Posted on by Elle

Alone

I said I’d be happy alone. It wasn’t ’cause I thought I’d be happy alone. It was because I thought if I loved someone and then it fell apart, I might not make it. It’s easier to be alone, because what if you learn that you need love and you don’t have it? What if you like it and lean on it? What if you shape your life around it and then it falls apart? Can you even survive that kind of pain? Losing love is like organ damage. It’s like dying. The only difference is death ends. This? It could go on forever.

Meredith Grey

I know how to be alone. I know how to make it on my own, that’s easy.

I know how to focus on myself and I know what makes me happy, when I’m alone.

I don’t want to be in love again.

And you also don’t want to be loved again.

I am scared. I am terrified of the feelings of love and being loved.

Love has or I should say, “love” has scarred me in ways that I cannot explain.

The fear of love has me in a state of complete panic and I cannot even think straight.

I look into his eyes and I can see and feel how much he cares for me.

I fight the urge to tell him just how I feel because, if he knows, if I tell him, it might be the end of me all over again.

I fought so hard to get to the place of happiness being alone.

I fought so hard to be okay and learn from my mistakes.

I don’t want to repeat the past, not with him.

I am afraid of love and I am afraid of me.

I am afraid that it’s all too late to be scared now. There is no point in being afraid when I’ve already fallen in love.

I don’t want to fall in love.

It is terrifying. I know the kind of pain that can come from something like this. I’ve been through it before. And while I’m sure I would be just fine, I do not know if I can handle the pain again.

What if I mess it up? What if I make another mistake? How will I go on if he leaves?

My heart breaks at the thought of losing love again.

But I am also crippled by the fear of loving someone and letting them love me.

XO

E

Posted on by Elle

Crossroads

Today, I feel the emptiness a little less. The last few weeks have been ones of torture for my heart and soul. A torture that I know all too well but was reluctant to feel. Truthfully, I only let myself feel the parts that did not hurt so much.

The random reminiscing that the mind does without consent sends me through a loop. I did not ask for this. And yet, there I was suffocating over all of the terrible things that I have done and have been done to me.

One small phrase can send me down memory lane. It sends me back into the trauma of what once was and I suddenly, it feels that all my work was for naught.

I sit in a room full of people but inside I feel so empty. I carry the weight of things that I have done and I begin to question, am I a good person?

I begin to wonder who it is that I really am but the voices that respond are not my own. They are the people that surround me and they are the people who have hurt me.

That is enough to snap me back into myself. My true self. I wondered if there would ever be a time where I knew exactly who I was. I wondered if there would come a time when I didn’t need people to validate who I knew I was.

As it turns out, there would be.That time is now.

The last few days, I’ve sat and talked to my loved ones about the turmoil that envelopes my everyday thoughts. They have all said the same things, don’t worry about other people, they do not matter. Not exactly the validation I was searching for but nonetheless exactly what I needed to hear.

As I spoke about my feelings, I realized a few things, one I was getting on my own nerves. Two, I didn’t really care what their response would be because I knew it wouldn’t be helpful. And three, all of the validation that I needed was in myself.

It would be wrong to say that I walk my life alone and that I have no one to turn to, because I do. I simply chose not to turn to others when I know that the answers can only come from me.

It does however, get lonely. The growth of becoming someone who loves themselves, truly, is exhausting and lonely. Unfortunately, no one really tells you about that. It isn’t the loneliness of not having someone but the loneliness of losing and letting go of the people you thought were in your corner.

It is the loneliness of growing into yourself. The road that you take on your own because you know that no one can answer for you. No one is you, so how do you turn to someone for advice when you two are not the same?

It is a special type of hurt and it comes with a fear too. Fear of making the wrong choice. Fear of not being accepted. Fear of not being enough. The fear and the loneliness can be crippling if you let them. Lord knows, I have at times.

The pain of losing friendships and realizing that they were only held together because you weren’t doing so great is painful. I was the friend that everyone kept around because her life made theirs not look so bad. I was that to all of my friends. OUCH!

It pains me to know where I stand with them but I know that our lives are simply going in different directions now. Nothing in this life is forever.

While I’ve known that all my life, it still hurts to comes to terms with it. Today, I feel grateful for the opportunity to see myself grow in a new way. Today, I am filled with excitement of who I am going to become. I know every day will not be like today, nothing in this life comes easy.

Growth is painful and lonely but so is stagnation. The crossroad that can change your life forever, if you let it.

I think it is time for a new level.

XO

E

Posted on by Elle

Battlefield

You’re more than enough, Elly. He says as if I didn’t already know that.

It left me wondering if he could see through the confident facade I put up daily. He’s learning me.

It is strange to me and it makes me uncomfortable. He’s really trying to get to know me, why?

I’ve lived my life surrounded by people who want to get to know me because of the pretty packaging I come in. I’m used to guys wanting to speak to me because of my appearance– I know he is no different.

Yet, he is different. He isn’t rushing into anything with me. It’s been slow and steady and consistent.

There’s a je ne sais quoi, way he goes about it and it drives me insane in the best way.

I’ll admit in the most reluctant way, that I am falling for him. It feels like a movie–my own personal hallmark romance movie. It is cheesy and cheeky and I cannot lie it is everything I’ve wished for.

The duality.

I know that I am still incredibly guarded when it comes to him and love. As hard as I try to fight it. I have to admit, I am cautiously falling for him.

There is the part of me that wants to free fall and let it be whatever it will be. Then there is the part of me that has fallen, crashed and burned and doesn’t want to fall again. The scars keep me teetering on the line.

I walk the line sometimes losing my balance one way or the other. I feel my heart ready to take the leap but my mind brings me back and suddenly, I want the wall built once again.

It isn’t fair to him. The level of effort that he puts into everything is something that I’ve never experienced. If I am being honest, I can say that I don’t feel that I deserve it. I feel like it is too much.

You’re more than enough, Elly.

The words sting and my eyes fill with tears. Suddenly, I’m filled with shame and I’m suffocating on it.

I close my eyes to recenter myself and there he is. The one who didn’t think I was enough. Then there is me. Old me. The weak me that relied on others to make her feel worthy.

You’re more than enough, Elly.

The words bounce around in my head and it’s more of a validation to what I already know than a compliment.

I know that I am more than capable of loving someone. But am I able to let someone love me?

The heart wants what it wants but the mind will always try to protect you.

Am I willing to take a chance on love? After all, it’s the only thing I feel that I am missing in my life.

I’ve encountered a man that I don’t know and doesn’t know me. I’ve found someone who puts in as much effort as I do and I’m scared.

Scared of the potential outcome. Scared to show my heart. Scared to fall once again.

There are days that I let myself simply bask in the happiness he brings to my life. There are others where I wonder why I would willingly put myself in harms way. Today it is the latter.

I don’t know how this journey will go. I don’t know if I will keep going and reach for the happiness at the end of the tunnel.

XO

E

Posted on by Elle

Time

How many times have you heard someone say, “just give it time— everything will be okay”.

I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve heard it in my short life.

Dale tiempo al tiempo.

Give time, time.

Funny isn’t it? With time, and as time goes on, everything is just fine.

One day you’re crying yourself to sleep and wondering when the pain will stop and the next you’re waking up happy to be alive.

It feels as though it’s the very next day— truth is, it’s been months and months or even years of hard work and pushing through and taking the time to let the feelings be what they are.

It all becomes a distant memory. It becomes laughable to think that only a few months ago you thought that the pain and turmoil would never come to and end.

Give time, time.

It’s probably one of the hardest things to do in the human experience. Especially when we live in a world full of instant gratification and expect everything on our time. We are capricious beings and the turmoil we feel feels unjust and unwarranted and yet— we experience it all the time.

We sit and wonder how we will ever make it to the other side. Not realizing that the turmoil is what leads to the other side.

There is no beauty without pain.

I used to believe that only in the vain sense. However, it applies to everything in life. You cannot experience the immense amount of happiness and peace without also knowing the dark and stormy nights.

The beauty of life comes from being able to to experience every single emotion, even the bad ones.

The things we can’t change at the present moment are the ones that change us into who we’re meant to be. The pain and the tragedy has the power to lead us to becoming better people— if we let it.

If we look at it as beauty is pain, we find the silver lining in the tragedy. It’s all about focus.

The bad days make the good ones that much better and we should be grateful that we get to experience it all.

I’ll admit I am a rusher. I want to get to the finish line as fast as I can. I want to push through the crap and get through it instantly.

The more I grow, the more I go through, the more I’m grateful for being able to experience life this way.

The peace I feel now, feels as if I’ve always had it. It truly came with time. It came with hard work but now I see that I just needed time to get past it all.

Just give time, time.

Everything will be okay.

XO

E

Posted on by Elle

Serenity

What is happiness? How do you know when you’re truly happy? The answers to these questions are all subjective. What makes one person happy doesn’t make every one happy.

Life is subjective.

It took me a long time to come to that realization.

I used to feel so unfulfilled in with my life for one reason or another. There was always something that was missing and I could never put my finger on it. It’s been almost a year now that I have been single. I’ve had a year filled with living with friends, dating, slipping back into an ex and I’ve been completely alone.

Before I was completely alone, loneliness seemed picturesque to me. I had never experienced truly being alone. I craved it and I believed that it was the place where I would find my happiness.

Being alone, at first, was the most difficult experience that I had experienced to date. I had this perfect picture painted in my mind of how great it would be to be with just me. I hadn’t realized how much work I needed to put into myself. I hadn’t realized how much work it was going to take to build my happy picturesque life.

In that process, I realized why it was that I felt unfulfilled with my life. I realized that happiness is subjective. I was always so busy looking at the way other’s lived their lives. I was too busy looking at what I lacked from their life. I looked at other’s lives and thought that mine was supposed to be that way.

I was always so busy trying to make my life like someone else’s. Never realizing that that is where my unhappiness came from.

The work to get to happy has been nothing less than difficult. The hard days made me feel like I would never be happy again. The good days didn’t come for a really long time.

I sit here today realizing that I have achieved the happiness I have been looking for for so long. As I sit here smiling and basking in my own happiness, I realize that I’ve made it.

I’ve made it to the place in my life that I’ve wanted for so so long.

I’ve made it to a place where I am letting myself be the main character in my life. I’m letting my life unfold. I am finally living for me and living my life the way I want to.

I’ve found the source of peace and serenity within myself and I can’t believe that I get to live the life I’ve always dreamed of.

At times I felt I wasn’t strong enough. At times I thought I’d never get here. And although I know that there will be times where it isn’t a blissful and there will be hard days, I’m learning to bask in the now. Appreciating every little moment of happiness to the fullest.

To anyone struggling through the hard days, it does get better. Although it seems that the sadness will never end, it does at some point. And I know it isn’t what you want to hear but it is the truth.

Live your life for you, after all, you are the main character in your life.

xo

E