Note to Self

"Life does not have meaning through mere existence or acquisition or fun. The meaning of life is inherent in the connections we make to others through honor and obligation."

Apparently I have a VERY bad memory.

So maybe I need to make more notes to myself to help me remember how I feel in these moments, so that sometime into the future when I am tempted to make choices or be cavalier about my behavior, I will remember what I have learned and how I felt and maybe avoid the pain of a repeat lesson.

Falling in love is the easy part. It's sustaining all the other stuff over time that gets complicated. Enduring hard times, staying even when leaving seems so much easier, continuing when you're not even sure you like, let alone love another. But it isn't necessary love, or these feelings of being in love, that keeps us bound to one another. Yes, this is the word we use to describe out commitments to others, but have you ever stopped to think about what that means? I really like this quote above as it seems to me to exemplify what love means to me. It is connections we make with others, and through honor and obligation we build and strengthen these connections. It is how we bond. It is how we endure. Love, or being in love, can be fickle. The way I feel today will not always be. We grow, we change, we learn, and as a consequence, our feelings change. But the true test of time for relationships is that we honor our commitments and obligations to each other, and that we fulfill these day in and day out. That is what truly gives meaning to our lives and for which we find our deepest sense of satisfaction. When all else falls away, can we count on each other?

I give of myself to relationships and others very deeply. So it seems much more painful when these relationships become strained. I often determine in my mind that it must be me or my fault when things go wrong. Even if my intellectual mind and mouth speaks otherwise, my heart feels responsible for these failings. "What is wrong with me that I couldn't make this work?" I would say most people probably don't internalize these things like I do, but part of being hyper-responsible is that I take too much responsibility for things that aren't necessarily in my control. Learning to let go is certainly easier said than done. I love that I am passionate and love so deeply. But often leaves me hurt and confused wondering how it went wrong and how is it that I was misunderstood.

So I am working on a note to myself to remind me of all of the things I have learned and all the things I need to remember when I will not listen to logic and I seem to have conveniently forgotten these hard fought truths.