Inspiration #1. Bryan Reeves.

"Every day, for five years, I chose her a little less."

Text by Bryan Reeves. Source: here.

I spent five years hurting a good woman by staying with her, but never fully choosing her.

I did want to be with this one. I really wanted to choose her. She was an exquisite woman, brilliant and funny and sexy and sensual. She could make my whole body laugh with her quick, dark wit and short-circuit my brain with her exotic beauty. Waking up every morning with her snuggled in my arms was my happy place. I loved her wildly.

Unfortunately, as happens with many young couples, our ignorance of how to do love well quickly created stressful challenges in our relationship. Before long, once my early morning blissful reverie gave way to the strained, immature ways of our everyday life together, I would often wonder if there was another woman out there who was easier to love, and who could love me better.

As the months passed and that thought reverberated more and more through my head, I chose her less and less. Every day, for five years, I chose her a little less.

I stayed with her. I just stopped choosing her. We both suffered.

Choosing her would have meant focusing every day on the gifts she was bringing into my life that I could be grateful for: her laughter, beauty, sensuality, playfulness, companionship, and so much more.

Sadly, I often found it nearly impossible to embrace—or even see—what was so wildly wonderful about her.

I was too focused on the anger, insecurities, demands, and other aspects of her strong personality that grated on me. The more I focused on her worst, the more I saw of it, and the more I mirrored it back to her by offering my own worst behavior. Naturally, this only magnified the strain on our relationship…which still made me choose her even less.

I was too focused on the anger, insecurities, demands, and other aspects of her strong personality that grated on me.

Thus did our nasty death spiral play itself out over five years.

She fought hard to make me choose her. That’s a fool’s task. You can’t make someone choose you, even when they might love you.

To be fair, she didn’t fully choose me, either. The rage-fueled invective she often hurled at me was evidence enough of that.

I realize now, however, that she was often angry because she didn’t feel safe with me. She felt me not choosing her every day, in my words and my actions, and she was afraid I would abandon her.

Actually, I did abandon her.

By not fully choosing her every day for five years, by focusing on what bothered me rather than what I adored about her, I deserted her.

Like a precious fragrant flower I brought proudly into my home but then failed to water, I left her alone in countless ways to wither in the dry hot heat of our intimate relationship.

It’s torture for everyone.

I’ll never not choose another woman I love again.

It’s torture for everyone.

If you’re in relationship, I invite you to ask yourself this question:

“Why am I choosing my partner today?”

If you can’t find a satisfying answer, dig deeper and find one. It could be as simple as noticing that in your deepest heart’s truth, “I just do.”

If you can’t find it today, ask yourself again tomorrow. We all have disconnected days.

But if too many days go by and you just can’t connect with why you’re choosing your partner, and your relationship is rife with stress, let them go. Create the opening for another human being to show up and see them with fresh eyes and a yearning heart that will enthusiastically choose them every day.

Your loved one deserves to be enthusiastically chosen. Every day.

You do, too.

Choose wisely.

Life lesson #1. My first love.

He stepped down, trying to not look long at her as if she was the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking.     

Leo Tolstoy,

Anna Karenina

I fell in love suddenly. I fell in love deeply and forever, and I fell in love with the person who had deserved that from the very beginning, but I was too blind to see it.

All my childhood and later up to a junior high school, I was always the funny one among my friends. Even though I was growing up the fastest and my body was becoming more and more feminine, boys had never seen me as someone to fell in love with. They were always treating me as a best friend (which in my case - being gay - was the best option possible), but it made it hard for me to get close to girls my age. I don't know why they saw a danger in me, as I clearly wasn't interested in dating nay of these guys, but during all 8 years of education I'm talking about now, I only gained 3 good girl friends. I was spending most of my free time with boys, playing video games or basketball, and of course helping them with girls. Did they know about my sexuality? I don't know. Maybe some of them were guessing there's "something wrong" with me as I'd never had a boyfriend, but they never brought that topic up. And it was good that way.

Was I okay with my own sexuality? Well, yes and no. I knew there's nothing wrong with me or that being gay is bad in general, but I was highly concerned how it will affect my life and relationships with people. I grew up in a very small town, and after finishing primary school there, I started my junior high school in a bit bigger town, but it was still a small community. Poland isn't a very progressive country, so I knew I can't be out just like that, even though part of me wanted to be. I'm not saying I was struggling, because neither my family or friends weren't homophobic, but here it's still not good to be out and proud. And I'm not saying it taking into consideration only me and my reputation, but also my family. I knew that my coming out or, oh god, bringing a girl home as a romantic partner would become the main topic for next few months, and believe me, hearing people talk shit about me and how my parents "didn't raise me properly" wasn't something I was willing to experience.

Putting my mental and emotional background aside, I was having a big problem with self acceptance when it comes to my body. As I mentioned earlier, I was the one of the first girls in class who started to look feminine and gained a true woman curves. Other girls would make fun of me because of that, even despite the fact how ridiculous it may sound to you, it was disgusting for them to have a  bit bigger breasts or nice, round hips. In the beginning, I was literally happy about how my body changed. I always wanted to have typical shapes, bigger hips and nice waist, and even though I had it all so much earlier then my classmates, their attitude towards me cause me to literally hate every inch of this body I was always hoping for. I started wishing I was skinny like them, that my breasts would disappear and stop being so visible. On top of that, till now, even though I'm almost 20, I was struggling with HUGE acne problems. As you can tell already, maturation hit me hella hard, so my skin was literally a mess. I consulted so many doctors and the only solution seemed to be only medications based on hormones. That was a big no for me, as I was scared it will change my body even more, so I'd rather be covered in pimples than make my hips even one inch wider. 

Years were passing by. From 12 years old, scared girl I quickly changed into 16 years old teenager full of complexes. I was still hanging out with boys only, having huge crashes on my female classmates and seniors in my junior high school. I still wasn't in any relationship, and with this amount of hate I had to myself it was better to say alone. That was what I thought. 

I don't really remember how it happened, but I know it was sudden. Maybe it was one of the boys who said something meaningful. Maybe it was a compliment from someone on the street. Maybe I hear something very encouraging in the tv, I really do not know.

But what I do remember, is how one day I woke up and headed to the bathroom, as always. And I looked in the mirror, and for the first time even I was just literally happy to see my reflection. I forgot about the acne, I forgot about mean people at school, I totally forgot about standards and what is said to be pretty or not. Again, I loved my body. I was happy to see my healthy, mature, still changing body and I wanted to slap myself for wishing for it to change.
I fell in love for the first time, and I fell in love with myself, my body and who I am as a person. It's been 4 years and I'm still in love, taking care and keeping myself healthy and beautiful in my own way. Now, as another person came to my life, giving me even more love, I know that one morning 4 years ago can be one of the most important moments of my life. Because without it, I don't think I could be able to love someone as much as I love my significant other now. Maybe I should hate all those people who used to make me feel bad about myself, but looking back at it, I think I'm kinda thankful to them. At least I'm not ashamed of my acne scars now, I'm not embarrassed to wear short skirts and show off my big thighs and round hips, and no matter how many beautiful woman are around me, I don't feel any less pretty than them. Finally I learn how to love myself for who I am and who I am meant to love. 

As it's the best part to end my little story, I'd like to thank my current partner for adoring not only my personality, but also every inch of my body, I hope now you know why I was getting so emotional when you were complementing me in the beginning. Even till now, every time you say I'm pretty my heart skips a bit, because finally, I can believe it completely. 

Song for today (unrelated to the topic of today's post): Jutes - Till it hurts 

As always, post published without further editing or rewriting.