. It means that I recognize how lucky I am to have you. And when I say it to you, please remember that when I say ‘I love you’, it means that I always will.

I don’t love lightly. I don’t love gently or softly. I love hard. Some may say I even love too much. But I would rather love hard any day than to take that sentence lightly. I would rather love too much, than to never love at all.

When I say, ‘I love you’ it means that no matter what, waking up to you would be my idea of the perfect morning. It means that no matter what, sleeping next to you would be my idea of a perfect night. It means that I want to keep waking up to you, each and every morning and each and every transition from fall to summer. When I say, ‘I love you’ it means that I can picture what a future looks like with you. And it means that I want one.

So, please, do not take those three words with a grain of salt. Don’t shrug at me, or smile a sly little smile. Acknowledge my love. Feel it. Accept it. And if you feel the same, than take my heart with yours.

When I say, ‘I love you’, I mean it. I’m not saying it just to make you happy. I’m not saying it to be romantic. I’m not saying it because I feel like I have to, or because I feel like there’s a deadline I have to reach.

‘I love you’ means that I want to spend hours talking with you at midnight. It means that I want to grow old with you and still call you perfect even when your wrinkles start to show. It means that even if we end, my love won’t dim. My love for you will never end.

So when I say that to you, please believe me. And when you are ready to say it back to me, only say it when you truly mean it. Only say it when you believe in me too. 

You are strong. You are brave.

Anxiety and depression. It is culminated in the constant thinking, worrying about everything, and letting it affect your life. The frustration, the self-loathing and the endless hours of time drowning in your own all-consuming thoughts.

I know it all because I’ve been there. Through every panic attack and mental breakdown alone in my room or in a room full of strangers, I’ve experienced it all. I can relate.

It’s easy to feel like you’re alone in it all. It’s easy to convince yourself that you’re not good enough for others because of your need to overanalyze every little thing, where the thoughts race through your head at a mile a minute every day. That’s the problem with anxiety and depression; it makes it so easy for you to believe the

Anxiety and depression can be crippling. It grasps your mind and body and doesn’t let go, no matter how many times you convince yourself it doesn’t exist in your body. It can make you feel weak and useless. But, you know what? It actually makes you the strongest person in the world.

Imagine waking up every morning to face the same issue day in and day out. You are doing just that, facing your own inner demons every single day. And it makes you stronger. Your anxiety and depression is making you stronger, no matter how much it feels like it is eating away at your insides and taking over your life.

Not only are you strong, but you are brave. You are brave for not simply giving in. You are brave for living your everyday life even though your mind is telling you that it is not worth the pain. And anxiety and depression can be painful to the point where you feel the need to hole up in your room and let the tears spill out. Crying out the frustration becomes more appealing when your mind is constantly running at the speed of light, telling you you’re not worthy of the good things in life.

The demons you have to face are ones that live inside of you, and how brave are you to deal with them every minute of every day?
Even worse, it becomes so simple to look at others and compare yourself to them. Magnified by anxiety and depression, comparing myself to the world around me is something I find myself doing every day. I want to stop, but sometimes my mind won’t let me.

There are times when I look in the mirror and hate what I see. My mind is constantly telling me to be skinnier, prettier and just better. And guess what? You’ll believe it because who do you trust more than yourself? It is a never-ending cycle of thoughts that can keep you awake all night long. But it’s not just you.

Sometimes you feel embarrassed or ashamed, but anxiety and depression is something so common. Millions of people go through the same thing each and every day and they understand. The last thing you are in this world is alone in your fight against yourself.

It is time for us to stop feeling embarrassed for being in our own heads. There historically has been a stigma associated with anxiety and depression, but the more people talk about it, the more that stigma will end up becoming the norm.

Overcoming this won’t be easy or an overnight fix. But that is okay. And you need to remember that.

Each day that you get up and go on with life is a day that you’ve won the battle. Each day you take on the world is a little victory.

So, do one thing that scares you each day. Be brave. Because as those small victories become the norm, you’ll begin to realize that anxiety and depression may be a part of your life, but they certainly don’t define it. 

A Love More Than Words

You’re the only person I know who makes me hate words. This is no sweet nothing. I mean, how could you? Words are my thing. They’re all I’ve got. It’s a fact and a frustration that whenever you pop into my mind I get a little bit swept away, and whenever I hear your voice from across a room every precious word I have ever learned is wiped from my memory. They all give up, dead on arrival, power rendered useless.

From the moment we lock eyes to the very last kiss I feel mute. All of a sudden, this person who has dedicated their life to conveying emotion through words is at a loss for them, right when I needed them the most.

If I could, I’d climb atop every coffee shop table and shout your name; I’d grab your hand in a room crowded with our whispering friends and let you unravel my dreams, imparting every memory until you crouch with the weight of them. If I could, I’d piece together poetry and music, and I’d preach it as loud as any god would let me.

But I can’t. Not now.

So, what do I do? I learn to talk with my hands and my eyes; I learn to shout with them: with each glance or inside joke; with my fingers in your hair and the slow warmth of our bodies; with pink ears and a fluttering pulse. I have too many feelings for me to waste with words, so, most of the time, I am silent. In those moments, my words die within me. They are mute, powerless. And yet, I am screaming. I am strong, because in that blissful span of time, in one person’s company, I am happier than I have ever been alone with a million words.

About a year ago, I realized that what I was looking for wasn’t the perfect words. It was this wonder, this cacophony of nameless silence: of just sitting together, wordless but understanding, and knowing that although our moments together are fleeting and rare, they are there, adventurous nothings, and they are unexplainable, but they are perfect. Maybe that perfection wasn’t meant to be fleshed out: immortalized in words. Maybe it could lie between us, and just be.

About a year ago, I found that mere words could never constitute a whole life; they couldn’t give me a perfect silence like you could. And you know me enough to see that I love words.

But maybe I just like you a little bit more.

When are YOU going to do something?

It’s not just about the fact a person can run to be a leader of our nation and still say disgusting things about women.

It’s that there are other men who have let him. Who allowed him to spend his whole life speaking about us like we are destined to be eaten. Who thought of this attitude as honest rather than deplorable.

I’m watching you. I’m sick of boys removing themselves from the conversation because they “would never”. But you would let your friend catcall. But in the locker room or in your living room or in your frat house, you laugh when he makes the rape joke, when he talks about her like she’s inconsequential, when he removes her consent and speaks about her as if she’s a haunted house; good for a night and a story but too trapped with ghosts.

You better look down, because you’re on fire, too. You’re not free of sin because your sin was listening, an ear that excuses behavior over and over and over again until those who laugh about it begin to preform it on a personal level. Until they think they will be tolerated for criminal behavior because you tolerated them too.

The worst part is they’re right.

I want to believe in mankind. Believe he doesn’t become an rapist overnight, that only decades of business meetings or beauty contests teach him that it’s okay to be demeaning. Teach him our bodies only belong in the orbit of a boy, only mattering when we have a son.

I know how many will fold into themselves about this, hide like always in the idea you cannot change what is, that we exaggerate, that it’s not that much of a problem. That it’s not on you. Maybe it’s someone else’s problem, you won’t speak up because something in your circumstance always prevents it. That women talk about men that way sometimes, don’t they? You’ll follow rabbit holes until you come back up to sunshine without realizing you smell of nothing but gravedirt.

I’m watching you. I want to let you know you don’t get to sleep at night anymore, because none of us do. The girls you laughed about, talked about our parts as if you couldn’t tell you were slicing us into pieces. The girls who still have bruises. The women who you only see the shadow of when they stand next to their fathers or boyfriends, the two-dimensional figments of your imagination.

We are real and last night it was hard for us to breathe. All that air got snatched up by his talking. Last night we didn’t sleep. I’m not just cursing him anymore. I’m telling you the curse goes deeper. It’s every rape case you ignored, every time you waived off how offended she got by his words, every time she got uncomfortable and you did your best not to notice. I’m cursing the boy who didn’t get her back safely even though he knew about his buddy. The boy who stood in the same room as someone who spoke about her roughly and just kept drinking. I mean you.

Not all men, maybe. But all men have seen it happen.

Now the question is: when are you going to do something?

What's for dinner?

What’s for dinner?

A question that most people get excited to think about; that most people can decide on in a matter of minutes with their mouths watering, giving them something to look forward to at the end of their long work day.

A question that one person out of every ten people dreads.

One person out of every ten people feels their stomach cramp up into knots at the mere thought of having to entertain this question. One person out of every ten people feels so much pressure to make “healthy” eating choices and have the “perfect” body, and so much guilt for enjoying things like fried foods and carbohydrates that sometimes, they choose nothing as their answer to that question. Or they choose a glass of water. Or maybe a small piece of fruit.

That’s one friend out of every ten friends that you have. And you’ll never know it, because that friend will be able to hide it so easily by eating all of the same things you do when you’re together. She’s thin, but she’s not TOO thin. She’ll have pizza with you, and she’ll have chicken wings. She’ll drink beers and split your chocolate lava cake. But the whole time, she’s torturing herself in her head.

“All of this is going right to your gut. Can’t you feel those stomach rolls already?”

“You’re disgusting! Everyone can see your rolls.”

“It’s gonna take you weeks of cutting calories and exercising to make up for this!”

But people with eating disorders never eat. They’re always so thin that you can see their bones and their hair is even thinning…. Right?

No.

She’ll be plotting when she can overexercise throughout the following week to rid herself of the calories in which she just indulged. She will push herself, day after day, until she’s so close to fainting that her nose and her lips are tingling. But at least she worked off those calories. She might even go home that night and use her toothbrush to induce vomiting. Anything to lessen the feelings of guilt and diminished self-worth. Even if just a little.

Then in the days following, she might eat hardly anything at all. Just a little something here and there to keep her from feeling lightheaded. Now, after all of that, she’s confident enough to accept your invitation to hang out at the beach! Sort of.

You’ll go to the beach with her. She’ll lay there next to you, in her bikini. At first glance of her, you joke with her and tell her she’s a “skinny bitch” and that you’re “so jealous.” She laughs with you, but inside she cries. She knows that you shouldn’t be “so jealous.” You see a “skinny bitch,” but when she looks in the mirror she still sees someone who is ugly and overweight, and she can’t understand why anyone would be attracted to her. She undermines all of her internal qualities and can’t help but weigh her physical qualities and perceived flaws so much heavier. She feels pain. Deep, intense, heart wrenching pain and hopelessness, everywhere she goes, every day.

You’ll pack a full lunch, including a sandwich, maybe some potato chips on the side. She packed a couple sticks of celery and some water bottles. You make a snarky comment about what a “HUGE lunch” she has. She laughs with you again. This time she’s berating herself for even eating those celery sticks. It feels like her stomach is getting bigger and everyone on the beach can see it. Now she’s looking at all the other women around you in bikinis, and they all look so much more attractive. There aren’t enough towels on the whole beach that she could wrap herself in to make herself feel comfortable. If she could crawl out of her own skin and wash away in the ocean, she would. Why can’t she be like them? Why can’t she have that flat stomach and those muscular arms? She still has a little pouch on her belly and her arms still jiggle when she moves them, despite all of her efforts to restrict her calorie intake and exercise until she can’t anymore. Why can’t she be perfect, no matter how hard she tries?

Then she goes home after the beach, and she lays down in her bed and she cries. She cannot escape what’s in her head. She’s her own harshest judge, and she is ruthless. It has become so difficult for her to socialize with anyone, for fear that they’re also judging her body size and shape. Or for fear that they’ll continue commenting on what she eats, or call her a “skinny bitch.” Or for fear of her own thoughts that beat her down on a daily basis regarding the things that she puts on her plate and the image she sees in the mirror as a result. So she rejects invitations to social outings, anticipating the calories and the fat rolls that will come from it – because when do people socialize without food or drinks? Sometimes, it just isn’t worth the shame, the guilt that lingers afterward. She stays home, sad, lonely and angry at herself for letting her thoughts and obsessions with food and exercise consume her life. And she cries, because it feels so vain and superficial to have these thoughts. What would people think of her if they knew she obsessed over her own body like this? That these thoughts of herself occupied her mind so frequently? It’s her mind, and her choices of foods, so she should be able to control it. Right?

It’s so much deeper than that, but you won’t understand, and so she never tells you. In the upcoming months, she is diagnosed with ovarian cysts and needs to be put on birth control pills. Her back stiffens and her chest feels tight when the doctor tells her that a possible side effect is weight gain. She fights back tears as she gets the prescription filled at her local pharmacy, and she can’t help but feel like a total jerk for feeling this way. It’s such a minor side effect, and yet it had her anxiety levels at an all-time high. She almost wished she was diagnosed with a fatal illness, just so she could feel justified in being so broken and scared over it.

But eventually she gets help. It takes her years of therapy to recover, and I use the term “recover” very loosely. This type of illness is a battle she will always be fighting. She’ll be in constant recovery, even when she has learned healthy eating habits again and can (mostly) set aside her social anxieties that revolve around eating. It’s a journey of learning self-love and compassion, rationalizing perfectionist tendencies and unrealistic ideologies, and listening to what her body is telling her, which will last throughout the rest of her life. Some days will be great, and other days she might backslide a little bit. This is her struggle, and the struggle of one person out of every ten people.

So…. what’s for dinner?

Awareness.

The next time you hang out with that “skinny bitch” think twice before you make backhanded comments regarding their eating habits or the shape of their body. It’s not okay.

The struggle of writer's remorse

Writer’s block is real.

So is writer’s remorse.

It’s a lot like buyer’s remorse, which I’ve also been afflicted by. Writer’s remorse is a term that should be used much more prevalently because it’s so accurate. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve written something, only to find myself agonizing over it, even to the point of despising it right off the bat. I am my own worst critic. I often don’t afford my work the opportunity to breathe. Sometimes I find I can’t allow it. It would be a betrayal of the highest order; my poor neuroses would be ever more stricken. In the past, I’ve even set fire to my papers.

The fear of failure is astronomical. But anything I’ve managed to write, let alone post, has somehow survived a maelstrom of personal, counterintuitive recrimination and backlash. I sometimes find myself seized by anxiety from the moment I pick up a pen, or sit down to type at my keyboard. But I do it because it makes me happy, because it feeds my soul, even when my soul remains steadfastly convinced of its satisfaction while fighting off legitimate hunger pangs. I do it because it feels real and so it can remain real. I do it so I can live outside of my head, away from the crippling specter of my self-doubt.

Writer’s remorse.

The world according to Alan Ryland is riddled with writer’s remorse. But maybe I write because I believe you should know what the world according to Alan Ryland is like. Faith, perhaps. Or maybe I’m just a sucker for punishment. Either way, you learn to take these things in stride. You have to, if you want to continue writing. You have to, because you will find that adulthood is packed to the brim with all sorts of demands on your time. Somewhere along the line, you will have met—and you will always continue to meet—people who’ve stifled your voice.

Some have made a business of it. They’re the ones who told you that you weren’t good enough. They’re the ones who insisted you stop journaling and join the real world. It is lost on them that the world of the “real” is relative and shaped by experiences, that to share your own thoughts (even with yourself) is an incredibly painful and even courageous thing.

Others may not have made a business of it, but they still had an effect on you. You may not remember exactly what they said. You may not remember exactly what they did. But for the life of you, you remember exactly how they made you feel. They’re the ones who smile half-heartedly, humoring that pipe dream of yours. It is lost on them that the majority of us will not write bestsellers. It is lost on them that we write because we love it and because we have to, as an extension of ourselves.

Writer’s remorse.

It is lost on both of these groups.

But there is nothing you can do about it. Except continue to write, of course.

Continue to write in spite of the remorse. Don’t write TO spite the remorse. You’ll only stifle yourself from the deceptive comfort of a corner.

There is an art to building a balanced sentence, a talent for being aware of the measurement of the width and weight of words. I had someone tell me once that this is something subconscious, like a blacksmith understanding the iron he forges after years of working with it. Blacksmiths would never be able to shoe horses if they worried about getting every single horseshoe perfect before they took it out of the fire and put it on a horse’s hoof. Being a wordsmith should be no higher stress than that.

But you need to write. Because style is a conscious thing. Write. And write some more. Then put it away. Don’t show it to anyone. Take it out. Look at it. Take a pen to it. Mark it up. READ. Read the work of authors who inspire you. Take note of what they do. Take note of what they don’t do. Sit down. Write again. Because here’s the tough part: You’re not really writing until you’ve hacked at mechanically and started to develop the prose that you want.

It is difficult to understand this when you’re hyped and begin working furiously in a spell which leaves your coffee cold and your breakfast unmade. When all you see is how little resemblance what you produced actually shares with what you conceived in your head, how can you separate yourself from it?

Writer’s remorse.

I haven’t set fire to any of my papers in a long time. Nor have I ripped anything up, run it through the shredder. But time has taught me that there are a few things scarier than my own eccentricities. Remorse, for starters. Remorse of all kinds. 

The very flawed writing process

Feel panicked almost immediately. What will I write? I have all day, but is it enough time? Where does time go? What is time? Is time an illusion?

Check Twitter. Scroll mindlessly. See no new favorites or retweets. Feel like no one likes you or your writing and what’s the point of it all?

Check Facebook. Scroll mindlessly. Look at messages and don’t respond, because time. There is never time.

Look at email. Read every email, mark all as unread and answer like one email maybe and leave the rest for later.

Open up a blank document. Stare at it for a while. Maybe more than a while. Whatever “a while” is, double that. That’s the proper amount of time to stare and write nothing. Stare at the Blinking Cursor of Doom. Why does it taunt you?

Watch it blink. Dare that bitch to blink. (It blinked. All it fucking does is blink, blink, blink.)

Check Twitter.

Check Tumblr.

Curate the most perfect playlist that has ever been curated. Start the first song. Listen to the first song. Realize the first song is the best song and is actually the only song you want to listen to and is the sole reason you created the playlist. Repeat that song for like the next thirty-seven hours of your life until your ears bleed.

Return to: Blinking Cursor of Doom.

Maybe write a sentence. Delete that sentence. Write another sentence that you think sounds better than the sentence in your head then realize that sentence you just wrote is a terrible sentence because all you really want to say is the sentence that’s in your head but you’re scared of that sentence because that sentence is raw and it’s easier to be poised and coiffed and chipper and joyful and positive (positive!) instead of raw. Vulnerable.

Vulnerable.

Fuck.

Check Twitter.

Check email.

Check Facebook.

Check Tumblr.

Look up flights to Ireland. Look up flights to where you can see the Northern Lights. Look up hotels at the Niagara Falls. Look up hostels in Europe and plan a backpacking trip. Look up tours through Istanbul. Look up ballets in Russia.

Check the Pinterest account you haven’t really used but like maybe there’s a new pin on there or something. Realize you don’t really understand Pinterest. Go back to Tumblr.

Check to make sure you don’t have something better to do than write that raw sentence, like maybe you have a dentist appointment for a root canal followed up by a trip to the DMV at 5pm when everyone is there and then maybe after that you’ll get a late night pap smear or something more enjoyable than writing that raw sentence.

Check calendar to make sure you don’t have any appointments coming up in the next ten days or so. Just to make sure.

Make a snack.

Run out of coffee and be like, “I can’t write without coffee!”

Make coffee.

Wait for the coffee to kick in. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait till you can’t wait any longer.

Loathe yourself for a minimum of thirty minutes. Complain about mundane shit to a friend on gchat.

Check Twitter. Facebook. Instagram. Pinterest. Tumblr. Livejournal. Myspace. Xanga.

Run out of shit to check.

Ok, Blinking Cursor of Doom. Let’s do this. Ready. Set. Go! Go. No, seriously, write the damn thing. Write it. WRITE IT.

Deep breath. Pity party. Another deep breath. Loathing. Pretentious torture. Get over yourself. Write the fucking thing. Write it. Just write it. You know you want to write it.

Read a book and feel inadequate about your own writing ability. Feel properly convinced you’ve never written anything good ever in your life ever. Loathe a bit more just to sort of round out the day. Question all life choices.

Let many, many hours go by. Watch the sun go down. (Update: still nothing written. Fuck that Blinking Cursor of Doom.)

Go to sleep. Lay in bed for an hour. Toss. Turn. Get a drink of water.

Aha!

Sit down at desk. Look at clock. 1am.

Write the sentence.

The power of the little things

The unsung heroes, not distracted by glory. The characters you disregard who have been secretly stashing vendettas all along, made all the more dangerous for their patience. They end up being your completion or your undoing. It’s always the little things.

It is the little things that give everything meaning. It is an accumulation of puzzle pieces to make a spectacular picture, the collection letters to make words to make sentences to fill pages to complete a story. Ultimately, a thousand little things make something big — and what’s more, small beings united to make something immense often lend a certain grandeur to themselves — all the more for not having done so through any intention. We must learn to love the little things.

It is the little things too that can sink ships, break dams, and crumble walls once thought to possess the ultimate fortitude. A thousand unsung heroes make for a daunting collection of neglected lyrics. A silence to shatter silence. A vast silence, suddenly making the greatest statement of all.

The small thread, unnoticed – one unlucky moment, one snag, and everything comes unraveled. It’s only a matter of time.

Nature never fails to reveal to us the power in patience and time. A quiet shrine to the omnipotence in a congregation of all that seems insignificant in solitude. A minuscule grain of sand, a billion times over and we have a beach, a sand castle, a shore upon which we can watch our footprints form and fade. Which grain of sand should be deemed unnecessary? If this one, why not that one, and every other – each no more or less important than its comrades. Which grain mattered most? None, alone – all, together. The ultimate manifestation of strength in numbers. Or, the persistence of raindrops, forming caverns. A refuge carved with patience, the greatest tool in a carpenter’s arsenal.

It’s the same way grass grows, the same way nails grow. It’s the same way clothes fade with wear, the same way books sidle from new to used (or as I like to think, loved). Little, unnoticed. For so long, with such a sustained, controlled tempo. Then seemingly out of nowhere – apparent, sudden. We’re left taken aback because when did this happen? We were right here, how could we possibly have missed it? On the one hand, a testimony to how often we fail to see, to notice, to pause and appreciate; on the other, a tribute to the little things for mastering their craft – excellence in discretion.

Little is discreet. Little is sneaky. Little can slip through cracks, melt into backdrops, disappear while big distracts. And we are so easily distracted, we provide ample opportunity for the small things to nestle in as stowaways in cumulating moments of our lives.

It is the little things that make and break, forge, and fracture.

And there is much to gain from being perceptive to these small moments.

When we become aware of the meaning behind a loved one’s mannerisms, we can anticipate their brewing feelings and puncture the pressure in hoarded anxieties and anger. When we choose not to dismiss the significance in forgetting small requests from friends, we undermine the accumulation of resentment. When we inscribe in the folds of our memories a passing comment from a family member, we come to own the ability to give gifts with meaning – a commitment to memory often being the most meaningful gift of all. When we add mere seconds to our interactions with the multitude of strangers we encounter, in order to smile, to wish them well, to thank them, we renew our grasp on interconnectivity and remind ourselves of a collective humanity. When we pause to appreciate the uniqueness of each day, or the melting magical moment just before the sun dips beneath the horizon, or the indication of spring by the birds chirping, or the witnessing of an act of kindness – we are actively choosing to see what is good in the world, and in so doing, adding to its goodness.

The little things are unbiased – they are what you make them. They will pile up where you toss them. They can break down walls – whether with patient persuading, earning the trust to remove barricades, or by consistent erosion, leaving rubble. It’s not too late to start seeing the little things – to start adding to them and appreciating them; to start guiding and cherishing them.

Imagine the completed puzzle – a stunning picture. Imagine being awed and mesmerized by its image, and then imagine if you were able to elicit such an appreciation of every piece along the way – how much fuller and more magnificent life becomes.