It's just a 4 letter word but it's one that effects everyones life in such a large way that you don't really realize. Love is something everyone looks for subconsuously, love is something most people feel on a daily basis. Love seems to be the root of a lot of good, & evil. People have died for this word, been hurt for this word, have been diseved by this word...but people have also healed for this word, given back for this world, have saved for this word, & have been inspired by this word.
Who knew four letters could be such a complicated thing. Who knew that one small word could make everything better or worse.
L-O-V-E
I'm still trying to figure out what it means to me. I thought I knew at one point. I thought I had it figured out...but then I watched others use it & now I wonder if I will ever truly know what it means to me.
I used to love everything & everyone. I was angry at things but I never NOT loved them. When I was younger I used to believe that if I loved things I would be loved in return. I found out later that my childish thoughts were why I am hurt so bad now. That just because you love something never means that it will love you back because everything has a form of free will & nothing HAS to love you. Nothing HAS to give a damn about you at all.
That's how I got hurt. That's how I became jaded by the smallest biggest four letter word out there.
Love.
So now...now I sit back & reevaluate it all, everything I have loved, everything I put myself into & I can't help but to wonder why I was so blindly stupid to believe a simple four letter word could make the world so much better if not everyone is using it like I think it should be used. Is there truly a right or wrong way to use it? I think there is...but I'm just one in many. Very small, just like this word.
How do you figure it all out? Do you do what you think is right? Do you follow the people you have seen? Should I change my actions to get a different result even if it means hurting someone else in the process because of this damned word? Does that make me better or worse? Does that make me right or wrong?
Do I even matter out of many?
This four letter word seems so vast & every time I hear it I question it more & more but when I was younger I never would have. I would have known people have meant it to be a good thing, or maybe I just never noticed it to be a bad thing before because I was taught to see it as something wonderful by movies, or culture. When it comes in to play now, though, I stop & have to wonder why it hurts so much. How could something so beautiful hurt so very much. How could something that is meant to save, kill so many?
All in all I don't think I will ever know, but I have learned that something ignorance is bliss & I miss the days where I could love without questioning it.
To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides.
David Viscott, How to Live with Another Person, 1974
This is the first time I have as a Valentine on Valentine's day & I don't think I can tell if it feels good or not yet. It's nice to know I'm not alone while everyone else it together, but it doesn't feel that different from any other day other then we get gifts from each other specializing in "love" & "how we feel" towards one another. Girlfriend & I do this everyday though. I know the importance of telling someone how you feel about them everyday. That you love them anyways, because you never know what is going to happen to them in a moments notice.
For example my Cap'in got into a really bad car wreck one night when she was supposed to meet up with me. She could of died. Thankfully there is no long lasting damage.
It's things like that that make you really think. Really understand the word Love & how much effect it has on just about anything.
Three years ago I got hurt pretty bad by two people. I felt betrayed, hurt, sad, lost, confused...a variety of things that is hard to explain to someone on a good day. The result of this happening to me though was that I swore off love & anything like it. I stopped trusting people, I became angrier then I already was, etc.
I'm not sure how many people I hurt in this time period but I know I did the best I could with what I knew/had. The love I had for people still showed through just in not so positive ways, because my love was so guarded, in this time though I still got hurt because I cared. It's all a bit complicated....
Three years later though one of the people who hurt me so much came back into my life. We had our 8th month anaversary on the 3rd of February & I don't think I've ever loved quite this much in my life. It's still a bit jaded, but no where near what it was before. I'm happier because of it too. I think everyone can tell as well.
Honestly, I don't think I will ever feel love as purely as I did in 2008, but I don't think it would be the same if I did. My love wouldn't be as strong as it is right now if it was the pure. It would have never changed to what it is now. I would never have become the person I am now. That is something to show love to in it's self.
I still don't know where my love stands with Girlfriend because I have such a hard time accepting it when it comes to romantic situations. But there are moments. There are pure moments when something happens or I look at her & I can feel her patiently chipping away that coat of ice around my heart. It makes me nervous, but it also makes me happy. Nervous because I never want to be hurt like that again, happy because I know I'm worth more now then I ever way before because of it all.
I still get dazed by the fact that she's with me again, that she came back, that she is so patiently working her way back in to the standing she was before. I just hate to keep a lady waiting.
~Cyran J. Harrington~
Couples are jigsaw puzzles that hang together by touching in just enough points. They're never total fits or misfits.
Diane Ackerman, One Hundred Names for Love: A Stroke, A Marriage, and the Language of Healing, 2011
Not only is this a holiday of love but my birthday. I expect all of the cupcakes today, haha.
My love story? It's a rather dull thing due to all the reason I have put into it. All the words that I know to translate it from my head, to the world around me.
It's hard to say weather I have been truly hurt or not I have been so guarded all my life because of how my father raised me, after all you can't have emotion to run a kingdom. That's treatery. I did feel though, because of Raven I felt more then the God's ever believed I could.
Then my father found out & destroyed that as he did anything else that he disapproved of. I looked for her for centuries & when I found her she had found someone else. Someone that I knew as well & I let her go. I did love her, still do to some extent, but when I let her go I realized she was no longer the Raven I had feel in love with as a young man, & I was no longer the man she needed to keep up with her next steps. As far as I know though we are still friends & hold each other in high standing, weather that is because of personal relations or because we are both political leaders of a country is questionable.
One of the main reasons she let me go & vise verse was because of her son. In Egypt...we had started something. Something dangerous but something none the less. This one is the most complected top for me honestly because I'm not sure what all happened. I'm not sure if the blame was on me or him. Or perhaps a combinations of both? After all, it takes two to tango. He was just a boy though, so perhaps it should fall on my manipulative shoulders. Everything I did for him though was true to my heart. It was never to get back at his mother or his father, it was never in spit of anything. That would go against my rules of being honest in a general sense. It would be just plan wrong to him in my opinion. Never-the-less we fell apart.
In the middle of her son there was Alistar which was an even bigger conundrum. He loved me, & I loved him very much in a strange way. He was my bestfriend & we would have been good together if there had been the chance, but I choice her son over him. I still have no reason for this, & I know it hurt him. It wasn't because I didn't care about him, or that Zane was a better option. It was just how it happened. The closest thing that I can come to for a good reason why I did this was so that I didn't hurt him more then I already was going to. I think there are fundamental parts of him & I that wouldn't work out but they are very hard to pin point. I don't think what I did to him was wrong, but it wasn't right either. When it came down to chose I chose Zane.
Then they were both gone from my life because of two foolish, childish girls that didn't know how to respect others along with keeping their drama to their selves. In a flash I was alone with just my daughter & sister by my side. I left Cyran's life for a while so that we could both reconstruct ourselves.
When I came back there he was. Isa, the second person I have been engaged to in all of my lives. The one who waited for me to catch up with him. The one who puts up with me & my whims along with me babbling. The one that never complains & has more then the respect of my country, part of it's heart. He is also a most fabulous cook.
He is my Valentine now, & until he says otherwise.
~Kradaonous Ravonos Codwell~
Sometimes when you look back on a situation, you realize it wasn't all you thought it was. A beautiful girl walked into your life. You fell in love. Or did you? Maybe it was only a childish infatuation, or maybe just a brief moment of vanity.
Henry Bromel, Northern Exposure, The Big Kiss, 1991
I've only loved three people in all of my lives. (Or at least from what I can remember from them.)
The first one was when I was a small boy, the person who took care of me after I had been beaten, raped & who knows what else. (I go out of my way not to remember if I don't have to. ) He died though before I could grow up & tell him how I felt or even get better to talk more then a head nod here & a head shake there. I wasn't okay back then.
The next one was the women who was nice to me when no one else would be. When no one else tried to understand the way I was she heard me crying &, even though it was against ever rule of the temple, she walked about to me holding my hand as I got through my nightmares. I left the temple so I never had a chance to tell her, but she was too in love with someone else at the time anyways.
Then I met her by happens chance at one of my friends shows. She looked so out of place but like she was doing her damnest to fit in. She must have been dragged for sure. I watched her some then walked right up to her & offered a hand.
She took it.
I lead her just out side of the club so she could get a breather from all the smoke & the sweat from the pit. I just quietly watched as she regained herself.
"Thank you so much...um..." She looked a bit dazed. God was she cute when she did that.
"Krade." I replied with an out stretched hand which she took yet again for a shake.
"Well that's a nice name & it starts with the same letter mine does!" She perkily siad. 'Katie. I'm Katie Dalton."
I asked her out on a series of dates after that & we got married then she died I got revenge, then we ended up here.
She made me so happy I don't know how to explain in words. There just aren't the right ones made yet. I can tell you, I no longer feel that way.
She divorced me & hurt are two kids pretty badly & many other things happened. I found the temple girl again (Shanti) & that is my wife now. Then my Knight & Shining armor came back to me & is now my boyfriend (Justice.) I'm happy, I couldn't ask for anymore. My kids are great, I have two of the best lovers in the world.
But I will always be jaded from before. I will never feel quite as purely as I did back then.
~Krade Degrick Cullen~
Love is the difficult realization that something other than oneself is real.
Iris Murdoch (1919 - 1999)
I fell in love, got hurt. He's still in the mental institution because of it then met my Jared, have 4 kids with another on the way & I am happily engaged.
I don't have time for these stupid sap stories. I've fixed my problems & that's what counts.
~Emma Rose Cullen~
They wouldn't call it falling in love if you didn't get hurt somemetimes, but you just pick yourself up and move on.
Gregory Thomas Garcia, Elijah Aron, Jordan Young, Raising Hope, Cheaters, April 2011
My life is complected when it comes to love. It's had it's ups & downs along with so much else. But all of that would take to long to write up & I have said everything I have wanted to the people that matter.
Who is my Valentine's this year? My children.
Through all of my lives I have always wanted to be a mother & i have been a mother in each of them in one sense or another. So my love on this day goes out to my kids. All of the, because even in my death I never stopped loving you. I never stopped being there for you & I am still here for you now. If you need me all you have to do is call/message/text/come over. Which ever is easiest for you. You have all grown in such a wonderful way & I am more the proud of each of you.
I love you all even if you no longer love me.
~Carolina Marie Sterling Ashmore~
There is always some madness inlove. But there is also always some reason in madness.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 - 1900), "On Reading and Writing"
1) People who whine a lot to get there way pisses me off more then most things in the world.
2) It's not that I do not care to fight with you about idiotic things, but that I do not find you worth wasting that much energy only to come to the conclusion that we have opposite views on the situation that neither are willing to change minds on.
3) Going into any of the armed forces is a very last resort & I'm sick of people talking to me about how it's the "best option" when it's really just the easy way out in my opinion.
4) I act like I know what people are talking about more then I actually KNOW what people are talking about because I hate being laughed at by my peers, or asking them questions in case they look down on me. I look it up later online.
5) I have a dream of fighting a war with gummy bears...& WINNING.
6) I can't wait to stop smoking & start working out again. I feel like this will improve my quality of life somehow.
7) I would like there to be an ocean in my living room.
8) I would rather live in a world full of zombies then living people any day, cause with the zombies I at least know
where I stand as I blow their brains out.
Yuki's Confessions
1) This whole hermit thing is actually pretty cool. A lot less drama involved in it really.
2) I don't actually think I'm going to get to where I want to be but I will never know if I don't try.
3) Love is a somewhat silly emotion that leave room for too much weakness but seem an necessary emotion to show for the least amount of grief about it.
4) I really do miss cosplaying but really don't have the money for it & would perfre to cosplay people from real shows then Anime.
5) The voices don't like you. :)
6) I live for the experiences & the good times.
7) I don't believe in happy endings.
8) I'm more scared of losing her, again, then death.
9) I have a tendency to try & break through the road blocks then go around them.
10) The only emotions that comes out of me without too much effort is meanness, & being sexual.
11) I didn't give up photography as a carrier because I wanted to, but because I was looking to see what I wanted in life. It will not make me enough money in enough amount of time to get what I want from it until much later.
12) If you ask me a question I may give you the correct answer for it. But I will always give you an amswer.
13) Honestly, if you don't like something about me that's great & all...but I most likely won't try to change it unless I find it something dire to my life. Hell, I may do it more just to troll your ass. :)
14) You will learn more about my emotional state of mind from the music I am playing then from listening to me talk.
15) I made the blog/journal thing because so many people shut be down when I try to have an emotional talk with them to get out what I need. This way I still get out what I need & people can read it if they want to but I no longer have to deal with people rejecting my emotions so they don't stay bottled up.
We always have remembered it a bit differently haven't we dear? Then again we are very different people with different opinions about the world now aren't we? The world would be too dull if we were all the same.
I had forgotten that it was raining that night...or perhaps I had chocked it up to the spray from the wave hitting the rocks below while I sit on the peer. Thinking back now...I know it was too high up for it to have been that. I could barely feel myself at that point though.
I have no idea how long I had been sitting there when you came along. That scene had played over & over in my head of them being dragged away, the yells, the crying, the disappointment. I do not know how long it had been since I had eaten, slept, or drank anything...I remember the night before, or it could have been that morning, throwing up from crying so hard. My cloths were stained, ratted. My body was weak. My life was fading, it all seemed to right when it was happening.
Everything I had lived for was suddenly ripped from me. To be taken to a better place because of my self loathing thinking I wasn't doing them right by keeping them feed in an abandoned warehouse when someone could be properly taking care of them. I still think it was the best choice I could have made for them...even if it did almost kill me to lose the only things I was living for.
I wasn't thinking anything while I stood on the peer looking down at the sharp death that lay below covered by the serenity of water. I had been here many times. It was my place away from the world after all. My father showed me it before he died explaining to me that it was isolated from the world & could be mine if I wanted it. I mainly used to go out there to talk to him. For guidance, or personal time away from what life I didn't actually have.
That night was different though.
That night I didn't know how I had arrived there or why. I felt nothing other then emptiness & heart ache. It honestly didn't feel like me in my own body ironically enough. Then there was suddenly a voice next to me.
"It won't be pleasant drowning once you hit those rocks." It said, male in origin, but kind & thoughtful. Like whoever it belonged to actual cared about this stranger looking longingly at the harsh landing below.
I didn't respond to him. I can't remember if it was by choice because I was hoping he would leave me alone, or just because if I spoke I would cry tears that I had none left of. It was silent for a while, I thought maybe he had left. "My names Dillion." He finally said again that same smile in his voice, "What's yours?"
Again he would be met with silence, but that didn't seem like it was going to stop him.
"There's gotta be something worth living for that you can't see." He informed me. On a normal day I would have smiled & made a smart remark to him while conning him out of what money he had on him. But this time around...I shook my head & shrugged with less then a care in the world.
"You cold?" Came another sympathetic question.
I believe I sighed lightly nodding my head. If I was going to die on my own terms it was obvious it wasn't going to be that night. Not when someone was doing what they could to talk me out of it, or get me to come down. "I've got a a place near by so you can take a shower to warm up & some cloths you can borrow."
He's hand was out stretched to me when I finally turned to look at the person who had been there for who knows how long at this point. I didn't take it as I swung my legs over to get off the rickety wooden peer. He promptly took the lead while I followed not bothering to remove the hair in my face.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Before I knew it I was in the warm shower, raising my body heat. The walk was as empty as the rest of the days had been lately. Wet, tasteless, heartbreaking. When I finally decided I had been in their too long I turned off the water, watching the dirty water run down the drain before stepping completely out.
One of the first things I noticed on the counter was a sweater & sweater laid out for me, long enough to be a dress if worn correctly. I couldn't help to note how odd it was that there was clothing still there for me upon getting out when normal one of my sisters would take them from me in mid shower. The memory almost brought a smile to my face...almost. As quickly as it came though, it was gone...emptiness & stomach pains replacing it.
I put the red sweater on moving at whatever pass my body willed me to, which was not quickly mind you, to where I heard him.
I happened to be the living room.
A blanket & pillow were already out for me. A hot cup of something was on the coffee table, along with some soup. He was back in the kitchen getting something else ready I assumed. Just as I stepped out from the corner he was entering again. "Umm..." He stummbled a moment. "I thought you might be hungry, & there's some tea there for you too."
I nodded lightly watching him as he stuck his hands in his back pockets awkwardly. It was the first time I had gotten a good look at him. I couldn't find anything to complain about at the moment anyhow. I moved slowly over to the couch sitting down gently, in front of the bowl.
"It's rude to turn down someone's hospitality." My fathers voice rang in my head even then, but with the advice I picked up the bowl & started eating. I would never know how hungry I was until I finished the bowl rather quickly, I hadn't even noticed him sitting next to me until I put the bowl back down & realized he had eaten some too.
"Would you like some more?" He asked.
I shook my head no as I picked up the tea sipping it. It didn't take long after that for the exhaustion to set in.
"Tired huh?" He asked softly after a large yawn from me. "If you need me I'll be over there asleep, don't be afraid to get me if you need anything." He informed standing up stretching. "Good night." He smiled at me moving toward him room.
"My name is Carolina." I finally announced getting him to swiftly turn to face me one last time. "Cali for short." I was too tired to take note of the look on his face before situating myself on the couch.
"Cali..." I heard him trail off a bit. "It's a pleasure." If he said anything else though I didn't hear it.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
I stay with Dillion for about a week before I had decided I had over stayed my welcome. When I started getting comfortable.
He was sweet, too sweet almost.
He would come home & greet me like he had known me for ages. Offer to make dinner though I had already made it. Lent me cloths though between the time I had arrived & the time I had left I had gone to the warehouse to get some of my own. The couch was comfortable enough & he offered his bad on more then one occasion. I said little that wasn't cryptic & not enough for him to figure too much about me out. The less people knew the better, in my opinion.
I didn't mean to be there when he got home that day, but he got off early & didn't call to surprise me I assumed.
"You're leaving?" He asked a sad tone to his voice.
I paused in my packing for a moment without turning around to look at him. "Yes." I answered continuing what I was doing.
"Oh..." It was almost a puppy whine it was so draped in disappointment, it made a part of me sick & the other a bit glad that someone felt something for me. "Without saying good bye?"
"I was going to leave a note." I answered as calmly as I could looking over my shoulder at him while sipping up my duffle. "I'm no good at saying good bye face to face." I offered a bit of comfort, as much as you could all it that.
"I can understand that...." He said back moving about to get stiffly comfortable. "You have somewhere to go, or money?"
"I'll figure it out." I informed him while making last rounds to get things from the odds & ends of places. "Getting work won't be hard for me, never had a problem with it before after all."
"Take this then." He said holding out some money to me. "It should get you by for a bit." He told me a stern look in his eyes.
I was never one to refuse free money. "Very well." I took the money shoving it in my bag before throwing it over my shoulder & heading toward the door.
"Will I see you again?" He asked after me, his voice chasing for any sign that he meant something to me other then a place to get back on my feet for a week.
I stopped before a stepped out the door, thinking. Going over & over weather he honestly would or not. Weather I would let him. "Most likely not. I've always wanted to travel." I answered him over my shoulder while I stepped out the door. "Good bye Dillion." I said with a smile that I hopped at least looked genuine.
I didn't give him time to respond before I was gone.
Who knew that I would long for him so much after that that I would randomly call & hang up on him when he answered while staying with a man so that when he would call back, they would answer. I could blame it on them being jealous after riffling through my things.
We would talk for a bit before awkwardly saying good bye again.
I always wanted to go back. To say hi to him when I would see him on the street but him not see me. To go back to the peer in case he might be there to say hi & see what happened after that.
But I couldn't bring myself to ever actually do it. You may call me a coward cause I was that...I just didn't know how to receive love from a man that wanted nothing in return.
It scared me.
To I went back to doing what I did best, conning them. Selling my body to them to live. You could have almost called me a love slave if you wished, or a mistress depending on how you look at it....
But I never forgot that ordinary boy that cared about me not for my body...but because he actually cared.
