An older fellow student gave me the following when I was still at SCAD and in the process of moving on from Trystan... It was an unusual gesture coming from her, but so needed at the time... and I am still so grateful for the words and the confirmation they gave...
Love
(author unknown)
Love is a gift that one person makes to another. It is a gift of the heart and the heart signs no documents. It does not sign a lease, a mortgage or a bill of sale. It offers no warranties of service or guarantee of faithfulness. It is well to remember this, both that you have no inalienable rights to another's continued affection and that you have no obligation of your own to always love someone you once loved.
Sometimes, if your own life is to add up, you must subtract yourself from someone else's life. This time comes, I think, whenever you find the affection or love of someone else can be kept only at the cost of your "self". If you are on the receiving end of much criticism, if the other has nothing but dissatisfaction with you, if you have lost the sense that to be yourself is a good and decent thing it is time to get out. If love lessens you, if an undeclared war is being carried on in its name, if it is painful and joyless, if it is an excuse for destructive demands, it is time to let the love go and save yourself. YOU WILL FIND ANOTHER LOVE, BUT NEVER ANOTHER SELF.
I don't know why I choose this, at Valentine's day, to be my post after a long silence. I have it tacked to the wall near my computer so that I am often reminded of its words, of that time in my life and how far/where I have come from.
My life is a lot more simple now, though I still struggle with most if not all my old struggles, but I have survived... and learned... I'm moving on, rediscovering my faith in love... learning how to trust my heart in another man's hands... slowly... so slowly... rebuilding myself and finding another love.
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