It's a Choice

Awhile ago I was having a conversation with a friend about relationships and their aftermath. He was explaining how he was so hurt and betrayed, worn out after several truly terrible experiences that he just didn't have it in him to trust again, or anymore. His capacity had worn down, and at this point it was out of his control. There's some validity to that. We do experience burn out, and need a chance to recharge.

But he was taken aback and even slightly offended by what I said next.
That he could still trust if he wanted. He chose not to.


It's a choice.


Every single person reading this blog has been hurt at some point. Probably badly. I hope not, I really do, but we're all old enough to have gone through that rite of passage. And it's terribly painful, painful beyond measure, painful in a way words can't begin to describe. So deep that it can shatter. And you break. No matter how strong, you break. You grieve, you mourn, you hurt, you look down at the shattered pieces that were once you. And you need time, and distance, and clarity.
You can't possibly control your feelings.

But you can control how you put yourself back together.

Being jaded isn't an acceptance of reality, it's an acceptance of perception.
No one loses their capacity to trust - it just becomes so much more difficult. The stakes become higher. And that fear of being hurt again is a valid one, because chances are you barely made it out the first time. You certainly won't let it happen a second, or god forbid a third.

But if you ever want to really try being with someone else again, you have to. You do. You have to take the risk. And accept the inevitability of pain.
Or you can never do so. And you will fail, every time, when you are so desperate to protect yourself that you are incapable of letting anyone else in again for cause of fear. And at a certain point that is as much because of you as the person who did you wrong or broke your heart.

Neither choice is better. If you're done, you're done. There is no judgement here. And if you're foolhardy enough to dive headfirst into what has maybe been so far unmitigated disaster, that's all on you.
But admit and understand that it IS a choice, whichever you make.

Because when you put yourself back together, you are choosing a viewpoint from that point forward. Whether one of reckless abandon, cautious momentum, or so commonly the belief that every person you are with from now on is in some way about to fuck you over. That is you making that decision. Based on the past, absolutely. With reason, undoubtedly. Contextually valid in every way. But a decision all the same.

There are those that seem to take pleasure in misery, or at least find comfort and familiarity. I am not one of them. Each and any relationship should be brimming with the possibility for good or ill; assume the worst and you are guaranteed to receive it. And while the next person will certainly be at fault for whatever they do to you, realize that if you've come only to accept those people as reality, then those are the only people that you'll find. You've lost before you've started.

I love my friends dearly. And I will be there forever for them, come whatever may. But I am so frustrated by listening to people embrace bitterness as the only option of the rational, and to justify it out of past horror. It's harder not to but you certainly can, and each in their own time, if they so desire, and if they so dare. I'm going to fuck up a whole lot more shit before I come close to ever getting it right, whatever the hell that means, but it won't be for lack of trying.

Because if you don't wake up every morning assuming that today has the possibility to not only be better than the day before, but every day before it, then why the fuck are you living?