Lessons of Life

When I look at the past five weeks and the life lessons that I have had to learn, I am amazed that I am not insane. It has been a period of intense emotional turmoil and I can not remember the last time that I have had a full nights sleep. These are the life lessons I have learned. Heed them well, young grasshopper, for you will experience the same; and when you do, remember these words and know that you are not alone.

Lesson 1: Dealing with missing your loved one. There is no easy way of doing this. Many a time people had to shake me by the shoulder to break my reverie as I sat lost in my own misery. Worst was when I would sit and chat with my girlfriend, with tears streaming down my face, hoping to God that no one in the library would notice. Or maybe the feeling of emptiness afterwards was worse. All I can say is try to stay busy. It does not really help with the loneliness, but it does distract the mind. Unfortunately, I do not think that I learned this lesson well, for fate got tired with me just sitting around, and introduced me to lesson number two.

Lesson 2: Idle minds. If you have nothing to keep your mind occupied, you tend to wake up at three in the morning and start wondering: what if. And then your mind starts feeding upon itself. Throwing up scenario after scenario, each one worse than the one before. And before you know it, you have freaked yourself out and you feel like screaming and running into a wall. Or worse. In your mind you start building up the person you love into this mythical being. Fortunately, this is one trap that I missed, only to step slap bang into the one beside it. I started fantasizing about the live my girlfriend and I would have together when I returned to her. I went all starry eyed and gaga. And when she asked me where I saw us in the future, I made the mistake of sharing with her this star studded future. And lo and behold, she did not share these flights of fancy. So the lesson, keep busy or you will be introduced to lesson number three.

Lesson 3: The meltdown. When you give your mind the chance to feed upon itself, you are going to start having doubts. And of course it is only natural to take these doubts to the one you love, only to have them reassure you that they are groundless. But when you cannot keep your mind busy, then these doubts start to multiply, and you start to get clingy. And of course your partner is going to pull away, which will only make you more paranoid and then: MELTDOWN. Now you can do this in one of two ways. You can have you meltdown and share it with your partner, and hope they pick up the pieces afterwards. Or you can attempt to go at it alone, and hope you come out alive on the other side. I chose the former. And I think it was a mistake. I felt absolutely crap afterwards, because I felt that I had subjected my girlfriend to a side of me that should never have existed. The result: me walking around in the streets of London after dark for hours, not giving a rat’s ass. The best I can say about this lesson is don’t let things get so far that you have a meltdown.

Lesson 4: Lies and betrayal. When there are secrets in a circle of friends, the inevitable conclusion is that someone gets hurt, either for being lied to, or having their trust broken. Therefore I swear this blood oath; never again will I lie to a friend. Friends can tell me their secrets, and I will keep them. But if someone asks me about the subject I will tell them that I do not want to talk about it, or if they keep pressing my answer will be: “Ask me no questions and I will tell you no lies”. And I they keep bugging me, I will tell them to go away. In this I suggest you follow the advice of Queery, keep your side of a friendship clean.

Lesson 5: Women and men are different. This is an undeniable fact. Woman and men view the world and situations differently. Woman through emotions and instinct, while men assess and use logic. And woe to the man who tries to understand emotions through logic. For the inevitable answer will be: “If you do not understand what is wrong, I am not going to tell you”. The best advice I can give is to realise that you are different, and to love each other because of that difference. I think in this, gay and lesbian couples have it easier.

Lesson 6: Love after love. One of the hardest things to learn. I once jokingly told my girlfriend that she has ruined me for all other women, because she has shown me such joy. But the question now is: HAS she ruined me for other women? My ex-girlfriend was my first real love. And consequently, I loved her with every thing I had; body, heart, soul and mind. I loved her completely and without reservation. And in my naiveté, I never thought to put a guard on my heart, or to limit my love. For I thought, if one feels like this, why put limits on such love? In my naive ness, I loved like a child; and now I have the broken heart of a child. But my question is: what happens when my heart is healed? Will there be scars on my heart? And in future loves, will I be unable to give my whole heart to a woman because these scars hide part of my heart? And worse, what if that woman loves me with everything, and I am unable to return such love? Or, will my heart heal without scars and poison? I hope so. Because I still think one should love without reservation. Love without reservation, but in moderation. If you give all of your love to a person at once and they are not ready for it, your worst nightmare is going to come true. You will lose that person and you will not know why. Unfortunately, there is no way to know what will happen with my heart. Only time will tell.

Again, heed well these lessons I have learned.

And thus ends my second post.