If you love them, let them go…

At one point or another in your life you are told “if you love something let it go, and if it was meant to be it will come back to you.” It is a statement told to help someone usually adjust to the loss of something loved that is beyond your control. In theory it all makes sense, but you never want to have to tell yourself to abide by that concept.

I never really understood the meaning of that until I found myself fighting to keep someone in my life. Every day I would struggle to watch them drift away. I would think, how could someone that I love so dearly, and who claims to love me equally, simply fade away. I decided to simply let them go, because in reality, or as the saying goes, “if it was meant to be it will come back to you.” So that is simply what I decided to do.

At first, hours passed, the days, then weeks. The pain was real and it felt all so very fresh. like a deep wound that took ages to heal. Then eventually months began to pass, and I felt whole again, even without my dearly loved person. I accepted their leaving, I never understood it, but I accepted it and I considered that good enough.

I felt whole again, even though I was missing a piece. But after the hours, days, weeks, and months had passed a wave of emotions came back into my mind. I felt the need to reach out, to check-in, just to see how they were. But I had to remember that I let them go so I simply put it in the back of my mind.

That was until I received a message. The person who I loved so dearly came back. Did that happen because I simply let them go, or was it because it was indeed meant to be?

So maybe the age old saying isn’t wrong? Maybe if you really do love something and you let it go, it will eventually come back to you?

The Boy That Ruined Me: #metoo

Trigger Warning: Sexual Abuse

I was fifteen almost sixteen when I met this boy. He was great, he was everything I could have ever wanted, at least, that’s what I led myself to believe.  I had a crush on him and, lucky for me, he liked me back. We started to date, but I remember that on the day that he asked me to be his girlfriend, something felt a little off.  I first found out how pushy he was that night.

He was all over me. Like most teenage boys, he wanted more and I wasn’t ready for that.  That night, nothing more than kissing happened, but it was too much kissing for me and I tried to tell him that, but he didn’t seem to care. I tried to brush it off and think nothing of it. After all, he was my first boyfriend and I could not mess it up; I was finally cool.  

Photo Credit: victimservicecenter.org

Later on in the relationship the pushiness only got worse.  My friends even started to help him in weird ways. On my sixteenth birthday, after only being together for a month, he had my friends lay roses on my bed and light candles.  Anyone that saw that scene knew what was going to happen, but it was not something I was ready for. When I walked in, I yelled at my friends so loud that my mom came downstairs.  Luckily, he wasn’t too pushy when he came over and I did not have sex with him, but some other things happened.

Every time he would come to my house, he would force me to please him and then text his dad to pick him up. After two months, I finally couldn’t take it any longer and wanted to break up with him. But, whenever I talked to anyone about breaking up with him, they told me not to.  I know I shouldn’t have listened to other people, but I had no clue when or how to break up with him because he was bigger than me and I was scared of him. I didn’t want to find out what he would do to me.

Eventually, I broke up with him. I made sure it was in a very public place and it was actually okay. But, an easy breakup doesn’t mean I left without baggage.  He sexually abused me. Him being my first boyfriend made it so I had no clue how relationships were truly supposed to be. He took my innocence away from me.  Everyone talks about how one’s first relationship is full of love and innocence, but I never got that. 

I hated myself for months after everything happened.  I used to cry myself to sleep because I would think of him and what he did to me.  At first, I was scared to tell people everything that happened. No one believed me and that made talking about it harder.  I wanted to get him in trouble for what he did to me, because what he did to me is something I will carry the rest of my life; but, there was no way to get him in trouble.  I wanted him to hurt as much as he hurt me. But, I was never able to do that, so I grew more mad as time went on.  Pretty soon, I no longer saw myself as a person; I saw myself as an object for people to use.

About ten months after everything happened, I went to church camp.  While I was there, my youth leader talked about how in Christianity one is supposed to forgive everyone as God has.  Hearing that was very hard for me, so I talked to my leader more and he helped me work through everything that happened and cried with me.  He was the first person to cry with me. I felt like he truly cared about me and, from that week, I learned to forgive my ex. It wasn’t easy; some days, I still get mad at him for the things he did to me, but I want to be a better Christian, so I am working as hard as I can to forgive him.  

I have not fully overcome the conflict, but I have learned to deal with it and have started to forgive.  One day, I hope I can say will full certainty that I forgive him, but until that day comes, I will be looking to God to get me there.

Sick Humor

Osama Bin Laden is dead.

Glorify, celebrate, and embrace this moment of relief says the media. True. He had been the most wanted man in the world. He had put people in an absolute horror and unrecoverable remorse. He had brilliant ideas to cause further worldly destruction. He had killed the lives of millions and planned for even greater number. He had committed, multiple times, the most horrendous sin among mankind, murder. He had maddened the world. Now, he is gone, for good.

Extensive comments and articles about the details and expressions of relief and joy are, thus, understandable. However, people are having a hard time containing themselves as they make sick black humor out of this man’s demise. He, despite of his nearly unforgivable deeds, is a mankind.

A man. A father of six children. A husband of two wife.

His death was performed in front of his 12-year-old daughter. And, his death was confirmed by his children while his wife resulted in death during her “operation” by U.S. force because she would remain faithful to her husband.

Here, I question. “Do you think those children chose to share the disgraceful blood with this sick-minded man hated by the billions alive?”

But, sympathy is not the suitable wording of this case–apparently, those fancy and domineering religions have failed to deliver their grand message, forgiveness.

I am not an American citizen, but have friends, and relatives who suffer from the 9/11 catastrophe and the days since then. Maybe, my nauseating reactions to these comments are abnormal.

However, I know. I know, that some comments displayed online have exceeded the borderline of appropriateness.

An eye for an eye.

Is that it?