The Saddest Thing

There are many beautiful things in the world. It differs between different minds. Whether it's the look of joy on a baby's face when they glimpse a parent, the way sunshine transforms the derelict into the chic or whether it's the beauty of ink that flows from a pen transmitting thoughts onto paper.

Yet, at the same time there are some extremely depressing things in this world. Of course, what I say next is just a personal thing and has nothing on war, poverty or cancer; but it's a personal thing.

The saddest thing, for me, in this world is the feeling of remembering what once was.

Allow me to expand.

I am at my saddest when I am reflective. Perhaps that's the mood I am currently in. Nonetheless, when I reflect on those people in my life who once meant so much to me. How once my stories were repeatedly involving their name, my time was always filled with their prescence and my day was not complete without speaking to them.

Whether it's a love interest, a friend or even a sibling: there are memories of certain people in my life who once meant so much to me and centred in such a solid way in my life yet, somehow, now they are just a passing memory in my reflective moods.

There is such a pain in such a once beloved figure becoming a stranger.

A feeling of guilt always fills me. How? How could I have allowed someone, who meant so much to me at one point, fade so quickly from my thickle mind? After all, these are people that I've shared laughter with, cried tears over and even let them inspire me into becoming who I am today. Yet, here I am writing this blog about loss of people to man's greatest enemy: time.

Fair enough, we must all stand the test of time in order to seal a friendship. Additionally, sometimes, if a friendship or any relationship, cannot stand a test of time then maybe we should surrender to fate with that over used phrase: it just wasn't meant to be.

Except, if this is an inevitability then how do I now speak to people at school? Or anywhere for that fact? I know for certain that there are many faces who claim they'll keep in touch but it's just hot air. I can't stop being somebodys friend purely because I "think" they won't speak to me and I'm afraid they'll become a memory.

That is the truth though.

I am afraid.

I find this to be the saddest thing, the worst pain and the hardest part of life.

I am afraid of becoming too close to someone who may become part of my I-used-to-know-this-person-called...-stories.

Mais, c'est la vie.

Sure, there are pains in life. The loss of anyone in any form is a wound which may never truly heal. Yet, through these losses, we also gain. You have to lose in order to know what it feels like to win. There has to be bad in the world, in order to know what is good.

The pain that comes with loss will never become familiar to me- or at least I hope not. However, with each loss I hope there is a lesson there for me to learn. I then pray that the lessons mean that I won't ever have to lose any of the important gains I now make.

Why you should date a girl who reads:

“Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.
Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.
It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.
Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.”

~Rosemarie Urquico