Category Archives: Op-Ed

Living, Op-Ed

Don’t Let Relationships Erase You

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I read a really good post recently. So good, that I wish I could just copy and paste the whole thing here because it’s so relevant. Take the time to check it out. It talks about missing someone and not necessarily wanting them to be back in your life.

https://exploringyourmind.com/missing-someone-doesnt-mean-you-want-them-back/

I’m not quite at that point in my journey, I’d still want them back in my life… There’s a silver lining to the article, or something to look forward to. It talks about wanting the good times again; “Think about it: this doesn’t have to happen with the same person. The history and the feelings can be replicated in part with another person now.“

That’s a beautiful sentiment. Knowing that those feelings and emotions you had are not in fact gone forever just because that relationship ended, but rather you will experience them again with someone else. For me, that’s been such a hard part of all this. Mourning the beautiful and endless possibilities of what that relationship could have brought to my life. All the happy moments it did bring to me, along with the inspiration and creativity.

I wrote more poems inspired by this person in the last few months than I have in the last few years. I’m not sure why. It’s ironic how some people can inspire you and others don’t. One of the poems I wrote, I know would have had a great impact on them. I never had the chance to give it, but it was not written in vain. I was able to share it with someone who recently experienced the same thing and it’s been a great source of comfort to them. In a way, maybe I had to meet this other person, in order to be a comfort to someone else.

Life is like that. You meet someone who influences you, changes your life. It can be in a small way, it could be someone you meet once, but you never forget. Moving forward, I would like to challenge myself to only think about the good moments and try not to think about the way things ended. Not forget why, as I will always carry that with me moving forward and apply it to future relationships.

I was listening to a song the other day and it said “people like me are gone forever, when you say goodbye.” That can be so true. I know in previous friendships I’ve had, I’ve been so hurt. I’ve cried, I’ve felt lousy about myself… and some of those people are still in my life to a degree, but a very distant one. You know… the ones you wish happy birthday to on facebook and occasionally comment on their posts.

In order to get to a place of not being hurt anymore, I had to go through a period of shutting them out completely. I had to feel all the feelings and then get to a place where they could no longer hurt me, but also a place where I still wanted them to be happy and well. One person I run into now and again and they’ve mentioned getting together a couple of times. It’s funny, back in the day that would excite me to no end. However, now I don’t even get my hopes up because I know it’s not going to happen. It’s a good thing though, that I’m not upset by this. I kind of just laugh about it… like ok… sure we’ll get together.

I’ve had to stop comparing myself to their other friendships. Stop questioning why they grew close to someone younger than me, if maybe I thought age was a factor or whatever the case may be.

I’ve told myself for half my life already that people are in my life for a reason, and sometimes only for a season. That’s always been hard for me as I’m someone who loves deeply and doesn’t like to let people go.

The good thing is, when we let those people go, we are able to open ourselves up to new relationships, with people who don’t want to erase us from their memories but create new ones.

Living, Op-Ed

Learning to Let Go

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The thing about writing is, when I write, I’m able to focus my mind on that task, for at least a bit. For someone who’s mind is sometimes, constantly racing, that’s a relief. The scenarios I play out in my head stop as I focus on putting words down.

It’s been a full week now since I haven’t spoken to someone I once wanted to talk to every day. It’s true what they say, the first week feels like a month. It’s strange, but it feels like forever ago since we actually did talk. I almost can’t remember what it felt like to be able to send them a message. I try to think about, if things hadn’t gone the way they had, what would we be talking about today? Would they really be interested in anything I had to say?

I keep thinking about what my younger sister told me. How if they had liked me better they wouldn’t have reacted the way they had. They wouldn’t have blocked me. It hurt to think that, but it’s probably true. Not that they didn’t like me at all, just not enough.

If you haven’t listened to the song “Death By a Thousand Cuts” you should. Lyrics that say “if the story’s over, why am I still writing pages?” “Flashbacks waking me up.” “I can’t pretend it’s okay when it’s not.” “Gave up on me like I was a bad drug.” “Trying to find a part of me you didn’t take up, gave you so much but it wasn’t enough.”

I feel like, especially that last line is so true of many of my relationships. When you give so much and it doesn’t work out. I was talking to a friend recently who’s life looks pretty fabulous on social media. Always on a trip, or fun outing with friends, but she told me how lonely she has been. How friends that have boyfriends don’t include her in some things and how another group of friends always comes along when she invites them, but they never reach out to invite her.

Friendships should always be two sided, but it feels like there’s always going to be that person who puts in a little more effort. You have to decide if it’s worth it to you, to keep putting in the effort.

I had a friend I once considered my best friend. We haven’t spoken in years and nothing dramatic happened. We were friends for half our lives, we even lived together for a time. As we got a little bit older and started getting married and having kids and she wasn’t able to be there for some pretty big events, I stopped reaching out. I found, she didn’t bother to reach out either. There was no real sadness or ill will, just a faded friendship. I hope she’s doing well. She was an important part of my life.

Part of growing is recognizing and letting go of relationships that don’t add anything to your life and instead take things away. You can lose so much of yourself when you can’t walk away. Your happiness, your time, your energy. Don’t let people who don’t appreciate you, take that from you.

When you think of the word relationship, you have to get out of the stigma that it means a romance. A relationship is anything other than a friendship, it’s how you know someone. It could be a family member, co-worker, a person you just met. A relationship can be many different things, but the simplest form is simply an association with someone. It can be someone that you never were able to form a friendship with, but you were still connected in some way.

For me, the worst part of losing a relationship is not having that potential come to fruition. It’s kind of like dating someone you imagined yourself marrying. Then you break up and it’s devastating. The future you planned for yourself, the visions you had, destroyed.

In hindsight, we can say, thank goodness I didn’t get that future. I didn’t have to go through a failed marriage or divorce. Yet it still hurts. That grief of a now different future has to be mourned. I guess that’s why John Lennon sang “life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans.”

I wonder about how other people move on sometimes. For instance, when you get mad enough to block someone, are you able to just block them out of your mind? Like ‘I can’t believe they did that, wow, so glad I don’t have to have them in my life any more,’ then just never think about them? For me? I’ve thought about them every single day. I try not to be mad at myself, I try to remind myself I was only trying to be kind and acting in a way that is familiar to me. That other people also in put in the same scenario, have stated they wouldn’t have been bothered. Yet everyone is different. So for one person it might have been a welcomed gesture, but for this person, it wasn’t.

I keep thinking about the times when it would have been okay and would it would not have. The thing is, we behave in a manner in which we are accustomed. We all grow up with not only different beliefs and morals, but are shown what’s acceptable and what’s not. So what could be very normal for one person, is unacceptable for another. It doesn’t necessarily mean either is wrong.

I go back to customs. In certain countries, people are greeted with a kiss on each cheek. Here in America? Someone might slap you for that, press charges, try to make sure you never come into a position of power. So again, it goes back to what you are accustomed to and what you deem as acceptable.

Communication. Make those feelings known so you can be validated. Hey, you did this, it made me really uncomfortable, I would appreciate it if you did not do that again. If that person respects you, chances are, they won’t do it again.

That’s when my mind wanders back to what my sister said. Truth is, maybe they already wanted me out of their life and now they had a reason to just cut all ties.

This is where I have to remind myself that I am not a bad person. That my heart was in the right place. To learn from this so that it was not all for naught. I have to remind myself, as hard as it is, to not let it change me, just change my actions. I can still have a big heart, I can still love people. I just need to slow down, realize not everyone wants to be loved and assess each and every relationship. It’s better to be overly cautious in some circumstances to make sure the other person is comfortable. Respect boundaries and clarify them. So next time I want to mail someone cookies, I’ll make sure it’s okay with them first.

Living, Op-Ed

Your Kindness is Not a Weakness

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I’ve been reading a lot of words of wisdom lately. I feel like everyone needs to have their feelings validated in some way. One of the best things I’ve read said:

“Your kindness is not a weakness. There is power in your ability to be kind and loving without conditions, but it is essential to know that this power is not for everyone. You’re going to meet a few (people) who don’t know what to do with your love.”

– R.H. Sin

My friends keep telling me this. In fact, they warned me, “they’re not ready for you.” Thinking to myself, am I that bad? No, they say, they love how much I love, but unless you’re prepared for it, it can be overwhelming.

I’ve experienced that many times in my life. I’ve even experienced it with people who have told me it’s too much, but are thankfully still my friend today… for others… they just don’t know what to do and friendships don’t always last.

Another thing people have been telling me is that they find it’s really easy to love. They are like me in that sense, they love but they don’t always allow themselves to be loved. It takes a certain vulnerability to not just show love, but be open to it. Me? I welcome it. I cherish it. But I don’t always get it and you’re not going to always be loved the same way you love.

I also read, how, not everyone has the same heart as you do… We can’t expect to get in return, the same amount of love that we give. To be honest, I’d like just a small fraction from some people. But I have to realize, that if they can’t even give that, as much as I care about them, they are not adding anything positive to my life and instead are taking away positivity, leaving me with negativity and sadness.

There are some people that no matter what, think they have nothing to offer. Yet for some reason, they matter to you. They haven’t done anything truly profound, but you’re drawn to them… why? Sometimes it’s unexplainable. You feel a connection, you love with your whole heart, even when that person hasn’t truly been a huge part of your life. You respect who they are, you admire them. You think they are a great person and you desire to have them in your life in a deeper way than they are.

I mean, who doesn’t want to be surrounded by people they respect and admire? Someone you can tell has a good heart. We want that. We want to surround ourselves with amazing people, however, not everyone who is amazing will want to be surrounded by us. That doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you, it just means, for whatever the reason, they don’t need your goodness in their life. Hopefully it’s because they already have enough of it.

I remember one time, I was friends with someone I met while working out of state in college. When I got home for Christmas break, that person told me that they didn’t really see us as friends moving forward, and just sort of mentioned how I think our personalities were different. I was (still am) a big hugger. Where I went to college, was very conservative and honestly it’s like people aren’t use to hugging or something. Anyway, I’m not sure what happened after that, but we did end up still continuing on to be friends. Even though we live a part, we still talk. She called me when she got engaged, I went to her wedding. Now we get to watch from a distance as our kid(s) grow up. I appreciate her communication. It’s probably what helped us continue to be friends. Not sure if I had to scale back a bit and give less hugs, or if she just had to understand me more and what makes me who I am. We still did hug.

Love comes in so many ways and when we talk about love, it’s not the I’m “in love” with you type love. It’s just a normal part of relationships… parents… siblings… friendships. We love all those people in varying degrees and we show that love in many different ways.

Everyone needs love differently. Some of you may have heard of the five love languages. Basically, it talks about ways that people show love and need love. Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, Receiving Gifts, Quality Time, and Physical Touch. Each person needs and gives in different ways. For instance, I feel like I am very good at giving all five types of love, but the ones I need in return would be quality time and physical touch (aka hugging). Not everyone likes hugs, they make some people uncomfortable. That is something you have to know about the other person. That is not a way to meet their needs. Communicating these needs is very important and even sometimes what you don’t need so that you aren’t uncomfortable in a relationship.

Then there’s people like me. People that will probably overwhelm you at first. You wonder, does this person have anyone else in their life that they talk to or are close with? They kind of seem obsessed with me.

I promise you, I have a lot of other people I talk to. I have two best friends I text with all day, every day. I have another best friend I have weekly phone dates with, another friend we have multiple phone dates every week. What I don’t have, is someone physically present to grab coffee with or give a hug to (due to distance). I send my friends gifts, I give them my phone time, but I don’t have someone to be present. I am missing a very important aspect of how I need to receive love.

So when I find someone, when I meet someone, I think great, here is a person I can potentially hang out with, hug, spend time with. I’ve been waiting for this person. I can tell they are a great person, someone I really want to know and then bam, are we best friends yet? For me, there’s no question. I want to talk to them every day, I want them to know how special and important they are. For them? It’s all a little overwhelming for someone they barely know.

I was speaking to my sister about this. She told me that I need to give them time to catch up. Patience. Yes, I’m there, but I need to let them get there or it will be snuffed out before it’s even started.

I recently snuffed out a potential relationship with someone and I’ve been dealing with it the best I can. It’s hard when there’s no hope of reconciliation. Another thing I read recently stated that we will not always have closure.

“You will not have closure in every situation, but you can create it for yourself. Most of what other people do is about them, not you. Some things cannot be explained. Some people won’t apologize because they can’t. You cannot change people no matter how much you think they need to change, people change themselves.”

I think it was important to read this, because even though you might have done something, it might not have been as bad as the average person would have taken it. However, it could be the thing that breaks that person. They could have issues with things similar in the past, so for them, it’s a done deal. It’s something small to someone else, but they cannot move past it. Again, some things cannot be explained. Sometimes you won’t have a chance to say goodbye, because that person has cut you out of their life, blocked you, and not given you the opportunity to even bid them adieu. Is it fair? No.

You can’t let that control your life, it almost cost someone I know, their future wife. Closed up, guarded, not truly letting walls down. Enough so that a person realizes they are never going to be let in and are finally ready to move on. Then closure presented itself and you know what that person found? They no longer needed it. They finally realized what a good and healthy relationship looked like and were ready to let the walls fall down.

It’s hard. It takes work. When someone rejects us, when they mess with our sense of self, it destroys a part of you. You don’t feel good enough to be loved by anyone else. You feel disgusted that you let someone you admired and respected down. You don’t trust yourself.

You are so loving to everyone else, but not loving to yourself. Loving yourself is hard, you may never truly understand what it means to love yourself, I know I don’t. So instead, be patient with yourself. Know that change doesn’t happen over night, but baby steps are a good start. Take time to heal. Whatever form that means. Take a day off, a week. Go somewhere. Allow yourself to feel all the feelings.

I said it before, and I’ll say it again. You’re broken, but you are not beyond repair.

Living, Op-Ed

Try to Be Kind to Yourself

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There comes a time in life when you meet someone so magnetic
Someone who brings such joy, your face hurts from smiling.
A person that somehow makes you feel safe, special and loved
By just EXISTING.
A person who doesn’t see their worth. But means everything to you.
Who’s smile could light up a room, even when they’re feeling DARK.
Someone you love with your whole heart and you try
NOT TO OVERWHELM.
Then you do something to mess it all up.
To get yourself cut out of their life.
Then they erase you.
Like you never even existed.
You don’t want to exist.
You are INVISIBLE.
You must be strong, but it’s hard.
So HARD.
You cannot stop crying.
You never imagined it would come to this.
How could you be so reckless?
So careless?
The positive self-talk doesn’t help
Yet you TRY.
To believe in the words you are saying.
You are worthy of being loved.
Not everyone you love will feel the same.
Not everyone will understand you.
You are broken but you are not
BEYOND REPAIR.
You may never have their love
And that’s OKAY.
It does not mean you do not deserve love
It will take you a while to believe this.
BE KIND TO YOURSELF
Not everyone will accept you
THAT’S OKAY
As much as it hurts, you will HEAL.
Believe you are not beyond love
Show yourself GRACE.
It WILL get better.

Living, Op-Ed

Being Self-Aware: Learning to Forgive Myself

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Most of this won’t make sense… but I need to write it down so I can try to make it make sense to me….

Something happened today, something so devastating, that the only way I can possibly cope with it, is by writing. I haven’t written personally in a really long time. I have journals upon journals in my garage. I used to write every day in junior high and high school. I tried to continue it when I first started college, but I was so busy, it was hard. Most of my journals are about loving people too much. Eventually, I feel like it works out, but getting to that point is hard. Love is hard. Life is hard. Not everyone will get you, not everyone will accept you, not everyone will love you, no matter how much you love them.

I spoke on the phone with both my sisters today, that rarely happens. However, deep down, they know my behavior. They know that for what ever reason, I become easily attached to mentor type figures in my life. I’m still friends with my Kindergarten teacher! There’s a few teachers like that. Ones that have been to my wedding, college graduation, my daughter’s birthday parties. We go out for lunch, we go to each other’s houses. It’s normal for me, but it’s not normal for everyone.

I actually recently spoke to one of the teacher’s about my current situation and she asked me what is the rush to be “friends?” so to speak. I didn’t have a good answer for her. I guess I have just always had this overwhelming amount of love to give and the inability to contain it. Even in high school, I would hug a few of my teachers… there’s one I must have written at least twenty poems for. The good news, is that we are still friends today.

The hard part for me comes, because for so long I was so quiet. I couldn’t speak my feelings, I could only write them. But I love deeply and I have waited my whole life to feel loved. I don’t know if any one person can fix it, that’s a lot to put on someone when you’re broken. Now that I’ve worked on parts of myself that I needed to change (there’s still more work to be done), speaking isn’t as hard, but containing my feelings is.

My sisters and I are all very different. We are all broken in different ways. We have all coped with coming from a broken home in different ways. I’ve always felt that I was oblivious to a lot of things. That things weren’t really that bad and perhaps they weren’t. Deep down though, I just wanted to feel loved. That was missing. It’s not that I didn’t have anyone that didn’t love me, just for whatever reason, I’ve never really been able to feel it, hold on to it.

I’m not sure if anyone else has ever felt that way, but I get it in spurts. When you find someone you really love and respect and admire. Also, someone who is a great hugger. It’s amazing how safe a really good hug can make you feel. Like your spirits connect and you feel understood, safe, accepted, loved.

The problem for me is that I either love someone or I don’t and if I love someone, oh I love them. I love them 200% and it doesn’t take months or years to get me there. When I know someone is special, it takes days, weeks, and I’m there. The problem? As my older sister says, I have to let the other person catch up. I realize I don’t always have that kind of patience.

A former assistant manager (and thankfully to this day, my friend of 16 years), once was probably pretty overwhelmed by me. Remember the thing I said about boundaries? I’ve apparently never really been good at that… I did marry my former boss after all (I did quit once we started dating). Anyway, my former assistant manager I felt such a connection toward (and see we are still friends, so those feelings were valid)… every time she came in to work when I was there, I would get so happy. You couldn’t wipe the smile off my face! I would give her hugs and I even created a MySpace back then, just so I could be friends with her on it. I remember one day I asked her if she thought I was weird, I still remember what she said… “not weird, different.”

The truth is, I am different and it’s not necessarily always in a good way. I am self-aware that I have flaws and faults. I won’t pretend that I’m not the problem… in most cases… I probably am. I think, I just wish, there was better communication sometimes as that hasn’t always been the case. It can be awkward to bring up, but the end result is lost friendships. Sometimes it is brought up and I have a hard time just not being me. I have a hard time being patient, waiting for people to catch up, not respecting boundaries enough.


I understand having my privacy/personal life violated. When I was in Junior High, I used to email one of my teachers all the time. Teacher/student relationships were different back then and different for us at the Christian school I went to. We were just naturally close with them. One time a few us went over to a teacher’s house to help her make some crafts for her wedding. The first grade teacher had a sleepover with all the girls at her house.

I’m not sure if these things are the reason why I am so bad with boundaries today in regards to those in authority, or if it’s why I am drawn to them to sort of make me feel safe, accepted and loved or both.

Anyway, I realize now, looking back on my poetry from when I was 13 just how sad I was. How badly I wanted to be loved by someone, I wrote about it a lot. I can’t remember everything I wrote with my teacher back then, although I think I have quite a bit of the emails printed out. I use to save stuff like that. She was obviously concerned enough to have my step-mom print the emails and turn them in to the vice principal. My privacy was fully invaded. Now, I never threatened self-harm or something that this teacher (who I know are mandated reports), would have to report. However, for some reason, she felt like she was my only outlet, the only person I could talk to and I guess she didn’t feel equipped to handle it. She wanted me to go to counseling, so much so that she was kind of forcing it on me (side note, I’ve never been to counseling… maybe I should). I felt violated not only that my emails were being shared, but that it wasn’t even by my own mother, by my step-mother. Maybe my own mother would have come to me and talked to me about it, before getting the vice principal involved.

Then the vice principal called me into her office to talk about the emails and basically told me that I wouldn’t be allowed to talk to my teacher any more after class or help her with anything (I used to stay after class for an hour). She asked me what would happen if that teacher were to move away tomorrow, then I wouldn’t have her anymore. Well, obviously I would deal with that should it happen, but that’s a completely different scenario than just being banned from talking to the one person you trusted enough to open up to. The one person who made you feel happy and safe. After that meeting I was allowed to go home…. The next day, that teacher gave me a hug… which wasn’t even allowed. I didn’t hug her back. I was broken.

It took me awhile, but eventually I forgave her… we even had a relationship in the future (it took me at least a year to get over, but we went to the same church so I still saw her)… eventually, she did something else that hurt me and it took longer the second time around, but I have forgiven that too. I wouldn’t call us friends today, but friendly. She’s not someone that can hurt me anymore though. I’ve found a way to turn off those kind of feelings for people who have really hurt me and get to a place where I can care about them, wish them the best, but they no longer make me cry.

I hope that happens for me today, I know it will. It’s just so fresh right now, it doesn’t seem possible.

Did some part of me self-sabotage? Right now I really hate myself. I’m disgusted by myself. Those are probably pretty strong feelings and it’s probably confusing trying to figure out why. What it comes down to is, I have a lot of love to give, I love people too much, I don’t always respect their boundaries because it’s hard for me to contain that love. I care too much, I want to make me happy, I love to go above and beyond and try to make people feel special and sometimes that crosses the line. Bottom line, I had some thank you cookies mailed to someone and they felt very violated that I got their home address from the white pages, without asking for it. Even though it’s public info, I understand why this person is upset and feels the way they do and they have every right to that. I am sad that I was trying to do something so nice that I wanted to be a surprise and instead it turned into that person no longer wanting me in their life and cutting me out completely. My intention was never to hurt them and that’s where my issues come in with boundaries and not respecting them. I should have asked, not everyone likes to be surprised. It would have spared me a lot of heartache and maybe not have cost me knowing someone I consider to be so amazing.


I hope that in time this person will forgive me. I may never know, I’ve been blocked from all forms of communication. So I will just have to come to terms with this on my own. As one of my friends told me… to know, that my heart was in the right place, that I was not trying to be malicious or wicked. I need to learn from my mistakes of going too far and not respecting people’s boundaries.

I’ve cried a lot of tears and there is still more coming. I know this is a good lesson for me to learn, I am just sorry it has cost me from knowing someone so great. I hope that in time, even if there is no communication moving forward or ever in the future, they no longer think of me in whatever capacity they are right now. Angry, violated and what ever else they are thinking. I hope they can forgive me and it doesn’t ruin the happy moments we did share together.

Moving forward I vow to respect boundaries, to never get close to anyone who is in any capacity above me in a leadership role, and most importantly to slow down and realize we can’t be best friends with everyone over night. That good things are worth the wait and I can’t just go around telling everyone my feelings and need to learn how to contain them. Maybe I should start writing more- privately that is.

First, I have to try to forgive myself. For being careless, for not thinking and for crossing boundaries and not being respectful. It has cost me a lot. I have to tell myself what my older sister told me. That I am worthy of being loved and some day I will have those relationships in my life, I just have to wait for them and be patient.