The things you shouldn’t know

You know that saying, “it’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt”? Well, it’s true for every age, and all contexts.

Happiness comes in waves. But like love and pain, it comes unexpectedly and leaves the same way.

The key to being happy – and most of all serene – is acknowledging that you yourself and you alone are responsible for that precious feeling. You’re the only one who can control your feelings even if most times it doesn’t seem so easy or plausible to do.

It’s a magical and refreshing sensation to allow yourself to get carried away in the moments. Those instances that take your breath away, that have you tearing with laughter so much that your abs hurt. Those glimpses of time you look back on and smile nostalgically.

But there is always that inexplicable – demonic – hunch that nothing is so perfect; and it won’t last.

So what do you do when you see something you shouldn’t have? What if you notice a message you shouldn’t be aware of? Or overhear a conversation you weren’t meant to? How do you “un-know” things you shouldn’t know? How do you press “undo” on life events?

It’s mindblowing how emotions can change in a millisecond. How your entire perspective can alter by knowing something you shouldn’t. How everything moves from one extreme to another simply because of a differentiation of facts. It’s as quickly as clouds of rain form in a clear blue sky and hail begins to pour.

But that you can’t really control.

Can you?

Or is it there to show you something? Because often things happen to remind you what you deserve and to rethink where you are and what you’re devoting your energy and time on. Is it worth it if you’re not feeling happy, appreciated and valued?

Staying afloat

When you fall into a river you’re besieged with an innate instinct for survival and you search for ways to keep afloat and to get out. It’s natural. If you stop trying to swim, you’ll sink, and ultimately drown.

This is somewhat true in how you survive in your daily life as well. In the relationships you build and maintain. What holds you down is what makes you drown. And that can range from the negative thoughts in your head, your problems, your stress, the prejudices you carry around, even past traumatic experiences from failed relationships that have left a bitter aftertaste.

When you exit the river, you’re never the same person as the one who entered. Something has washed over you and infiltrated you even if you can’t see it. You’re changed by every experience you have, every person who walks in – and out – of your life. There is a lesson to be gained from everything. As long as we want to acknowledge it.

Seminars on self-help and self-growth are abundant. This was an excerpt from one of them. She was drawn into it because the metaphor was cunning. But, this was nothing new. Theories are so easy to develop. They’re easy to state, even to ourselves. Acting upon them is what is necessary and means something. And that is the hardest to do. Because accepting reality and that some things just happen, is the most difficult of all.

She would give herself completely in someone she felt was worthwhile. She would fall head over heels from the start. And perhaps that was her mistake. That she would put herself on offer willingly, without being asked. Her friend told her that this made the other person greedy, thus provoking his insatiable attitude. But she would do things because she wanted to and felt pleasure in doing them. Because happiness entails making others smile. Because we love the way we want to be loved. It’s the only way she knew.

But when things snapped in an instant for no rational reason, she was the one left heartbroken, wondering why others don’t treat her the same way she would. Why they wouldn’t run to surprise her and make things right. Why they wouldn’t even call to talk and solve the dispute that so abruptly and harshly erased their laughter.

They say “we accept the love we think we deserve”, but that’s not true. Because we don’t always attract what we want, but rather what we need at certain periods in time. We learn something out of every incident we face, regardless of how good or bad it is. We don’t always end up with what we crave. But sometimes we realise that maybe it’s for the best. Sometimes pain is meant to be felt, so we can appreciate serenity when it finally arrives.

Trampled emotions

There is an element of self-torture when you refuse to let some things slide and move on; when you’re constantly seeking an explanation, a justification, and a response to your ‘why?’.

Sometimes there is no answer. Or it may come when it no longer matters.

But the truth is, it already has no importance if it’s causing you so much grief and pondering.  

Some things are meant to be experienced. We’ll get something out of them eventually.

It’s if you overthink everything that you have trouble swallowing reality. Life isn’t easy. No one said it would be. And there is no explanation for why things happen. Some things are meant to be, others not. We do participate in them all, and have a role to play in activating a chain of events, of setting life into motion. And it is often up to us, how much or how far we will allow developments to proceed.

Overthinkers are usually over-feelers too. And the trouble with feeling everything too deeply, is that you get hurt too profoundly too quickly. Sentimentalism isn’t a trait of the strong. Unfortunately.

Whatever advice you’re given, you’ll never weather the storm if you don’t want to. If you don’t decide to paddle over the water and get to shore. If you don’t pick yourself up and carry on.

That’s the thing with feelings: they’re easily trampled upon and difficult to recover.

Some days

There are some days you wish you could forget. Completely erase them from memory if possible.

It’s those days that have made you realise you were wrong about things you thought of differently until that very point. Days that have shaken up your entire mentality and viewpoint on life.

But they are the same days that shattered you to pieces.

Because every change comes with a cost. And it is often painful.

Some days you want to remember for as long as you live.

Some others, you just want to press delete and rewind. To live them over in a better way now that you know.

Those days are the ones that make you stronger, wiser and help you keep going with the hope you won’t repeat the same mistakes.

Every day is a gift as long as we treat it as such.

Letters unsent

The world was still asleep. Daylight had not yet broken the night.

She woke in her sleep as if an alarm clock went off inside her. She got up, sat at her desk with a pen and paper. Traditionally. She preferred it to the digital typing of a keyboard. Her pen was rushing across the page, trying to keep up with the words that were pouring out of her mind. She needed to record them all now that inspiration called, otherwise this wave would fade out during her sleep. Expression came at strange hours.

Time was the most precious gift you could devote to anyone. Even to yourself.

She scribbled down all that her heart pounded to say but couldn’t. Those words left unsaid that you always wonder if they would make a difference. He, on the contrary, didn’t have a way with words. He would only reply if forced to. But she wanted to let him know. She wanted to assure herself she had done all that she could; all that was possible on her part. The ball was then in his court. And she was obliged to accept his decision.

She wrote it all. The stubbornness they both had in communicating, their obsession with not letting go of things from the past, their inability to manage their feelings, the wanting it all and getting nothing in the end.  She wrote of how she was holding things to surprise him with, she dreamt of sharing with him her accomplishments and was eager to boast about his development too. But something broke along the way. And it kept breaking.

She concluded her letter stating that it was what he used to say – that they had found the winning lottery ticket – but somehow they had now lost it or simply let it go.

The letter – just like so many others – was left unsent.

The heart is a delicate thing. It hurts even when you’re convinced it won’t.  And the worst of all is when you say you can’t do anything about it. Because that ‘can’t’ has a “don’t want to” underneath. And that perhaps is the most painful of all.

The image of hurt

©Jean L. Hays

“What would you like to talk about today?” The therapist took his notebook and a pen and sunk himself into the purple velvet chair opposite.

“Pain,” he replied immediately.

The therapist looked straight at him. Sorrow was reflecting out of his patient’s eyes. You could see he was hurt, there was something not right inside him. Disappointment that had become sadness, anger that had converted into bitterness; it was all evident in his posture and expression.

“Show me what you think it looks like,” he said, proposing a few photographs.

The patient pointed to one of a barren, anhydrous land.

Also part of Friday Fictioneers

Trying to unwind

How many times have you found yourself in a situation in which you are forced to hide your true feelings? It has happened to us all. Either because you don’t agree with the rest of the opinions expressed and don’t want to elaborate; either because the conversation bores you; or you dislike the people around you; or worse yet because you’re in pain and want to hide it.

It is not easy when you’re suffering to pretend everything is OK. But most of us do so on a daily basis.

From the millions of things roaming in our minds, we only express a couple of them, not even half of what we truly think.

As a result, we suppress everything else leading our body to suffer from the toxicity of unexpressed thoughts, feelings, opinions. This in turn results in psychosomatic symptoms – the tendency to experience psychological distress in the form of physical symptoms. These may include chest pain, fatigue, dizziness, headache, oedema, back pain, shortness of breath, insomnia, abdominal pain, numbness, impotence, weight loss, cough, and constipation. This demonstrates that our minds and body are interlinked, entwined to the extent that the one affects the other. Emotional disturbances are often translated into physical symptoms, mostly evident in the effects we experience when we’re stressed, upset, scared, excited.

We often seek treatments in fast remedies – usually painkillers. We are advised patience and above all relaxation and calm. But the latter seem almost impossible when you’re in pain. In reality, we need the courage to seek the source of the distress, so we can change what provokes it. Only then will we truly be able to unwind.

Scorched earth

It is something you hope and pray you will never have to experience. What others do not even wish upon their foes. It is something you cannot even bring yourself to imagine. You read it in history books and saw it in movies – the volcanic ash burying an entire city alive in Pompeii in 79 AD – but you never thought it would happen so close to you, or rather to you.

You looked away when in movies people were burnt alive. Or were screaming because they were drowning. But now. Now it became a reality, developing right in front of your eyes. A raging fire aided by gushing winds and, suddenly, property became ashes and lives disappeared within seconds.

You didn’t want to even think about what it was like to lose everything. Now you have to answer for yourself.

You were looking forward to a summer, one that would create new memories, not one where you would consider yourself lucky if you even survived it.

‘Painful’ cannot even begin to describe it all. Whatever others say, do or act will never appease you. It won’t bring anything back. It won’t make anything better.

You lie on the ground outdoors on a rugged blanket someone donated. You look at the starry night not because you’re out camping or because you want to, but because there is no other option and there is nowhere else to be.

And all you can do is hope.

That it will not rain.

Altering an unreal vision

It was one of those mornings when it was neither hot nor cold; it was just cloudy and dull. Like her mood that day. The humid heat made it all somewhat insufferable, even stifling.

Zoe woke up nervous. It was the type of agitation that appeared after not being able to sleep well all night, with too many thoughts swivelling through her mind and a temper she couldn’t really explain.

She had dreamt that her big dance performance had arrived, the one that would make or break her career; the one that would get her into the professional dance school she had her heart set on since she was a child. But just as she was about to make that finally leap, sure to astonish everyone, her ankle turned and she had to conclude the show with grinding teeth and a pain that left her in stitches. It was almost impossible not to reveal how much it hurt.

Zoe woke in the middle of the night in sweat and an inexplicable pain in her stomach. It all felt so real. The passion, the agony, the anguish, the sting, the heartbreak, the utter discomfort of it all.

She took hold of her years-old teddy bear and, with the naivety of a child, tried to go back to sleep. But it was no longer possible.

Dawn came but the emotions had remained. How do you alter a nightmare?

She spent all day watching movies on her couch. It was an effort to change her mood. But that didn’t work either. It only happened when he came along. When Ted rang the doorbell and greeted her with a smile, a rose, a cookie and – what she needed most – a warm, tight hug.

 

Also part of Daily Prompt: Astonish

The Elegance of Grace

She grew up in a bedroom that was as big as some apartments she later saw during her rent-hunting period. She had always thought that was the norm. That all children were brought up in loving families that looked after their every need and sacrificed (themselves) for their own welfare. Finding out the truth hurt.

Elegance, her mother had always told Grace, was something that you learnt to impose on yourself to the extent that it came out as natural. It was like the pain a dancer felt, but to the audience it seemed like blissful gliding. That was the essence of elegance. To appear to have everything under control, without worries, stress or agony. It was not easy.

As she grew up, Grace lost her temper a lot. She was often nervous, allowing her agitation and fear to overcome her. Uncertainty did not fare well with her. She wanted things to be organised so that she could feel that she had the ability to impose some order in the chaos around her. But that wasn’t always possible.

It was only when she returned to ballet that she remembered. It reminded her that not everything had to be forced. Some things needed calm and patience to work out well and everything took time. It all fell into place at the right moment with the proper strain. The elegance was knowing how to acknowledge that and be prepared for when that moment arrived.

 

Also part of Daily Prompt: Elegance