The Complexities of Life
Hi all.
This is my first post here. Somebody recommended 7cups, and I figured it was worth a try. Might be good to get some things out of my head and onto the proverbial paper.
For the past year, I’ve been struggling with things. The complexities and dramas of life weighing heavily upon my tired old bones.
It started when a coworker whom I admire and care very much about was fired. Her mother had passed not long before this. She became deeply depressed, and her friends abandoned her, or told her to ‘get over it.’ So I was her shoulder, an eager ear for her to talk things out with.
Many late nights were spent messaging and talking with her when she was struggling. In time, it seemed my life was entirely focused on her. Countless hours spent talking. Writing poetry for her, as she loves a fancy word. Finding gifts that hold symbolism. Convincing her that she was worthy of all good things, and is enough for anyone just as she is. Telling her that since her heart was broken, she could have mine. Doing my best to show her that I would be unconditionally loyal to and supportive of her.
It would be fair to say I fell in love with her. How could I not? Quite unrequited however, but that’s okay. Sometimes it is a rich reward just to lavish adoration and praise upon someone to whom you believe truly deserves it.
She has recently reconnected with her old friends which had previously abandoned her and said such hurtful things. That is fantastic, and I am truly happy for her. She is a remarkably kind and forgiving person, always seeing the good in others.
But now, she has abandoned me. Guess I always knew and understood it was a temporary affair, and that once she had found her path again she would no longer have need of me. But oh, how it hurts. As long as she has found her place in the world, I’m glad to suffer for her. But I don’t know how to fill the void left in her absence, how to find my own path forward.
And the icing on this cake is that I was very recently fired from work for failure to get along with the boss that had fired her previously. I have nobody to lean on. No eager ears, nor anyone to stay up with me late at night when the demons come calling in the dark.
The irony is palpable.
I often hear that there is a balance of good and bad in life. For the good has to make way and clear out for the bad and vice versa and that there is an almost perfect balance of both in life so even if things are horrible now and/or for months to come, there will also be a time when good will make its way back into our lives and counter the bad.
Just because I often hear it, doesn’t mean I completely believe it. I still feel the bad that has happened years ago still linger, it still hurts and affects me almost every day even when there’s so much good in my life. I’m not saying there are never good days, I’m just saying the bad doesn’t just disappear. Some days it drowns me even when everything looks to be perfect in my life.
Tomorrow then comes and the sun is shining a little brighter, I get to experience an interaction with either a stranger or a loved one that makes me laugh a little, I get to watch an episode of something I really enjoy and occasionally reminisce on a happy memory and suddenly I forget I’m in the bad phase of life at the moment because the good has crept in and lingered a bit.
What does this even mean? Life is a constant mixture of both good and bad, there’s no strictly bad or good phase. It’s always going to be a complex mixture of both. We just have to remember that it’s not all bad, and that when it’s good, it’s okay for a little bad to get in the mix. It’s nothing against you, it’s nothing you did, it’s just life.
I may sound like a hypocrite because even I forget this majority of the times things get tough but I’m working on remembering that there is always light at the end of the tunnel and then somewhere in the future there’ll be another tunnel, but they’ll be a light at the end of that one too and if I just stay strong, I’ll reach the end of it and see the light!
Please stay strong too, you’ll see the light soon enough and maybe the light will shine a little brighter and creep into your next tunnel so that it won’t be all bad, and the next after and then soon the mixture will be a little one sided to the good in life and just a little dash of bad.