Things Like This Happen

When you lose a piece of yourself because you gave it away too easily. When you lose a job your heart wasn’t in and then maybe one you put your heart into too much. When you lose that loving feeling with someone you really loved. When you spend more money than you have, place more faith in something that’s not worth your trust. When you get what’s coming to you, but it’s not what you hoped it would be. When you waited too long for a transformation that was never in the cards to begin with.

When something doesn’t go according to a plan you made, even though you know better than to make plans when plans always, always change.  When there are no words to say to someone to comfort them when all of these things happen, the easiest phrase to pull out of your bag of cliches is: “Things like this happen.”

This saying isn’t inaccurate. It’s completely true – things like this do happen. People do fall in and out of love. People fight. People breakdown. People breakup and makeup. People lose their jobs. People have their spirits crushed. People make new friends and forget old ones. People get caught up in today and don’t think ahead. People are people, and things like this happen, but hearing that never makes anyone feel better.

Because everyone wants to be the exception.

We want to be the lucky one who gets away without a scrape, a scar, or a tear. We don’t just want the piece of cake that we can eat, we want the whole bakery and maybe the rest of the block too. We want to be the one who enjoys all the finer things in life without paying for the finer price tag. We want to test our limits but never push them too far and we want to love without boundaries, without reservations, no matter how much relationship residue we build up. We want to find a job that’s perfect with a paycheck that’s too high for it, work a few days a week, and vacation for months in Europe, just because we can. We want everyone we love to love us back, and those we aren’t that into to quietly go about their business without being taxed with the task of breaking someone’s heart needlessly. We want the silver lining – but not the rain.

But things happen. And if they didn’t, we would wish they did. Because perfection seems nice when it’s unreachable, but if we really could have everything we ever wanted, we would still always wonder when the bottom would fall from beneath us. We would still always wish for something more, even if we had the world. We would still see our life as we see it now, even if it looks a little brighter than what it feels like now.

Because the best of us, the ones who are damned-and-determined to reach those dreams, to find that love, to pave that path, to see that big, beautiful, attainable world out there – we’ll never be satisfied. We’ll keep pushing ourselves and those closest to us to demand more, to push for better, and to believe in tomorrow.

And as long as we’re living, things like this happen, so do things like that. Things happen, people change, relationships ends, jobs come to a close, chapters start over, apartments get messy along with hearts – but I’d rather see it all fall apart than to stay put or to settle for even one day of my life.

Let things happen so I can happen, too.

Daily Gratitude: I’m thankful to see the beauty in change and to embrace it with all that I have. Oh and for two very wonderful friends who talk me down from a ledge for an hour or so on Gchat and right next to me.