Goodbye, goodbye.

Have you ever noticed that it’s the people on the periphery of your life that are the ones unlikely to cause you hurt? Nothing wholly unexpected, let’s face it, you can’t let everyone in, it’s impossible to keep everybody close. That said, are there ever any right people in your life to get hurt by? Perhaps the thing with emotions like being disappointed, letdown or being betrayed is that it’s always the people you love the most who’ll be behind any pain you experience.

Take relationships, if you’re unhappy to a point where you want to stray, you just end things, don’t you? If you feel like you have the desire or need to try something with someone new whether on an emotional or physical level, then by all means, have at it. When things end between two people, one will always experience more hurt than the other, that’s just life, but it’s better not to be living a lie rather than misleading or being misled by someone. No one wants to be a pity project, to be a boy or girl that someone stays with just because it’s convenient. Some of us will happily settle for being safe in a relationship but only if you’re both on the same page, it’s a wonderful thing to be someone’s everything.

Life happens though, things change and you can begin to question everything you thought you once knew. It’s easy to think that nobody should be trusted but that’s no way to spend your waking hours. Why shy shouldn’t you hate someone if they’ve done the worst thing to you that anyone can do to anyone else? Let someone think that they’re appreciated and loved and then show them unintentionally that it’s all fake? What do you do, how long does it take for you to catch someone in an untruth?

We play, we pretend.

The ping of a notification signals an incoming text message just as the moon turns blue. A phenomenon that happens once nearly every three years. The moon thing, not the texts, although the regularity would be about the same. The ghost of a girlfriend past, she’s probably drunk as per. ‘Can we meet?’ You have to marvel at the stones on her, you couldn’t mark her neck with a blowtorch. Two people in the world know how much she messed up previously but that number is only so low because one person wasn’t interested in a battle of ‘he said, she said’. It must feel pretty good on some level to invent a story that’ll satisfy you, to placate as many people as you can peddle bullshit to and pretend that it actually happened. Doesn’t there come a point where you don’t even care enough about someone to set the record straight? What annoys most is the fact that there was no anger or humiliation, betrayal was the order of the day, feelings crushed by a girl who was supposed to a be a best friend and someone to grow old with. She’s not the woman most people thought she was. Fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice, I fucking deserve it.

When the walls of denial are finally broken down and you get the other person to finally admit to themselves that we’ve been lied to, we can go one of two ways. Try and find some sort of messed up path in your mind that you’ll be able to justify their lying and get past the infidelity and/or emotional turmoil or realise that you’re worth more and that it’s better to cut ties altogether. Nobody needs to keep pulling on a particular thread, to continue with something that isn’t ever going to end well. Once the dust settles, you’ll know you were right to trust yourself.

So we catch up, curiousity often gets the better of us. In my experience, anything can be fixed she said. In my experience, she was full of shit. In the end, all that was offered that meant anything was a barely audible, ‘I’m sorry’. There’s so much that I should tell her about the way she made me feel but frankly, she deserves no more of my time. I was out of there faster than A-Train on Compound V, you can’t negotiate with a man who doesn’t need a particular person in their life, especially if it’s someone who messed you about. The more baffling thing is you now have someone who has the temerity to cheat on their current boyfriend. You think I didn’t know? I debated long and hard about turning around and saying something but I didn’t. It makes sense that if you waste a second of your life hoping that someone will suffer for what they did, then you’re allowing them to hurt you again. Fuck that feeling shit shit, there are millions of us that deserve better. Walking away, what should be an awful moment feels like anything but.

Kiss the way we were goodbye.

@TheSamMcLeod

The day bleeds into nightfall

Unsurprisingly, Mark Twain had a way with words. ‘Good decisions come from experience, experience comes from making bad decisions.’

The best of people can do things that aren’t right and they can make shit decisions now and again, but it doesn’t necessarily make them less of a human being deep down. That said, it also doesn’t make how they behaved towards you less wrong. We all get lost sometimes, you need to make choices about lots of different things every day. Life isn’t always easy and sometimes people fuck up. Maybe the trick is not to let your trust in others go when that happens. How much tougher does that become when you decide to leave someone you loved for someone new?

Chances are that we’ve all been stabbed in the back by people we trusted the most. Ever been lied to by by someone you loved because you covered up their mistakes to try and protect them? Sometimes there’s going to be days when no-one is going to be there for you but yourself. Betrayal hurts like nothing else, it can be devastating and destroy a lot of things you believe in. It makes a mockery of the trust you had in others and can leave you feeling like you’re all alone. Sure, you can bounce back from a lot of things but betrayal is hard to forgive. Unless you’re an incredible human being, forgiving is not forgetting, right? For some of us, perhaps all we can betray is our conscience, because let’s face it, we’re all in control of how we treat others. You’re not in charge of someone else’s loyalty, it doesn’t matter how good you are to them, there’s no guarantee they’ll treat you the same way. Just because something goes wrong with whatever you have going on, it doesn’t mean that you get to become the wrong in everyone else’s life. Be kind always.

Sometimes the people you love the most turn out to be the people you can trust the least. You have to make decisions that are best for you and nobody else. You can have bad luck but it’s easy to get that tangled up with your bad decisions, unless you sort out in your own head what’s going to be the best thing for you.

We can all fight to hold onto something, and now and again, we try and find the strength to let go, even if we don’t want to be seen as weak or failing. Life is too short to make the wrong choice twice though, so hopefully you evolve, you move on and you trust those people who you think you can count on. Once bitten, twice shy. Some are willing to betray everything you shared just to try and look good in the eyes of other people. It’s laughable though when they think they’re cleaner than ivory snow.

A poor choice was made and not for the first time, the grass wasn’t greener.

I let my guard down and then you pulled the rug.

I can’t explain the pain of someone fucking you over. Hopefully not a lot of us have experienced it but even now, it still hurts. Just emotions, I guess.

The worst part is that it could’ve been forever, fuck, it was a major thing. It was a mistake you said, but maybe the error was mine for trusting you and covering your shit up. I would never do to you what you did to me. I would never hurt you just to make your betrayal hurt you back. I’m enough of an adult to forgive you, but I’m not fucking stupid enough to take you at your word ever again. Someone doing wrong doesn’t give us the right to do wrong back. A feeling of wanting revenge is a horrible emotion, sadly it turns out that sometimes the person that you take a bullet for is behind the trigger.

I don’t give a damn about what people whisper, the truth is finally out there for the people who are willing to look for it or have seen it. Seems like heartbreak makes you find out who stands beside you and who believes the shit that gets fed to them. Every day is a school day.

It’s a pity that you fucked this up, I was getting kinda used to being someone you loved.

@TheSamMcLeod

Dance in the light of a lesson learned.

Bad things happen to us, good things happen to us, just the way it is. The same is true about people who come into your life, some you keep around and some you’re quick to let go of. Trust your judgement, hopefully you have things going your way more often than not, and you keep around the good folk who deserve to be in your life as a friend.

Now and again, someone comes along though who turns into something more. Somebody new is on your radar, you’ve noticed it and you start giving them some attention. Trust rears it’s head again, you dip your toe in the water if you’re sure that there might be something between you both, and if you’re lucky, that trust is mutual and perhaps something beautiful is just beginning.

Does it matter how long that something lasts? One night between two consenting adults can be mindblowing. It might just be random circumstance that brings you together but if you’re both single and want the same thing for that one night, then why not? Sure, there’s going to be more nights and days together with someone if you really like each other. You took the chance, they did too, now you’re sharing something together. What happens though if you misjudged yourself, what happens now?

Maybe when someone makes you a promise, they cross their fingers, hoping that they won’t let you down and think that makes everything okay. Just because something isn’t a lie does not mean that it isn’t deceptive. Perhaps the greatest distance between two people in any relationship is a misunderstanding about what the future holds. Not much else for it, the time has come to say goodbye.

Out into the unknown.

Aren’t most relationships onesided? Sometimes you’re the fish and sometimes you’re the fisherman, but when something ends it can still sting. It doesn’t matter who did and said what, the hurt will be real for a while but you get by, you move on. That said, is it okay to care for an ex, obviously not romantically, but as a person? They gave you happiness at some point in your past, so why should you hate them? We’re all different, so it’s fine if they don’t wish you the same. Maybe you don’t care what they think about you because you don’t think about them at all any more, you’ve moved on and a day comes when you’re happy again.

As soon as an ex sees you smiling though, isn’t that the moment they decide that they want you back? It can be a fucker of an emotional hot potato if they decide to get in touch again, what do you do?

One day a message arrives saying ‘I miss you’ from the girl who could have been an almost forever, a maybe forever, but she was definitely something. Was is the operative word. It’s okay to take a few days to think about what to respond with, if at all, but it’s nice to be polite. I know what those eight characters mean though, it’s just that the next person she replaced me with didn’t work out. When looking back at your history with someone and you know that they don’t do anything for you any more, you’re probably doing something right for yourself. If someone did something bad enough to make you have them not be in your life, you back your trust the second time not to be stupid enough to let them in again. Fool me once and all that. Getting with an ex would be like taking your driving test when you already have your licence. Pointless, stupid, a waste of time and effort.

Messages continue to follow and it’s clear that she wants something more than I’m ever going to give. It’s probably a dick move to reply at all but the replies are completely vanilla, hopefully the hint gets taken. Just because someone hurt you once, it doesn’t mean that hurting them back unnecessarily will do you good or make you feel better. The best idea is to probably try and forget the person who forgot about you, even if they tell you ‘I love you because I need you.’ What a shit and selfish phrase. I need you because I love you sounds infinitely better, doesn’t it?

You’re my ex. Ask me as many questions as you want but I no longer owe you any answers. Don’t worry if I’m with anyone else now or not, all you need to know is that it won’t ever be you. Everyone deserves to move on and find someone that makes them happy, good luck with everything to you, to all of us. We’re not enemies, not friends, now we’re just strangers with some memories.

It’s time for moving on, there’s some things you can’t forget.

@TheSamMcLeod

@YouMeMusicLife

Trust is a luxury.

Day 10.

2019. The resolutions we make will be mostly for ourselves, won’t they? It’s okay to be thinking of someone else though, someone who you care about. Caring and thinking about other people is a good thing to do. Maybe pat yourself on the back if you want them to have a better year than you, or maybe just be humble and wish them nothing but the best. Much better to spread the love, right? It makes us giggle, it makes us smile and also makes us happy when we remember those moments that we shared with the special people that were in our lives in the year just gone. Sure, there’s some regret but it’s just life. It has a way of giving you an incredible high one day and then making you plummet the next.

We all have a lot to ponder in our quiet moments as the year progresses, we pay a lot of attention to our thoughts. How far we’ve come and how far we still have to go, how strong or how weak we are. You hope for good things to happen to you, whilst hoping that the worst things in your life don’t come to be. Isn’t it true that maybe the only thing that needs to change for you to have a good year is your way of thinking?

Thinking of someone else is a good way to start the year. If that person wants to be a part of your life, they will make an obvious effort to stay. It’s okay if they need to go though and be with someone else, what’s the point in reserving a place in your heart for those people who don’t want to make an effort to hang around?

Trust is a luxury.

She stood out. That’s not always easy to do in a world when there’s so much hurt going on every day. We were together forever, but on and off forever too. Intrinsically you know there are a lot of relationships that were never meant to happen but this one did. You know it might be something better and different when you don’t necessarily like someone the way that someone else does. I liked the things that she wasn’t even aware of, the way she would smile, the way she twirled her hair. The way she acted weird, the words that she could never pronounce correctly. Sometimes it’s about the story with someone and I wanted to keep on turning the pages.

Things changed because one day something happened with her. There are so many reasons to be happy, don’t all of us deserve a happy ending? Another choice to make. When you start compromising your morals, far less yourself, it’s probably time to change the people you have in your life and so it ends.

A lot of us are hopefully good people but when we have those type of relationships that go wrong, we need to find closure. You try to get rid of that relationship but isn’t it always worth mending a friendship if you get past the romantic stage? No grudges, but you cut that shit off because you know it’s gone.

You keep going though. No matter how many mistakes we make, or how we get through our lives in the year ahead, aren’t we still way ahead of everyone who isn’t trying?

No point in hating. I wish you nothing but success.

@TheSamMcLeod
#YouMeMusicLifeResolutions

The world could change it’s heart.

Day 2.

The time for the tradition of making resolutions in 2019 is edging closer.

If something has happened to you this year that’s knocked your self-confidence, then isn’t there only one resolution to make for 2019? Love yourself more? There are other things that are important, of course there are, but is anything more vital than your own self-esteem being at a healthy and high level? Maybe one of the best days you’ll ever have arrives when you decide that your life is your own. It sets you up to be better to everyone else that you care about or that you come across during every day, doesn’t it? No point in beating yourself up over any mistakes that you might have made in the past. There’s no longer a need to say or make an excuse to anyone, now you lean and rely on yourself. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to stand in your own sunshine.

Life becomes better, surely? Those difficult decisions that you need to make in your life are a bit easier to decide upon because you trust yourself more. What’s the point taking this incredible journey through your life with the handbrake on? Wouldn’t that make you feel more deserving of all of the good things that you desire? You might find that you have more focus than ever before, you can go and try and achieve all that you want. Treating yourself better can be tough but how great could it feel, if and when you get there?

You move forward and and hopefully you doubt yourself less than you did before. Your opinion of yourself increases, so maybe you don’t need the attention or validation from other people that you did before, certainly not those individuals that caused you pain in 2018. Why worry about what others think of you, do you care more about their opinion than you do your own? Accept who you are, but go ahead and make the changes that you want to, not just because you think that someone else wants you to be different. You’d give anything for an inner stability, wouldn’t you? It’s tough when things you have going on are negative or uncertain at times but all of us can push through, even if you might need some help now and again. Keep the good people close.

Maybe there’s a hope that’s waiting for you in the dark.

Don’t we all need to realise how important that we are to the lives of some people? How essential you can be to someone that you might never even have met. Don’t we all leave something of ourselves when we interact with another person? Maybe 2019 will be the year that you find a shit ton of stuff to care enough to make room for in your life. You should be number one though.

No one wants to be relying on someone else for our happiness. If you have someone that you love and are in love with, then that’s fantastic, but make you happy first of all. Let someone in when you know that you’re ready to trust yourself to be in touch with everything that you’ve got going on. Maybe it’s the case that if you can’t love yourself, no one else will be able to. Isn’t it only you that’s responsible for you?

Go and do that one thing that you want to do in 2019. There will always be someone out there to tell you that you’re making the wrong decision but lose them from your life, fuck what they think. It’s about you. Baby steps, but you don’t need to know what the entire world needs, what is it that you need? Go and do it. Why waste time?

Each of us has suffered various emotions this year. Feeling defeated at times, hurting at loss, struggling to know where we are or where we’re going, but we’re still here.

Beautiful people don’t just happen. Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.

We’re stars and we’re beautiful

#YouMeMusicLifeResolutions

Am I too obvious to preach it?

The author John Green, quotes in his book “The Fault in Our Stars” that “Some people don’t understand the promises they’re making when they make them”

True story, it’s easy to promise someone something and not follow through. It’s not always the easiest to make a promise and then deliver.

I’m going on holiday in ten days time with someone close to me. I have made that someone a promise that is life changing for us whilst we’re away. Today, she upped the ante. Will either of us have the courage to follow through?