Much has been said and done about the firsts. First words, first birthdays, first love - the list is really endless and if you think about it, also a little (read: a LOT) annoying. It is almost as if the world has been conditioned to believe that if something does not work out the first time, or is not quite what you expected it would be, then it's time to move on and graduate to other first times in other, newer things.
Well, the first time I tried black coffee, I thought it was an abomination and should be banned from the list of acceptable food items.
Today, I cannot begin my morning without a cup of that same coffee which I initially detested.
In the larger scheme of things, black coffee is perhaps a trivial example, but it does help me make a point: Our first experiences are perhaps more prone to change than we give it credit for. Yet, among most of us, there is this strange reluctance to try again, which is ironic really, considering the sheer number of motivational quotes that have been crafted to serve this specific purpose and remind us to "Keep Going". Unfortunately, elaborate quotes against fancy backgrounds merely serve as items of decor on our social media walls. We are yet to learn how to actually put some of those quotes to good use and apply it to our lives, instead of just sending it to each other in the hope that the other person is inspired enough by it and in turn, can share some of that inspiration with us. Our lives would indeed be easier if we could soak in motivation through our phone screens, but until the day we can figure out how to undergo that osmosis, we are on our own.
What is perhaps even stranger about this whole phenomenon is how we can easily and willingly surrender the need for seconds, when it comes to our own emotions. Granted that free-falls and failures hurt more down that turbulent road, but for something that is so intertwined with our daily lives, how quickly we give up on our feelings constantly manages to surprise me. And even if there is a remote possibility that the others can outlast our feelings of failure and draw us out for another attempt, the one feeling where we all quickly retreat and refuse to step out again is : Love.
How many times have you encountered people who have flat out refused to believe that they will have a second chance at love just because they have been thwarted the first time round?
How many times have you watched a person transition from optimistic to pessimistic, after a heartbreak?
How many times have you seen people completely dismiss the magic of love after their previous relationship didn’t work out in the way they had hoped it would?
How many times have you watched someone consciously resist love and hesitate to give in, because the scars from their last wound have still not healed?
If you are living anywhere in the 21st century, chances are that you have come across such people, not once, not twice, but multiple times, and on a regular basis. Ever too often, when we retreat into our shells to lick the wounds that love inflicts, we forget to step back out. Instead we stand at the threshold of that door, trying to convince passers by that love is really not worth the effort.
(It is of course a whole other matter that such advice does not do much good, because people on the path of love seldom listen to anyone but themselves.)
My point is that we are quick to take a step back when it comes to love. Sometimes, we know exactly when to do it and other times, especially if it strikes us out of the blue, then we moonwalk so far back, that love seems like a distant possibility from where we are, and we are convinced that we’ll "die alone". No matter how big a love awaits us at the door after that, we refuse to be coaxed back out and instead find it easier to treat it in the same way we tend to treat our assignments and pending work: Ignore it and hope it magically goes away.
As a matter of fact, so popular and widespread is this particular feeling that in order to accurately sum it up, we can always go back to the words of the famous and much beloved Chandler Bing,
"We swallow our feelings even if we’re unhappy forever. Sound good?" (S04, E07)
No it doesn’t.
It doesn’t sound good.
It actually sounds rather terrifying and miserable.
And while I am sure giving love a second chance seems to be infinitely more terrifying, it is also infinitely more rewarding. Yes,it means setting yourself up for heartbreak. It means entrusting the weakest parts of yourself to someone else yet again. It means letting your guard down and that is always a dangerous thing to do, but here’s the flipside:
It also means hope.
It also means magic.
It also means rediscovering yourself and your partner.
Does that mean it comes with the promise of a forever? No it doesn’t.
In all honesty, you might find yourself back in the shell, with whole new wounds, and some of them will probably hurt worse than your last ones. But here’s the thing: stepping out that second time, teaches you that you can stand back up and keep persisting, no matter how hard you have been kicked down. And that is an important realisation, be it in love or in life. It reminds you that you don’t need to fold into yourself and crumple up, just in order to survive. Instead, you can bloom into different forms and shapes and each time you come undone again, it just means that you are one fold closer to where you finally have to be.
I say where you finally have to be and not who you finally have to be with, because love is also a unique form of self discovery. Every person that we fall in love with, no matter for how long it lasts, teaches us something about ourselves we did not previously know, and we emerge from it a little wiser than we previously were.
Loving others then, is also a lesson in self-love because it requires you to follow your instincts and do what your heart tells you to. Sometimes, in retrospect, you realise that the heart did not make very wise decisions and then comes the most difficult part of all: Not blaming yourself for it. Somewhere in that process, you learn to love yourself, despite all the mistakes you make. You learn to treat yourself more kindly than you used to and begin to reserve a part of all that love you give to others. This precious bit you keep for yourself, tucked away safely in the quietest corner of your heart and on the days when you feel most unloved, this love keeps you going.
And that is how, as teenagers and adults, our very first lessons of self-love come from loving others and picking ourselves back up everytime they slam the door on us and walk out. In the midst of all that leaving and letting go, you realise that you don’t feel as alone as you used to, because you have learnt to sit with yourself. You have learnt to enjoy your own company, and can we ever truly be alone, if we have mastered the art of being around ourselves?
And somewhere in the midst of all this chaos, if we are lucky enough, and usually when we least expect it to, love walks in the door, decides to set up camp forever and makes us realise that contrary to what we believed, we will not, after all, have to die alone.
So, take that leap of faith.
With shaking fingers, unlatch the door and stumble back out into the long, winding road of love. Even if your voice is trembling, and your fears are choking you, let the world know that you are here, back again, asking for a second helping of that very thing which hurt you, hoping that this time, it doesn’t. To choose to see something at its worst and continue to believe that it is better than that, takes courage only very few of us can muster. And if you can do that, know that you have understood love in a way that only a handful of people can, because in the end, isn’t that what love is all about?
And so, you don’t need to die alone.
You don’t need to swallow your feelings.
You don’t need to be unhappy forever.
All you need to do,
Is stand in front of the universe, and ask if you could have a little bit more.
All you need to do, is not shy away,
From a second helping.
From a second chance.
And the careful, quiet magic, of a second love.
Well, the first time I tried black coffee, I thought it was an abomination and should be banned from the list of acceptable food items.
Today, I cannot begin my morning without a cup of that same coffee which I initially detested.
In the larger scheme of things, black coffee is perhaps a trivial example, but it does help me make a point: Our first experiences are perhaps more prone to change than we give it credit for. Yet, among most of us, there is this strange reluctance to try again, which is ironic really, considering the sheer number of motivational quotes that have been crafted to serve this specific purpose and remind us to "Keep Going". Unfortunately, elaborate quotes against fancy backgrounds merely serve as items of decor on our social media walls. We are yet to learn how to actually put some of those quotes to good use and apply it to our lives, instead of just sending it to each other in the hope that the other person is inspired enough by it and in turn, can share some of that inspiration with us. Our lives would indeed be easier if we could soak in motivation through our phone screens, but until the day we can figure out how to undergo that osmosis, we are on our own.
What is perhaps even stranger about this whole phenomenon is how we can easily and willingly surrender the need for seconds, when it comes to our own emotions. Granted that free-falls and failures hurt more down that turbulent road, but for something that is so intertwined with our daily lives, how quickly we give up on our feelings constantly manages to surprise me. And even if there is a remote possibility that the others can outlast our feelings of failure and draw us out for another attempt, the one feeling where we all quickly retreat and refuse to step out again is : Love.
How many times have you encountered people who have flat out refused to believe that they will have a second chance at love just because they have been thwarted the first time round?
How many times have you watched a person transition from optimistic to pessimistic, after a heartbreak?
How many times have you seen people completely dismiss the magic of love after their previous relationship didn’t work out in the way they had hoped it would?
How many times have you watched someone consciously resist love and hesitate to give in, because the scars from their last wound have still not healed?
If you are living anywhere in the 21st century, chances are that you have come across such people, not once, not twice, but multiple times, and on a regular basis. Ever too often, when we retreat into our shells to lick the wounds that love inflicts, we forget to step back out. Instead we stand at the threshold of that door, trying to convince passers by that love is really not worth the effort.
(It is of course a whole other matter that such advice does not do much good, because people on the path of love seldom listen to anyone but themselves.)
My point is that we are quick to take a step back when it comes to love. Sometimes, we know exactly when to do it and other times, especially if it strikes us out of the blue, then we moonwalk so far back, that love seems like a distant possibility from where we are, and we are convinced that we’ll "die alone". No matter how big a love awaits us at the door after that, we refuse to be coaxed back out and instead find it easier to treat it in the same way we tend to treat our assignments and pending work: Ignore it and hope it magically goes away.
As a matter of fact, so popular and widespread is this particular feeling that in order to accurately sum it up, we can always go back to the words of the famous and much beloved Chandler Bing,
"We swallow our feelings even if we’re unhappy forever. Sound good?" (S04, E07)
It doesn’t sound good.
It actually sounds rather terrifying and miserable.
And while I am sure giving love a second chance seems to be infinitely more terrifying, it is also infinitely more rewarding. Yes,it means setting yourself up for heartbreak. It means entrusting the weakest parts of yourself to someone else yet again. It means letting your guard down and that is always a dangerous thing to do, but here’s the flipside:
It also means hope.
It also means magic.
It also means rediscovering yourself and your partner.
Does that mean it comes with the promise of a forever? No it doesn’t.
In all honesty, you might find yourself back in the shell, with whole new wounds, and some of them will probably hurt worse than your last ones. But here’s the thing: stepping out that second time, teaches you that you can stand back up and keep persisting, no matter how hard you have been kicked down. And that is an important realisation, be it in love or in life. It reminds you that you don’t need to fold into yourself and crumple up, just in order to survive. Instead, you can bloom into different forms and shapes and each time you come undone again, it just means that you are one fold closer to where you finally have to be.
I say where you finally have to be and not who you finally have to be with, because love is also a unique form of self discovery. Every person that we fall in love with, no matter for how long it lasts, teaches us something about ourselves we did not previously know, and we emerge from it a little wiser than we previously were.
Loving others then, is also a lesson in self-love because it requires you to follow your instincts and do what your heart tells you to. Sometimes, in retrospect, you realise that the heart did not make very wise decisions and then comes the most difficult part of all: Not blaming yourself for it. Somewhere in that process, you learn to love yourself, despite all the mistakes you make. You learn to treat yourself more kindly than you used to and begin to reserve a part of all that love you give to others. This precious bit you keep for yourself, tucked away safely in the quietest corner of your heart and on the days when you feel most unloved, this love keeps you going.
And that is how, as teenagers and adults, our very first lessons of self-love come from loving others and picking ourselves back up everytime they slam the door on us and walk out. In the midst of all that leaving and letting go, you realise that you don’t feel as alone as you used to, because you have learnt to sit with yourself. You have learnt to enjoy your own company, and can we ever truly be alone, if we have mastered the art of being around ourselves?
And somewhere in the midst of all this chaos, if we are lucky enough, and usually when we least expect it to, love walks in the door, decides to set up camp forever and makes us realise that contrary to what we believed, we will not, after all, have to die alone.
So, take that leap of faith.
With shaking fingers, unlatch the door and stumble back out into the long, winding road of love. Even if your voice is trembling, and your fears are choking you, let the world know that you are here, back again, asking for a second helping of that very thing which hurt you, hoping that this time, it doesn’t. To choose to see something at its worst and continue to believe that it is better than that, takes courage only very few of us can muster. And if you can do that, know that you have understood love in a way that only a handful of people can, because in the end, isn’t that what love is all about?
And so, you don’t need to die alone.
You don’t need to swallow your feelings.
You don’t need to be unhappy forever.
All you need to do,
Is stand in front of the universe, and ask if you could have a little bit more.
All you need to do, is not shy away,
From a second helping.
From a second chance.
And the careful, quiet magic, of a second love.