Maioush

امرأة مثلي لا تضيع… لا تلتفت خلفها لتعدّ الخسارات، ولا تسأل الريح عن وجهتها. هي التي علّمت قلبها أن يكون وطنًا لنفسه، لا يبحث عن مأوى في أحد، ولا ينتظر يدًا تمتدّ لتنتشله من عتمة الحيرة. دائمًا ما كانت تملك خريطة سرية للنجاة، ممهورةً بأختام التجارب، مرسومةً على وجع لم يفهمه أحد، لكنها تحفظها عن ظهر قلب، تعرف كيف تسلك الدروب الصعبة دون أن تفقد شيئًا من كبريائها، وكيف تعبر الحكايات دون أن تثقل روحها بالندم

تمضي كما لو أنها لا تنتمي إلى هذا العالم، تحمل حقيبة من الأحلام المؤجلة، وذاكرة تعرف جيدًا كيف تختار ما يبقى منها وما يُنسى. امرأة مثلي لا تُعرّف نفسها بما خسرت، بل بما تجاوزت. لا تعلق في منتصف الحكايات، إما أن تعيشها بكل شغفها، أو تطويها كما تُطوى الرسائل التي لم تصل، تمزّقها دون تردد، وتمضي دون أن تنتظر اعتذارًا أو تفسيرًا. تأتي على مهل، كأنها تمنحك فرصة لاستيعاب وجودها، تمنحك الوقت الكافي لتعتاد على أنفاسها، على طريقتها في اقتحام الفصول دون استئذان، ولكن حين تغادر، تفعل ذلك كالعصافير المهاجرة… بلا وداع، بلا أثر، سوى فراغٍ مربك يملأ المكان الذي كانت تشغله بكل حضورها الطاغي

تعرف متى ترحل، وكيف تترك خلفها فقط ذلك السؤال الذي لا إجابة له: كيف يمكن لشخص أن يكون بهذا القرب، ثم يختفي كأن شيئًا لم يكن؟ كيف يمكن لحضور أن يكون بهذا الثقل، ولغياب أن يكون بهذه الخفة؟ لكنها تعرف، تعرف جيدًا أنّ الأجوبة لا تهم، وأنّ الرحيل فنّ لا يتقنه إلا من أدرك أن البقاء في غير موضعه جريمة بحق الروح

امرأة مثلي لا تمنح فرصة ثانية لمن أضاعها في الأولى، ولا تبقى حيث لا تنتمي، حيث تُختزل في ظلّ، أو في خيار مؤجل. لا تتوسل البقاء في قصصٍ ليست لها، ولا تقف على عتبات الأبواب التي أُغلقت في وجهها يومًا. تأخذ من الأيام ما تستحق، لا أكثر، وتمضي كما جاءت: خفيفة كنسمة عابرة، قوية كعاصفة تُعيد ترتيب الفصول. تترك خلفها القلوب التي لم تُحسن احتواءها، وتكمل الطريق كأنها لم تكن يومًا جزءًا من ذاكرة أحد

وحدهم الذين لم يفهموها يقضون أعمارهم في محاولة فكّ لغزها، يتساءلون كيف كانت بهذا القرب، ثم أصبحت فجأة أبعد من أن تُلمَس، بينما هي… كانت قد نسيت حتى ملامح الطريق الذي عبرته، ولم تترك خلفها سوى صدى خُطى تمحوها الأيام

ما من أحد ينجو من الحياة دون أن يتورط في أذى. سنؤذي، وسنتأذى. سنفتح أبواب قلوبنا لمن يعبث بها، سنمنح الثقة لمن يحطمها، وسنبني جسورًا لآخرين قد يحرقونها دون تردد. لا أحد بريء من الخذلان، تمامًا كما لا أحد محصن من التعثر في دهاليز المشاعر التي لا ترحم. فالحياة ليست عادلة، ولا تمنحنا الوقت الكافي للتراجع عن الكلمات الجارحة أو إعادة ترتيب المشاعر المبعثرة. نحن نرتكب الأخطاء، أحيانًا ببراءة، وأحيانًا بتهور، ونُفاجأ بأن هناك من لا يستطيع أن يغفر لنا، تمامًا كما نعجز نحن عن الغفران في لحظات أخرى

يقولون: سامح وانسَ. وكأن التسامح مفتاح سحري يمحو الألم بضغطة زر. وكأن النسيان قرار يُتخذ بين ليلة وضحاها، وكأن القلب يُشفى بمجرد أن نرغب في شفائه. لكن الحقيقة، يا عزيزي، أن النسيان خرافة جميلة لا يختبرها إلا فاقدو الذاكرة. فكيف ننسى من مروا بنا كالإعصار، وتركوا في أرواحنا أطلالًا شاهدة على ما كان؟ كيف نمحو من دفاتر العمر من كتبوا فيها فصولًا من الفرح بحبر الحزن؟ كيف ننسى من علّمونا الحب، ثم علّمونا كيف نعيش بدونه؟

التسامح، إذن، ليس نسيانًا، بل تدريبٌ قاسٍ على الحياة دون أن نسمح للجراح بأن تكون مقودها. هو تمرينٌ يوميٌّ على ترويض الغضب، على كسر القيود التي تربطنا بأخطاء الماضي، على أن نحرر أرواحنا قبل أن نحرر الآخرين من ذنبهم. التسامح لا يُطلب، بل يُمنح كهدية لمن يستحق، أو كفعل أناني نفعله لأنفسنا حتى لا نتحول إلى رهائن للألم. التسامح هو أن نكف عن إعادة قراءة ذات الصفحة، أن نكف عن نبش الجراح بأطراف الذاكرة الحادة، وأن نتوقف عن السؤال الذي لا إجابة له: لماذا؟

أما النسيان؟ فذلك ترفٌ لا نملكه. لا أحد ينسى حقًا. نحن فقط نتعلم كيف نتعايش مع الذكرى دون أن تخنقنا. كيف نحمل الجرح كوشمٍ قديم، دون أن ينزف مع كل لمسة. كيف نسمع الأسماء التي كانت تعنينا دون أن يهتز صوتنا. كيف نمر بالأماكن التي جمعتنا دون أن نتوقف طويلًا عند عتبات الذكرى. نحاول، في كل مرة، أن نمضي بخفة، لكن شيئًا فينا يبقى معلقًا هناك، بين ما عشناه وما كنا نرجو أن نعيشه

وهناك ليالٍ، مهما أقنعنا أنفسنا أننا تجاوزنا، تعود فيها الذكريات أكثر سطوعًا من القمر. هناك لحظات، وسط الضحكات التي نحاول أن نملأ بها الفراغ، نشعر أننا غرباء عن أفراحنا، لأن جزءًا من قلوبنا ظل عالقًا في حب لم يكتمل، أو في عتاب لم يُقال. وحين يخفت الضجيج، ونسند رؤوسنا إلى الوسادة، نكتشف أن النسيان لم يزرنا بعد، وأن الغفران ما زال عالقًا بين القلب والعقل، بين الرغبة في المضي قدمًا، والخوف من أن نكون وحدنا في هذا الطريق

لكننا نكبر، وندرك أن ما كسرنا لم يكن سوى درس آخر في فن البقاء. نكتشف أن الحياة لا تتوقف عند الذين خذلونا، وأننا في كل مرة نُخذل، نصبح أكثر قدرة على التمسك بأنفسنا. ربما لا ننسى، وربما لا نسامح بالكامل، لكننا نمضي رغم كل شيء، ونحن نحمل في أعماقنا يقينًا واحدًا: أن الزمن لا يعيد إلينا من فقدناهم، لكنه يمنحنا دائمًا فرصة جديدة لنجد أنفسنا من جديد

It’s a strange thing, realizing you may never fully know someone. People reveal only fragments of themselves—the best, the brightest, the parts that are easiest to love. The kindness that draws you in, the warmth that makes you stay. But love isn’t just about the beautiful moments. It’s about what you find when you look closer, when you dig deeper, when you step beyond the illusion.

I should have known better. Maybe deep down, I did. Maybe there were signs—hesitations in his voice, silences where words should have been, glances that lasted too long and left me feeling like something was missing. Ethan was everything I had ever wanted. Until the day he wasn’t.

I met him on an ordinary day that somehow became extraordinary. He had that way about him, making you feel like the most interesting person in the world, like you mattered in a way you never had before. I fell hard. It wasn’t just his charm or the way he seemed to fit into all the spaces in my life that had felt empty before. It was the way he made me feel seen. And I thought I saw him, too.

But what happens when you love a version of someone that isn’t real? What happens when the person you trust with your heart has secrets too heavy to carry?

It started small, things that were easy to overlook. A late-night phone call that ended abruptly when I walked in. The way his hands would clench at his sides when I asked too many questions. The vague explanations, the inconsistencies, the stories that didn’t quite align. I convinced myself that love meant trust, that trust meant not questioning. Until I could no longer ignore the feeling in my gut.

The truth was uglier than I had imagined.

We were at the beach when I finally let myself accept it. The sky was painted in shades of violet and gold, the waves crashing against the shore in a melody older than time. I had always loved the ocean, the way it seemed endless, the way it could hold so many secrets and still remain beautiful. That night, under the whisper of the breeze and the hush of the tides, I realized that I was drowning in the love I had given him, and he had never learned to swim.

Ethan wasn’t just the man who held my hand in crowded rooms, who kissed my forehead when I was half-asleep, who whispered that he loved me as if the words were a promise. He was also the man who kept a past hidden behind well-crafted lies, who wore a mask so well I had mistaken it for his face. And when the facade cracked, when the reality of who he was bled through the surface, I had no choice but to face it.

Recognizing that someone isn’t who you thought they were is never easy. It shatters something inside of you, fractures your sense of reality. Because if he wasn’t the man I believed him to be, then who was I when I was with him? What does it mean to love someone who was never real to begin with?

I wanted to believe there was still goodness in him. I wanted to believe that the version of him I had loved was still buried beneath the deception. But love doesn’t erase truth, and the truth was standing in front of me, raw and undeniable.

The hardest part wasn’t leaving. The hardest part was accepting that I would never fully know the person I had once given my heart to. And maybe that was the real tragedy of it all—not just losing him, but losing the version of myself that had believed in him.

Some people spend their lives searching for love that is pure and unshakable. But love, real love, isn’t about perfection. It’s about seeing every fractured piece of someone and choosing to stay. It’s about trust that doesn’t waver, about honesty that doesn’t cut like a blade.

And maybe, just maybe, it’s about knowing that the right love doesn’t ask you to sacrifice pieces of yourself just to keep it alive.

That night, I walked away from him, my footsteps imprinting the sand, each step carrying the weight of a love that was never meant to last. The stars blinked down at me, indifferent yet reassuring, as if whispering that endings are just new beginnings in disguise.

The wind tangled through my hair as I took one last glance at the ocean—vast, mysterious, and unyielding. I had always thought love should be like the sea, endless and deep. But now, I realized it should be more like the sky—expansive, limitless, and always reaching toward something greater.

And with that realization, I let him go.

لا يوجد صراع أعمق أو أشد إرهاقًا من الصراع الذي يخوضه الإنسان داخل نفسه. إنه نزاع لا يتضمن أعداءً أو قوى خارجية، بل هو مواجهة بين القلب والعقل، بين الرغبة والكرامة، وبين الشوق والمنطق. هذا الصراع الداخلي جزء أساسي من كوننا بشرًا، ومع ذلك يظل الأكثر خفاءً وسوء فهم

تخيل أنك تقف عند مفترق طرق بين القبول والرفض، ممزقًا بين الحب والكبرياء. القلب يتوق إلى مسار بينما يصر العقل على آخر، وكأنك مشدود في اتجاهين متضادين. كل قرار يبدو خيانة، إما لمشاعرك أو لمبادئك

لقد مررنا جميعًا بلحظات شعرت فيها خيوط قلوبنا تجذبنا نحو ما نرغب فيه بشدة، لكن صوت العقل، أو ثقل الكرامة، يمنعنا من التقدم. وكأنك تريد شيئًا بكل جوارحك، ولكن السعي إليه قد يعني كسر جزء من ذاتك

الحاجة قوة هائلة. عندما تجتاحنا، تضرب نوافذ الروح كعاصفة، تطالب بالدخول. ومع ذلك، نقاوم، نغلق تلك النوافذ بإحكام، ونخنق نداء الشوق. هناك هشاشة في الاعتراف بالحاجة، وغالبًا ما يدفعنا الخوف من الظهور بمظهر الضعف إلى الصمت

هذا هو تناقض الضعف البشري. عندما نتوق للاتصال، لدفء وجود شخص ما، فإننا غالبًا ما نخفي ذلك بالتظاهر بعدم الاكتراث، وندعي عدم التأثر. يهمس القلب بألمه، لكننا نضحك بصوت أعلى، ليس لننشر الفرح، بل لنغرق صوت دموعنا

أعظم عذاب لا يأتي من القرارات الواضحة، بل من حالة التعليق بين الخيارات، بين الماضي والحاضر، بين الذكرى والواقع. ثقل هذا التردد ينهش الروح، يجعلنا نشعر وكأننا نسير في واديين في الوقت نفسه، دون أن ننتمي لأي منهما بشكل كامل

كم مرة خضنا هذا الصراع الداخلي؟ نحلم بواقع بينما نعيش آخر. نتشبث بذكريات تنزلق من بين أصابعنا بينما يقف المستقبل أمامنا غامضًا. أن نتحمل هذا، أن نحمله يومًا بعد يوم، هو أحد أصعب التحديات التي نواجهها في حياتنا بصمت

لقد أتقنّا فن الإخفاء. نبكي داخليًا لكن نضحك خارجيًا. نريد أن نصرخ، لكننا نظل صامتين. نتوق للوصل، لكن نقنع أنفسنا بأن الأفضل هو الابتعاد. هذا ليس جبنًا أو عدم أمانة؛ إنه بقاء. إنه الطريقة الوحيدة التي نعرفها لحماية أنفسنا من الأحكام، من الرفض، ومن الظهور بمظهر الضعف في عالم غالبًا ما يخطئ في تفسير الضعف على أنه عيب

هذا الصراع الداخلي ليس لحظة عابرة، بل هو حرب مستمرة. إنه نوع من الصراع الذي يمزقنا، يترك أجزاء من أنفسنا متناثرة عبر مسارات مختلفة. يسير القلب في طريق، متلهفًا للاتصال والشغف والأحلام، بينما يأخذ العقل طريقًا آخر، متمسكًا بالمنطق والبقاء والكرامة

ومع ذلك، نستمر في النضال. نرتدي الأقنعة، نتلاعب بالتناقضات، ونسير في عالم يطالبنا بالقوة بينما نشعر بالهشاشة. إنه أصعب قتال على الإطلاق—أن تكون في صراع مع نفسك

ومع ذلك، في هذا الصراع تكمن قوة غير معلنة. القدرة على تحمل هذه المعارك دون الانهيار هي شهادة على صلابة الروح البشرية. كل دمعة مكبوتة، كل شوق غير معلن، كل خطوة تُتخذ وسط الشك، هي انتصار، مهما كان صغيرًا

من المهم أن نتذكر أن هذا الصراع ليس دائمًا. سيأتي وقت يجد فيه القلب والعقل الانسجام، عندما تتماشى القرارات مع الرغبات، وعندما تهدأ عاصفة الحاجة لتتحول إلى قبول هادئ للذات. حتى ذلك الحين، نستمر في المضي قدمًا، خطوة بخطوة، حاملين ثقل صراعاتنا برشاقة صامتة

أصعب المعارك هي تلك التي نخوضها بصمت، دون أن يراها الآخرون، ولكن نشعر بها بعمق داخلنا. إنها تشكّلنا، تختبرنا، وفي النهاية تقربنا من فهم أنفسنا. لذا، إذا وجدت نفسك في صراع مع قلبك أو عقلك أو ذكرياتك، فتذكر أنك لست وحدك. هذه هي التجربة الإنسانية—رقصة مستمرة بين ما نحن عليه وما نطمح أن نكون

وربما، من خلال احتضان هذا الصراع، يمكننا أن نجد نوعًا من الجمال في الفوضى. لأنه في أصعب المعارك نكتشف أعمق الحقائق عن أنفسنا

Life has a way of pulling us under, drowning us in to-do lists, obligations, and responsibilities that stretch into infinity. We wake up, go through the motions, survive the day, and collapse into bed—only to do it all over again. Somewhere along the way, the color fades. The music stops. The world turns gray.

But then, there are the life-lovers. The ones who refuse to let the world become dull. The ones who dance in grocery store aisles like no one’s watching. Who tell stories with so much passion that you can feel their words, taste them, live inside them. The ones who laugh with abandon—not just polite chuckles, but deep, belly-aching, tear-inducing laughter that makes you forget your worries for a moment.

These people—these rare, beautiful souls—carry something the rest of us crave: a lightness, an unshakable joy that seeps into everything they touch. You know them when you see them. They walk into a room, and suddenly, the air shifts, becomes lighter, easier to breathe. They find beauty in the mundane, magic in the ordinary. And when you’re around them, you feel it too.

Science says emotions are contagious, that we mirror the expressions and energy of the people around us. But you don’t need research to tell you that. You’ve felt it before—the way a single person’s presence can lift your mood or drag it down. Spend ten minutes with someone bitter, and their negativity sticks to you like smoke. Spend ten minutes with someone who radiates joy, and suddenly, you remember how much there is to love about your own life.

They make us say yes more. Yes to new experiences. Yes to slowing down long enough to notice the sunset, to appreciate the way coffee tastes on a cold morning, to laugh at something stupid just because it feels good. Yes to being fully present instead of rushing toward the next thing. They remind us that happiness isn’t some grand achievement waiting on the other side of success—it’s in the now. In the small moments. In the way we choose to see the world.

But not everyone is a life-lover. Some people drain you. You know the kind—the ones who find a problem in every solution, who make you feel smaller just by being around them. And the truth is, we don’t always realize how much weight we’re carrying until we step away from it.

That’s why choosing your circle is everything. You don’t have to cut people off, but you do have to be intentional about where you pour your energy. Spend time with the ones who remind you of the good. The ones who make you laugh until your stomach hurts, who turn an ordinary Tuesday into something unforgettable, who see the world in color when you’re stuck in black and white.

Seek out the storytellers. The wild souls. The ones with fire in their eyes and music in their bones. Let their enthusiasm wash over you, seep into your skin, settle into your heart. And then—pass it on. Be that person for someone else. Be the reason someone laughs a little louder, feels a little lighter, remembers what it’s like to be alive.

Because happiness? It’s meant to be shared. Find the life-lovers, and let them pull you back into the light.

They say never to fall in love with the same person twice. But what if love was never truly finished, just paused? What if, despite everything, the heart still beat a little faster at the sound of a name, the echo of a laugh, the ghost of a touch? The real question isn’t whether we can love again, but whether we should.

Julie Parker had spent years convincing herself that moving on meant moving away. Blue Harbor held too many memories, and every corner of the small town was a reminder of love that had unraveled in the quietest, most painful way. When she left Adam Steele five years ago, she walked away with a quiet kind of devastation—one that did not shatter loudly but eroded slowly, like waves against a shoreline. She told herself she had made the right choice, that distance would heal what time could not.

Yet, life has a way of leading us back to the places we thought we had left behind. Blue Harbor shimmered in the late afternoon light, the golden hues stretching across the sea like liquid fire, the scent of salt and longing thick in the air. Standing once again in the familiar town where the salty breeze carried echoes of laughter and unspoken promises, Julie wasn’t sure why she had returned. Maybe it was unfinished business. Maybe it was the silent pull of home. But as soon as she saw Adam standing in the doorway of the coffee shop they had once claimed as their own, she knew: time had changed everything—except the way her heart still reacted to him.

Adam wasn’t the same man she had left behind. His shoulders carried new burdens, and his eyes held a quiet sadness she didn’t recognize. He greeted her with a cautious smile, as if he, too, wasn’t sure what seeing her again meant.

“You’re back,” he said, his voice carrying the weight of five years.

“I am,” she admitted, though she wasn’t sure if she had come home or if she had merely drifted into the past.

Memories were tricky things. They dressed themselves up as something beautiful, something whole, even when reality had already unraveled them. It started slow, the way they fell back into old rhythms. Coffee orders remembered, shared laughter over things only they found funny, the warmth of an unspoken understanding. But nostalgia had a way of making everything feel golden, even when cracks ran through the foundation.

Julie found herself wondering: was she falling for Adam again, or for the memory of who he had been? Was she drawn to the man in front of her, or to the way he made her feel once upon a time?

“You ever think about us?” she asked one evening, sitting across from him at the old diner, their fingers inches apart on the faded tabletop, the warmth of his presence almost too much to bear.

Adam studied her, his fingers tracing patterns on his coffee cup. “I think about who we were,” he admitted. “And I wonder if we could ever be those people again.”

She wanted to believe they could. She wanted to believe that love could pick up where it had left off, that time could be rewritten, that the mistakes of yesterday wouldn’t shadow the promises of tomorrow. And for a while, she let herself fall into the illusion. They kissed beneath the same stars that had once witnessed their whispered confessions. They danced in the rain like they were reckless teenagers again. They traced old maps of their past and tried to pretend they still fit inside them, but the edges no longer aligned the way they once had.

There was a moment when Julie knew the truth. It wasn’t dramatic or loud. It was quiet, like a sigh in the dark. She loved the memory of Adam more than she loved the man before her. And love that lived in the past could never truly belong in the present.

Maybe some people were never meant to be again. Maybe some love stories were not about endings or beginnings, but about lessons—about understanding that love, no matter how deep, cannot thrive in nostalgia alone. She could have stayed. She could have tried to hold on to the fragments of a love that once was. But love—real love—should feel alive, not like something borrowed from yesterday.

So, with the same quiet devastation with which she had left him years ago, Julie let him go. Not because she didn’t love him, but because she loved herself enough to know that love should not be a haunting. It should not be a repetition of something already lived.

She walked away, but this time, she did not look back. The sea stretched endlessly before her, the sky shifting from gold to violet, the air thick with the promise of something new. And somewhere in the distance, Adam watched her go, understanding in his own way that some love stories are meant to be written once and left untouched, preserved in the golden glow of memory.

Julie didn’t know what the future held, but for the first time in a long time, she was ready to find out—on her own, with a heart wide open to the possibility of something new, something true, something that didn’t belong to yesterday but to tomorrow.

It’s been so long since I dropped something here.

See, a bunch of things in my life had shifted all at the same time.

Friends moved away, kids, a move, new groups, new people—and it seemed like the important thing was to find ways to be accepted in those new places. To be part of the group. Any group.

“I like your shoes!”

So I would be in conversations where the other person would talk, and the thing I wanted to say—the thing that made sense to me—sounded like:

No. No, I cannot do that. No, I do not agree. No, I do not think that is a good idea.

Or, That is not right. This is not the way. These things are not helping.

Or, What if we just let go of the have-to, the should-have, the has-to-be?

Or, You know, we’re all the same inside. We’re all hurting sometimes. We’re all full of joy and love and even beauty, because truth is beauty. Your life doesn’t have to be perfect to be beautiful.

Or, That sounds like fear talking, and we don’t need to be afraid of each other. Why are we building walls instead of building bridges? Why are we building a smaller box instead of a bigger table?

But I was pretty sure that was not how the conversation was supposed to go, so instead what I said was: nothing.

I would say: I like your shoes!

And then later I would say to my close friend, “This thing happened, and what I REALLY wanted to say was…

I could hear the truth in my heart, and I could hear the chirpy voice on the outside, and they did not match up.

This is not me, I thought. This keeping quiet, this not-using-my-voice, this saying the right thing (that is really the wrong thing): This is not me.

“For freedom you have been set free.”

They’re not quite the same.

(I mean, I wasn’t lying. I did like those shoes. I just care about the shoes way less than I care about seeing us all, whole and alive and living in the truth that love will always win.)

I used to spend a lot of time telling people they had pretty shoes.

This was a good thing to say when I had to say something. I was looking down more often than not, so it was something I noticed.

Where had I gone?

Why had I fallen silent and small? Why was I hiding? How had I lost the thread of myself?

All those words were trapped inside me. All my truth not getting out—all my pretending that true things didn’t matter—was turning me sour.

Was I the kind of person who does not say what she believes? Why was I that person? Since when?

I thought keeping quiet was the path to community and connection. I thought wrong. You can be surrounded by people, but if you’re pretending to be someone you’re not, you can’t connect with any of them.

The path to community, the path to connection, the path to love, always starts with showing up as yourself.

And who was I?

The only way I know to answer that question is to stop moving. To slow down and listen.

Listen to your heart asking, who am I? This is not me. What am I even doing here? How did I get here?

Listen to the still, small voice calling you back to yourself.

It’s not like you’re on the moon.

What I learned was, it’s simpler than that. You don’t need to go out looking for yourself, like you would look for a lost puppy. You don’t have to create yourself (I’m picturing a wonky lego tower). You’re still in there.

You might be buried under a never-ending to-do list or a schedule of too-much-to-do-in-too-little-time. You might have been shoved to the back of the closet, as it were, hiding behind last season’s best choices and next season’s best plans. But you’re in there, somewhere.

Yourself is in there, waiting to be coaxed out like an anxious kitty.

Or waiting for the rubble to be lifted so you can crawl into the light.

Or waiting for everything else—the not-you parts of your life—to be carved away, until what is left is the essence of you.

That pull to find yourself? That call is coming from inside the house, and you don’t have to go outside to answer it.

That’s the good news.

Your job is to UNCOVER something that’s already here (like sliding the peel off a ripe clementine), not to hunt for something that may or not be OUT THERE (rather like alien life forms).

There’s less-fabulous news, too.

The bad news is that it is not easy, this uncovering your heart and figuring out what song your soul wants to sing. It’s not comfortable to ask questions about how and why you slipped away in the first place.

This is where a journal comes in handy, because you can write it all down and see. Oh, I’ve been listening to shame again. Oh, I’ve been listening for what’s best for everyone else, and ignoring what’s best for me. Oh. I see.

But you can be brave.

It is brave to ask who you are, especially if you know you may not like the answers. It is brave to admit you don’t know who you are at this time, in this place, even if you were sure you knew yesterday.

And when you know who you are—be that person.

I had to be me, even if all the Pretty Shoe People walked away. That was a box I was not willing to live in anymore. You don’t have to live like this. I just started talking.

Let yourself out of the box. Drop the armor. Ask the questions.

Find yourself. And set yourself free.

We often grow up with an idea of what our life will look like when we are at a certain age, more often than not, it is a realistic image, and more often than not, life doesn’t necessarily mirror the image we had for it. At that moment, we can feel inadequate, we can feel like a failure and we can feel that we failed to create the life we want or deserve, but if we take a closer look sometimes the magic is in the journey rather than the destination, it is in the lessons we learn along the way and the changes we have to go through to become the best versions of ourselves.

My life didn’t turn out to be anything like I imagined, in fact the image I had for my life doesn’t even come close to what it is now, and even though I do have my days when I brood about it and wonder where I went wrong, I still smile when I look back at the things I learned when the pieces of the puzzle didn’t fit.

Warning: lots of clichés in this post, but this is exactly what I need to tell myself and thought I’d share with everyone.

1. You Learn To Steer The Wheel In Another Direction

You know how the saying goes “If you don’t bend you will break” You will find yourself face to face with your fears and your worst nightmares, but you will have to face them, even if you don’t win, even if you fall short, even if you will never be the same person again, you will navigate through them to reach your destination. It is exactly like driving, sometimes you get lost, sometimes you take roads you don’t want to take, sometimes you drive alone at night and it can get scary, sometimes you will have to stop at a red light even though you can’t wait to go home, sometimes you will get into an accident and it may or may not be your fault, but the key will always be to keep driving and steer the wheel in another direction, whatever direction leads you back home.

2. You Will Be Forced To Look Within For Validation

If you are a people person like myself, you get your energy and your validation from those around you, you always wonder do they like me? Did I say the right thing? Are they going to speak well about me? Does my boss think I’m smart enough? Will this person stay or will they get bored and leave? You constantly expend your energy on those around you and that sometimes can be the demise of your own identity and personal growth. This may sound like a cliché but it is true, the best way to use your energy is to consume it on yourself first, and be in touch with who you are regardless of what those around you think of you. You have to embrace your flaws and shortcomings while working on them rather than seek validation from those around you. It helps when someone sees something good in us that we ceased to believe and it helps when someone picks us up when we fall, but at the end of the day, it is temporary relief. If you want long-term relief, you need to seek validation from yourself first and welcome the validation of others second, but you should always come first.

3. You Might Want To Reconnect With God

“When we have nothing left but God, we discover that God is enough.” This is one of my favorite quotes to sum up faith and life too. When things don’t go as planned, and when life gets hard, it is easy to sink in a dark hole and drown in a sea of anger, negativity and despair; also known as rock bottom. The good thing about hitting rock bottom is the fact that it allows you to reach to a higher power, ask for help, pray and seek guidance from Allah. If it takes a toll on your faith, let me assure you that you will not make it out of rock bottom easily, however if you use it as a tool to reconnect with God and strengthen your faith and the belief that God has a better plan for you and that his plans will make you happier than you ever thought you will be, you will be just fine. God sometimes gives us what we need rather than what we want, sometimes it is best not to ask questions and try to go against the ebb and flow of what God brings to our life, sometimes it is better to look up and say I know you got this, let go and keep the faith.

4. You Are Going To Lose Some People

It is a part of life, the more you know who you are and seek validation from within, the more people you are going to lose. Some people will not like it, some people will try to bring you back down, some people will hurt you, some people will walk away, some people will give up on you, and others will stab you right in the face. Only a few good ones will stick around and respect the transition, those people are the ones that are in your life to stay and will help you become your best self. I must say this is the hardest lesson, it doesn’t only require strength and self-control, it requires you to never look back, to close some doors that you so wanted to remain open. The hardest part is not letting them go, the hardest part is letting them go knowing you will not let them back in again, knowing that deep in your heart this person will cause you more damage than good and they have to go. In some cases, losing is winning.

5. It Will Make You A Better Person

Finally, when your life doesn’t turn out the way you wished for, it will humble you. It will make you a kinder person, a more sympathetic person, a wiser person, a stronger person, a less judgmental person, a deeper person, or simply it will make you human. You will learn that you can’t be perfect and you never will be, you will learn that you will fail at things you thought you were good at, you will learn that you can be hard to love sometimes, you will learn that you have bipolar tendencies, you will learn that you cannot control your surroundings and you cannot make someone change or someone love you. You will learn to accept your fate and stop trying to change it. You will learn that life will scar you, and it will hurt you but it will also surprise you-sometimes in a good way, and one day you will look back and be able to connect the dots, one day you will look back and make sense of all the confusion, one day you will surprise yourself when you look at the image you had for your life and realize that it doesn’t resonate with you anymore and it doesn’t matter.

It’s been literally ages since I last posted here, but I really feel the need for me to write this.

There are literally dozens of famous quotes that begin with “If I knew then what I know now…” In fact, there is even a book by that name.

What are we really talking about when we start a sentence with: If I knew then what I know now? Think about that for a moment. What kind of perception and feelings would prompt us to use that phrase?

* The perception. Anytime we compare the present to the past we are doing so with the advantage of hindsight. We are looking back on our life course with knowledge that we did not have at the time and speculating how that knowledge would have altered our situation or outcome.

* The feelings. If we are pleased with some part of our personal history we generally don’t think about how having more knowledge at the time would have made it better. So, I think it is a fair assumption to say that the feelings behind the phrase “If I knew then what I know now” are rooted in regret or dissatisfaction. In some way we wish things had been different, right?

There will always be hindsight

The fact is, hindsight can only benefit us in the present, it has no application to the past. You can never change what has already happened and thinking about it is a complete waste of time. You can, however, use the knowledge you’ve gained to make better decisions right now. That’s what hindsight is for!

Now, here’s the kicker. In the future, when you look back on the decisions you make today you will have new knowledge that you don’t possess right now. That means that from that vantage point you will probably see possibilities that you do not see at present.

Life lessons are cumulative

If we are paying attention, life becomes a continuous learning experience. At any given point, the life lessons we learn are exactly what we need to learn to keep the process going. Admittedly, some of those lessons are painful and costly. The higher the price of a life lesson the more likely we are to remember it and to benefit from it in the future. Every experience has value if we learn from it.

With that in mind, we see that wishing we had acquired certain knowledge earlier than we actually did is unrealistic. One life lesson leads to the next and we can’t skip ahead. But we can, and should, learn from the experiences of others, especially from their mistakes. If we allow it, their life lessons will put us way ahead of the curve, but it still doesn’t change the process.

Is hindsight really 20-20?

We have all heard that hindsight is 20-20, but is that really true? Yes, but only for a moment because continued learning updates everything. Remember, the whole process is cumulative and knowledge is ever changing. We keep building on what we know and as long as we are alive the process never stops (hopefully).

How can understanding and accepting this process help us now and in the future?

3 Ways to make practical application

1. Don’t waste time thinking about “if only.” Your life is busy unfolding right now, that’s where the majority of your focus needs to be. Instead of fretting over how the past might have been “if only,” think about all the valuable life lessons you have learned.
2. Apply what you have learned. Use those life lessons to help you make wiser decisions now and in the future. Knowledge becomes wisdom only through application. You have spent years learning. Always strive to put what you’ve learned to good use.
3. Turn hindsight into foresight. As you look back on your decisions and outcomes you should begin to notice patterns. When you did things one way you produced a certain type of result. When you did them differently, what kind of result did you get? Identifying the patterns that led to good results will improve the quality of your decisions. This is how hindsight becomes insight.

What led me to write this?

This article is my response to an Invitation to “Write about Stuff that You Wish You Had Known Earlier in Your Life.”  While it sounds like an interesting topic, my problem is that I don’t relate to it. I understand the premise, but I honestly don’t relate to it in my personal life.

Are there painful and costly life lessons from my past that could have been avoided by knowing then what I know now? Absolutely! Super heavy lifting has caused me more chronic back pain than I care to think about. Foolish investment decisions have cost me more money than I am willing to talk about. And the list goes on.

Speculation is worthless

Sure, I can see plenty of ways that my life might have been more comfortable if I’d had the knowledge to make better decisions in the past. But who is to say that one of those uncomfortable situations didn’t save my life somehow? Maybe my life would have been better on some level, but that is just speculation. I love my life and every experience has contributed to making it what it is, even the painful ones.

Life is an individual journey and we all experience different things and learn different life lessons right on schedule. I believe that experience is the greatest teacher. Even when academic knowledge initiates a profound life change, it is usually because our journey led us to a situation that made us receptive to that kind of learning.

Everyone grows up with their own beliefs and their own perceptions of what a true love really is. You will have all types of influences, including relationships you see your families and friends involved in, movies, TV shows, and other places as well. There are so many different things that you see, and so many unsuccessful relationships in this world nowadays that many of you are lost when it comes to making a successful and lasting relationship with someone that you really love.

If you are really going to love someone you have to be willing to love with no conditions, and love even when a person is at their worst. Loving someone when it doesn’t seem as though they really deserve it is an attribute that you have to search high and low to find in these days. Not everyone will hold you at your weakest, and not all hearts will love you at your worst, but when you find someone that will be sure to hold on dearly to a soul this special!

It’s not hard loving someone at their best, when they are being good to you, when that person asks you how your day was and how you’re feeling because it matters to them, when this person pecks you on the cheek and makes you the subject of their desires because it makes you feel wanted and adored. You revel in the fact that there is someone out there who is more than willing to trudge through mud, climb every mountain, and cross every ocean for you — metaphorically-speaking, of course, In short, it’s not hard at all that we love that person because they make you feel ridiculously good.

Love is beyond all of that, it’s is loving them at their worst, even with their worst faults and flaws, forgiving and Forgetting their wrong doings, enduring and being kind, always trusting and not easily angered, always trusting and hoping and never failing.

To see them during their bad days, when nothing seems to be going right for them and it puts them in a terrible mood which you must suffer for. you want to see them in all their insecurities; those qualities that they endlessly drone on about in their conversations and what they ask you about, hoping for a denial of said insecurity.

But what you really want to do is to see them at their worst; that extremity where they are at the lowest of the low, where other people would not exactly stick around to see them in that state. It may only be a moment or it may last for a significant amount of time but what all you want is for you to be there.

No, you will not be repulsed by them nor shun them.

In fact, you want to look into their eyes and gaze upon their imperfections and insecurities and realize that you have never seen such beauty in something so imperfect and tell them that everything is going to be okay. You want to be the one to pick them up and carry them through the flames of their trials and tribulations because you want to, unbound by your convictions or principles. You want to forget about how those flames will raze you with their blazing tongues and keep in mind that you are shielding them and you will take comfort and strength in that because they are all that matters to you.

Maybe love is about losing yourself in someone else and having no regard for your well-being because simply seeing that person smile and be happy makes you want to be the reason for it, no matter what the cost.

To see the best of them, and the worst of the, and still choose both.