Fight or Flight

Relationships are complicated. They can be one of the most worthwhile parts of life. Pushing you out of your comfort zone. Giving you the opportunity to devote yourself to someone else, to love and be loved in return. Enabling you to experience a joy you would have never known if not for the other person you're sharing it with.

And then there's the darker parts. The parts we like to pretend don't exist. Arguing about meaningless things. Making mistakes that we swore we never would. Hurting someone who we promised we'd protect. Pushing that person out, pulling ourselves back, and pretending we never felt at all.

Like I said - they're tricky. And when conflicts arise that threaten our relationship, we can either choose to face the danger head-on, or we can run away. So when our relationships challenge us, do we stick around and fight for it to work, or do we accept failure and leave?

Either option is always available, but you have to ask yourself which outcome you'd rather live with. Staying can never be never one-sided. It takes two people to fight for a relationship that's gone wrong, and it won't fix itself over night. And as for leaving - it takes a lot of strength to walk away from something that was once everything to you. Leaving could mean never being able to come back if you change your mind.

Relationships aren't ever going to be easy. There are always going to be up's and down's. If our love was never tested, how could we ever know it's worth? But sometimes things just test us just a little too much and we're left with only two options - fight or flight.

Link Image

Wasting Time

Why invest in someone who isn't investing in you? I feel like a broken record because I say this so much, but seriously. I have heard so many stories of people wasting months, and in some cases years, on someone who just doesn't deserve it. 

The girl who will sit there just staring at her phone, willing it to go off. Waiting for a sign that she wasn't the only one who enjoyed that date last night. Or the guy who will chase after a girl who consistently ignores him and his efforts. Refusing to tell him that she's not interested because she'd rather keep getting his attention. Or maybe it's the boyfriend of the closeted guy who keeps saying that he plans to come out just to keep stringing him along. 

And honestly I just don't get it. I don't know if it's just influence from past experience or maybe it's out of desperation, but so many people waste time on the wrong people. They will continue to put so much energy into a "relationship" that is one sided and headed toward a dead-end. And a lot of the time they are completely aware that it's happening, but they just refuse to believe it. They tell themselves that somehow it'll be worth it. Somehow they will come around. 

When I look back on my previous failed attempts at dating, I can clearly picture all the times I myself wasted time on someone. I can't even tell you all the times I tried to convince myself that how I was being treated was "normal" for dating at my age. I'd try to be patient and tell myself that good guys are worth fighting for, but the issue was that they were never really good guys at all. I spent countless hours on the wrong people.

The right person won't make you wait days before they text you back (at least not without an explanation - and note: this is different than an excuse). The right person will not make you wonder where they stand or make you beg for reassurance. The right person will not give you any reason to believe that you are not worthy of love and affection. The right person will never make you feel like you're just wasting time. 

Link Image

The Heartbreaks That Never Happened

There comes a point in every relationship when you realize that either this person is your person, or they're not. If you're like me then you're lucky - because I have truly found my person. The only person who has ever felt right for me in every way. And no, it's not all perfect, it's just exactly what I need.

But that doesn't mean it wasn't an interesting road getting here. There are plenty of people who can hurt you until you find someone who cares enough not to. And it also means there are people who you won't ever be with (if you're doing monogamy the old fashioned way). There are probably some doors you walked by and never knocked on or maybe you did knock, but no one ever answered so you kept walking.

Perhaps it was that friend from class who you so shamelessly flirted with, but they never quite caught on. Or maybe it's that first date that never became a second date so you just stopped texting them back. The point is, there are always going to be those heartbreaks that never happened; those people who were just a faint blip on your radar, but never really became anything more than that.

And even while in a relationship as strong as mine, I can still contemplate those moments that passed me by. And though I never wish to go back or change anything, I can still acknowledge that they happened - that they were there and at one point I almost knocked on that door. (The key is not attaching a "what if" to those thoughts because that's another whole topic, and probably indicates that your search for your person isn't over)

But reflecting on your past can be important because it's gotten you to where you are. I have always been thankful for the heartbreaks I've experienced because I know I wouldn't be the person I am now without them. But I think I feel the same way about those doors that never opened too. Because when I think about where I am now and what helped me get here, those heartbreaks that never happened were just as important as the ones that did.

Link Image Source