T.

Posted on by daragaladriel

I could not honestly bring myself to write this letter. Maybe, a part of me is still so desperately clinging to the hope that the magic moment of truth will come. That you will stop fighting this. Or maybe, it is just really me who fell in love and this whole thing is all in my head.

My God, there are so many things I feel but for the first time in my life, I am having trouble articulating my feelings. This moment has been brewing for months, I keep saying to myself and to everybody that I was done. But I guess I have just invested too much of myself in what i thought to have been us.

Thank you for everything. No amount of love and gratitude could even describe how I am so blessed to have met you in my life. In your detachment, you have empowered me to be a stronger, better version of myself. You inspired me to stand up and climb to build myself back up brick by brick after I was so broken.

I was healing when I found you, and because you held my hand as I was fixing myself, I have gotten used to you being there for me. Maybe you’re right, maybe this is not love, at least not the kind of love that left a permanent scar and wound in our hearts but that does not mean that it is not love nevertheless.

Thank you for being my best friend, my partner, my rock, my lover and my companion. Thank you for sharing your world to me. It took us a long time to get here to this point and it was such an honor to have witnessed you open up more and grow.

Thank you for helping me heal and having my best interests at heart. I know I am not the one for you. I am finally slowly accepting this fact as everyday comes. I am honestly so heartbroken because we could have been beautiful, i know. Empashis on could have been.

Sometimes I hate her so much for breaking you because you have so much that you can give. So much love, encouragement and happiness that we could have shared together but you know, if I was supposed to be your person then you would have been sure about me.

Thank you for letting me love you and for loving me back in your own way. Sometimes I felt it too. One day, I hope that you find someone who will make you brave enough again to open your heart and let someone fully love you. I get it, that is not what you want right now and so I must say goodbye.

Goodbye baby, you know how much I love you, you know how much this breaks my heart. But I know you can’t, and I cannot force you. I love you, damn it, it beats the shit out of me but I do, but I love myself more.

I deserve someone who will love me the same intensity as I love them because I will be solid and no matter what I will keep fighting for it to work as long as I am not the only one fighting. I am giving you up, for my sanity, for my well-being and for my happiness. I hope you are proud that I am finally deciding to do this by myself and for me.

I don’t know what the future will hold for us, but you are one of those people that I will never forget for the rest of my life. Thank you for always pushing me to grow, for believing that I am capable, for treating me as an equal and most of all for truly accepting who I am, warts and all.

I hope you stay happy and finally realize one day how beautiful of a person you are. I hope you learn to love yourself all parts of you the light and the dark, the way I saw you and the way I did, if possible even more. Goodbye my love.

On Letting Go of True Love

Posted on by daragaladriel

Earlier this year, I met someone whom I thought was the one. I spent almost 5 months now picking myself back up. Honestly, it was one hell of a ride and I would never trade it in for anything. I learned so much from what happened and the best and by far the most important lesson of my life which is to finally learn how to love myself, warts and all.

They say that you cannot truly love someone until you really love yourself. When I met him, I was content with my life. Spending time with him was truly magical, I have never felt that kind of happiness and comfort in my life before. We knew right off the bat that there was something special between us, the sparks were fireworks and I swear it was so palpable to everyone who got to see us in the same room.

“The heart wants what it wants.” – Selena Gomez

He asked me what I wanted from him in the beginning and my response was “I don’t really know, there’s obviously something here. Why don’t you just let what this is develop to what it will be?” He wanted to nip whatever we had in the bud but I persuaded him not to. It was electrifying, feeling so close and so comfortable with someone that fast. That never happens IRL!

“You will always fall in love, and it will always be like having your throat cut, just that fast.” – Catherynne M. Valente

We were both in denial that we were so smitten and happy together. No one wanted to acknowledge that we were catching feelings. I told him he made me happy and we spent a wonderful week after then he left. We had the talk he wanted to leave and I did not stop him.

“When someone is stupid enough to walk away from you, be smart enough to let them go.”

When you come from a place of love and understand someone’s reasons for making a decision, you must respect their choice. Love is not enough to sustain a healthy relationship. It takes two whole beings to make a relationship work and when someone is not ready you cannot force them. Why would you even want someone who you have to convince to love you, commit to you or whatsoever?!

“There is always a side A and B to every story.”

I got mixed reviews when I was telling people about our story but the version that I have decided to tell myself is “He loved me so he let me go and I loved him so I let him go.” This is the closure that I gave myself that permitted me to move on. If you ask me why I did not stop him, the answer was simple. I knew that he has a set vision for where he’s at in his life and he told me since the start that we had an expiration date. You cannot change someone’s mind once it has been made up.

” I never wanted to try with anybody but with you I felt like trying. “

One of the last things I said to him. The moment he realized he did not see a future with me was the moment I found out that I was ready. I gave him all of me, and then some more that I did not even think was inside me. When he left, I decided to redirect all the love that I had uncovered back to myself. And honestly, I have never been more happy, confident and carefree in my life. He helped me get over my fear of opening up and rejection.

“The moment of maximum danger is the point of minimum fear.” – Will Smith

I am now ready to be somebody’s teammate, support system, cheerleader and partner in life. That really says a lot considering I was definitely a self-centered person, emphasis on the WAS. With him I learned that LOVE was selfless, you just wanted the other person to be happy even if you won’t be part of it. Life will always throw you curveballs like this, I guess you fall for somebody who was so perfect for you to push you to grow into a different and better version of yourself.

“I’ve been burning up since you left.” – Sam Smith

In the last 5 months, I managed to write and defend my thesis, get a permanent job offer and got my diploma. Karma is so real, I knew that I was not experiencing that excruciating pain for nothing. Everything has a price that you have to pay, and losing him gave me my career and Paris. It was honestly a soul shaking experience and the grief I had was incomparable to the ones before but I came out of the other side alive and thriving.

“No regrets, just love.” – Katy Perry

 

On Meeting Prince Charming

Posted on by daragaladriel

I have been through a lot in my life. I promised myself that I would be a big-hearted person and be a better version of myself. When I finally managed to realize that I am able to sail through my emotions more so captain them, my life drastically changed for the better. As I was trying to enrich my life here in Paris, one day, a stranger caught my eye. Not because of his looks, but because of his demeanor and my intuition told me that I was going to get attached to this guy but I had no clue how or why it was going to happen.

As every great story, the protagonist of this story had a lot of negative energy surrounding her as the people around her tried to make her heed warnings that the boy she seeks is nothing but trouble. However, this girl would not listen because she prided herself on how to read people, and she knew this person was innately good. Looking at him, she saw a broken soul that she could help heal and light up again. But she was cautious, for she knows that not everybody deserves to see the Angel side of her personality because she has been used and abused by the people she gave her help to in the past.

As she got to know this boy, she was in awe of him. She has never met anyone who feels the same about things as her in terms of opinions and deep thinking. She has never met anyone who made her so calm and who she did not have to put on the mask she puts for everyone for. She has never met anyone who admired the beauty of her strength that she rebuild herself back up after being so broken. She was in total wonder that he understood her complete being without even telling him everything about her.

She was so sad that life had not been treating him well. She was so heartbroken for all the pain and hurt that he has endured. She was so sad that he was unhappy. She did not believe that he deserved to feel this way since she thinks he is a rare gem of a human being. She was convinced that he deserved her because she did not know what she was looking for until him and for the first time in her life she felt so loved and treasured.

She waited her whole life to feel this way, unconditional love, not falling in love but a love without condition, without pretense, just pure simple unadulterated love. A love that wants to free not to trap and more importantly contentment. Her definition of happiness is contentment. At the time that they were together, the whole world seemed to disappear and she felt like she was home. She loved that it feels like they have known each other before even if they have only met.

Maybe they were past lovers in another life and that is why their souls instantly recognize each other. There was this inexplainable connection that was drawing them to each other like gravity. But like all good stories, there was a catch. He was committed to another. It was a fact that she was willing to ignore but it ate at her and she could not take it. She was never a girl who participated in cheating as she have been burned before and she knows it is just wrong. She tried to put herself in the place of his girl and she was disgusted at herself.

She realized that her happiness will forever be tainted by the pain of his beloved. She then decided to be the bigger person and walked away. She walked away because she knows that if he really felt for her as she for him that he would leave his lover. She knows that he should know by now that she was the perfect one for him. She knows that, as Stephen Chbosky said “we accept the love we think we deserve”, if he feels he does not deserve her then she would be wasting her efforts.

She did not want to be a confusion in his head, she wanted to be his clarity. And now, she is wondering if it is true what they say that when you meet “The One” you will know. Will this explain what she felt when she met him? Right now, she is waiting patiently because with him, if the story will still evolve, she wants to savour every bit of it. After all, she has been waiting her whole life she can afford to wait some more. She has faith that he will come home to her eventually, when the time is right.

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.” 1 Corinthians 1 3:4-8 

The Constant Dilemma Between Loneliness and Wanting More

Posted on by daragaladriel

I have always had trouble with myself when it comes to my pride. I pride myself in being intelligent, strong and independent. I have always compensated my insecurity of not being beautiful enough with my wits and personality. I also refuse to settle for just anyone because I have high standards that could arguably be too high. The truth is there has always been a part of me that believes that I deserve the best of the best because I know I see my self that way.

This mindset only propagated my insecurities and my delusional view when it comes to love. Some might say that I have the right point of view in life, that I should wait for someone that matches my checklist. Honestly, my checklist just contains: Smart, Cute and someone who makes me feel something. Most of my friends know that for the longest time, all I have ever wanted is a boyfriend. I wanted someone to call my own but I bear the curse of being the perpetual best friend, close friend and sister. Zones that all have no way to be turned into a more romantic nature.

I have always been jealous of my friends because they would always find their partners, temporary or not, but I have never been even in a proper relationship my whole life. All I have done is chase and pine for the wrong people for as long as I can remember. I let them rip my heart open and yet I still continue to be a martyr and maintain the relationship I have with them, whether it’s in the friendzone or the sisterzone. What I have been telling myself is that “One day, they are going to figure out that they screwed up because I was the one” and that all this sacrifice would pay off in the end.

Pathetic, isn’t it? My friends come to me for advice and I keep preaching that they should be strong and leave anyone who is not treating them properly because they deserve so much more and yet here I am in moments like these feeling grief for something that was never even mine, not even a little bit. There is something seriously screwed up in my head and my heart because I always fall in love with the idea of a person instead of who they really are. I constantly put these guys on a pedestal because they were perfect in my eyes at the time and once the illusion shatters, I immediately resent them.

On days like these that my loneliness prevails, I usually throw myself at the next guy that comes into my reach. Being the “cool” girl has always been my M.O., sweet as honey when we are together but cold as ice once he had left. Guys love this about me, that they get to do what they want and just leave whenever they want. To be honest, in these moments they were a means to an end and I can’t wait to be left alone again. For it is when I am by myself that I can deal with the self-loathing that I feel right after an empty connection.

The worst part is that when I see someone who might want more with me, that scares me to death and my defense mechanism is to just stop all communication. I am not afraid to ask for what I want when it is with the wrong person who can’t even love me and yet when someone even gives the hint to try I immediately shut down. It’s sad to realize that I cannot even give someone a chance because I don’t want to give them the power to break me but I readily give it to someone who I know is gonna crush me in the end. Maybe “old habits really die hard” and I am more comfortable with being in an unrequited love situation because at least I already know how to pick myself back up.

How do you teach yourself to let other people love you when all your life you have been starved of love and you have no clue how to change? What do you do when you realize that you were the problem all along and you threw away your chances at something real? What do you do when you have confused infatuation with love so many times and find that the pain you have suffered all these years was self-inflicted? People say that your feelings are valid and true because you feel them, but what if they were lying and I really am just insane?

I spent my whole life chasing ghosts. And now I realize, they were only projections of my ideas of perfection.

22 was really a Magical age.

Posted on by daragaladriel

My previous writings have been an incredible documentation of all the growing pains that I have endured throughout my life. It is now time for me to set sail again on yet another adventure to reclaim myself and my life fully. My biggest insecurity will always be my weight and body image issues. Before I get into that, let me give you the latest 411 on where my life is at now.

I read somewhere that everyone has 3 great loves in their lives that they will encounter throughout their life. I believe that the person who I have been writing for throughout these years was my first and second one. According to this thing I came across, the first love is the puppy love, where everything is perfect and idealized. The second is the one you did not see coming but forces you to go through a lot of changes and realizations. Finally, the third one was supposed to be the “ONE”, who will make everything you’ve ever experienced make sense.

As I mentioned earlier, I believe that the person who was my ex-best friend is the first and the second one. Though painful and soul-wrenching, I have never been more thankful to anyone that I had the pleasure of knowing for all the things that he taught me about life, about myself and the world we live in today. I guess it shows, that I am such an old soul when it comes to romance on the times that I commit myself to it. It must be because of all of the movies and series that I have seen and all the literature I have read.

He was the ultimate drug, temptation, that I could not resist. After all these years, a few months ago, I had my moment of weakness. He reached out to me a month before the incident, as I recently moved back to Europe and am now living in Paris chasing after my dreams of having a career in Fashion, and as per usual he insisted that our set-up was still intact “What happens in Geneva, stays in Geneva. We’re together when we’re in the same place”. For the first time in a long time, I was given the opportunity to reject him once and for all and I ‘Carpe Diemed” that shit. It felt good, to finally regain control, to find out that all the time I spent working on myself and that I have broken his invisible hold on me.

One month later, I was at a house party at a friends’ place and they were playing songs that he used to play to me and I was hit with a sudden pang of longing and memories. Of course at this point, I was already intoxicated with alcohol and was totally vulnerable to making stupid decisions. Needless to say, I succumbed to my weakness and messaged him. I told him that I missed him and he was hostile, very unwelcoming to hearing from me. I totally understand because of the last time we talked but he finally said the magic words I have been waiting to hear after all these years of pining for him. He said, “There is nothing to forgive, I honestly don’t care. You gave me nothing to want, I don’t want you anymore.”

And voila, I was completely free. It was unpleasant but I have been waiting for that closure and I was able to get it. I still consider myself pretty lucky because most people spend the rest of their lives waiting for a closure that they never get and I got it. No more regrets, no more “what ifs”, it was finally over for good. This was only the icing on the cake to the year I have been having. Let me tell you the rest of the cake.

Earlier this year, in March, I applied to ESMOD, the oldest fashion school in the world in Paris. As I mentioned previously, I got in and moved my whole life back to Europe in August. This is the first time that I moved to a city on my own and not knowing a soul, complete independence. I have been having a ridiculous amount of fun, soaking up the culture and letting my creativity flourish. I am living the dream, 22, living in a great apartment, last year in Fashion school and in the City of Lights and one of the major Fashion capitals in the world.

The only thing right now that I feel is hindering me from being the best version of myself is my weight and my addiction to food, mainly sweets. My 23rd birthday is coming up and if you know me, you know that I love challenges and I am convinced I can conquer the world if I will it on myself. I have been given so much blessings this year and I would like to make an offering of a sacrifice to show my gratitude to the “One” above. From tomorrow, 29th of November, I will only eat vegetables and will avoid sweets and unnecessary carbs at any cost until my birthday, 2nd of January 2017.

My uncle told me a quote this summer that has been haunting me for most of this year, he said “Conquer your body and you can conquer the world.” I have been yo-yoing with losing weight and being healthy and it is now time to really commit to myself 100 percent no holds barred. I am finally going to attempt to “walk my talk” because I have failed continuously in the past and I really need to this for myself, and do it well so I can be proud of me and finally be confident, in my own skin. The gym is the easy part, I found that I am strong and I can do it easily, I fail where most people fail which is with what they eat.

Wish me courage, not luck.

Until Next time,

Your Girl,

DARA

XOXOXO

“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.” – Robert Dahl

Realisations.

Posted on by daragaladriel

I’m sorry that I thought you could fix me and that resulted into you falling out of love with me (if you ever really were). When I try to make sense of why we drifted apart, I always try to see things from your perspective. There was a point in time where I let go of myself completely, you probably thought “she’s turning out to be a burden.”, I would have thought the same. It’s hard to love someone who does not love themselves enough because the responsibility of making them happy and maintaining it is just too much for a person to bear. I am not angry nor do I blame you for choosing to save your self more so your heart because if the situation was in reverse, I would have done the exact same thing. And lastly, the taste of my own medicine was really a hard bitter pill to swallow.

Now I am in such a better place, I have realised that only I can fix myself. I am responsible for my own happiness. So thank you for breaking my heart, I really needed the wake-up call. It was a difficult journey but in the process I was able to reinvent myself and evaluate the things in my life and put it on perspective.

To My Future Love

Posted on by daragaladriel

Hey you, hope you are doing good and all is well. You and I have not cross paths yet or maybe we already have but we have not become an important part of each other’s life yet. I want you to know that right now I am preparing myself for you. I am mastering my zen and inner peace, my temper and my emotional stability. I want to be the best version of myself when you and I come together. Hopefully, you are doing the same yourself. It takes two grown-ups for a relationship to work and I am not convinced that I am a grown-up yet.

I want you to know that I understand you have a past and it might have been difficult but so do I. I will never judge you for anything that you did and will do as long as it does not affect me or our future relationship and I hope you give me the same courtesy. I want to be the light that scares your demons away, the best friend that you can vent out to and knows you better than anyone else, the buddy who drinks with you when you need to and the lover that makes you want to stay in bed all day. I want you to be the same for me as well.

I will love you with all that I have to give. I will be a little crazy sometimes but you must have given me a reason to go ballistic on you. I will be difficult because I could only give my heart to you fully if I could trust you completely. The three most important things for me in a relationship is Trust, Respect and Loyalty. The catch is if you break my trust once, I will never be able to trust you again at all, no matter how much you try to make-up for whatever you will do. For us to view each other as partners, we must respect each other. When we are fighting, we can shout, break things but we must never hurt each other physically. Afterwards, we must make-up or at least make a truce and continue our quarrel in the morning because I never want to sleep mad at you.

As for loyalty, if I commit myself to you then know that I mean it. There would never be other guys in my eyes. I am the jealous type but I will only get mad if you do not come home to me because it matters to me that I am the last face you want to see at night and the first in the morning. I will be clingy, I would want us to be connected as much as possible whether holding hands or you have your arms around me. They say people love in different ways, some through gifts, words and etc but I love with my body. I will reach for your hand, I will peck you on your cheek, I will embrace you when I feel like it and french you like I need you to breathe. That is how I will love you.

Thoughts on Writing.

Posted on by daragaladriel

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”

– Ernest Hemingway

This has become my favourite quote for the moment because I believe it to be true. Every time I feel like writing it’s because I am overwhelmed by the thoughts and emotions that are all bottled up inside me so I lighten the load by writing it all down. Thoughts that I had not even know I have conceived just manifest in my writing. I think that writing is the best way to talk to your inner self and one does literally bleed out their guts on paper.

Late Night Confessions

Posted on by daragaladriel

I’ve been in love with the same person for about 4 years now. Our relationship status is constantly changing. I am a victim of the “no label” dating culture. Last time I checked he said that “dating me is just on another level”. I have been voluntarily allowing this a**hole to play me because as Coldplay says i am “too in love to let it go”. For a time and until recently I’ve managed to move on with my life but the idea of him is just always lurking around in the shadows.

I’ve found that I am so traumatised from all of the rollercoaster emotions that I have experienced. I cannot even begin to consider others because I keep telling myself that I’m not ready and that they probably would leave me just like he did. I guess my separation anxiety is from my daddy issues. I really did lose my sanity with him. I could not handle the intensity of my feelings for him, I let it devour me and it resulted to him disappearing on me.

That being said, when I started to restore my composure, I wrote him a letter that was literally begging for him to just cut me lose and call it quits. He never gave me the satisfaction. He says he does not wanna call it yet he cannot claim me. What is a girl to do? I walked away because I knew and believed from the bottom of my heart that I deserved better.

Fate really does know how to play games on you. I was fine, moving on with life I deleted him from all of my social media and my phone until we ended up on the same bar while I was on a date and I walked right in to his arms and his charms and the whole thing restarted. Why do I always welcome him with open arms? When will I learn not to let him back in?

I blame the saying “If you love something let it go, if it comes back to you it’s yours forever.”  A part of me believes that for us this is true that the time will come when our forever will finally begin. I realise now that the ugly truth is there is no such thing if there is only one party who wants to achieve the dream.

The worst thing is that he was my best friend before we even became a couple. I miss my best friend so much. He always had time for me, initiated conversations, tried to spend time with me when possible. We are so out of touch and it used to bother me but now it doesn’t anymore. I realise people change, they become busier as they grow up and even I don’t even have time but other people do it, you can make time for the one you love.

Maybe, it was just young love. Maybe he never really loved me, maybe he only cared because he had something to get out of it. Maybe we missed our chance. Maybe I screwed it up. Maybe, maybe, maybe. I will never really get the answers that I seek because only he can. I don’t even think he’s gonna give me honest answers.

I’ve grown tired of the cycle that we keep going around in and I must for the love of God just walk away. I pray for the strength to do it and for the courage to choose me and claim back my heart. The quote below is exactly my feelings on the matter. I have to love me more this time.

“Why does it feel so impossible to let you go. I don’t belong in a world where we don’t end up together. There are parallel universes out there where you are with me and whatever universe that is, that is where my heart lives in.” – Dell Comet 2014

To You Who Got Your Heart Broken:

Posted on by daragaladriel

Let me start by saying, Congratulations, you’ve made a new mistake. You’re probably wondering why I am congratulating you instead of feeling bad for you. Well, the answer to that is simple, you have a learning opportunity right now and it’s up to how you deal with it which determines whether you get something out of it.

Everyone is going to comfort you and tell you that it isn’t your fault and that everything is going to be okay but I will not do that. I refuse to encourage you to repress your feelings which could prove to be helpful right now but eventually will result to one of the biggest mistakes you’ve ever done in your life. Indeed, with this righteous mentality you will find moving on an easy task but newsflash darling, the reason why it’s called repressed is because one day it will resurface again and all the efforts and progress you made in putting yourself back together will come undone and you will be back to square one.

Whatever the nature was of your love affair they all have one thing in common, it ended because of BOTH of you. You have equal parts in the blame. He may have left you or you left him but the story remains the same, one leaves, the other one may or may not decide to run after for them for a little while but then eventually gives up. Conclusion: Both of you gave up. Here’s the deal, why would your significant other leave you for no reason? That just doesn’t make sense. There is always a reason, whether it’s valid or not. I don’t believe that people just decide to throw away something that they’ve invested the most important part of who they are, their hearts, out of thin air and in a moment’s notice.

The chemistry will always be right, it’s the timing that’s wrong. It basically means that Love is never enough and as much as we want it to be, it wont. The sad reality is that there is a 99% chance that your time will never come again. But no matter how long or short the time you had together, it was fun while it lasted wasn’t it? The time that you spent together will be immortalized in both your memories and your hearts. And know that every person that we choose to love becomes a part of who we are whether or not they are still present in our current lives.

Everything happens for a reason, there is no use in crying over spilled milk so grieve as much and as fast as you can so you could start moving on. That being said If you can still fix it and it’s what you really want, then go do something about it. Happiness is a choice, go fight for what will make you happy. Life is too short to just wait for the universe to give everything to you. Carpe Diem, If you want it, go after it. If you don’t like it, speak up and say your peace. So that at the end of the day, no matter what happens, you’ll know in your hearts of heart that you did everything you could, and when that time comes that you’ve fully recovered, you know that you’re honestly okay because you won’t have any regrets.