The Studio

We are smarter than we think; we are smarter than we give ourselves credit for. Or perhaps we are smarter than we'd like to believe. We are certainly smarter than we trust ourselves to be.

The other day, I was typing up some notes in notepad, as I am wont to do. As I went to save it, it showed me other text documents in the file, and I was curious to find a document called "too hard.txt". I knew right away that this document had once captured some raw emotion of mine, but I wasn't sure which it was.

The document turned out to be a letter, written but not sent, to someone for whom I was crazy. Re-reading the letter, I wasn't immediately sure who the other person mentioned was. The letter worried aloud about the imbalance in my relationship, pleaded with my love to open up and let me into his life, but much more, this letter foretold of my broken heart.

When I had reached the end and reflected on how everything had played out, it was un-nerving to see how much about my relationship was captured in this letter. I looked at the file properties and found out that I had written this letter a mere few weeks into dating my would-be ex, long before he became my ex.

It's amazing how much we already know about ourselves, if we would just stop and listen. Most of the time, we get in our own way of understanding who we are. We let ourselves rationalize away emotions that are trying to tell us things. We let our circumstances dictate our actions instead of listening to our hearts. We let our past and our experiences rule supreme, turning us into cynics and skeptics. Sometimes though, we let hope lead us down dead end paths.

It's fortunate then that good things still happen to people everyday, in spite of our greatest efforts to foil the plans. I just hope I know what a good thing looks like when it happens to me.

Some say love, it is a river
that drowns the tender reed.
Some say love, it is a razor
that leaves your soul to bleed.
Some say love, it is a hunger,
an endless aching need.
I say love, it is a flower,
and you its only seed.

It's the heart afraid of breaking
that never learns to dance.
It's the dream afraid of waking
that never takes the chance.
It's the one who won't be taken,
who cannot seem to give,
and the soul afraid of dyin'
that never learns to live.

When the night has been too lonely
and the road has been to long,
and you think that love is only
for the lucky and the strong,
just remember in the winter
far beneath the bitter snows
lies the seed that with the sun's love
in the spring becomes the rose.