on love and loss...

This is from Stephanie Klein's blog, and I love what it says...

"I think the key to a happy life, a full life, is to love all you have, to feel lucky for each interaction, to watch and interact and learn from the people in your circle, BUT to realize that they're not yours to keep. When you go at life with this outlook, you take responsibility of your own happiness and don't overstep your bounds and force your shit onto someone else. You have to love deeply, but loosely, knowing each of us has our own journey and that those in our path will forever change it, change us, but they're not ours to keep. We all have to embrace the unknown. And one of the hardest things to realize is that it's not disloyal to move on. I think so many of us allow guilt to discolor our happiest moments because we think we're betraying the person who's gone. We worry that if we aren't constantly grieving and missing and aching that it means we loved them less. We wrongly equate the severity of our pain with the depth and sincerity of our love.

The truth is--and it's hard to always live it this way--that it's a cycle, and one day when it's our turn, we'll leave behind loved ones who'll feel angry that we're not there to experience things with them, angry that we didn't have more opportunities to experience the highs. It's why in honor of those we love, we have to commit to eating the marrow, to live without the self-inflicted guilt, to live our lives out loud while they're ours to live.

I'm not saying it's easy to love loosely. The truth is we can't live our lives in prevention mode, keeping our feelings under lockdown, hoping to escape the inevitable pain one day. Because it never fucking works. But it has to make it easier seeing each moment as a loan."


there are too many times that people feel guilty for moving on from things, but its okay, life changes, people's paths change, and you can't hold onto someone tightly that doesn't want to be held on to... sometimes people go on different paths and grow apart, and sometimes people's needs are met better by someone or something else, but it doesn't necessarily mean that what you had with someone meant any less.