Crossroads

Two women stared at each other in silent comprehension.
Advice was futile, especially when considering that there are no guarantees. All and any advice given was at the subjectivity of personal experience and therefore when there are no formulas or certainties, all a friend can really do for another friend is listen.
When there are decisions to be made with no right or wrong answers, all one can do to help is try to understand and empathize.
I watched her, scared and insecure, standing at the crossroads.
Anyone who's ever found themselves in a no-win situation knows that your sole prayer is that the decision you make will be the best for all in the long run – the one that causes the least pain to all involved.
My heart broke as she told me in how many pieces hers has been torn in and I longed to comfort her and tell her that everything would be alright – we both knew that in the short run, that wasn't a probability.
Instead, all I could do was listen and hope that venting would release some of the stress and weight upon her shoulders
Fierce frustration! When you watch some one you care about suffer for the one thing that should make them happy – love.

Why does it have to be as complicated with something as simple as falling in love?
I've heard of few, if any, love stories that didn't have a twist to it… The human being somehow insists on putting love to the test. Why deny the soul its very reason for existence? It seems that we all run from the thing we were born to find.
We think up excuses not to listen to our hearts and then tell ourselves that our heads know best, and then we wonder why we're not happy.
We define our personalities by what is politically correct or seen as acceptable by a group of minds and forget that our hearts and souls are what define our individuality. To be an individual, one must follow a path that no one else can draw a map for.
An original life is uncharted territory due to the fact that the heart defines the direction in which an individual should go and grow.
And yet we fight this, telling ourselves that we want to be different when all we're doing is allowing ourselves to be the same as the image we create drawn from some or other philosophy.

Truly there is but one key to salvation: communication.
You can't make a good and worthy decision without knowing all the facts, and when dealing with the heart and the object of your affections, you're dependant on their thoughts, feelings and sincerity.
Not a comforting thought when you're not guaranteed the whole truth.
People tend to omit information, to hide from feelings and avoid defining themselves… because they're scared or because they speak from their logic instead of their hearts.
And yet we need to know, need their perspective otherwise we make decisions on hunches or guesses and as any wise person will tell you:
Assumption is the mother of all fuck-ups!

If you're lucky enough to get the other party to talk – your next impossible mission will be to get them to define what they want and develop a plan of action.
In other words: what are we going to do about it?

What leaves me angry and bitter is the fact that people take so little responsibility for their feelings. We've been taught to take up huge amounts of responsibility in our lives for the actions and decisions we make and yet we aren't taught to deal with the emotions developed.
And so we run from them, hide from them and hope that somehow they'll sort themselves out. Some believe that they can reprogram their hearts to synchronize with their minds; others prefer to ignore their hearts completely and hope that one day they won't even remember what it once desired.
We simply don't trust that our hearts know what makes us happy… perhaps because the risks past taken have caused tears. What we forget is that pain is inevitable, suffering is optional and telling yourself to feel what your heart doesn't is delusional and impossible.

My experience with men is that they believe that if they don't voice it, then it'll eventually go away… God forbid they'll ever have to commit to a feeling! To do so would be to be imprisoned by the sentiment felt towards that person… and these days nobody wants to be tied down.
I wonder how they would react to the philosophy that the most freedom a man can hope for is to be able to choose the prison he lives in.
As morbid as that may seem, the way I see it is that love was never meant to be a prison or an institution you commit yourself to. It's an involuntary emotion that develops and ties you to a person in ways you can never free yourself from.
A relationship is what you build from that emotion.
There's a scary word… relationship. People forget that with everyone we know, we have some or other kind of relationship and how we feel towards them is what determines its nature. How free or tied up a person is in a relationship depends solely on how free or tight the person allows the relationship to develop into.
You know you're in love when you feel free, not at a point where you feel limited.
I thought back at all the men I know that avoid and run from commitment, that live afraid of being tied down… I then realized that I knew very few that didn't.

The worst crime a man can commit is to touch a woman's heart without the intention of loving her; not committing to the love he may feel for her and yet never letting her free to go.

He was intent on living a free life of experience. Intensely, he'd experience every woman that he brought into his web. But the moment that the passion developed into something real, he'd end it quicker than you can say run. Because the only thing he planned to build on was on himself and his career and because he didn't want anybody depending on him or his time. He thrived on the superficial intensity of the moment and then one morning he woke up and looked into the mirror wondering why he wasn't happy.
If he can get any woman he wants, lose himself in the arms and company of one beautiful woman after another, what more should he want for?
Often we forget that love isn't something we're given in order to be happy, it's something we feel that brings happiness into everything we live. And yet we look for it inside the perfect package we imagine it to look like.

To know he's there even with your eyes closed, to feel the magic and have your heart tell you that you're not imagining it… and then to not be able to do anything with it.
That's a tragedy!
When the other person won't own up to his feelings or define any direction, you find yourself wanting to be bet on the safe side… to let go.
And this is how a soul wastes a reincarnation and accumulates karma, by surviving instead of living his life.

Emotional Intelligence – We could all do with some it, considering that people have forgotten what it is to listen to their souls.
If I only I could change the way the world works!
I'd give people strength of spirit, to believe in themselves and follow their dreams. Most importantly… to invest in love, wholly… blindly… completely.
To take away the fear of getting hurt and knowing that it doesn't destroy one's capacity to love.
The world would without a doubt be a happier place.

Looking the other woman in the eyes, I knew what we both knew: deep down she'd already made a decision and now she needed to come to terms with it. Because all feelings need to run their course until reaching their destined purpose. And that it's no use telling yourself your decision, it's something that needs to seep through your veins and into your soul before you heart accepts that the love it feels isn't the love that it's meant to beat for in this lifetime.
I shivered as I recalled the torturous time that it took to cleanse my soul of the poison contaminating my heart of love for the man I wasn't destined to be with.
At some point, I'd say at the very edge of madness, I found the strength to turn my back and let go… to lose the good along with the bad that he was in my life. To rebuild, redefine my life…and even risk caring about someone new.
But that’s me, and I don't recommend my road to anyone if for the simple fact that I believe that everyone needs to discover what’s best for them.
Not that she wanted advice, or seeked it. She merely needed someone to listen, someone how had been down that road before and had felt anything similar to what she was feeling.
Helpless to do or say anything constructive, I hoped my eyes communicated the comfort my words couldn't.
I smiled and told her to hang in there.