People come into our lives to teach us valuable lessons. Sometimes those lessons alter who we are and our lives forever, and sometimes, the lessons are fleeting and we move on. Either way, people come into our lives to teach us valuable lessons.
We don’t enter into our relationships knowing that. We don’t even consider it. We just enter into the relationships. Because in the moment, it feels like the right thing to do, and our hearts are pulling us towards it, and we know we want to be friends with this person, or we think we can love this person, or an inner voice is telling us to follow our hearts. So we do. Sometimes, those friendships last a lifetime, and you keep learning and growing from each other. I believe those are some of the best relationships. The one’s where both are willing to learn and grow and teach each other what there is to learn and to keep growing together. I have a friend like that. We can have an argument but we are both so committed to working it out, it doesn’t occur to either of us that we may lose each other. We won’t. Then there are the friendships that last many years and you learn and grow together until there is nothing more for you to learn from each other. We often mourn those relationships. We try and hold onto them with everything we have, but we just need to let them go. Sometimes, the friendships are short-lived, and sometimes, that’s simply because the lesson is a quick one.
If it’s meant to be, it will be. Won’t it? If that person is meant to be in your life, won’t they be? But we get scared. We start to hold on. Our lives will never be the same if we aren’t in each others lives. What happens if something big happens and we can’t call each other? What if…What if?
I suppose the lesson in that is that there are no guarantees in life.
When we fall in love with people, we do so willingly. We do so openly. Some have a hard time with it. Some want it…and they long for it…but they can’t quite bring themselves to give someone else all of themselves. Offering ourselves up is too hard. We have our past holding us back. We have conversations that are 10, 15, 20 years old that tell us we are not good enough, or we’re not worthy, or we’re not reliable, or someone cheated on us, or we cheated on our partner, or we’re not good people. Everyone has some conversation running in the background of every relationship. Everyone. We just don’t always pay attention to it. I can’t say I blame us. It’s tough to wrap our heads around the fact that this thing happened in our lives, and that we’ve carried it with us since then.
You might think you’re a bad person because of something that occurred in your past. But are you? Are you really? You live your life like you are a bad person. You find ways to convince the people in your life that you are bad and then you act accordingly. You push away the people who love you because you couldn’t possibly measure up to who you know you’d have to be for them. The jig is up. You now realize you’re in love with this person and you have nothing to offer them. You are so focused on the fact that you did something bad once…Or you hurt someone once…so you keep on hurting people to perpetuate the background conversation. You leave destruction, and a trail of broken hearts behind you, but you’re unwilling to do what it takes to deal with, confront, or face whatever your demon is. So…you move on. You disappear from the lives of those who love you. Only to do it again. Somewhere else. All the while, losing sleep over who you think you are.
Meanwhile, the people on the receiving end? What happens to those people? What happens to the people in the path? The one’s who are stuck under the rubble?
They start to question who they are. They start to wonder what THEY did wrong. How is it possible that love simply wasn’t enough? But love is supposed to be enough. Love is always supposed to be enough.
And sometimes…it’s just not.
What happens to the people on the receiving end? We start to question our own goodness. Our ability to love the people in our lives. Are we really as fabulous as we claim to be? Am I really that good a person? This person who I thought i knew isn’t who I thought they were…what does that say about me? How did I not see it? I should’ve listened when they told me they were bad person. I should’ve heard them. I should’ve asked why. I should’ve paid attention. I should’ve been able to make a difference. I should’ve known better. I should’ve been smarter.
We should ourselves to death. We think that by asking the questions and going over all the “should’s” we’ll have the answer to the “what happened”.
Until someone we know says something in a one minute conversation that we may not have heard at any other time and makes a difference. We DID make a difference. That bad thing that they did in their past…they never did that with you. They never behaved that certain way. They never said that certain thing. Yes. They may have broken your heart on the way down. In fact, it may even appear like they broke your entire life. But when you look yourself in the mirror every day…give yourself a kiss. Or at the very least, a high-five. You deserve it. You loved someone who didn’t think they were worthy. You loved someone more than you ever could’ve imagined doing. You gave someone the benefit of the doubt. You trusted someone with your whole life. You trusted them with your heart.
Not everyone in the world is willing to do that. Not everyone believes the world is good. Not everyone believes that everyone has an ulterior motive. That someone is always out to get you. That you have to watch your back. It takes a very special kind of person to live a life believing in everything. All the time.
While at times, it can be heart wrenching to imagine that bad things can happen to good people…they can. And they do.
The real strength, which is something I’m only just getting (hence my almost year long hiatus), is that no matter what happens…I’m always awesome. And nobody gets to make me forget that. No matter what.
People come into our lives to teach us valuable lessons. We may not see it right away, but always.
You. Are. Awesome. Don’t ever forget it.
Ever. No one gets to take that away from you.
No. one.
~ Rita
ownyourawesome 
Thank you and welcome back to being awesome! 2013 was hard. I just went through what you wrote about and it was hard to stand up for myself but I finally did it. I’m glad you found your strength too!