Don’t kid yourself.

If only. Are they the two saddest words in the world?

Despite what you might think of Hillary Clinton, she once nailed a thing with just 21 words. ‘Life is too short, time is too precious and the stakes are too high to dwell on what might have been.’ Maybe one of the things we all can ever do is to hope to end up with the least amount of regrets as possible. Sure, there will always some things that you wish you can change, but is it ever really that bad, or is it experience that you can draw on? Does the potential introspection make things any easier even if something wasn’t your fault? Sometimes your emotional bucket gets full and and it can be hard not to overthink things. The guilt in the nighttime, being in bed awake and replaying all of those things that you didn’t get right sucks balls. Nothing solves your insomnia better than a big fucking glass of regret and hating yourself for a while. If you do mess up though, don’t you make right the mistakes of your yesterday today? You’ll take a win in life all day long, sometimes you accept a loss but either way you get ready to go again, don’t you? Swim upstream, whatever it is, it’s something that happened, shouldn’t we all just try and get over it?

Mistakes are just things that happen to all of us, sometimes everything goes to shit. Each one of us does things that we wish could go back and do differently. Thing is, we don’t have to be defined by the things we did or didn’t do in our past. There is zero point in spending time trying to alter any of it, it’s like trying to eat soup with a fork or thinking you’ll win an argument with a lady, absolutely pointless. It’s easy to look back and regret things, but maybe smiling at what you’ve learned is better.

Perhaps the most important part of moving forward is realising that you appreciate that you shouldn’t second guess yourself and become emotionally vulnerable. We all sit in the front row of our own lives but who wants to let down their guard and show signs of heartbreak?

The devil’s right there, right there in the details.

New York didn’t happen but not for the reason you were told. Being lied to is perhaps a bit harsh, but what you heard from someone else was wrong and my heart hurts about that. Resurrecting our plan would be nice, one day?

I should have told you how I felt as soon as I knew how I felt. I didn’t, I messed up and now we’ll never be a thing. That’ll always be a constant source of regret, even though I’m happy that you’re happy with someone else. It hurts more than you’ll ever know, sometimes you can’t see what’s right for you is there in front of you. You are a Lamborghini and I was hanging on like I was cans on the back of a fucking wedding car.

We should have never even interacted or said hello to each other, far less kissed and gone further. When you’re hurting from a breakup, you open yourself up to things that you shouldn’t because you’re in a bad place. Maybe take a minute and try to identify if someone is toxic. Good luck to the next man in your life, it’s not going to be puppies and rainbows for that guy. When you begin to doubt someone and their intentions, it’s very difficult to stop that playing in your head continually. The bad stuff that happens doesn’t always fall on your side. If you have a bag of ten snakes and nine of them are harmless but one is poisonous, you’re not putting your hand in that bag, are you? Perhaps the good thing is when something ends that wasn’t right for you is that you learn to make your fuse longer.

The attention is flattering but I’m not a location, I’m a destination. Someone can be cool, have similar interests, be sweet, but when you get to a certain stage in your life, you know what will work and what won’t. Friendship is cool but more isn’t happening. No point talking someone off of the ledge every time they’re insecure about what might come next. As long as your moral compass is in the right place, it’s okay to feel okay with yourself. Don’t speak from a place of hate, speak from a place of love. There’s nothing wrong with liking not knowing where you’ll be tomorrow or the next day, taking a few risks is fine, as long as you know what it is you want.

You can be obsessed with details and sometimes your life needs a change of scenery, especially if something isn’t right.

It’s you right there, right there in the mirror.

Messing up today doesn’t need to impact your tomorrow. Regret, remorse, sorrow are all natural emotions. Accept the shit that comes your way when you’ve fucked up, but it’s not always your fault.

Don’t punish yourself, you’re looking too closely.

@TheSamMcLeod

 

 

Don’t kid yourself.

Nobody should ever be ashamed to admit that they’ve been in the wrong. If you’ve made or you’re making mistakes, then aren’t you trying new things, trying to push yourself, trying to make your world a tiny bit better? Every choice we make, we make ourselves although perhaps in that one moment we think that they’re necessary in order to learn what we need to; that whatever steps we take, are important enough to get us to the places we need to go? It’s okay to err, we’re all human, but maybe an error doesn’t become a mistake until we correct it. Don’t mistakes show us what needs to be improved though, otherwise how would we know what we had to work on? What if you had no realisation that you were making a mistake in the first place?

Clearly, some mistakes are smaller than others. Forgetting to pick up bread or milk, not putting the bins out on the right day, minor things, they’re not going to trouble you too much. If they only affect you, that’s easier to take because no one else gets hurt. Fucking things up with a friend or lover? Different story.

In any relationship, the devil is right there in the details. There can be problems in every relationship, some you know of and some you don’t. When something comes to an end, you know immediately who’s to blame.

It’s you right there, right there in the mirror.

It’s just another day, a lot of us are out for brunch, I know some, I don’t know others. It’s always nice to meet new people, to expand my social circle, you know that you’ll never like everyone you come across, but don’t you need to leave yourself open to the possibility that you might? The boys get handshakes and hugs, the girls get a peck on the cheek and hugs. One girl who is introduced to me, seems particularly cool, even my girlfriend likes her. Conversation between everyone else flows easily though, it’s a nice few hours spent with old and new friends. Numbers and Twitter handles are swapped, people are added on Facebook. Exchanges follow between all of us, plans are made for catching up. It’s okay to like new people, even if it’s someone of the opposite sex, whether or not you’re in a relationship. You can be into someone or simply be friendly, although maybe for some people it can be hard to tell the difference. Normally someone that likes someone else will try to find out more about that person and show some sort of interest in you, to compliment you, or just generally be kind. Does that really mean that they like you though in a romantic way? Not necessarily.

Like anything in life, different combinations of people click more than others. I strike up a friendship with the girl who I recently met, but that’s all it is. My girlfriend knows that we message, that we chat occasionally, that we meet up for coffee now and again, but it’s not a full on thing. She does the same with her, as well as some of the boys. No need to be jealous if you’re in a relationship with someone that you love and trust. Friendships with people of the opposite sex are healthy, aren’t they? Catching up is always the same with my girl friends. The space is important, you’re my girl friends, not my girlfriend. A hug, a cheek kiss, and a smile.

Birthdays happen, Christmas comes around, so you give gifts to the people in your life, how can it be wrong to be thoughtful? I’m out one day and it’s neither of those days, but I know that the girl wants a particular album so I pick it up for her, it can never be wrong to make a simple gesture to the people in your life. Sometimes you see something that you know a friend would like, so you pick it up for them. It doesn’t always need to be about special occasions, it’s nice to do something nice, who doesn’t like a random gift?

It’s okay for a text or instant message to end with the 24th letter of the alphabet, it just means that you’re getting a virtual cheek kiss, right? It seems that not everyone thinks so.

A message pops up and she’s had a promotion. A case of wine is sent just to congratulate her, awesome work on her part. It’s signed for by her boyfriend or partner, not someone that I knew even existed. No problem to me though, I’m not romantically interested, I’m just pleased for my friend. If only it was that easy. He spots the return address, looks into her iPhone and sees our messages. Every single one is completely innocent, no innuendo, nothing sexual, but he flips at the kiss at the end of our messages. They didn’t go one way, I got them too, but I didn’t read anything into them. My girlfriend got the same in her messages, just a little thing, it’s only a letter. Not to everyone it seems. Obviously not everyone recognises that niceness and politeness isn’t always flirting.

It kicks off between them and they split up because of me. Have I done something wrong? It’s difficult not to blame myself when a friend is hurting. My mind constantly goes back to what I could have done differently to make our friendship work. No gifts? No nice messages? Maybe the best thing to do is keep my mind busy with other thoughts, to move on, to forget about what she never told me? It shouldn’t have even mattered, we were just friends. We’ve all been in awkward situations that don’t always work out the way that we want them to. Perhaps sometimes you need to reconcile yourself to the fact that what happened, happened.

A friendship is gone, it’s time to say goodbye, there’s no use in two people remembering the same thing. Have I fucked up, or have I just not yet found a way to make things work? You can only do what you can with the information available, but should it change the way you approach a friendship? Maybe it’s naivety, someone’s perception is their reality. Her heart is hurting, so ergo, my heart is hurting.

Thing is, maybe focusing too much on something is going to fuck you up. Sometimes the best way to get through hurt is to remain positive. There can be conflicted emotions, but sometimes you need to let things go. I need to let things go, no point in clutching at straws. Sometimes you can only know what people are willing to tell you. Be okay with what you see in the mirror.

Don’t punish yourself, you’re looking too closely.

@TheSamMcLeod