If tomorrow never comes

Life is so fragile! So many things we take for granted that can just get blown away with a sight. 

I love my job, I love getting in my white scrubs and walk down the hallway to my ward. I love the chances I get everyday to care for others, to help them out, to listen to them, to watch over them. I often hear that it must be tough being so close to suffering, despair, uncertainty, disease and death; and it is but it is also a blessing in so many ways.

Everyday I get to remember that life is a gift, that life is fragile, that all we know and all we are able to do can change for ever with the blink of an eye. A bicycle tour under the summer sky, a fall, a hit on the head, bleeding and there they lay, on dippers, unable to talk, unable to eat, asleep. A headache, an MRI and their devastating expiration date from some doctor they've never met. 

We all hear news like that from time to time, they make us think and then we go on with our lives like they were. The more analytic ones will think a day or two, the pragmatic ones may leave things ready just in case, the more empathetic ones shed a tear or two, the religious ones thank God for their lives and health... Nurses and doctors live with it, we learn to getting used to it, we learn to see that nothing in life is sure, that nobody can give us a prognosis, that nobody really knows when and how it will be over, but it is, it will be over one day, for all of us. Death is the only thing we know for sure will happen in our lives, and yet we don't seem to care.

I have changed a lot and even more since I see what I see every day. It's sure not easy to put a red rose between some cold hands, close their eyes forever, make them ready for their loved ones' goodbye. It becomes more natural but never neutral.

Today, after I've opened my big fat mouth and felt a little ashamed I started wondering why. Why do we obsess with hiding how we feel? Why do we try to avoid figuring out what our hearts are trying to say? Why are we so scared of feeling something? Why do we go through life so careful and so afraid? Why do we hide, why do we deny, why do we lie to others and ourselves? We get hurt anyway, we cry and we bounce and we are rejected and we are loved and unloved, and we hate and are hated, and we judge and get judged, and we win and we lose anyhow, all the time, every day. If we see beauty in someone, if we see warmth and light, why do we keep it for ourselves? Fear? We might be rejected and it will be painful, but what could that mean to the other? What if it helps them shine even more? What if it calms their pain? What if it helps them heal some old wound? What if it brings something good to the world? 

Why do we silence words of kindness and of love out of fear, out of shame? What if tomorrow never comes? 

Why I haven't, why I won't.

I was in a hurry yesterday. I had to write, I had to leave for work, life is all about balance. 

I am obsessed, I am a control freak, I somehow think I have the obligation to explain and over explain every little thing I do or say, because if someone gets hurt because of me... well, I have a hard time handling that. And as I sit here wondering what I'm going to throw in my stomach before going to work I feel the needs to say a little bit more about my post of yesterday. 

I read again that nice romantic article about relationships not being for us, but for the recipient of our affection and I agree, I agree to a certain extent. You'll see why.

Love, perfect love, was beautifully described in the First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians:

"Love suffers long, and is kind; love envies not; love vaunts not itself, is not puffed up,

 does not behave itself unseemly, seeks not her own, is not easily provoked, thinks no evil;

 rejoices not in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth;

 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

 Love never fails." (1 Cor 13:4-8)

The thing is that I think we, being imperfect, are not capable of having perfect feelings. We get jealous sometimes, we run out of patience, love might not, but we do. Love is a feeling indescribable, whereas to love is a verb and it is performed by imperfect, screwed up humans. 

I don't know about you, but when I fall in love I fall head first, hands tied behind my back, no parachute and no fluffy madrases to land on. I had loved in a way I gave it all, the little I had, in pieces, patched up... but all I had. I loved in a way I put the loved one first, his smiles made my day, the sparkle in his eyes, his small or big successes made me happier than my own, I felt the need to nurture, to take care. I had felt pretty much like that article describes it, but not forever, not to any price, not for free, not for granted. 

So in my case, romantic love is not unconditional, it will never be! 

Romantic love, as I see it, takes a whole lot of work from both parts, it takes talks, sacrifices, effort. Love is not all about giving, it is also about accepting with a grateful heart. Romantic love, as I see it, is a constant negotiation, it is all about the other, only and just when for the other, it also is all about us. I haven't had it great when it comes to love. It's easy to fail, but there is no recipe, only reciprocity. 

I have been said to be strong, to be a fighter, to be ambitious and even some had said I can be perceived as a rather intimidating woman. Well, one does what one has to do, if you can't fight falling head first you better get used to hitting the concrete. And having gotten naked here and now, and having exposed myself as a vulnerable, sensitive, sentimental woman with the heart of a little girl I can only say I cannot love unconditionally, not without bleeding, not if I care, not for my own sake. 

A whole lot of thinking, for free...

It has been a while. I was free from work and recovering from my night shift exhaustion. I am not a night person, I get sad and gloomy when I'm tired. I'm not talking about normal tired, I'm talking about my neurons barely sending any signal to each other tired. I wish I understood the brain a little more and could figure out what it is that makes us who we are. I'm not even sure the complete answer to that question is written down there.

Whatever. It's been three great weeks in a lot of wonderful, unbelievable and unexpected ways. I think I got surprised by life quite a few times this 2014. I like it. I like surprises as much as I like figuring them out.

The whole lot of thinking started a few months ago, it goes on and it probably will. As it is in my case being the over analytic, philosophy lover, former psychology student (ok, only for a year but it should count as a legitimate interest) and the extremely sentimental person that I am, I thought a lot about families, relationships, romance, love... Why do some go so well as others fail in the abyss of selfishness and loneliness? Why do some great people choose so poorly? Why do some choose so right? Do we choose at all? Or is it just a mater of life and destiny putting people in front of us, some right, some wrong, some of them so so wrong in time. Why? Why do some couples make it, some fake it and others screw it up?

No, I did not come to an answer! Otherwise I would be writing a book by now and waiting to get millionaire. But it happens more often than I'd like to admit, that one of my friends comes with something to trigger my writing. This time it was Yesi posting this article on her Facebook wall. Here's the link so you read it, too. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-adam-smith/marriage-isnt-for-you_b_4209837.html

Is that it? Is that the key to a happy, wonderful, everlasting romance? Making it all about the one you love? Sounds so easy and natural!, or maybe way too hard?. With my girls I feel that kind of love all the time, I lighten up with their smiles and beautiful faces, I have this urge to be there when things go wrong, I love to feel them close and have her arms around me, I want to protect them, see them happy, healthy, shining, sparkling. Their pain is my pain, their tears are my tears, nothing in this world I have that I wouldn't give them. Have I loved that way? Will I love that way? No. I love my girls unconditionally, even if my love is taken for granted for ever more. The thing is, when you love a man like that, or a man loves a woman like that, then it is "for better or for worse, but never for granted", and I think that's the key. Now I'm gonna go write my best seller on relationships.