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.

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.

I don't need you, but I want you

I don’t need you to tell me I’m beautiful. I’m aware of how I look on both my good and bad days. I've spent many hours on YouTube perfecting the winged eye. I don’t need your words to validate me. I don’t need you to tell me you love me. Three words, so simple, really don’t mean anything if there aren’t any actions behind it.

I’ve fallen for those three words many times before. I don’t need you to hold my hand. It’s been involved with many people that don’t appreciate the language of physical touch, it would probably flinch at the graze of yours.

I don’t need you to hold me at night. I’ve slept in my bed alone for years and I honestly don’t even know how to share it with anyone outside of my cats. I don’t need you to be there at the end of the day when I get home. I actually enjoy the peace and quiet of my space and not having an obligation to share that with anyone. I don’t need you for what you can do for me, in any way. I’m capable of handling my own and satisfying my needs.

I don’t need you, but I want you. I want you to look at me and see the smile come across your face. I want to receive a cup of coffee from you after a long and tiring day, without being asked, and feel the love and care. I want to not have you just hold my hand, but reach for it because that’s where it belongs. I want you to remind me what it’s like to share my bed, my personal space, my safe space with someone and feel completely comfortable.

I want you to be there at the end of the day, because when you are, it feels even more like home. I want you to add to the life I’ve built for myself, not create one for me.

There’s a difference between a need and a want. I need my relationships with my friends, hockey nights, and morning coffee to survive. I want a bigger apartment, a fully stocked library and a fully stocked pantry to bake with. But I can live without those things. I am living without those things. Would they make me happier? Sure, they’ll add some happiness. But is my happiness dependent on those things? No. It’s not. I’m happy with the things I need and I’ll always have these things.

But that’s what makes wants, wants. They’re desirable for all the right and wrong reasons.

I don’t need you to be there, just like I don’t need a bigger apartment, but I want you to be there. I want you to be there for the good times, the bad times, the stressed out times, and the times when words can’t even help. I want to experience what it’s like to have a want fulfilled, to adapt to the changes.

I want to experience all of you. I want to learn what it takes to now share and be involved with another person. I want to learn how it is to confide in someone and know days will come when we don’t want to look at each other.  Not just the good, but the bad. A new experience is always desirable and while it’s never perfect, the want for it is still there. Maybe when I get it I’ll realize it’s not all it’s cracked up to be, but for now, I don’t need you…but I want you.

I was born to be a heart breaker

When I was five, romance didn’t exist for boys, it did exist for me. “She’s going to break hearts one day,” people said, speaking about me over my head. I smiled, because that is something little girls are supposed to be pleased to hear.

At eight, I stopped wearing dresses because I couldn’t turn cartwheels in them. “A tomboy,” somebody said about me, over my head, as if I couldn’t hear them. I told them “But I don’t want to be a boy,” and they laughed. “We know, sweetness.” I said, “I’m not sweet. I’m serious,” and they laughed again. “You’re cute,” they said. I smiled at that, because that’s something little girls are supposed to be pleased to hear.

At nine, I had too many friends that were boys. “I don’t like it,” my parents would say, standing in the kitchen. But I didn’t understand it. “Your body is going to start changing soon, and I don’t want those boys looking at you. I don’t like it,” they’d repeat. We moved away that summer. I lost everybody.

At thirteen, my best guy friend wrestled me to the ground and covered me in kisses no matter how much I asked him to stop it. “It’s supposed to be like this,” he kept repeating, “stop struggling.” He told me I was pretty and lovely and that boys and girls can’t be friends. He told me to stop being mad at him, that girls are supposed to be pleased about these things.

The same winter, I was catcalled for the first time in my life. I jumped when the car pulled up by my side. They said “baby” over my head as if I wasn’t who they were discussing. I didn’t smile about it. I had to sit down to stop myself from vomiting and crying.

When I was fifteen, most of my friends were boys. My best friend told me he was in love with me. He told me I was breaking his heart. He said if I didn’t love him back, he’d have nothing to live for anymore. The story with the rest of them is all the same. Either they left me or they thought they fell in love with the idea of somebody I wasn’t.

At nineteen, I had only girl friends. They were gentle, and different, and walked me through things. They held my hand when classes got too loud for me, and it meant friendship. They kissed me on the cheeks when I was crying, and it meant friendship. They slept next to me and it was friendship in the way I wasn’t used to. I was used to “stop being a tease,” to “why are you doing this to me.” This was just friendship, and it was excellent.

At twenty, I had friends who were boys again, because boys are supposed to be old enough to see me as a person. One day while we were drunk, I asked one of them why they wouldn’t just say my name. He laughed. He said, “God, you’re going to hate me when I explain.” He said that they’d all formed an agreement behind my back that none of them would fuck me. If I was going to be one of the bros, I couldn’t be a girl to them. I could only be seen as a boy if I wanted to be their friend. All of this said while staring at a point over my head. He tried to kiss me at the end. When I pushed him away, he said, “Sorry,” took a breath, “but if I start seeing you as a girl, I’m gonna try to kiss you again.”

I said, “I don’t want to be a boy, though,” and he laughed again.

He said, “I know, sweetie.”

The summers when I was sad - and I was sad categorically - I tried reaching out. When I turned to the boys, all I heard was, “don’t cut, you’re beautiful,” “don’t kill yourself, you’re so pretty,” “think of the scars, sweetie,” “when you cut yourself, I’m the one who starts bleeding.” I didn’t smile, although I think girls are supposed to be pleased to hear these things. I didn’t know how to say: "I don’t feel beautiful, and even if i did, what I’m doing to myself has nothing to do with you, or what I look like, or how fuckable I am to you." Instead I told them I was fine, and fixed, and nothing bad was happening.

And so at twenty-five, I am sick of boys who are “nice” or are “not like other boys” or are offended when I don’t immediately trust their intentions. I have been hurt over and over again. I have been judged based not on who I am, but whether or not they can get me to sleep with them. I only talk to small handful of my guy friends and the rest I lost because of whether or not I chose to fuck them.

At the same time, I kept most of my girl friends. Even though I have dated a few of them it never impacted our relationships. Even girls who are gay know that being friends doesn’t mean I owe them. Even if we did date, I can still feel comfortable getting drinks with the girls I love. They still hold my eyes when I talk to them.

I've been called a dyke, a lesbian, a man-hater. I think of the men who hurt me, who have spoken over my head, who have given me their full opinion even though I never asked for it. I was hated by basically everyone. I was sad and lonely so often thought I’d never feel happy again. I have been called a slut by boys that don't understand that who I choose to sleep with is just that: my choice.

I’m not sorry. I love so many people, and many boys are wonderful and charming and excellent. I’m not sorry I flinch away from a friendship. I’m not sorry that I will be cold or unaffectionate or scared of getting too close. I'm not sorry if you imagine I'm something I'm not. I'm not sorry if you ask for something that I won't give you.

It’s just that, since I was five, I was told I was born to break hearts.

To those I've casually dated:

I would ask how it’s going, but I already know. I know because I’m not afraid to look you up, or say hi, or meet you for drinks. I know because keeping up with you doesn’t torment me. I’m glad to know you’re doing well; I’m glad you’re there to retweet my tweets. I’m glad we never made it to the point of no return. I'm glad that even when we did, we managed to circle back to civility and friendship.

What we had wasn’t epic, and it certainly wasn’t eternal – but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t special. We swapped stories and spit; most times, we shared more than that. Beds. Meals. Toothbrushes. Homes. We met each other’s friends, and sometimes even each other’s families. That was good enough, wasn’t it? Great, even. We devoured each other’s details; we ate up the minutiae like every date was Christmas. My mind felt more full when I left you; it was overflowing with wonder. You never gave yourself away and I’d think, “As it should be.”

Of course, it was far from perfect. You’d hurt me once in a while; maybe you’d neglect my birthday or our rendezvous would become infrequent; then nonexistent. We became too indifferent to argue about anything. I wanted to hate you, but I’d have to love you first – and maybe I never quite got there, did I? What a relief.

Don’t get me wrong. I considered it in the most casual way possible. I really Liked You. But saying, “I Love You,” and meaning it, that’s heavy. We were too fun for that. We Liked Each Other Too Much. Seems silly, seems almost childish, but we couldn’t love each other because we liked each other. ‘Like’ is a pompom, it’s a firework. It’s celebratory and exciting. But love? Love is a tattoo. Love is a 16-car pileup. Love is a scar. Permanent; crippling; ugly.

We never made it there, but that’s okay. We made it to other places. We made it to the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Dallas, but never to our final plans in Chicago. We made it to my bedroom, where you made me watch Pawn Stars for the first time. We made it to unmarked bars, to outdoor campfires by the lake, to the beach. We made it to the underside of bridges. We played poker, we played phone tag. We made out in the rain and in the middle of sidewalks for so long that it went from clichéd to avant-garde and then back again. We got kicked out of places together; we got locked out of places together. That certainly counts for something.

You taught me what People I Loved couldn’t – that it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. That I don’t have to regret my choices. Sometimes, I made pretty good ones – like dating you. I learned that dating should feel good. It shouldn’t cause your teeth to gnash; it shouldn’t wrack you with anxiety. It didn't have to be all or nothing. You taught me that the default after the regression of a relationship isn’t complete and utter destruction. It can be a friendly text, a retweet, a thumbs up when one of us accomplishes something we’ve been working at for years.

Thanks for giving me memories, giving me your friendship, giving me hope. I’m always rooting for you.

XO (Drinks soon?)

Dear Douchebag, Thank You.

Dear Douchebag,

I could sit here and make a list of every single reason I hate you and why you should be unable to reproduce…but being bitter is no fun. Instead, I will say thank you for all you made me suffer through because I am so much better for it.

First of all, thank you for making me feel worthless. Without your hurtful comments or all the times you ignored me, I may have never seen the value in compliments or appreciate someone taking the time to pay close attention to me. I may have never felt the compassion of someone who tries to understand me and all the crazy things that I do. I may never have learned to love my own quirks instead of trying to hide them.

Thank you for making me cry. Without that pain, I may not have known the comfort that best friends can bring in times of heartbreak. I may have never learned how valuable these friendships were and possibly taken their constant love and support for granted. As they say, we can't appreciate the rainbow without a bit of rain. Thank you for being the thunderstorm.

Thank you for playing games with my heart. Without your wishy-washy, fickle attitude regarding our relationship, I may not have recognized genuine love when it presented self in my life. I may have set aside those who really cared and instead settled for someone who just considered me another level of some game. I may never have learned how deep the love of friends and family really runs. Without you, I would never have learned how important it is to love those around and to learn how to be truly loved. Not lusted after.

Thank you for disrespecting my body. Without your objectification and infatuation with “going as far as you could” with me, I may not have ever felt the respect of someone who understood my beliefs on waiting until I was ready. I may not have seen myself as the beautiful person that I am, and instead felt hollow and empty. I may have only seen myself as a pretty face, but only after putting a lot of time and effort into hiding behind a mask. Thank you for helping me realize that there is more to me than surface appearances. I am a deep, complex individual that I may not have known without your lack of respect.

And finally, thank you, thank you , thank you for walking out my door and never coming back. Without your abandonment, I may  have never felt the love and happiness that comes with a relationship that can withstand anything. I may never have learned all of this about myself. I may never have come to appreciate the good, the bad, and the ugly in life.

I wish you all the sweet nothings of the world.

Sincerely,

A valuable, strong, happy, beautiful woman

When does love happen?

Is love the result of the first night spent in the same bed? Or maybe that night is a result of the love. Perhaps it happens the first time you meet their parents – maybe you fall in love with them first, sort of as a prerequisite to falling in love with the one you’re really with.

I guess one could argue that it happens all at once, in one moment. That maybe you go to bed after a night of binge watching Marvel movies and wake up the next morning completely overwhelmed with this feeling. And there was no exchange of words or sex or cupcakes to explain this sudden, extreme change of heart. Maybe it was just a really good night’s rest. Maybe it happens during your late-night X-Men session. When their eyes are glued to the screen with their mouth open slightly and they reach to grab a handful of popcorn, and it takes three tries until their hand finally finds the bowl and not your pant leg. Maybe this is the moment that the lightning strikes.

Maybe there is no lightning, but a steady flow of sunbeams that have always been present. Maybe there are only triggers, and that overwhelming feeling, that panic attack-esque feeling of being in love for the first time, is really us just realizing we’ve been in love all along. Maybe there is no one moment we fall in love, or we just don’t feel it anyway, but we feel the moment that we realize we’ve been feeling the way we have because we’re in love.

I tend to believe that love is similar to grief, and happens in stages without our knowledge. And it happens at different paces for different people – for some it may only take a few days, for some, weeks or months, in some rare cases it may even take years.

Maybe the stages are the same as grief; maybe in the beginning we are in total and complete denial that we are in love, and we try to convince ourselves otherwise. Maybe it’s denial because this feeling is too great, and this person really knows how to tell a story, and they clean up too nice, and their hair is too perfect, and they’re too kind to others, and they are asking you too many questions about your job, and your major, and your feelings, and your family, and your passions for you to actually be in love with, let alone for them to actually be in love with you.

Maybe by the end, we do really learn acceptance – maybe in the sense that we accept them for the little things; leaving the volume on the TV a little too high, the occasional hair on the soap bar, the fact that they don’t wait until the commercials to start telling you about their day, and by the time the commercials do come on, the story is over, it was anti-climactic, and now you have no idea who the true monsters turned out to be or how the Doctor managed to save the day.

But maybe we learn acceptance on an even deeper level. Maybe they’re not the ones we really need to accept. Yeah, they do clean up nice. But that bow tie wasn’t straight when he first put it on. And maybe they are a really captivating storyteller. But it’s charming the way you take a year to tell a story, needing to tell every detail, stuttering and tripping over words, getting so animated, and ultimately forgetting where you’re even going with it, and by the time you get to the end, you’ve either lost everyone or they’re completely underwhelmed and it wasn’t really worth the effort it took to tell, or listen to. Maybe he knows how to entertain an entire room of people while I sit in the corner and talk with one or two of his friends and manage to win them over but fail when faced with the crowd. Maybe he can run a 5K and barely break a sweat, but I can sit in a coffee shop and write a novel about his kiss when he walks in the door from his run.

So maybe love doesn’t happen the first time you wake next to each other, or when you admit to them how old you were when you had your first kiss, or when they finally have your friends’ stamp of approval, or when your father tells them over dinner how much you cried over your first heartbreak and he vowed to never let that happen from another boy but when we finally accept about ourselves the things we try so hard to force upon others to accept. When we’re finally in love with ourselves – that’s when love happens.

We are more than just a number

We are more than numbers formed using calculations and logic. We are not just some tiny dot on a graph or a conclusion to be drawn. We are heartfelt laughter during a Friday night out with best friends. You are the tears streaming down your face, emotionally stripped and raw from a breakup; and just as equally the tears of joy when you are overwhelmed by the presence of God on a Sunday morning.

I am more than the number flashing across the scale or the inch where the measuring tape meets when pulled snugly around my waist. I am my favorite pair of jeans that hug in all of the right places and an old, worn-in t-shirt that is softer than the finest cashmere.

We are more than the countless number of magazines and advertisements screaming "You’re not good enough just the way that you are". Beauty comes from a place inside, so hidden that it could rival the depths of the ocean. It shines through from your soul, radiating from the inside out. It is reflected out into the world through kindness and compassion towards others.

I am more than the number of people that I have dated, loved, or slept with. I will not be labelled as a slut, a prude, or damaged goods — regardless of what people say or how many times my heart has been bruised. You are the equivalent of your personal choices and the freedom to do whatever you please.

You are more than your GPA. Your thoughts, intelligence, and character could never be added up and divided into a precise percentage. You are all of the adventures, mistakes and late nights spent with friends when you should be sitting at home quietly studying.

We are more than amount of debt you owe or the balance in that checking account. I am a part of places traveled and the experiences shared. You could be diving off a cliff, trekking through the rainforest or swimming underneath a waterfall. I am the places I have been. You are the adventures you've had.

You are more than a statistic stating that you are a part of a minority, ignorantly claiming that you will never be equal to the ideal, no matter how hard you work. We are determined, ambitious, and driven by our own hopes and dreams. We are striving to be the best possible version of ourselves because that is what truly matters.

We are not the number of days, hours, and minutes we have on this earth.

You are how you decide to use that time to leave your own legacy behind.

You are all of these little things added up into one infinitesimal sum.

We are alive.

You're not really a Nice Guy

You tell us that you’re nice guys, and it’s our fault that you can’t seem to hold our attention.

You tried to prove that chivalry wasn’t dead by holding the door open for us and by paying for an incredibly expensive dinner we didn’t ask for when we were in the bathroom, so we couldn’t even offer to split the bill. You looked disappointed when I squeezed past you to get into the doorway of the popular, crowded café – what, you’re angry I didn’t thank you making sure the door didn’t slam in my face? Would you be upset if there was a man behind you, and he didn’t offer thanks? Would you have held the door for a man in the first place?

I probably shouldn’t have mentioned the ex on the first date, but that should set off warning bells in your head anyway. Maybe I’m not over him, and maybe I claim to be, but anyone keeping score at home could have told you to chalk it up to a frustrating evening and just let me go. The wine I was drinking kept my mind from wandering back to the ex who just wouldn’t stop texting me. The steak was to show you I wasn’t “that girl” who ordered a salad; I was the girl who genuinely wanted you to like me.

And when I realized that I just couldn’t wrap my head around dating the guy in front of me, I tried to make a graceful exit. How graceful it actually was shouldn’t be a matter for discussion, and it shouldn’t be an excuse for you to insult my choices in men. Aren’t you supposed to be a nice guy, after all?

On that note, Mr. Nice Guy, let’s talk about how wonderful you were to me. Sure, you listened to me talk, and gave me your full attention. You say you didn’t expect anything in return, but you clearly expected a goodnight kiss and a second date, since you’re so still so upset about this date days, weeks, months later. If you were really a nice guy, you’d understand that this wasn’t working for me, drown your disappointment in a beer with your buddies tomorrow night, and try another date with another girl next weekend.

You think you get it, explaining my insecurities as a reason for me to consider you once more, when in reality, it just makes you as disgusting to me as the self-proclaimed jerks you hold yourself so highly against. At least with those men, I knew what I was getting myself into. And while we’re on the topic, who the hell are you to judge me? You’re in your thirties and still can’t manage to shave without cutting yourself. Your belt never matches your shoes. You’re so proud of your life accomplishments, but I’ve managed to balance my checkbook and my social choices. Go ahead and show off that fancy new car of yours. That Mustang you love more than anything is the most accomplished thing you will ever have. You’ll be riding in it alone, you know.

As the insults keep coming, my suspicions keep rising. If you know where I’ve been, why did you want to date me in the first place? If you’re so convinced that I don’t need a nice guy, why are you still dwelling on my meager existence? If you’re such a simple guy, find a nice simple girl who’s never dated anyone in her life and will dote on you like a housewife from the ‘50s. They opened doors for women and paid their dinner bills back then – they also discouraged married women from having careers and you know, living their lives. Times were simpler back then.

If you’re so convinced that the only reason I’m interested in you is because I’m washed up, maybe you should step back and re-evaluate your own perfect life with the little accomplishments you’re so proud of. Maybe you’d notice that I’ve grown up and moved on, too, and realized that I was looking for someone I could share my life with, not my bed with. I wasn’t expecting you to be sitting by the phone for me – but since I called you, clearly you’re not finding that “nice girl” you’re looking for, either. I’m glad I’ve taught you some lessons by now, but it’s clear you’ve still got some learning to do.

Bottom line – I thought I was ready to date you, but judging by your frustration, you were never ready to date me. Stop dwelling on my own emotional baggage and learn to unpack your own. You’re not nice, honey, you’re bitter. Stop pushing for pity as The Nice Guy, and start actually becoming one

The journey after a relationship

“I don’t do relationships.”

That was how all of this began. I never wanted to go through the struggle, the pain, the troubling journey, the constricting lifestyle of a relationship. After a long, arduous and life-altering relationship at an age when I hadn’t even discovered myself, let alone someone else, the last thing I wanted was to go through it all again. To feel dejected, broken, unworthy, helpless, and embarrassed of feeling all these things.

But what I had forgotten was the joy. I forgot the joy of sharing your life with someone that willingly and eagerly takes part in it, yearning to be a focal point. I forgot about the happiness of having someone by your side that wants to make every aspect of your life better and will try anything and everything to make it happen. I forgot the feeling of waking up next to someone that you had hoped would spend the night. I forgot the fulfilling, comforting and beautiful journey.

Or maybe I chose not to remember them. In any case, you were insistent on making it happen, and make it happen you did. You reminded me of all these things, you showed me that my perspective was messed up. You proved to me that avoiding relationships wasn’t the answer to maintaining a peaceful lifestyle. Rather, you achieve that peaceful life by avoiding the unhealthy negativity from a failing liaison and looking for what makes you happy. And you made me happy. Our time together was eye-opening to say the least. It was a combination of bliss, pleasure, happiness, and excitement in a way that words would never truly capture in its glory. While it was short, it was still important. It still meant something to me.

Everything that I had chosen to forget seemed utterly stupid. I myself couldn’t understand where or how I could have possibly gotten those thoughts. Until now.

Now that we’re here, I remember it all. The pain, the struggle, the troubling journey, I remember it all now. But these are not attributable to the relationship. The agony isn’t from the relationship; it’s from the journey after the relationship. The process of returning to yourself, whoever that may be at the moment. The path of rediscovering life as you used to know it. Life as me instead of life as us. Understanding how having you in my life for such a short time left such an impact on me. Going from talking constantly to nothing but silence.

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I wasn't worth it. I know I'm a mess. I know I have problems. But it didn't seem to phase you. Maybe I was wrong. I know that I'm still trying to get my life together. Maybe you don't want to wait around for it. I know that it takes hours for me to look presentable when you can wake up and look gorgeous. Maybe you knew you could do better. I know I have a constant battle with food. Maybe you realized I wasn't worth it. Maybe you realized that you deserve better.

It will happen, it is inevitable. Nothing is forever. No relationship will last, but all pains come to an end. Whether it takes a few days, a few months, or a few years, I will recover. Along the way, the days will be long, the nights will be sleepless, everyday tasks will be mundane, and everything that you thought you knew about yourself will be questioned by others and by yourself. But you will return to yourself. I will return to myself.

I just wish this would have ended differently.  

I will not wait

I will not wait for the text message to come. The one that will say that you miss me, that you want to see me. The one that says that you need me. Just precisely at the moment when I started to smile on my own.

I will not wait to see you. To spot that look in your eye when you remember. Your hand with the drink in it will dip, just enough for me to notice. You’ll spill a little on your expensive leather shoes, but it’ll be regret that drowns you.

I will not wait for you to show up at my door. Begging and pleading for a chance whose count I cannot remember. How many times did you not accept the same misbegotten plea when I was the one trying so hard to keep you?

I will not wait for you to let it sink in. To let in teem and flood your mind that it was a mistake to let me go so easily. To let it melt your heart until you realize that you are empty without me.

I will not wait for the moment that you are lonely. When you need not just any comfort, but the comfort of the one that got away. The one that you pushed when you should have pulled. The one who knew how to connect the freckles on your skin better than you do.

I will not wait for the phone call that comes at 3am. The one that makes wine do it. The one that pulls bland apologies for the sordid mistakes that you’ve made before out of a tainted voice. When the bottom of the glass finally makes you look at your reflection.

I will not wait for day that the sun will rise above you, but you still feel gray and drab inside. The day that you grasp that there will always be something missing. I gamble on knowing just what that will be.

I will not wait for the afterthought when someone else didn’t meet your expectations. When you realize that what you had, you could not get from somewhere else. I will not wait for your appreciation out of the utter lack of someone else’s arms.

I will not wait for you. I will not wait another moment, another second, or another breath. I will go on and rise from unrequited love’s ashes as the brightest flame that shall repel any darkness.

I will not wait for you. I will find love for myself before I find it in someone else. I will prove to the world that I deserve exactly what I gave you. That someone out there will hold my heart as tightly and gently as I held yours.

I will not wait for you. I will succeed. I will prevail. I will leave a legacy, one of happiness and hope that could only begin after being broken, and a story to inspire even the most desperate of heartbreaks.

I will not wait for you. I will conquer my dreams. I will explore the world outside my previously feverish door. I will find myself in places I didn’t know to look. I will battle with my fears and I will win. I will discover new strengths in the most unlikely of spaces.

I will move with jaunty poise. I will live with veracity and grace. I will dream with risk right by my side. I will fall asleep with happiness on my pillow. I will live, sincerely. But mostly, I will love again.

But I will not wait for you

Date a girl who dances

Date a girl who dances. Date a girl devoted to doing the unnatural every day, who stands on her toes and speaks without words. Date a girl whose eyes get glassy when assaulted by new music because she can’t help choreographing, casting, living and dying in her mind.

Find a girl who dances. You’ll know that she does because she will seem to move endlessly. She will sway to the sounds of the city, fidget every few minutes, crack her knuckles and her neck, roll each wrist and cross the other leg just so she feels even. She will forget herself and where she is, the length of her skirt and the strangeness of what she’s about to do when something falls from her lovely, articulate hands to the floor. She will not bend at the knees because she does not have to, folding instead at the waist to execute the kill. That’s the dancer. When she straightens, she will laugh at herself, and her collarbone will beg you waltz with her.

She’s the girl with vast and unvocalized dreams strewn across the heavens and a bloodline dating back to French royalty, but whose natural inclination is to collapse to the earth, flop to the floor. There’s more room to stretch there, you see. Sit with her. She might giggle, ramble on a bit about nervous energy. Such proximity to a pedestrian has reawakened an awareness of her abnormality; she had nearly forgotten, again, that not everyone needs a tutu to feel alive. She will try very hard to stay very still so as not to give herself away. Don’t mention it. Ask her what she thinks about when she dances.

Let her move.

Tell her what you really think of the Nutcracker. See if she cries when she doesn’t make the cut, and learn to anticipate what she needs before and after that audition. Remember what needs massaging, and when. Understand that it is a rare treat indeed for her to really be at rest, to have a day off from running to and from rehearsals, and to take a break from being beautiful. Relish in whatever she decides to do that day, whether it be sleeping in or saving the world, marathoning a show she always misses or mulling over the feasibility of moving to Mars. Wonder aloud which she was truly born to perform: The white swan, or the black swan. Listen to her reasons why. Indulge her identity, which dances, too. She creates and discovers herself, decides and destroys herself, rehearsing both what she is and what she wants to be. She will perform herself passionately and full-out, shifting entirely with the slightest costume change. Try to keep up. She may speak oddly, percussively, orchestrally, a tango of tangled words. Assume she means to. Her intensity stems from a trained commitment. Technically, she was never trained to talk. She was trained to listen. Let her speak when she finds her voice. Do not ask her to make sense.

It’s easy to date a girl who dances. Give her ibuprofen in bulk for her birthday, sweatshirts and leg warmers for Christmas, cut-off tees and new soft shoes for anniversaries. Give her the gift of touch, the closeness in your eyelashes on her face and the silent applause in an embrace. Give her Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Yann Tiersen, original scores to your kisses. Make her feel the way she feels backstage, in the wings. Let her know that you, too, have noticed all the different configurations your bodies make to lock into one another. Understand that she’s not asking you to be a dancer when she asks you to dance.

Look at her. Stare.

Because she’s unreal. The human equivalent of a black cat, with that same mesmerizing and vaguely alarming quality in the way she slinks toward you. You’re crossing paths with the supernatural, love. You’ve every right to be suspicious. She is at once a string of omens, not just misfortune to many but good luck to plenty. She is bizarre, comfortable, and just maybe the next step in evolution. You may not know what to do with her, even years after the fact. All you know for certain is that her purring is the midsummer night, her happiness, hypnotic. Sharing her company suggests that you are either mental, or extraordinarily lucky.

Because when a dancer falls in love with you, she falls in love with the music you make. She will fall into step with you when you walk together because she knows what corps means, what a greater and grander cause costs. She will assume your motions and mannerisms are as deliberate and meaningful as her own. She will soundlessly observe and absorb you, assigning sensational motivation to your every stir. Your imperfections are artistic, and rewarded. She will recognize you by your cantor, your carriage, and most of all your asymmetry. She fancies the idea of completing each other because your smile pulls to the right, and her smile pulls to the left. It’s all in her head, of course, but what does it matter. She always did like dramatic lighting. She values your very presence in a way you’ve never known. Your cadence compels her. Your pas de deux delights her because it cannot be replicated. She will respect your insanity. It moves her.

Date a girl who dances because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who adores everything you do, every little thing about you. It won’t just be your face or your words or what you two have in common, and it certainly won’t be because you’re convenient. This is a woman who rehearses for weeks on end for maybe one minute onstage — do you think she does anything because it is easy? You want a girl who bites off more than she can chew because she is the most flexible, most sensitive, most ambitious, most big-hearted of the bunch. She will hold ridiculous ideals and outrageous expectations, and she is hardest on herself. She finds solace in rehearsal, because scratching the sublime is only a matter of time. You deserve a girl who knows that a good show requires thick skin and endless practice, a girl who isn’t daunted by any of it. You want a girl who stretches. That is the girl who is unafraid of instability, who understands it and commands it everyday. She’s the one who drills straight through valleys and mountains, persevering through highs and lows because she knows the deeper the plié, the higher the leap. You deserve a girl who doesn’t break easy, a girl who’s prepared for a bit of pain for the sake of of beauty.

She’ll be abysmal with budgeting, you ought to know, but she’ll be pretty resourceful when it comes to diplomacy and improvisation. And she’ll be terrible at scheduling and double-booking because the stage skews her sense of time. She’ll embody the ebb and flow of that tide between well-established vanity and soul-crushing insecurity, of course, but she’ll look glamorous and shy and tough and femme between layered sweats and stage make-up. And yes, darling, she’ll want everything — but she wants you.

You deserve a girl who gives you goosebumps when she says goodnight, who finds the minute and mundane phenomenal, who reveres balance as the desirable eye of a storm. If you can only give her half of your heart, you’re better off alone. If you want to race through a world more stunning than you’ve ever dared to see it, date a girl who dances.

This is us

You. You are morning. You are sleepy eyes and quiet smiles. The snooze button, seven more minutes to lie staring out the window. You are the coffee pot hissing, warm currents wafting through the air. You are slow legs trudging to the train, the gentle breeze touching skin. You cause the goosebumps, the rise, the sun peering out behind each building. The creaking and shaking of the trains, the dull car horns, the how many days until Friday. You are rest. You are I can’t find my sweater so lay back down. You are the world can wait. You are life with intertwined hands.

I. I am the afternoon. The lazy naps in the sun. The bustingling coffee shop, caffeine fix. The busy, busy, one more and then I am finished. The highest sun in the sky. I am Demanding outstretched hands. Loud laughs and clacking key boards. Gazing eyes back to the window, clouds floating by. No cares at all but what is in front of me. I am the do it quickly, enjoy our hands soon. I am electrified, buzzing. One thousand miles in fifteen minutes. I am go. I am now. I am quickly, the picked flower only dies.

But we. We are night time. We are alive. We are stars bursting, blazing creating or destroying. We are it depends on what you’re looking at. We are inhales of excitement, exhales of safety. We are brand new, we are characters. We are trying, we are hoping. We are dark is just as comforting as light. We are god, we are creators. We are only us, the  ones, occupying the space as we can. When we can. We are everything exists within us. We are not afraid. We are storm, me lightning illuminating and quick, you thunder, commanding and present. We are hand in hand. We are together. We are outside of time.

I don't believe in soul mates. I don't believe in "the one"

You probably aren’t the one. I don’t want to hurt you or make you think that this was all a game to me. But the truth still stands: you probably aren’t the one.

Sometimes, people talk about how they’ve met their soulmate or true love or Prince Charming and how they can’t imagine living without that person. I’ve been in love a number of times and, yes, it has absolutely stung for a while after I’ve lost it. But love is kind of like a paper cut. It’s practically invisible but it stings so badly that you honestly consider just cutting off your finger to save yourself from any more excruciating, paper-cutty pain. Eventually, though, it heals and fades until all that’s left is a new layer of skin and a vague memory of how badly it hurt.

That’s kind of how love is, don’t you think?

I might tell you that I love you, and I probably do. I might snuggle into you as you kiss my forehead and I might try to explain to you how perfect a moment it is. And I mean every word of it, because the moment is perfect and you are perfect in the moment.

But what I don’t say is that I don’t believe in soul mates and I don’t believe that there is one person out there for each of us and I don’t believe that that’s how love works. I believe that there are dozens — probably even hundreds or thousands — of people out there that I could be perfectly content with and that you could be perfectly content with that are not you or me. I don’t say that I believe that love is a fickle thing and that no one can love the same person forever.

I don’t tell you that you’re probably not the one because there is no “one.” I don’t tell you because you’ll look at me with those sad eyes that tell me that you just want to save me from such a cynical existence and I don’t need saving.

I fall in and out of love constantly, giving a tiny piece of my heart to every person that reaches their hand toward it. And, sometimes, I collect tiny pieces in return so I can build my own mosaic heart, made up of tiny shards of all the other hearts that I encounter.

So, you probably aren’t the one, and I probably won’t ever find someone to give my whole heart to or someone I want to take a whole heart from.

But, in the end, I will have my full, mosaic heart, made up of all the glassy colors I’ve collected from all the other hearts I’ve touched and that doesn’t seem so bad after all.