COMPLAINT post.

...or you can run--run, run away, screaming like a little girl. i'm used to that.
-parry adams, little girl.

my blog has gone feisty and it's everyone's fault.

i am tired of people who treat happiness like it is entirely circumstantial and not at all a decision.

i have a friend who is 39. i like to say i picked her up at a bar because the first time we really hung out out was over a beer and burger four times the size of a human head at Jack Russell's (not steakhouse). she is happy and she made the choice to be.

heartbreak sucks. it is also inevitable; our hearts are usually put through the wringer at least once, be it wrung out romance or torn apart trauma. my friend is in an ending ten year marriage that has been on the road to divorce for about two years. her soon-to-be-ex-husband, who has bought us many a drink (he's a good guy, shocks me it didn't work out sometimes), and they were in couples therapy and trying to salvage what ended in a split. he said he just didn't think he loved her anymore. she took off her wedding ring and surrendered to the end. she made the decision to be happy. she wasn't going to stay with someone who is capable of falling out of love with her. she deserves unconditional because that's what she gives.

there a fewer things more personally painful than this i imagine. that's the fact that she's in love with someone new is amazing and a miracle to me--not so much that she's in love again, she's the kind of woman everyone falls in love with every other second. it's that she proved she could rebuild her way out of the wreckage with just her.

she moved out of a multi-million dollar home in California to a modest, one bedroom on the upper east side, which becomes significantly more modest when her two fifty pound boxers are in the recipe, too. she lived in both Boston and then New York after the separation. living among millions of people can be very lonely when you're putting together the puzzling pieces of your own broken heart. she grieved. she cried. she got scared. she got lost. and then it got good. she got up. she dried her tears. she grew strong. she opened her heart. she got found. she had fun.

the most beautiful part is she was more than fine on her own, but she also knew she had too much love to keep to herself. it seems to me that if you're so good at loving the first time around that you get completely demolished, you're meant to love again because you're one of those people with so much genuity per square inch off you it becomes immeasurable. when you take someone else's love, you're sure to overwhelmingly replenish them, not leaving them out to dry but soaked in the good stuff. you can stand on you're own, but you 're brave enough to keep your guard down so when your love fills the air between you, it doesn't break against your rough exterior. you're strong enough to take that risk because you don't want to miss out on someone truly great, and you know that if it falls through you're still standing. you love unbridled. you love with your whole heart. you love yourself enough to love.

with any heartbreak, this isn't easy to do--but it's always possible. your compass has to point inward for a while. you have to do the things you should do rather than want to. you have to stop thinking about them/it all the time, and when you do, you have to send them light and love and then think about something/someone else, according to eat.pray.love. not bad advice for a mediocre book and a julia roberts film. you have to take care of a healthy you before you entertain thoughts of taking care of someone else. you have to be selfish enough to be selfless enough. you have to kick out the pain by feeling it. you have to boot those who are only listening to your pain to gauge how much they can take rather than those who want it to be okay. you should get rid of those who you don't feel compelled to tell your honest tragedy to. you'll drown in the poison of anyone who you can apply to Ben Fold's "Battle of Who Could Care Less," because that means you and someone else are masquerading behind everything away from the truth. you can't drown in sorrow. you can't say what if i do. you can't say what if i did. you can't run when it scares you that something new has come along. you can't shy away from the uncomfortable or you will never do anything. you have to cut yourself slack, but not so much that you have blinders on. you have to get up everyday. you have to be happy and not just content. you have to risk. you have to try again. you have to avoid (though not entirely) those shallow desires that make you happy but are also harmful--otherwise you'll never get away from the nagging selfloathing that comes with it and you'll never heal. you have to eliminate the reminders. you have to away from everyone/everything that demands less than honesty. you have to avoid everyone/everything (though not entirely) who make it easy, because it's not easy. you have to get off facebook because anyone that you care about, and that cares about you will pick up the phone when you call. you have to go to therapy if you can't do it on your own. you have to make the decision to make things better for yourself. you have to find a route to happiness. you have to pursue that route without caution or hesitation. you have to be ready. you have to keep fear from winning. you have to get the stigma that your happiest is behind you out of your head. you aren't meant to idle in a state of moderate happiness forever. you can't sit still. you have to let someone else into your world, and maybe dabble in their's. you have to have faith--i don't mean that hour-in-a-church-on-sunday faith, i mean in you and people and hopefully a higher power. you have to surrender.

and hey, if you're reading this, it means you're still alive after round one.
-k.



----------------
Now playing: The Academy Is... - The Fever
via FoxyTunes