On Promises Made

I’ve learned a long time ago the importance of never making decisions when I’m angry, and how equally important it was to never make promises when I’m happy. It’s a lesson I’ve learned too many times before, and continue to forget whenever it becomes most relevant.

So let’s go back to when the past was the present and we would talk about our future. In those days we would talk about everything: me, you, us. We started with hopeful desires of making “forever” a reality while completely disregarding the fact that “never” was also a reality. It’s painfully obvious from the tone of this post which one came to fruition. I won’t go into too much detail, because unlike other relationships, I’d prefer to keep this one a little more private.

To be fair, I’ll admit that it was me who spoke most of what we could be. You would occasionally play along, shaking your head at the idea of “Action Dumadag” while simultaneously agreeing that our future son would have the coolest name in his class. I relied heavily on our potential without necessarily accounting for our present circumstances. I made you promises. You made me promises. And you forced me into making pinky promises that always seemed a little odd to me. I’m ready to admit that I got ahead of myself at times.

Maybe I wasn’t thinking clearly. Maybe it was unfair of us to make those kinds of promises to each other. As good as my memory can be, I couldn’t tell you what my thought process was during those days. “What are you thinking about?” A question you often asked me whenever I looked at you. Now you know well enough that what I was thinking at the time wasn’t nearly as important as what I was feeling at that exact moment. I was never shy about telling you how I felt. Even then, I wouldn’t even be able to begin to tell you what I was feeling that moment you first left my house and looked at me. It’s a look I’ll never forget, and one you continue to give me each time I see you.

But now we’re here, and the future we talked about is nowhere close to what the present is in actuality. Now you think I lied; that all the things I told you each and every day were things that just sounded good and were fun to say. The thing you need to understand is: I never lied. I never lied when I said I saw myself spending forever with you. I never lied when I said I loved you. I never lied when I said I was, am, and will always be in love with you.

Perhaps those promises were unfair. I don’t expect you to keep any, let alone remember any of them. I’m sure it’s safe to assume you have similar expectations of me. But you of all people should know that I put a premium on a promise made.

Promises were like laws; smart men knew when to break both.

C.J. Hill

Unfortunately, I’m not always a smart man. I intend on keeping a few of them, but you already knew that.

On the ones that got away

They’re the ones that got away for a reason: it’s because they’ve gone away for good.

They’re not the ones who go away and come back a little later. You’ll always feel like your business is unfinished, and no amount of time or words spoken will ever resolve that. And as badly as we’d like to believe it was fate that they’d get away—that it was no one’s fault—in our most private and honest moments, we know they’re gone because of the decisions we’ve made. The only reason they were able to get away is because you allowed them to leave. You made a conscious decision to let them leave.

Everyone has had a person that got away from them, and we should count ourselves lucky to have loved like that in the first place. The majority of the time we’ll focus on the one that got away from us, while simultaneously ignoring the fact that in some way or form, we too, got away.

If there is one thing I’ve learned about being the one that got away, it’s this: Love is not the driving force in a relationship, it’s passion.

Passion itself is different from love, it’s different from just having strong feelings or a strong connection with someone or something. When a mistake is made in a relationship, and someone is hurt, they’re quick to call bullshit when you tell them “I love you.” Love is a loaded word that’s often overused that makes us believe that our significant other is exempt from ever making mistakes. We think love should always be right, never wrong. Passion means being wrong and trying over and over again until you’re finally right. Love is simple, and at times can be complicated, but only like how algebra at times can be complicated. Any fool can learn to understand algebra, much like anyone can learn to love and be in love. But passion is more than that; it’s love, hate, happiness, anger, sadness, joy, desire, and every other emotion all wrapped up into one. Passion is underrated. Love between two people can and will continue long after a relationship ends, but passion is about doing whatever it takes to stay with the person we love.

The reason it’s the driving force in a relationship is because when a man is passionate about a woman, it means he’s had her in her entirety and he doesn’t want to lose any of it. He refuses to let her be the one that got away.

No one ever wants to be the one who got away. They want to be the one who stays.

Fearless

There’s something to be said about a woman who stands beside the man she loves, fearlessly. A woman who holds on so tightly to the notion of “Forever”, that no one, not even death itself, can convince her that it’s time to let go.

For whatever reason, there are two questions that most, if not all, patients will ask me whenever I enter the room: “How old are you?” and “Are you single?” These two questions are almost always followed up with stories about a daughter, granddaughter, niece, or whatever other family member they’d try to set me up with. To avoid the unnecessary and awkward conversations that are sure to follow, I tell them I’m 24, and that I’m unavailable.

Sunday night went a little different with this particular patient of mine who I’ll refer to as Sheryl. She asked the questions, and I responded the same. She looked at me and me smiled. I had expected her to tell me about a beautiful granddaughter who happened to be single and around my age, or at least something to that effect. She broke a few seconds of awkward silence with a story about how she had gotten married at the age of 20 to the first and only boy she had ever shared her heart with. I suppose back then, it wasn’t uncommon to marry so young, and so confidently.

Sheryl went on to explain that her husband had first asked her to go to the Texas State Fair with him on a Saturday afternoon. She was 16 at the time, and he was one year her senior. She told me she had been skittish on the days leading up to it, because she had no idea why she said yes in the first place. The closer the date, the stronger she felt she had made a mistake. Needless to say, her reluctance faded, and several more dates followed. Sheryl almost backed out on the love of her life, and she didn’t even know it.

They were married for 64 years before he died of complications from lung cancer. She told me that was 5 years ago. 68 years spent with the man she had given her heart to, and she still insists that it isn’t enough. As she began to tell me about the kind of man he was, all I could help but think of was how much of a better man he was than me. I firmly believe you won’t truly know who a man is until you hear from the woman (or man) he trusted his heart with. The man worked hard his entire life so that she didn’t have to. He put her needs above his own, and prioritized her happiness. He did the things that should be done in each and every relationship, but aren’t necessarily present in most. She paused intermittently during our conversation, as if to collect herself. She didn’t want to cry in front of me.

Right before she fell asleep she called me back into the room to talk to me. She was teary-eyed, but she wasn’t crying. I asked her if she was in pain, and offered her medication. She took a few deep breaths and told me she physically fine, but was upset out of guilt. Sheryl’s husband had done everything he could for her, and had only really asked her for two things in return during the time they were together. (1) After being diagnosed with lung cancer, he made her promise to bury him in their hometown in Texas. (2) Up until then, all he ever wanted from her was her love and effort. Her guilt was caused by the fact that she hadn’t honored his burial request. After he had passed away, Sheryl had his body cremated in preparation for the trip back home. It’s much cheaper transporting an urn than an entire casket, and it’s what she was able to afford. She took another moment for herself and revealed to me that she had never found the strength to bury him. She kept his ashes in their California home because a burial would mean letting go, and she wasn’t ready for that yet. She wanted to hold onto him somewhow. Her words were simple enough, but the manner in which she spoke was what really affected me. She was upset, speaking to me as if she was in confession, asking a stranger for forgiveness, or at the very least approval.

Sheryl spent the next 30 minutes telling me how difficult it was when he had passed away, and now that 5 years have come and gone since, she still wakes up broken-hearted. “I guess I should count myself lucky, and unlucky, I suppose.” I wasn’t quite sure what she meant, so I asked for an explanation.

She explained how lucky she was to have loved one man her entire life. She never felt the heartache that comes with a breakup. She never dealt with the anger that comes shortly afterwards. And she never had to question her worth when it came to an ex moving on to someone new. She counted herself lucky, and I completely agreed. Not only that, I found myself feeling jealous that she was saved from those emotions. That feeling of jealousy was short-lived, however, as she continued on to explain why she was unlucky. “I lost the only man I ever loved, and there’s no for me to get him back. There is no amount of fighting, no amount of pleading, no amount of effort that will ever bring him back to me.” I almost lost it in the room with her.

I’ve written about it before, I go hard for the things and people that are important to me. I’ll hold onto any amount of hope I can find because if it’s real enough to me, then it’s worth my best effort, even if it’s only a fool’s hope. I’ve had women come and go in my life, and some have tried to leave permanently only to return a few weeks later. But to lose someone to death is something else entirely. There is no second chance, no return, and hardly any hope other than the hope that you’ll meet them again on the other side. To know there is absolutely nothing you can do to get a person back no matter how badly you want it must be the most painful experience in existence, nevermind accept. Working in an oncology unit for the past 2.5 years, I’ve seen too many men and women lose the one person they shared their lives with. I’ve seen both of my grandmas go through the same. You’ll feel sorry for them, and you can imagine what exactly it is they’re going through, but you’ll never really know until it happens to you. It’s an unfortunate reality we all need to accept but refuse to acknowledge. Sheryl told me couldn’t fight to get her husband back no matter how much she’s wanted to, because there’s no avoiding death.

“I’m angry at death for taking the love of my life away, but that doesn’t mean I’m afraid of death. There’s no reason to be when you miss your husband as much as I do.”

13 Things

It’s the last day of 2013, so here are 13 things I’ve learned in no particular order:

1. Mornings are the best time of the day.
Unfortunately, I hate waking up in the morning. But after an hour or so, there’s no better feeling to a night shift nurse than knowing you’ve got a full day of sun ahead of you.

2. Kisses on the nose are the best.
It doesn’t matter if you’re the one giving the kiss or receiving the kiss. Try it, or just trust me on this.

3. I hate packing lunch for work.
It saves me about 10 bucks a night, and for the most part it’s generally healthier than what I would eat otherwise. I just hate it. If my future wife ever reads this: I’ll cook you dinner, and I’ll make you the best breakfast in bed you’ve ever had, but please pack my lunch for me.

4. If my stomach is happy, I’m happy.
This is why I love the people that bring me lunch at work. Never mind the fact that they come through close to midnight.

5. Chipotle is my shit.
This isn’t news to anyone who’s known me longer than a week or who’s followed me on Yelp, Twitter, or Instagram. Whenever I tell people I love Chipotle, they try to one up me and say they go every week. I just laugh at them. I’m sure I’ve spent more on Chipotle this year than most people have spent on their phone bills.

6. If we’re dating, my parents will treat you like family.
They’ll let you stay over as long as you’d like, and even force you to if it’s getting late and they don’t feel it’s safe for you to be driving at night. They’ll sometimes offer up my sister’s old room, but they won’t force you to sleep in it. It wouldn’t matter if we’ve only been dating a week and you’ve only met them once, you’re getting invited to EVERYTHING.

7. Love don’t cost a thing, but I’ll spend on you anyway.
If it’s reasonable, and if all of my obligations are taken care of first, I’ll get you that bag or watch you’ve been eying.

8. You could meet the love of your life at any given moment, but it wouldn’t matter if neither of you made any effort.
Effort is everything. “Hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard.” This also applies to love and relationships. Two people who work at their relationship together everyday will have a much happier and healthier relationship than two people who settle in on chemistry and think their relationship is “good enough.” Never get married to the idea that it’s good enough, because it isn’t, and it won’t be. A love that’s earned is far more valuable. Put a premium on the people that fight for you.

9. When I love, I love hard.
Nothing more to say here.

10. You can be friends with your exes, and it doesn’t have to be weird.
Just because she’s no longer your girlfriend, it doesn’t mean she’s no longer your girl friend, or even one of your best friends. As long as you guys ended things maturely and on good terms, there’s no reason why you guys shouldn’t be able to kick it every now and then. Here’s some advice though, if you hated shopping with your girlfriend, shopping with her as a friend is a hundred times worse.

11. Cold coffee tastes like doo doo.
This is not to be confused with iced coffee. I’m talking about coffee that’s sat out too long.

12. Sometimes your best isn’t good enough.
But that’s okay, you should still be proud of the effort you made. Again, effort is everything.

13. Your brain keeps you safe, but your heart keeps you happy.
Which one you decide to listen to is on you.

A Thousand Words

When a relationship ends, more often than not you’re left with hundreds of things that remind you of that person who just left you. It could be a polaroid you took from her room, or a little trinket you found on her dresser that didn’t mean anything to her, but would later mean the world to you. Or it might be a picture of you two that she took with her phone, and sent to you on a random Wednesday just to let you know that she had been thinking of you.

Part of you is unsure what to do with these pictures, the other part knows you should get rid of them. You’ve stared at these pictures long enough that you have them memorized in your head. You wouldn’t need them even if you kept them.

You look at them anyway. It hurts, but you’re also reminded of how you felt when they were taken. How happy you were, how alive she made you feel, how in love you were with this girl. You wonder if she still has the picture. And if she loves it as much as you do. Not because of how cute you two looked, but because of the comfort and love you had with each other.

You realize that if you keep the picture, it’ll be seen again one day by someone who probably shouldn’t. She’ll ask who the girl in the photo is and you won’t know what to say. You could lie and tell her that she was just a friend. But lying wouldn’t feel right. You’d tell her she was someone you loved but didn’t want to stay, so she chose to leave.

It’s a conversation you don’t want to have, an explanation that would need an explanation in itself. You don’t want this girl to be just another pretty face you’d need to explain in the future. You want her to be the one explaining to all of your family and friends that this photo was taken the moment you knew you were it for each other. That even though neither of you said it at the time, you both knew you wouldn’t mind spending the rest of your lives with each other. It was the moment you knew you were each other’s to have and to hold, but never possess.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Some are worth a bit more than that.

It Hurts Just The Same

I had a patient a few weeks ago who, for whatever reason, decided to ask me about my past relationships. He was a dialysis patient that was admitted because he needed to get a blood transfusion. Hospital policy makes it so I have to stay in the room during the first fifteen minutes of the transfusion to keep an eye out for any reactions. In that amount of time my patient managed to ask me if I ever had my heart broken. I told him yes. He paused for a bit, looked at me, and said something I may never forget: “Your heart is broken when you can’t eat, can’t sleep, and when you do get sleep, all you dream about is the one person who did the deed.”

I told him about my ex-girlfriend from college. By his definition, it was really the first time I felt my heart was truly broken. I won’t go into detail about that here because I’ve already done it in previous posts. 

He then told me a story about the first time he got his heart broken. It was sometime in the winter of 1976 during his first year of college. He and his high school sweetheart had gone to different colleges that was by separated by a 3-hour drive on the highway. “It was a wonderful time to be in love. We we’re crazy about each other.” He’d make the trip every weekend to take her out on a date.

One Thursday night while they were talking on the phone, she told him she was feeling under the weather, and that he shouldn’t come visit for the weekend. She said she was afraid of giving him whatever she had caught, and didn’t want him to make the long drive just so they could stay in all weekend. He reluctantly agreed.

Being a gentleman, he made the trip anyway, but not before stopping at a nearby diner to get her a chicken dinner. It was snowing. He trudged through the parking lot and made his way to the doorway of her dorm. He knocked three times without an answer. He stood outside her door for knocking for 5 minutes before he walked back to his car. Giving her the benefit of the doubt, he thought to himself, “Maybe she was in the shower, maybe she was asleep and couldn’t hear me knock.”

From his car he was able to see her window, and her light was on. Not three minutes later, the light turned off. He thought to himself, “She must have gotten out of the shower and went to bed, just missed her.” He got out of his car and trudged through the snow once more and arrived at her door. He knocked on the door again, hoping to catch her before she fell asleep. He heard the door unlock and open.

“Can’t you just leave me and Linda the fuck alone?”

He dropped the dinner and looked at the man standing in the doorway without his shirt. All he could manage to say was, “Who the fuck are you?” The man replied it wasn’t any of his business and shut the door.

My patient walked back to his car, and made the three hour drive home in silence. I can only imagine how he felt. He didn’t have a cellphone, there wasn’t Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. There was no way of communicating with anyone on that drive home, it was just him and his thoughts. When he got home his dad asked him where he had been, he told him Linda had been calling for the past 3 hours.

“Tell her I’m out.”
“Something bad happened, huh? I can’t keep using that excuse.”
“Then tell her I’m dead, that’s how I feel anyway.”

I felt for the guy. I didn’t know what to say to him. He told me that 37 years later, he still feels it. The pain internalized so deeply that it felt as though he had scar just around his heart. No one ever signs up to get their heart broken, but it’s a reality you need to accept when getting into a relationship. 

Having been through several relationships, breakups, and breakdowns, people always say, “Protect your heart. Be careful. Don’t get hurt.” The warnings are absolutely warranted, the pain kills. They tell you different methods of dealing with the pain, pushing it aside so you don’t have to live with it anymore. But what they don’t warn you about, is that one day you’ll break someone’s heart.

One day you’ll be the reason for the pain you wouldn’t wish on anyone, even in your angriest moments. But it’s a role that needs to be played. Saying “I love you” again and again is a lot easier than telling someone you can’t love them anymore. You’re afraid of being the bad guy, so you stay. You’re afraid of missing them, so you stay. Neither of those are good enough reasons to continue on with someone who isn’t right for you. You’re going to have to break their heart, and they won’t understand why, no matter how much you try to explain. They won’t understand that a piece of your heart is breaking too, that it hurts just the same.

My patient taught me something about love that day. He told me he loved that girl enough to visit her every weekend. He told me loved her enough to even try to work it out a few weeks after that event. He told me that she loved him enough to come back home for the first few weekends to try to make it work. But he said you shouldn’t have to love someone “enough”. You shouldn’t have to love someone enough to be with them. You shouldn’t have to love someone enough to stay with them after something like that. You shouldn’t have to love someone enough to try to work things out. When it’s real, there is no such thing as enough love. You should just “Love. Completely. 100%.”

I’d need to find someone who’d give me that look that made me feel alive, invincible. That look that only I could appreciate. That look, that person I selfishly wanted to myself. That person that turns you into a hopeless romantic, that ruins you, that makes you not want to settle for anything less. 

“You’ll find that person, or maybe you already have and you just don’t know it. You need to be prepared to get your heart broken though, and you need to be prepared to break some hearts yourself. But no matter what, it hurts just the same.”

Just Words

You just arrived at her house and she opened her door to let you in. It had been a few weeks since you’ve last seen each other but there weren’t any awkward feelings between you two. From the start you two had been comfortable with each other, today would be no different, regardless of the time between your last meeting. 

She leads you to her room and you immediately lay down on her bed like you always do. Rather than lie next to you she decides to rest her head on your chest. She asks if you’re tired. After all, this is when you’d normally be asleep. You tell her you’re never too tired around her, but truthfully you’re forcing yourself to stay awake. You’re afraid this may be the last time you see her, because she’s walked out on you before, and you don’t want to spend the time you do have together asleep. You do your best to not look tired, and you wrap your arm around her, wresting your hand on the center of her back. You gently hold her closer to you, using the motion to silently let her know what you want.

The message was well received, she inches her face towards you and gives you a kiss. It still feels like the first. She pulls away and stares at you for a brief moment, you try to tell her that you’ve missed her but before you are able to she cuts you off and says, “I love you.” 

This isn’t the first time she said those words to you, in fact it’s the third.

The first time she said them was through a text. She didn’t want to see you at the time, and I suppose the text was better than nothing. You remember telling her you wish you had heard them out loud, but appreciate the fact that she told you. She called you moments later and left a voicemail saying the words, “I love you.” You probably listened to that voicemail enough times to have heard and understood each and every note. You grow fond of the genuineness in her voice. By the time you actually hear these words in person, you have already heard it thousands of times. You’re not tired of it. It still sounds new to you. This time you heard her perfectly clear. The three words left her lips, made their way through your ears, and found a place in your heart.

You never had an official relationship with this girl. You never even went out on a single date. But somehow you fell in love. It didn’t matter to you that the first time she said it was through a text. After all they’re just words. They don’t need to be said, nor heard. When your “relationship” ended you realized how unnecessary those things are. You didn’t need dates, flowers, movies, dinners, or gifts to help whatever it was you two had along, all you needed was each other.

Clean Your Plate

A couple of weeks ago I came home from work to find my mom cooking spaghetti at 8 o’clock in the morning. When I asked her why she decided to wake up so early to make spaghetti for breakfast she said, “You said it’s been a long time since I made spaghetti. Now you can eat before you go to sleep.” It goes without saying that I love my mom. Not just for the reason that she does stuff like this for me, but because she always inadvertently teaches me life lessons without actually teaching.

My mom’s spaghetti is amazing. This batch, in particular, was so good and my night at work so busy, that I decided I was hungry enough for seconds. When I took a mound of it from the serving bowl my mom glanced over and said, “That’s too much.” I looked at her and laughed. She obviously underestimated my appetite.

Sure enough, a few minutes later, I was left with half a plate full of spaghetti. If this were 10 years ago, I’m positive my mom would’ve given me an I told you so, and wouldn’t have let me eat the ice cream in the freezer until I finished whatever was left on my plate. Lucky for me, I’m now 23 and have a pair of dogs at home that look forward to my mom’s cooking. Half an hour later I was in my room enjoying a bowl of chocolate malted crunch.

I’m sharing this story because around the same time, one of my good friends asked me why I hadn’t written anything in awhile. If you know me well enough, or have been reading my posts, you’d already know that 2012 wasn’t exactly the easiest year for me. I had a lot of things going on and I didn’t quite know how to handle it all (that’s what she said). One of my ex-girlfriends used to hate the fact that I never talked about my problems or told her what was bugging me. I guess I just figured that everyone had their own problems, so why bug them with mine? 

It got to the point that where I had bottled up so many problems that I had trouble sleeping at night. I was restless. There were days I’d be lucky to get an hour of sleep. Eventually I turned to writing and figured I’d might as well bug the internet with my issues. I got things off my chest. Even though my problems didn’t go away, it felt good to vent. Sometimes all you really need to do is take a step back and talk about what’s going on in order to get the clarity you need to get to the solution.

I wrote a lot last year. I took a look back at my posts earlier tonight and there were more than I wanted to read. I don’t normally reread my posts because I don’t care to relive whatever it was I was writing about. I wrote about very personal things; trying my best to let out old feelings, thoughts, and emotions.

I wrote a lot last year because I had a lot on my plate. Every time I felt like I had cleared out a good amount, my plate took on more food. It felt insurmountable. It was my Everest. But eventually those old feelings, thoughts, and emotions began to run out, so I wrote less frequently.

At some point, after you’ve done all you could and cleared as much as you could, you let God take the rest so that you can rest.

_____________________________

P.S. for those of you there tonight and wondering.

I’ll admit it: tonight’s dinner was a little weird for me. I didn’t end up finishing all of my food, but at the very least I can say my plate is clean.

Just ANOTHER reminder that you’re still alive

For the most part I think we all get so caught up with our lives that we sometimes forget we’re living. Some of us could be having too much fun to realize it, too upset to want to acknowledge it, or maybe just too busy to even notice. Then there are moments that hit you hard enough to remind you that you’re still alive.

All of your relationships will end—all but one, anyway. The pain will heal, eventually. Friendships may or may not last a lifetime. But the lessons, if you pay enough attention, are forever.

Even though this relationship only lasted 2.5 months, I’ve taken a lot away from it. (1) You can have hundreds of things in common with a person and it still may not work out. (2) Relationships don’t need to end badly. (3) You can be friends with an ex, successfully. (4) Regardless of who initiates the breakup, it will hurt.

Breakups are never easy. It doesn’t matter how long or short the relationship lasted, or how civil both parties acted when it happened. In some way or form, it’s going to hurt. Whether you end on good or bad terms, the pain is mandatory. Sometimes we fool ourselves into believing that we aren’t hurting, but sooner or later it’s going to hit you, hard. Our natural reaction is to ignore the pain, and hope it goes away as quickly as it came.

Tonight, one of my coworkers told me something I don’t think I’ll ever forget. As soon as I told her I was single again, she interrupted me and said, “Don’t ignore the pain. Cherish it.” I must have had a confused look on my face because she went on to say, “Because when it’s gone, you’ll miss it.”

I immediately called bullshit (in my head, of course). For the next couple of hours I sat on this bizarre notion that someone could “miss pain.” Unless you’re a masochist, I think 99.99% of us could agree that we would rather not have to deal with pain at all. A few more hours passed into my shift and I had a realization: We need to hurt once in awhile.

The pain serves as a tether to bring us back down to earth from whatever cloud we’ve been riding on. It’s proof that we actually loved, cared, and felt for another person without any reservation. It’s the reason we learn to appreciate the times we feel invincible. And it’s a reminder that we’re vulnerable, that our time is limited, and that we’re still human.

The end of this relationship didn’t mean the end of our friendship. Like I said earlier, I’ve taken a lot away from it. (5) At the very least, I can honestly say I’ve completed this checklist:

Before you can grow up, you must fall in love 3 times.

• Once you must fall in love with your best friend, ruining your friendship forever. This will teach you who your true friends are, and the fine line between friendship and more.
• Once you must fall in love with someone you believe to be perfect. You will learn that no one is perfect, and that you should never be treated as any less than you deserve.

• And once you must fall in love with someone that is exactly like you. This will teach you about who you are, and who you want to be.

I feel pain, but I also feel lucky to be able to say I’ve loved three times.

Yes, I’m single again, but I’m still alive.

The worst is over, you can have the best of me. We got older, but we’re still young. We never grew out of this feeling that we won’t give up.

The Starting Line