Monika Basile's Blog: Confessions of a Bleeding Heart - Posts Tagged "going-on"
The Drawback
This time of year is a strange one for me. I call it the Holiday Drawback. This is when relationships that ended, men I have loved... tend to seep their way back into my life or at least attempt to. I used to think it was because maybe, somehow, it could all be relived—but that isn’t the reason at all.
I think that sometimes people look for the people they let go of who were good to them, as one looks for a set of carelessly misplaced keys. The key word here is carelessly, not misplaced. It has taken me a while to realize that but I do understand it now.
No one wants to be alone on the holidays or even living with someone who makes them feel alone. So instead they think back to a time when someone was good to them or saw the wonder in them or simply enjoyed the person they were. And they are drawn back, back to that time when maybe they felt really good for a bit. Then the thoughts get swirling wicked crazy. What happened? Hey, why did that end? Hmmm, I wonder if she still thinks of me. Etc.
I have an answer. You carelessly misplaced me. You, Sirs, were not careful with what should have been valuable to you—and you didn’t realize that I knew who I was and what my value was and is. I also, dear Sirs, knew that you were worth something too. That is what you miss...the lot of you. You miss one of the people in the world who knew you were someone special, something great, someone worth loving.
It isn’t easy for me in the least to not get drawn back into it all. It’s actually quite difficult to say, “No thank you. I can’t. I hope you’re well etc.” When my heart of hearts instead wants to scream out, “Why did you do that to me? Why are you too late?” It is harder to keep going on alone, not knowing what will happen next, but with a knowing that something will definitely happen next even if I don’t have a clue of what it will be. I know that my life will keep going forward unless I allow the Holiday Drawback to suck me in—however tempting that may be. It isn’t worth it. It keeps me standing still or worse yet, falling backward.
They say men look for the challenge. They want a challenge as they find the woman of their dreams. I say the challenge is not in capturing a woman’s heart, it is in keeping it. Why hunt the mighty bear to simply toss it in the woods for the scavengers? There is no point in that. The challenge is to not be careless and misplace what you hold most dear—what is truly valuable. Hearts are fragile and should be handled with the utmost care.
Yes, sometimes things change—people do or situations. There are mistakes made and regrets hashed over. A second chance can be possible with growing. I have grown too. I have grown wiser and a bit more cautious but not bitter as you may assume. I am not against forgiveness. In fact, I am a firm believer in it. I also believe that loneliness can drive us backwards and cloud our vision of the future as well as the here and now. “The Season” shouldn’t be the reason. It is bittersweet to come to the realization but I am grateful for it.
Monika M. Basile
I think that sometimes people look for the people they let go of who were good to them, as one looks for a set of carelessly misplaced keys. The key word here is carelessly, not misplaced. It has taken me a while to realize that but I do understand it now.
No one wants to be alone on the holidays or even living with someone who makes them feel alone. So instead they think back to a time when someone was good to them or saw the wonder in them or simply enjoyed the person they were. And they are drawn back, back to that time when maybe they felt really good for a bit. Then the thoughts get swirling wicked crazy. What happened? Hey, why did that end? Hmmm, I wonder if she still thinks of me. Etc.
I have an answer. You carelessly misplaced me. You, Sirs, were not careful with what should have been valuable to you—and you didn’t realize that I knew who I was and what my value was and is. I also, dear Sirs, knew that you were worth something too. That is what you miss...the lot of you. You miss one of the people in the world who knew you were someone special, something great, someone worth loving.
It isn’t easy for me in the least to not get drawn back into it all. It’s actually quite difficult to say, “No thank you. I can’t. I hope you’re well etc.” When my heart of hearts instead wants to scream out, “Why did you do that to me? Why are you too late?” It is harder to keep going on alone, not knowing what will happen next, but with a knowing that something will definitely happen next even if I don’t have a clue of what it will be. I know that my life will keep going forward unless I allow the Holiday Drawback to suck me in—however tempting that may be. It isn’t worth it. It keeps me standing still or worse yet, falling backward.
They say men look for the challenge. They want a challenge as they find the woman of their dreams. I say the challenge is not in capturing a woman’s heart, it is in keeping it. Why hunt the mighty bear to simply toss it in the woods for the scavengers? There is no point in that. The challenge is to not be careless and misplace what you hold most dear—what is truly valuable. Hearts are fragile and should be handled with the utmost care.
Yes, sometimes things change—people do or situations. There are mistakes made and regrets hashed over. A second chance can be possible with growing. I have grown too. I have grown wiser and a bit more cautious but not bitter as you may assume. I am not against forgiveness. In fact, I am a firm believer in it. I also believe that loneliness can drive us backwards and cloud our vision of the future as well as the here and now. “The Season” shouldn’t be the reason. It is bittersweet to come to the realization but I am grateful for it.
Monika M. Basile
A Little Less Conversation, A Little more Action...Please
There are a million articles about having “the talk” and most of them leave me with my voice stuck in my throat instead. I am wondering if maybe, there shouldn’t be a talk. Maybe we shouldn’t need to say, “Hey, do you actually want a relationship or are we fooling ourselves?” or “Where do you see this going?”
Part of me thinks if I am driving down a lone stretch of road, and there is nothing but gravel and leafless trees lining it with a bunch of unkempt creepy houses lined up in a row, and buzzards resting on tombstones, do I really need road signs to tell me where I am or if this is the place I should be? Will a flickering neon sign reading GHOST TOWN population 0 really tell me anything more than my very own eyes?
I think that is how it is with relationships too. If I am in a state of constant wondering where it is going, maybe “the talk” has already been spoken in the deepest silence. They say men are actions and women are words. Maybe women say so many words to come up with reasons for a man’s actions or inaction to simply make us feel better about what is standing clearly before us.
None of us wants to be fooled yet we fool ourselves into thinking that if we just “talk” it will turn out okay. We’ll get it all settled and then make some sort of plan to get to the next part of it. I think sometimes we women could avoid a lot of heartache if we truly looked at the relationship, non relationship, somewhat relationship—with our eyes wide open. I would hope we could actually see what the truth is if we shut up in our minds long enough to watch and observe. The mind chatter is a great distraction to what is truly happening.
I am guilty of this—this lying to myself simply because I want what I want. I think most women are. We are queens of making excuses and finding alternative scenarios rather than facing the truth. It’s because the truth can be painful and ugly and sometimes we think we won’t survive the truth. If we face it—we may have to give up the dreams we’ve been dreaming and let something go we may be holding onto very tightly. We have to give up the vision of the relationship we imagined and have the reality instead. Sometimes, we are lucky and it is better than anything we could have ever conceived. And sometimes it’s not.
If I have to ask a man if he loves me, then he doesn’t. He has made it loud and clear in one way or another. If I have to ask, “Do you want me in your future? Do you see me there?”—then I am not anywhere there and it has already been revealed. I just was not ready to look closely enough to see it at the time.
We wonder why “the talk” is such a hard thing to have. The reason is that it is difficult to ask questions to what when we already know the answers and especially when we don’t like the answer at all.
Of course there are exceptions—that’s a given. Some people don’t know what they want or where they are going or who they want to join them on their journey. I believe the majority must know exactly who they love and if they cannot necessarily picture their future, they know when they can’t picture it empty of the person they love.
Words are powerful but only when actions are behind them. We can all talk the talk until we are blue in the face—it doesn’t change what is not taking place. If nothing is really happening—then the reality is just that—it’s nothing.
Monika M. Basile
Part of me thinks if I am driving down a lone stretch of road, and there is nothing but gravel and leafless trees lining it with a bunch of unkempt creepy houses lined up in a row, and buzzards resting on tombstones, do I really need road signs to tell me where I am or if this is the place I should be? Will a flickering neon sign reading GHOST TOWN population 0 really tell me anything more than my very own eyes?
I think that is how it is with relationships too. If I am in a state of constant wondering where it is going, maybe “the talk” has already been spoken in the deepest silence. They say men are actions and women are words. Maybe women say so many words to come up with reasons for a man’s actions or inaction to simply make us feel better about what is standing clearly before us.
None of us wants to be fooled yet we fool ourselves into thinking that if we just “talk” it will turn out okay. We’ll get it all settled and then make some sort of plan to get to the next part of it. I think sometimes we women could avoid a lot of heartache if we truly looked at the relationship, non relationship, somewhat relationship—with our eyes wide open. I would hope we could actually see what the truth is if we shut up in our minds long enough to watch and observe. The mind chatter is a great distraction to what is truly happening.
I am guilty of this—this lying to myself simply because I want what I want. I think most women are. We are queens of making excuses and finding alternative scenarios rather than facing the truth. It’s because the truth can be painful and ugly and sometimes we think we won’t survive the truth. If we face it—we may have to give up the dreams we’ve been dreaming and let something go we may be holding onto very tightly. We have to give up the vision of the relationship we imagined and have the reality instead. Sometimes, we are lucky and it is better than anything we could have ever conceived. And sometimes it’s not.
If I have to ask a man if he loves me, then he doesn’t. He has made it loud and clear in one way or another. If I have to ask, “Do you want me in your future? Do you see me there?”—then I am not anywhere there and it has already been revealed. I just was not ready to look closely enough to see it at the time.
We wonder why “the talk” is such a hard thing to have. The reason is that it is difficult to ask questions to what when we already know the answers and especially when we don’t like the answer at all.
Of course there are exceptions—that’s a given. Some people don’t know what they want or where they are going or who they want to join them on their journey. I believe the majority must know exactly who they love and if they cannot necessarily picture their future, they know when they can’t picture it empty of the person they love.
Words are powerful but only when actions are behind them. We can all talk the talk until we are blue in the face—it doesn’t change what is not taking place. If nothing is really happening—then the reality is just that—it’s nothing.
Monika M. Basile
