when you're wrong

I've made a lot of mistakes in my life.  I cheated on someone I loved, I dropped out of college, I lied to others about telling the truth and sometimes I've told the truth when I should have just lied.  I've broken hearts, I've had my heart broken; I've ended good friendships and I've started bad friendships.  I've darkened my eye-brows with a black pencil because I thought it looked good with my black hair, I got a wrist tattoo in black-ink when it should have been blue, and once I even stole incense from Sam Goody when I was 12 years old.  And of course there was the time I ignored the dire warning of "don't hold your breath for me, I'm a lost cause."

That'd be my stubbornness hard at work.

I've been made a fool of a lot in my life.  I've been the butt end of jokes that I wasn't really in on, I've been laughed at and not with.  I've been cheated on and had several people know it was happening save for me, and in that respect I've been lied to by dozens of people for the sake of sparing me from something ugly.  I've been proven wrong in a rather mean way in front of a classroom, I've been tripped in a packed department store for the sake of entertainment, and once I even got pulled into someone else's lie only to have them turn around and throw me under the bus when I had nothing to do with it in the first place.  And of course there was the time I was told "I think you're expecting this to be your next great love," as if that warrants punishment and not reward.

That'd be my affable nature hard at work.

I've tried to remain an optimistic person throughout my life.  There was a grey area for a couple months (or years) where it was too easy to be the pessimist, but eventually I came back around to see the good.  It's a conscious effort to see the good in people and things, did you know that?  I find myself more and more often having to remind people that you see what you want in the world, not the other way around.  Generally speaking if you go into it positive, you come right back out of it as positive.  It's like that quote, "happiness is not a destination but a form of travel."

That'd be my stubbornness hard at work once more.

Sometimes things just don't work out.  Sometimes things crash and spinout on the runway in a fiery wreck before they even have a chance to make it off the ground.  Sometimes you can blame it on the expectations of others, sometimes you can blame it on your own indecisiveness.  I suppose that ties back around into making mistakes though.  Every so often when something doesn't work out the way you originally intended, you can take it in your hand, examine the broken pieces, and then learn a lesson.

Learning from mistakes is a great thing and something I grow increasingly adept at.  I suppose telling someone to "just give me an answer either way" doesn't warrant anger or resentment but should instead come with gratitude when they DO give you an answer.  Even if it isn't the answer you wanted.  Even if that answer might be a mistake in and of itself.

And god damnit if I won't take this mistake and learn from it too.

The faceless entity I've been dating is gone now, and for some reason or another it didn't actually sink in for me until I typed those words out.  It's funny how that happens, isn't it?  The finality of it.  I can't bring myself to cry like I know I will; instead it is just building inside me until there's nothing left to do but to let it out.  I wrote about him in April in an update about a kiss, and no, I'm not slapping myself in the face for jinxing it because I don't feel I did.  I feel I allowed myself to start falling for someone I knew I wasn't supposed to fall for.  At 27 years old, it's of course never too late to learn that lesson.  Frankly I'm surprised it took this long.

I'll leave you now with a picture of us, his face blurred for his privacy of course.  But it was the night that my feelings changed for him and it was the night my life outside of him took a massive dive.  But looking at this picture lets me know sometimes things work out for the better, for however short amount of time.  And I'll hold on to that... and I'll hope that some day soon I can feel it again.  Goodnight gang.