random.

in relationships, we spend much of our time afraid to ask for what we really want...the very things that would make our hearts flutter and sing. perhaps we are afraid that by communicating it, we will be ridiculed and laughed at and ultimately made to feel 2 inches tall. 

when we do find the courage, hands outstretched cradling our hearts in our hands, we hope and pray that the other will treat it with compassion, empathy, love, and tenderness...which in turn builds the trust we all seek in our relationships.  the trust...the strength...the bond...what i call, the gel.

and when the handle with care banner that we've wrapped our hearts up in gets stripped, torn off insensitively?

we yelp in pain -- sometimes publicly, often privately.

i remember when i went through my first breakup...oh lord, the drama, the pain, the hurt...it never seemed like it would go away.  but inevitably, it did -- and i started again, eyes wide open this time, and went for it...it once again. 

time certainly seems to heal all.  some taking a bit longer than others...knowing this one truth -- and i know this may sound momentarily uh...sadistic -- knowing this one truth that time does heal all, LIBERATES me.  i take solace in feeling my pains, my hurt, nursing my broken heart...but feeling free.  alive.  ironic innit?  if you look back to pains in the past that you have experienced, pains that you thought would be the utter end of you, pains that you thought would never dissipate -- and it did -- doesn't it add an element of courage and trust that this current hurt, discomfort of the heart, will also evaporate with time as well?

how many of us know of someone in our lives who have been so weathered by life and are now stoic in response, mechanic in emotion? 

i certainly do. 

knowing this and knowing them, i often, in my now adult years, laugh as i cry...feeling blessed that my emotions are still in tact, complex as they may be but loving the fact that i can still feel my entire range of emotions...feeling is living.  now, in present day, i know that i have evolved enough to not only embrace hurt, be conscious that it will pass...and can now process it enough to understand how to manage it. 

...and there's a lesson buried deep in every shitty situation.  your job?  learn it.