Day 272 Be Okay

I spoke with Gio last night. Per usual, our conversation steered towards lost friendships and unrequited loves because that's just how we roll [i.e. depressing].  And as we take turns voicing our stories of how people make us want to simultaneously strangle and hug them, I listen to Gio talk about losing relationships. Not romantic ones, just relationships.

I'm a firm believer, now more than ever before, that you can't ever really let go of people in your lives. If they were important once, they're going to be important always, and to spend your life either hating their existence or willing your brain to forget them is both horribly futile and unnecessary. Futile, because hating does nothing but make you a crappy and angry person, and trying to forget them means that you're still thinking of them and, as such, is a repetitively pathetic cycle of uselessness.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, when someone makes a crater-sized impact on your life, you can't forget them, no matter how shitty of an influence they had. Fact is, if they made you wanna slit your wrists and walk into incoming traffic or throw yourself off a building, they were important... and if you're alive to read this, you were strong enough to overcome it. It's flexing your mental and emotional muscles, picking up your heavy-ass baggage and tearing those muscles open so they can build up stronger and bigger than before. It's growing, a continuous process of wounding and healing to the point where the 50lb weight that made you cry is nothing compared to the 150lb you can pick up with your pinky now.

Although if my arms ever got like this, I'd look like a mini, brown hulk

No matter how shitty of an influence an event or person had on your life, you can't deny them because they molded you into the person you are today. How you've chosen to move on from that impact defines you from that point on.
And I've made my decision today. I don't want to let go of people whom my life once revolved around. I want to bury the hatchets and plant a fucking daisy at each grave because, goddamit, I will not spend my life wondering if I made the right amount of effort, wondering if I was the only one who cared, and being 80 years old on my rocking chair wishing I had done things differently.

I am done thinking that what happened to me was horrible or great or weird; it's my own little life and I will take it with all the nicks and cuts added on and love each little bruise and scar on it. Sure, outside forces may influence your existence, but it's always up to you to decide how deep you want them to touch you.

I am Pygmalion, and I will be just fine.