But how altogether more sad it is when people that are unable to share with each other anymore. Hurt and bitterness become the replacement of love.. causing distance and "protecting myself from hurt" become the focus. Walls are then built to cope, and then in the end, love was unable to prevail. Now, instead of "remember when we..."; it only becomes a distant faded past that is (on purpose) ignored...all in the name of moving on, and trying to forget. I say... WHY?!?!
Why do the memories created in love have to be spoiled because of current circumstance? They were once thoughts that filled us with love and a smile, and are they not still the same thoughts as they were before? Can't memories and feelings be allowed to stand as they were? Why can't I build a monument in your honor inside my heart? Why can't I allow those rooms of my soul to forever be occupied by you? When life and love is shared and created, why must I have to let it go, to create room for another? Hell no!! WHY?? I say keep it. All that was and is good, and fills you with love inside...KEEP!!!! God is expansive and forever and so is love. And so I choose to keep what is mine that I was given Min... People become bitter over time if love isn't allowed to prevail. God shows us and teaches us love, and we can either keep it so it lives inside us, or let it go... I want to keep it. Hoard it... and allow it to fill up my soul.
And so I therefore choose to keep you... As the part of me that you are....and always will be. It's NOT your choice!! It's mine!! Living and breathing memories, that will forever be with me. So when my mind decides to visit those rooms that have you in them, I'm going to let it explore all it wants to. Why not smile? "In the end...what does it matter"? Well, to me... it does. You see,... I have to live with me...and I don't want to live in torment or bitterness. I want love to live. It doesn't have to be stifled or ignored, it CAN live... I choose to let it BE!
So as the years pass, and as my mind tells me stories of "Remember when..." I will lovingly recall the stories that are told and retold of you! Thank you....Hi
It is a sad state when negative circumstance can more deeply impact a person than the positive ones. We have to change our mindset (renew our minds in Christ). Negativity is all around us and it will most likely continue. We have to be willing to grab on to the positive people, circumstances, and memories and never relinquish them.
ReplyDeleteOh, Matthew, I love this post. I understand this post, because I'm living it. Last night I went to dinner with an old friend. Although we e-mail and occasionally call, it's been a year since I've seen his face. For years I hoped that he would be my "forever." But he wasn't, he isn't. There are many years of history between us filled with lots of love, some anger, and lots of pain--- because the one who knows you so well also knows how to hurt you so much. When "forever" wasn't, I did my best to block him completely out of my life and my mind for a couple of years. I wouldn't even let myself think of him. It was miserable to spend so much time hurt and angry while trying to deny that he'd ever been part of my life.
ReplyDeleteThe realization finally came that I had to choose to forgive him, and to ask him to forgive me for my part in the hurt. For me forgiveness was very hard work, but entirely worth the work because of the peace it brought. During that difficult process I came to understand new things about the Atonement, and what a gift it is that we are allowed to forgive, to be forgiven, to put down our burdens and our anger, and move on.
Keeping the good is a choice. The fact that there has been anger and pain in no way erases the joy and goodness he brought to my life. It took me awhile to understand that. I consciously choose to keep the good. Your post tells me that you, too, are choosing to keep the good.
So last night I spent nearly four hours laughing and remembering the good times with a man who now fits into the category of old friend, which is a just-right fit for him. It is a tremendous blessing to me to be past the pain and anger. It's truly better and healthier for both of us to be apart. He's not my "forever" and never will be, but he does care about me and make me laugh. It's sadly ironic that even though it never bothered him to hurt me, it bothers him now when other people try to. I appreciate that because he's often the first to encourage me when things get difficult in my life. Even though we've long since gone our separate ways to live different lives, there will probably always be ties of friendship between us.
Matthew, I was very touched, yes, I loved this post and your reflection on the memories that some want us to forget. About the love we may decide to keep it in a corner of our heart, I am totally in agreement with your words "And so therefore I choose to keep you ... As the part of me That You are always .... and Will Be "because it is a personal choice that everyone should respect !!
ReplyDeleteSo I wanted to share with you my feelings on an issue :
PART 1
CAN YOU REMEMBER THE PEOPLE THAT WE LOVED ?
I never wanted to refute my feelings just to listen or to please some people whose heart and mind is not mature enough and honest ... I do here, referring to people who refuse to recognize that people who shared at some point our lives can not, as if by magic out of it.
There is a quote that I like H. KELLER: "The more educated human beings is the one who best understands his own life."
This sentence makes me think that people who refuse to analyze their experiences in depth, eventually ignore themselves, just as they ignore the others ... or worse, they ignore those they could love, or that marked certain stages in their lives !
For ENCOUNTERS of life, the moments shared MAKE LIFE !!
PART 2
ReplyDeleteWE ARE LIKE THE TREES ...
In my mind, I compare myself to a tree.
When you learn to draw a tree, you can choose to leave the trunk whose branches, that is to say, to think of themselves first as an end in itself ... But conversely we can choose consider others with us, as elements that will build and we first draw each stem from the earth, a trait more a trait (a person over another person building our life) ... So each line became branch and only then features of each branch formed will form the trunk.
I like to think it's like that, that every encounter "significant" part of us forever, and we built for eternity, creates our strength and vitality.
Happiness is not it in the personal development resulting from the exchange? I think so, because the greatest wealth is that we can share !!
Of course, sometimes the meetings we build in joy, but at times can hurt us later, either through their differences or their absences. But it is so, life gives us and life is returning us ... But in my humble opinion, however, we must not ignore that the most fleeting encounters and unions even allow us to give of ourselves, even if that grief comes revisit the memories that these exchanges.
I love this about the Chinese saying: "The more sorrow will dig your being, the more joy you can contain after") to ponder ...
PART 3
ReplyDeleteMEMORIES
Yes, Matthew, I think that the people with whom we have had something strong, with whom we were very close to leave an indelible impression on us ... It can be a gentle footprint loaded or loaded sadness or both mixed, but it will engraved somewhere in us, much as if they had something left, some of them in us.
I am therefor agree with you, it's up to us to make the CHOICE to be able to develop enough our heart and mind so KEEP THOSE MEMORIES as CONSTRUCTIVE ELEMENTS. For if we have the ability, wisdom, it shows that while we accept the fact that their potential, their energy, have been used to build our own in our life, and humility grows us !
Personally, I try to keep in mind and in my heart, people who shared a moment of their lives with me, because I want to remind myself that my inner development is supported by their advice, their laughter, their grief, the doubts they have told me, oh how important their presence at times of my life ... and now their absence.
Yes, some day, by music, by reading, by thinking, then they reappear, but I'm happy to see that my heart is not insensitive and do not forget I hope !!
I think not only the loved ones we "live" in the sense that their contact we have evolved and we are built with them, but also that memories invite us to continue to grow and we remember that even if they are no longer with us, they always accompany us in our deepest being. May we keep only the good memories and ignore the rest.
These people that we have loved and who are no longer there, remind us that we could project ourselves into the future without cross their path in the past.
PART 4
ReplyDeleteTODAY ... STRUGGLE AGAINST TIME!
Today I want to enjoy your writings, hear your voice (which I love!) When you sing, because I do not know if I'll be there to hear tomorrow or even if you covet to share these comments, or your songs, so that warm my soul.
Today, I choose to fight against TIME, this enemy so cruel sometimes !
Time, yes time is a thief. It will rob you so much that you will weep with rage and nostalgia! Time will rob you of friends, who will sometimes forget you, which will perhaps change so that you will have the impression of not knowing them. Time will steal memories which could gradually escape from your memory or become increasingly blurred if you do not fight against him.
Time will steal a lot of moments, moments that you will want to "pause" but parade so fast that you will have the impression that things entirely outside your control. Time trying to take away our childhood with her dreams, to make us lose sight of the crazy projects we have done and that drives us sometimes.
Time is short, we press that we sometimes do bad choices. It takes us a lot of people that it will never be as we can even if they still exist, they get caught up in time and end up making you understand that they have more for you ... :-(
Time makes you realize that nothing is forever and that many people you love today will go some day ...
Time wants you to change, wants to do everything to make you lose, misplace you so that you no longer know who you are and that you can still choose to shut down your mind and heart to meditate (Oh my God, it sometimes we do not !!).
The time can disrupt the way you think, laugh and even to love by using the routine he knows insidiously install.
Over time, if we do not fight, can make you cry, you leave scars that will never go away, because of the bitterness, regret not having done, not choosing to stop enough to love ... because so time will leave memories and disappointments.
Be aware leverage this fight against time to mature and offer our feelings at the present moment all the value it deserves so that we will never regret not having done in time ...
Choosing whether or not to revisit our memories will be moments of joy, because we continue to give our life all the positive value it deserves, in the exchange if we realize and accept that self-sacrifice gives us happiness we all expect, because "there is more blessed to give than to receive" the Holy Bible tells us in Acts 20: 35.
Thank you for your exchange Matthew and may God continue to bless you, you and your family.
:-)
Definitely. Never give up a part of your life. It's a part of who you are and anyone who doesn't accept that is not really accepting you.
ReplyDelete