(no subject)
Lately, I've had a reoccurring theme in my life: Images.
My last guilty-pleasure classmate crush (a la "omgz cutie in homeroom<3") had been a strong image in my mind. I realized I was only in love with an image sometime a week or two ago at the Pub, where my interaction with him was more involved than simply exchanging texts to make the other smile, while sitting in adjacent rows. Sometimes its so easy to fall in love with something you wish it could be. Thats the irony of beauty; we assume that the exterior doesn't lie. We wan't to believe the person is just as attractive inside as they are outside, and until we figure it out, we fill in the little spaces with our imagination. It just happens.
I wanted to be cognizant of my oh-so-often repeated mistake of falling in love with an image, and this time around, I remained weary of my secret crush until I found out more. As of late, this is the third time in a row I decided to hold out a little longer before making a mistake. Turns out, time is on your side in the end. I can see where the adage comes from: only time will tell.
Of course, my once crush is now simply my study buddy for Aspects of Modernism, and a nice friend to have. But that transformation made me question what it was I really wanted in someone. What is it that I am looking for anyway?
I can cut a few paragraphs out easily by simply going straight to the point. After much contemplation, I realized that all I really want in my life is someone who I can be myself around, encourage me to be a better person, while still loving me for me. I know it sounds vague, but I feel like its really just the umbrella that everything, all this time, had fallen under. All these times when I had wanted someone who surfed or played scrabble, something silly like that, was just a specific of my need to be myself, and during that time, maybe a challenge to improve my surf or my scrabble play. Maybe understanding it in that supposed vague way is actually even more real than conjuring a grocery list of traits.
But mentally composing the ingredients to the perfect man isn't the only way to be idealistic. In tandem in creating that list, my reason for doing so faulted me further into an idealist. I wanted the perfect relationship without any problems. The only problems I thought were acceptable in a well-matched relationship were stupid, small things like setting the thermostat at the right temperature, or arguing over taking the trash out. Any difference that was personal, that actually struck to the core of being human, such as personality differences or differentiating perspectives, was scary to me. Because those are the things that can really hurt someone, or can really stir someone to the bottom of their hearts. So in a way I dreamed of what would make up my own version of the single-family home with a white picket fence and a little doggie in the backyard, thinking that if I could get everything so great, so perfect, that I could somehow avoid a failed relationship.
The problem isn't simply in my relationships with a significant other, its just easiest to begin my explanation there. But the truth is, I've lost a lot of friends in my search for an unrealistic idyll lifestyle. I wanted all my loved ones to be at their best, which by intent is great, but in execution, I neglected to love them for who they were--including their faults. On my end of it, I wanted to be awesome in their eyes too. But then I imposed impossible expectations on myself by what I assumed they would want from me. I wanted to be the best sister, the best daughter, the best friend, and when I couldn't live up to that, I crashed. I hated myself, I became distant, my personality became dodgy and evasive. I picked up a few bad habits along the way.
I want a new theme this year. Maybe I can't really put it down to one word. Maybe its going to sound super cheesy. But this year I just want to be myself, and to remember that we're all in this together.
My last guilty-pleasure classmate crush (a la "omgz cutie in homeroom<3") had been a strong image in my mind. I realized I was only in love with an image sometime a week or two ago at the Pub, where my interaction with him was more involved than simply exchanging texts to make the other smile, while sitting in adjacent rows. Sometimes its so easy to fall in love with something you wish it could be. Thats the irony of beauty; we assume that the exterior doesn't lie. We wan't to believe the person is just as attractive inside as they are outside, and until we figure it out, we fill in the little spaces with our imagination. It just happens.
I wanted to be cognizant of my oh-so-often repeated mistake of falling in love with an image, and this time around, I remained weary of my secret crush until I found out more. As of late, this is the third time in a row I decided to hold out a little longer before making a mistake. Turns out, time is on your side in the end. I can see where the adage comes from: only time will tell.
Of course, my once crush is now simply my study buddy for Aspects of Modernism, and a nice friend to have. But that transformation made me question what it was I really wanted in someone. What is it that I am looking for anyway?
I can cut a few paragraphs out easily by simply going straight to the point. After much contemplation, I realized that all I really want in my life is someone who I can be myself around, encourage me to be a better person, while still loving me for me. I know it sounds vague, but I feel like its really just the umbrella that everything, all this time, had fallen under. All these times when I had wanted someone who surfed or played scrabble, something silly like that, was just a specific of my need to be myself, and during that time, maybe a challenge to improve my surf or my scrabble play. Maybe understanding it in that supposed vague way is actually even more real than conjuring a grocery list of traits.
But mentally composing the ingredients to the perfect man isn't the only way to be idealistic. In tandem in creating that list, my reason for doing so faulted me further into an idealist. I wanted the perfect relationship without any problems. The only problems I thought were acceptable in a well-matched relationship were stupid, small things like setting the thermostat at the right temperature, or arguing over taking the trash out. Any difference that was personal, that actually struck to the core of being human, such as personality differences or differentiating perspectives, was scary to me. Because those are the things that can really hurt someone, or can really stir someone to the bottom of their hearts. So in a way I dreamed of what would make up my own version of the single-family home with a white picket fence and a little doggie in the backyard, thinking that if I could get everything so great, so perfect, that I could somehow avoid a failed relationship.
The problem isn't simply in my relationships with a significant other, its just easiest to begin my explanation there. But the truth is, I've lost a lot of friends in my search for an unrealistic idyll lifestyle. I wanted all my loved ones to be at their best, which by intent is great, but in execution, I neglected to love them for who they were--including their faults. On my end of it, I wanted to be awesome in their eyes too. But then I imposed impossible expectations on myself by what I assumed they would want from me. I wanted to be the best sister, the best daughter, the best friend, and when I couldn't live up to that, I crashed. I hated myself, I became distant, my personality became dodgy and evasive. I picked up a few bad habits along the way.
I want a new theme this year. Maybe I can't really put it down to one word. Maybe its going to sound super cheesy. But this year I just want to be myself, and to remember that we're all in this together.