If it's meant to be?

Is there really a hidden meaning to everything? 

Behind all the small and large choices and decisions that we make every moment of every day, is it, in fact, a path that leads us to our destiny?

Karma. And the idea that all the hard work and efforts pay off. That a person gets what they truly deserve. 

And there's one fine day when the fog is lifted, and everything makes perfect sense.

Is there truly a grand scheme falling in place - one piece at a time?

Or is everything in our daily life just a haphazard stream of events? 

No big picture. No Karma. 

Just a series of decisions - with consequences, of which we are solely responsible.

Are we just grasping at ways to make sense of the reality we're faced with? 

Reassuring ourselves by taking comfort in the age old "everything happens for a reason" concept.

The way I see it, human beings are so small and insignificant, that it's hard for us to fathom a reality where there's no great big master plan.

For most of us, it's hard to accept a lot of what goes wrong in our day because we think it's unfair, or that we deserved better.

And perhaps that is the reason why this concept emerged - to make it easier to deal with reality. 

To help us make it through the day without breaking down. 

To keep fighting. 

Maybe its naive. Hell, even downright gullible. 

And sure it's wrong to take the easy way out, to expect things to happen without paying your dues, or to dismiss the importance of putting in time and effort altogether, and instead foolishly thinking, "It will work out, I deserve this."

Fate and destiny happen, in huge part, depending on the actions we take.

Having said that, at some stage, we need the motivation to keep struggling, despite the odds stacked against us. 

We need to feel that everything will be okay. 
That happiness - true happiness - awaits us. 

That somewhere along the line, there will be a moment when we realize why everything that went wrong, went wrong. 

An explanation for our failures. 

For the choices we were forced to make. 

For the people we had to leave behind for the sake of the bigger dream.

It's about keeping the faith - faith in ourself, in our abilities. 
Faith in some higher order or grand scheme of events slowly coming together just for us.

And, most of all, faith in the knowledge 
that even though, at this moment, 
it seems like the most difficult decision we've ever had to make, 

a few years down the line, we would gain the perspective and the wisdom to realize that this was the path we had to take to reach where we've reached. 
To achieve what we've achieved. 
And to become the person we were supposed to become, 
right from the start...

C'est La Vie

There's so much more to university than academics.

you spend these few years of your life learning how to live

learning how to laugh and to cry, 
to fight and to make up

learning how to respect others, and to appreciate differences

learning how to make it in the face of adversity,

beating the odds,

surviving,

getting hurt and picking yourself up again.

you spend these years realizing there's all kinds of love out there,
more than just romantic love

realizing what true friendship really means

realizing that there are people who wont judge you by your past mistakes,
who know there's more to you than that,
these people won't ridicule your dreams,
or try to bring you down.
instead they'll silently stand by you, 

and be there for you whenever you need them,
no matter how many silly fights or arguments you may have had.

these are the people you will begin to think of as family,

to love, and respect.

you spend these years growing up

making that journey from innocence into adulthood

making friends

falling in love, 

and then falling out of it!

dreaming, 
and having the courage to pursue those dreams,

making decisions that may well decide the course of the rest of your life.

and then one day, before you know it,

it's all over.

everyone you've grown to love is taken away and scattered.

and the more I look back at our time together,

the more I realize

that watching everyone get up and leave -- it sure as hell won't be easy.

and that's one last thing I hope these years teach me,

how to say good bye.

and let go.

What Happens When You Live Abroad

By Chelsea Fagan

|| Thought Catalog ||

A very dependable feature of people who live abroad is finding them huddled together in bars and restaurants, talking not just about their homelands, but about the experience of leaving. And strangely enough, these groups of ex-pats aren’t necessarily all from the same home countries, often the mere experience of trading lands and cultures is enough to link them together and build the foundations of a friendship. I knew a decent amount of ex pats — of varying lengths of stay — back in America, and it’s reassuring to see that here in Europe, the “foreigner” bars are just as prevalent and filled with the same warm, nostalgic chatter.

But one thing that undoubtedly exists between all of us, something that lingers unspoken at all of our gatherings, is fear. There is a palpable fear to living in a new country, and though it is more acute in the first months, even year, of your stay, it never completely evaporates as time goes on. It simply changes. The anxiousness that was once concentrated on how you’re going to make new friends, adjust, and master the nuances of the language has become the repeated question “What am I missing?” As you settle into your new life and country, as time passes and becomes less a question of how long you’ve been here and more one of how long you’ve been gone, you realize that life back home has gone on without you. People have grown up, they’ve moved, they’ve married, they’ve become completely different people — and so have you.

It’s hard to deny that the act of living in another country, in another language, fundamentally changes you. Different parts of your personality sort of float to the top, and you take on qualities, mannerisms, and opinions that define the new people around you. And there’s nothing wrong with that; it’s often part of the reason you left in the first place. You wanted to evolve, to change something, to put yourself in an uncomfortable new situation that would force you to into a new phase of your life.

So many of us, when we leave our home countries, want to escape ourselves. We build up enormous webs of people, of bars and coffee shops, of arguments and exes and the same five places over and over again, from which we feel we can’t break free. There are just too many bridges that have been burned, or love that has turned sour and ugly, or restaurants at which you’ve eaten everything on the menu at least ten times — the only way to escape and to wipe your slate clean is to go somewhere where no one knows who you were, and no one is going to ask. And while it’s enormously refreshing and exhilarating to feel like you can be anyone you want to be and come without the baggage of your past, you realize just how much of “you” was based more on geographic location than anything else.

Walking streets alone and eating dinner at tables for one — maybe with a book, maybe not — you’re left alone for hours, days on end with nothing but your own thoughts. You start talking to yourself, asking yourself questions and answering them, and taking in the day’s activities with a slowness and an appreciation that you’ve never before even attempted. Even just going to the grocery store — when in an exciting new place, when all by yourself, when in a new language — is a thrilling activity. And having to start from zero and rebuild everything, having to re-learn how to live and carry out every day activities like a child, fundamentally alters you. Yes, the country and its people will have their own effect on who you are and what you think, but few things are more profound than just starting over with the basics and relying on yourself to build a life again. I have yet to meet a person who I didn’t find calmed by the experience. There is a certain amount of comfort and confidence that you gain with yourself when you go to this new place and start all over again, and a knowledge that — come what may in the rest of your life — you were capable of taking that leap and landing softly at least once.

But there are the fears. And yes, life has gone on without you. And the longer you stay in your new home, the more profound those changes will become. Holidays, birthdays, weddings — every event that you miss suddenly becomes a tick mark on an endless ream of paper. One day, you simply look back and realize that so much has happened in your absence, that so much has changed. You find it harder and harder to start conversations with people who used to be some of your best friends, and in-jokes become increasingly foreign — you have become an outsider. There are those who stay so long that they can never go back. We all meet the ex-pat who has been in his new home for 30 years and who seems to have almost replaced the missed years spent back in his homeland with full, passionate immersion into his new country. Yes, technically they are immigrants. Technically their birth certificate would place them in a different part of the world. But it’s undeniable that whatever life they left back home, they could never pick up all the pieces to. That old person is gone, and you realize that every day, you come a tiny bit closer to becoming that person yourself — even if you don’t want to.

So you look at your life, and the two countries that hold it, and realize that you are now two distinct people. As much as your countries represent and fulfill different parts of you and what you enjoy about life, as much as you have formed unbreakable bonds with people you love in both places, as much as you feel truly at home in either one, so you are divided in two. For the rest of your life, or at least it feels this way, you will spend your time in one naggingly longing for the other, and waiting until you can get back for at least a few weeks and dive back into the person you were back there. It takes so much to carve out a new life for yourself somewhere new, and it can’t die simply because you’ve moved over a few time zones. The people that took you into their country and became your new family, they aren’t going to mean any less to you when you’re far away.

When you live abroad, you realize that, no matter where you are, you will always be an ex-pat. There will always be a part of you that is far away from its home and is lying dormant until it can breathe and live in full color back in the country where it belongs. To live in a new place is a beautiful, thrilling thing, and it can show you that you can be whoever you want — on your own terms. It can give you the gift of freedom, of new beginnings, of curiosity and excitement. But to start over, to get on that plane, doesn’t come without a price. You cannot be in two places at once, and from now on, you will always lay awake on certain nights and think of all the things you’re missing out on back home. 

The original article can be found here:

http://thoughtcatalog.com/2012/what-happens-when-you-live-abroad/

There's Something About a Sunrise

There's something very powerful about a sunrise.

Perhaps its the stillness of a new morning, the dawn of a new day, full of new possibilities and opportunities.

Perhaps its the sparkling of the earth as the sunlight gradually cascades along the landscape, gently giving life to everything it touches.

Perhaps its the chirping of birds, or the light morning breeze.

Or perhaps, its that moment when you are standing outside on your balcony, breathing in the fresh morning air, freshly brewed cup of coffee in hand, staring out at the sky slowly turning from red to a clear blue, and you realise how much there is to be thankful for.

Another day, another turned page - a blend of jubilee and melancholy in that new morning. There's a part of you that yearns for the days gone by. But the sight of the sun as it awakens the world is awe inspiring. Its almost as if yesterday's mistakes have been wiped clean, and you're getting a chance to start afresh.

I'm not an optimist by nature. Far from it actually. But between sunrises, spring songs, and clear skies, its hard to avoid it on days like this.

“Dreams are always crushing when they don't come true. But it's the simple dreams that are often the most painful because they seem so personal, so reasonable, so attainable. You're always close enough to touch, but never quite close enough to hold and it's enough to break your heart.”

― Nicholas Sparks, Three Weeks With My Brother

I Will Not Forget You

By Chelsea Fagan
|| Thought Catalog ||

"Time often passes by us in what feels like bursts of wind. It sweeps up everything around us in a kind of blind rush, moving and eroding patterns before we can catch our bearings. By the time it has passed — a month, a year, a relationship — it’s hard to even tell what has actually happened. And it isn’t until things have settled back down, into a place where they can be recognized and counted, that we start to feel the full weight of what has changed. Time with you was a burst of wind, and when I think of it, from memory alone I want to pull my sweater tighter around me.

I can’t say exactly what makes certain people more difficult than others, but there are undeniably those we love who refuse to fit into any shape we could possibly cut out for them. Their whole being seems frustrating, elusive, incompatible. And with you, there was always a palpable difficulty. I was a child again, playing with my wooden block toys, attempting to insert a triangle block into a square-shaped cut-out. It never fit, and yet I didn’t possess the perspective or the self-confidence to understand that the shapes simply didn’t coincide. For so long, I wondered what I was doing wrong, trying over and over again to make the impossible happen.

You taught me many things about myself, about what it means to love and care even in the face of cold indifference. There were glimpses of compassion and understanding, sure, but I have no doubts as to the dynamics of our interactions. I was always chasing, and you barely had to move to stay out of my reach. Those moments of affection, without which the whole ordeal would have seemed worthless, became like tiny flecks of gold found in near-endless piles of soot and rubble. If I could only keep digging, I thought, I would eventually uncover something beautiful — something I needed to believe existed between us.

I never did, of course. There was never a deeper level to our story than what you allowed on the surface. In that way, I admit that you were decent. You were up-front, and never explicitly promised more than you would ultimately be prepared to give. It was almost entirely me, weaving elaborate tapestries of double-speak and hidden meanings that spelled out only the things I wanted to hear. There was nothing I couldn’t misinterpret for my own desire, my own need to be needed by someone in whom I invested so deeply.

But the wind blew past us, the summer over more quickly than I’d ever seen one go before. There was a moment we were sitting on a porch, listening to cicadas and talking about keeping in touch, and then it was gone. Our hands were touching, and then they weren’t. If I had known that moment would be over so soon, I would have probably said goodbye then. I would have liked to go out with a little dignity, a little closure — not drawn out over months of barely speaking, of me attaining perpetually higher limits of humiliation in my refusal to accept the truth. To have confronted your unavailability head-on would have been a ripping off of the emotional band-aid, one I only thought I wanted to spend the cool autumn months gently tugging at.

We didn’t speak; we didn’t keep in touch. For a long time, I remained convinced that this period of distance was a strange emotional coma from which you would suddenly awake. You would tell me that you were sorry to have been so weird, that you had always loved me, that I had always been right. I suppose I have watched enough movies in my life to believe that no story, if unsatisfying, is ever at its very end. The tiny flame of hope that this may all have been a petulant phase in your otherwise limitless capacity for love and understanding was perhaps more painful than the harsh finality of your disinterest. To keep grasping at ever-slimmer chances of a happy ending was frustrating, and then ridiculous, and then profoundly sad. I would have liked to just go straight to sad.

After our time flew past me, the passing of months and years became more soft, more understandable. Time once again resembled the lazy river that it had always been, not catching me in its refusal to slow down and let me breathe. The months turned into years, and every last bit of dust from our strange little hurricane had settled. My thoughts of us had become — have become — tiny vignettes that pass in front of my eyes only when faced with a direct reference to you. And they no longer carry a sting, or a turn of the stomach, or even a remote desire to reach out. Life is better (as I had always imagined it might be) when I am surrounded by people of whose love I am completely sure.

I will not forget you, though. I don’t think that you particularly deserve my memory, nor do I flatter myself into believing that you return my sense of vague wistfulness. There is no part of me that wants to return to the limbo I existed in for so long, or even the often-imagined parallel universe in which you reciprocated my feelings to the letter. I do, however, want to remember what it feels like to be hurt, to want, to need something so desperately only to find out that your life is perfectly fine without it. As much as the little scar on my knee will always remind me to watch out when I am running, yours on my heart will teach me to be kind. Because I know what it feels like to be cast aside with indifference, and I know that it’s a pain from which the body itself takes a long time to recover. You will live in my mind as a cautionary tale, a fable of how much damage words can do — especially when they are insincere. And though I am not nostalgic for what we did have, I am hopeful about life being filled with everything we didn’t."

The original article can be found here:

http://thoughtcatalog.com/2012/i-will-not-forget-you/

Growing Up

Sucks.

Growing up sucks.

It means facing reality. It means realising what's the best decision you can make when life brings you to a crossroads. 

When it gives you a chance to be close to him, a chance to have what both of you had to give up on.

When a decision seems like a simple choice between being in a city close to him or taking a job that is a million miles away, growing up is realising that the simpler option is the wrong one. Realising that being close to him should not be your priority at the stage, realising that he should not, in any way, be a decision criteria for you.

Growing up means having a conversation with him about this, and telling him what you think is best for you. It's weighing your options and explaining the reasons to him, knowing full well that none of those will make you feel any better when you realise that this decision is why you're apart. That this decision is why you can't be with him, why you won't be meeting him anytime soon, and why both of you may probably eventually lose touch and move on with your lives.

Growing up is listening to him talk about how much he is going to miss the city he is working in right now when he returns to school for the spring semester. Its cheering him up saying he can always go back there next summer break, knowing full well that that would mean him not returning home when you are back there for the entire two months in the summer. 

Its reminding him that staying there is a better option than going home, even when all you want to do is shout and scream and tell him you want him back for what may well be your last summer together.

And when you're sitting in your room, accepting the full weight of reality, beginning to realise that you may never be together again, looking at old pictures of the two of you, and wondering if this is it to your story, if this is the sort of ending you ll get, these reasons will begin to seem worthless and trivial.

But that's the thing about growing up. You can't escape reality and fantasize about ending up together. You can't pack up and run to where he is. You have both thought about what is best for you at this stage in life and you have both made a decision. And you have to live with it.

Growing up is forcing yourself to toughen up, hold your head high and accept the consequences of the option you've settled on. It's having a conversation with him, missing old times, and realising the time you could spend together but have to give up. And through it all, having the courage to stick to your path, and putting on a brave face for both your sakes.

Growing up is facing the fact that sometimes when you make a choice, it's not just for you, it's for the people in your life that you love and care about. That deserve to be a a higher priority than a boy you fell in love with in high school. It's because of the circumstances you are in and cannot change. It's because there are things in your life that you need to do. 

And it's about realising that at some point, you have to follow your own path, instead of following after someone else.

Growing up is about making tough choices and yet somehow having the courage to keep the faith that if the two of you are meant to be together, you will eventually find your way back to each other. 

And if you don't, then that's just another bit of harsh reality you're going to have to deal with.

Yes, growing up sucks.