Why does love die?

Why does love die? Lies kill love but don’t get me wrong; I am not talking about cheating or lying to your couple, which of course, is a gunshot wound. I am talking about the lies we told ourselves.

We lie when we put expectations on the other one and judge them on those expectations. The fact is that we love the idea of them, not really who they are, and we suffer when the truth comes out.

We lied to ourselves when we blame the time for making the time insufferable and lost passion. Time is not guilty; we could make the most of that routine. Every morning with the intimacy of knowing ourselves at waking uptime, we could find the passion of exploring each other with our lips or just enjoying sharing a cup of coffee. And at bedtime, after the routine good night kiss, we could find time to look at ourselves, enjoy each other, feeling us, touching us, be together in silence, or having a conversation. But we would have to dedicate time and effort, and we rather lie to ourselves than admit that it is the lack of action or the carelessness which has guilt.

We told ourselves the fairytale of a strictly equitable love story, but we are humans. It cannot always be 50/50, sometimes we can only give 10, and the healthiest thing is to recognize that the other has to put up the additional 90 that is missing. But showing our weaknesses is always complicated; we hide our flaws and convince ourselves of the injustice of asking for a little bit more.

When we say that our sadness will go away as soon as someone else comes to fill our voids with love, refusing to admit that there is no such easy way, happiness does not come from outside. First, you work on yourself, and there is no way to harvest a healthy love without sowing self-love.

But above all, we lie to ourselves when we say that love dies. It does not die. It changes or evolves, and sometimes that change comes with the bitter taste of having to let go. The love that remains turns into a memory, sometimes a good one, sometimes not. We can only keep the lesson that came with them, and I could assure you that if we don’t learn from it, it will repeat until we do.

I can only repeat that that strong feeling never dies. There is nothing more exquisite than enjoying it and letting yourself fill up by it; it’s like a cocktail that intoxicates you, and regardless of the hangover, it will have been worth it. I hope even if it hurts, we are willing to feel it again with the lessons of the previous hangover.

¿Qué mata al amor?

¿Que qué mata al amor? al amor lo mata la mentira, pero ojo que no me refiero precisamente a un engaño o a que te pongan los cuernos, que claro que eso para el amor significa un balazo en el pecho. Me refiero a las mentiras que nos contamos a nosotros mismos, esas son las que lo matan.

Nos mentimos cuando ponemos expectativas en el otro y lo juzgamos bajo la máscara que nosotros queremos que esa persona tenga, en lugar de aceptarlo tal cual es. La mentira está en que decimos amarlos, pero no es así, amamos la idea que nos hicimos de ellos y sufrimos cada que se asoma la verdad.

Nos mentimos cuando culpamos al tiempo y decimos que él ha hecho que la rutina nos pese y la pasión se pierda. La culpa no es del tiempo, porque la rutina puede disfrutarse y junto al café de cada mañana en la intimidad de conocernos recién al despertar, nuestros labios podrían encontrar la pasión de recorrernos. Y cuando llega el momento de dormir, después de darnos el rutinario beso de buenas noches, podríamos encontrar tiempo para mirarnos, disfrutarnos, sentirnos, tocarnos, para acompañarnos en el silencio o para platicar. Pero habría que dedicar tiempo y esfuerzo y preferimos mentirnos, preferimos decirnos que es culpa de estar tanto tiempo, no de la falta de esfuerzo o del descuido que fuimos teniendo.

Nos mentimos cuando compramos la historia de un amor estrictamente equitativo y no queremos admitir que somos humanos. No puede ser siempre 50 y 50, a veces solo podemos dar un 10 y lo más sano es reconocer que el otro tiene que aguantar con un 90. Pero sabes, mostrar nuestras debilidades siempre es complicado, ocultamos nuestro 10 o argumentamos injusticia ante el miedo de pedirle al otro que dé un poco más.

Nos mentimos cuando decimos que nuestra tristeza se irá en cuanto otro llegue a llenar nuestros vacíos con amor, negándonos a admitir que no existe ese camino fácil. La felicidad no viene de afuera; primero se trabaja en uno mismo y no hay manera de cosechar un amor sano si no se siembra con amor propio. 

Pero sobretodo, nos mentimos cuando decimos que el amor muere. No muere, cambia o evoluciona y en ocasiones ese cambio viene con el sabor amargo de tener que soltar a la otra persona dejando en nosotros lo que se transformó en recuerdo. No nos queda más que entender que lección venía con ese trago, tratar de aprender de ella, porque te aseguro que si no aprendemos se vuelve a repetir.

Repetiré que aquel sentimiento tan fuerte nunca muere, que no existe nada más exquisito que disfrutarlo y dejarte llenar por él, que es un coctel que te embriaga y que sin importar la cruda habrá valido la pena. Y que lo mejor que podemos desear es volver a vivirlo con las lecciones de la cruda anterior.

BELIEFS: which role do you play?

If we look at the definition of life, we can find that life is the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death. What I like the most from this definition is continual change.

If life is just constant change, we do not exactly know what the future will bring to us, and sometimes it is hard to understand why certain things happened. We are asking ourselves, why does this happen to me? and just want to better plan our upcoming situations, we observe the present from the edge where we are standing on. Life shows us two paths to follow and based on our beliefs, culture, experiences, scars, dreams, and those little pieces of madness that everyone has, we choose where we are headed to walk.

I believe that we are made of several beliefs, our parent’s beliefs, the ones we learned from our lovers, the ones shared with our friends, and the ones we built ourselves. For me, there are three main beliefs:

First, life is a one-way ticket journey. Life moves forward into change, if you do not get up, do not move and walk, you do not remain still, other people’s decisions are driving you. You could decide to be a pilot or copilot in your life but you are not able to decide to stop, because time doesn’t.

Secondly, if you are not the main character in your life, you play the victim’s role. I know saying the victim is a strong statement and I do not have the intention to underestimate people who went through an injustice situation beyond their control. Nevertheless, I believe in: “you cannot control what happens to you but you decide how to react to it” I think that statement is true. This is when you decide which role you choose. 

If after falling 5 times, we get up 6; when we decide to forgive the one who hurt us without the need of listening to any apology from them; when we go against the tide and dismiss the criticism. We play the leading lady or leading man role. 

Otherwise, we could repeat to ourselves that life has been so hard that we’re not able to get up 6 times; or let life move forward while in our copilot spot we wait for that apology we claim to deserve. We could even stop ourselves from doing what we love the most by being terrified for not being strong enough to support criticism. We could always claim to be a victim of circumstances.

The same role-play occurs daily in our lives. How we treat the people we like and the ones we dislike or if we decide to smile or to put a long face to strangers that cross our way are good examples. Another belief I have is that a genuine smile can change anyone’s mood.

And the reality is that the victim role could be a very comfortable one. I used to tell myself that because of work I do not have enough time to do anything or that my last relationship didn’t work because my partner didn’t love me strong enough, blaming work or my partner instead of accepting my part of the responsibility. Even with this blog, I haven’t started before justifying myself by stating that I wasn’t a writer.

Is not about being always positive or productive, nobody should try to live a perfect life which is impossible, and even trying to, must be tiring. We need to learn to choose when we have to fight our battles and when we don’t. Some days we get up as soon as the alarm clock sounds and some days we need five more minutes; there are times we are ready to take on the world and others in which we just need Netflix and chill.

There are not good or bad ones, there are just decisions.

And the last belief I will share today is that the best way of living life is to be in peace with ourselves. Sometimes the world keep saying that we need to be in a constant pursuit of happiness but we cannot be happy at all times, and feeling sad is healthy and necessary to express our feelings. However, we can always be at peace knowing that our actions and motives are aligned.

Trough writing I express myself and let my feelings flow pursuing that peace. I love writing, I do it every day, to order my thoughts, to vent, to give advice, to create stories, and to express love. 

To be the leading lady of my own story, I try to follow this beliefs that resonate with me. If you want to, share with me one belief you have and I’ll love to read about it.

A little bit about me…

3 years ago someone broke my heart, and I stayed there for longer than I should. I’m not here to talk about love or heartbreaking moments, even when you could find in some of my stories a lot of romanticism and sentimentality (I’m a hopeless romantic, and I won’t change that).

I’m here to share my ideas, stories, and thoughts; writing turns into some kind of best friend since I start creative writing lessons five years ago. I always remember how my first professor makes me feel, I don’t remember his exact words but the meaning was something like this:

“We all tell stories. We do it when we tell others how our day was; when we share an unforgettable memory or explain something that happened to us, and even when we gossip. But some of us treasure doing it, and so we choose the most beautiful words, trying to engage the person who is listening by showing the story little by little, making them enjoy as much as we enjoy telling the stories».

When I felt broken and with no idea of how I could put my pieces back together, someone told me great advice: start dating yourself. Do you want to eat at that great new restaurant? Take yourself out to dinner. Do you want to go to the new exposition in town? Buy the tickets. Do you feel like sitting around without doing anything? Find a comfortable bench and sit. By being alone we can speak with ourselves and know ourselves more deeply, letting us be who we truly want us to be. 

We can laugh about buying the most expensive dish on the menu to later discover it tastes awful. Or when after 20 minutes of seeing that masterpiece we keep thinking how can I understand a fuck about this. We can belt it out while we are driving and our favorite song starts playing and feel nostalgic when an older couple passes by romantically holding hands.

By being alone we learn to laugh about ourselves and to let us feel sad when needed and that’s how truly enjoy who we are. At meetings in our jobs or negotiations, we play different roles using a mask that shows a limited version of ourselves; we don’t need that most of the time.

Recently I heard Brene’s Brown TED talk about the power of vulnerability and I just love the way she describes wholehearted persons like those who have the power to connect with others. Those wholehearted people are the ones that have the courage to be imperfect and the power of connection came as a result of authenticity; they were willing to let go of who they thought they should be to be who they were.

Without any mask, 

I’m someone who loves art even when I feel it’s hard to understand. I keep myself learning about it because it moves me.

I’m someone who loves novels. The idea of someone creating stories out of nowhere blows my mind. I believe it’s a perfect example of how amazing the human mind can be, It can be able to create and conceive stories with the only purpose of communicating a lesson, knowledge, or even just feelings.

And most of all, I’m someone who loves to wonder about life. My perfect date is to sit with a glass of wine and tasty food to talk about what we have learned from life, what hurt us the most, what makes us laugh or sigh. If you tell me about that thing that makes you feel passion, I will love to see that shine in your eyes that automatically appear.

To feel heartbroken was the best thing that could happen to me because while I was in a struggle for worthiness, I learned how to be vulnerable. 

It used to scare me to feel vulnerable sharing the way I see the world with others, but now I love it. I am sure a lot of people see it in the same way I do and many others see it in a completely different way or an opposite one. It’s neither good nor bad, there are just different points of view.

So, I think about 4 sections for my blog, that will show what I found I like about myself when I put my pieces back together in a way I like them to be. 

  1. There will be a section about art. Maybe if I shared what I learned and understand about some piece of art, someone else can feel moved the way I do.
  2. Movies or series reviews. But not in a technical way, like analyzing the performance of an artist, the photography, or the production; just sharing what does the story makes me feel or though.
  3. My tales. So many years of loving literature make me write my own imaginary stories.
  4. And finally, what I wonder about life. I believe if we listen when we are asking ourselves questions about life, we learned a lot.

The definition of courage it’s from the Latin word «cor» meaning «heart» and the original definition was to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart, while I write and share with you I’m practicing having the courage to be imperfect.