Being A Savage Doesn't Mend A Broken Heart: Only Time Does.

We hurt, we learn, we grow… But how many of us are stunting our growth by what we refuse to learn? By what we refuse to let go of? By the emotions we deny ourselves thinking that if we conceal and pretend long enough that we don’t feel them, eventually they will go away?
Oh honey... emotions buried alive don’t die: they fester and show up as inappropriate behaviors. Iyanla Vanzant said it, life taught me, way before I found those words.


See I am part of that generation of "savages": we laugh it all off to the face of the world only to cry ourselves to sleep in the lonely hours. We pretend to be okay because we have a duty to entertain “an audience” but really, all we are comes to two things: walking broken hearts and wounded souls; each and everyone carrying burdens and emotional baggage that we are too scared to undo. We seem to have it all figured out, with social media and the whole shenanigans, but in reality we are hollow and empty. We are shadows of who we used to be simply because we refused to acknowledge that the hurt was real and when it caught up with us the aftermath was not pretty. We deny ourselves the right to hurt and to grieve because we have been taught that to say that we are hurt is to be weak. And so we jump from one thing/ person to another to distract our mind and heart from something that is so very real, from a pain that knows no name and that pushes us everyday to the edge, the edge of reason. Physically standing but emotionally crumbling, physically alive but emotionally dying from a slow and painful death that nobody can see because we are too good at masking our pain; walking around like Superman and letting our inner Clark Kent die, only forgetting they both depend on each other to stay alive. We get so caught up playing superhero that we forget we're only humans and God forbid we admit we also need saving and rescue from the very things that eat us alive, the things that keep us up at night.


Being a savage doesn’t mend a broken heart baby, only time does; time and a little faith: Faith that you won’t stay in the same spot forever; faith that one day you will wake up and something inside you will have settled. And then on your journey to recovery you will pick up some strength: Strength to not run back to the things that broke you; strength to overcome your worst days, realizing without shame that your struggle is real but so worth it. And in those days when the pain seems unbearable, in those days where your feet might buckle under the burden of your pain and healing heart, take a look back to get some more strength: a look back to the better days to keep you going and to keep you strong. Remind yourself of the days where you successfully kept your head out of the water, remind yourself of the days where you successfully weathered some of the most violent storms designed to break even the strongest of us all.


Being a savage doesn’t mend a broken heart. Time does. Time and little bit of faith alongside with a dash of hope. We are all a little crooked and broken, but baby that’s how the light gets in. We are all a little broken in our very own ways but that how we learn, that’s how we grow.

-Excerpt from a memoir I will never write #5

We hurt, We Learn, We grow

Ten years ago I had a totally different idea/ conception of love. I guess because I was young and resilient or maybe because my heart hadn’t been through the wears and tears of time OR maybe because it hadn’t been dragged through the mud yet. I used to dream of that wild love. The one that leaves you drunk and drives you completely crazy, the one that just hits your brain and your heart in a split second and that you can’t get enough of. I know... It was a very naïve conception of love but I was a pretty young thing and I didn’t know better. But I learned. I learned through the lonely nights, the nights where I couldn’t sleep because I was wondering who he was with; the lonely nights where I would cry myself to sleep, wondering how he could put me through so much shit and go to sleep as if nothing happened. I learned through the lonely nights where the only thing that seemed to mend my heart was praying and writing my pain and heartbreak away because really I didn’t know what else to do. I would try to speak and words would just be stuck to the back of my throat. I would try to breathe and it would feel like I was drowning in my sorrows and my tears. I would try to eat but I couldn’t: it seemed like all the butterfly that were flying in my stomach every time he would smile to me and tell me he loved me had just died. My stomach was a funeral home: dead butterfly all over the place. My heart was broken, my soul was a wreck and my life (along with my hair) was a mess.


I hurt. I ached. But I learned. I learned that after being drunk in love comes the hangover and it is never a pretty sight nor is it a good feeling. I have learned that love is like a drug: getting high feel exhilarating at first but the aftermath is chaos and darkness. I wish somebody had told me about the violence of the crash. I wish somebody had told me : "baby take a parachute just in case. Just in case you go too high. Just in case you fall from up there, we don’t want to see you die". I wish somebody had explain to my why we say "fall in love", I wish someone had told me that the crash could be as unpredictable and violent as a tornado wrecking havoc everything crossing its path. I wish somebody had warned me about the fall, the one that shattered my heart and my soul in the process.


But even then I grew and I learned. I learned that a broken heart lets in the light and that at some point the light replaces the darkness. I learned that for a while you cry yourself to sleep and one morning, you wake up and all of the sudden something has settled in your heart. You can smile and laugh again. You can be yourself and alive; striving and kicking when a few years, months, days ago you were barely living, sitting on the edge of reason, only surviving. You open your eyes one day and despair has given its sits to hope. You think about love and you don’t get angry anymore. You think :" Perhaps one day I’ll be able to love again" instead of disappearing into a puddle of tears and acting like a lunatic. All of the sudden, you are on the other side of the storm. You don’t know how you made it through but you just know you’re on the other side because you can finally look back and not be sad. Or bitter. Or hurt. You’re finally at peace and you won’t let the past nibs its way through your newly found heaven.


Love was never easy to begin with. It is one of those things we gamble with, betting our hearts out of sheer madness, hoping and praying that things will work out. Love is one of those crazy things that we can’t live without. It’s one of those things that can freeze your heart or set your soul on fire.
To each one its own hell and may the odds be ever in our favor as we attempt to turn hell into paradise.

 

- Excerpt from a memoir I will never write #4

Loving From The Inside Out: Love Yourself First ❤

“Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.”
– Lucille Ball

We spent so much time investing in people and nurturing relationships, forgetting that the relationship we have with our own self sets the tone for all the relationship we will ever have.

We walk around encouraging people, smiling at them, pouring all those wonderful things into them and their life but how much time do we take to do it for ourselves? How much time do we allow ourselves to spend filling our own tank? We run around filling other people’s cup and then get dumbfounded when we finally crash and come to the realization that we have poured so much in others but so little in ourselves.

When was the last time you felt proud of yourself? when was the last time you looked at yourself in a mirror and told yourself: “I love you” or “I am proud of you”? When was the last time you checked in with your feelings? When was the last time you stood up for yourself? when was the last time you complimented yourself? did something nice for yourself? when was the last time you allowed yourself to let it go, sit in the heartbreak of all the situations that brought you sorrows, allowed them to be what they are without judging yourself? when was the last time you allowed yourself to cry? To be angry? To be sad? To be happy? When was the last time you allowed yourself to feel without judging yourself or your emotions?

See we walk around looking like superheroes and fooling the world into thinking that we are superheroes but we are not. We are human and if there is anything coming close to having a superpower it is our mastered ability to build façades to conceal our flaws and not allow ourselves to be who we truly are, express how we truly feel and be okay with it.

To be able to love someone truly you need to love yourself first. Yes, you can love others without loving yourself but you will eventually be running on an empty tank. Why? because by not loving yourself you will not be able to receive love from an external source. And if you do it will go right out because you haven’t developed a relationship with yourself that allows you to hold on to the good that is being poured in you.

So, before you look up to someone to fill the void, to love you, to encourage you, to be proud of you, to treat you well, do it for you. treat yourself the way you want people to treat you, be good to yourself. be gentle with yourself, be kind with yourself and the people who reflect those things you do for yourself will come into your life and pour greatness, love and all those great things you do for yourself ten folds and perhaps more.

-Excerpt from a memoir I will never write #3

In The Midst Of The Storm

“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.” ~  Haruki Murakami

The situations in life that we benefit the most from are the one that push us out of our comfort zone. The ones that make us fall on our faces, broken but still breathing and trying our best to stay alive; the ones that make us stay up at night hoping praying to fall asleep and not wake up, yet make us hope for a better day with the sun rising. we have all been there, we have all at some point reached rock bottom. Falling apart and crumbling under life’s punches, knocked out but never knocked off, falling face first and yet, finding a way to get back up and keep going.

We have all been through that one big storm. The one that took away everything we relied on in life, and left us with nothing but the naked truth of what we are, of who we truly are. That storm that brings out everything we buried deep inside and prayed to never see, all those feelings we buried alive hoping that one day they will just go away. But you know what they say about feelings buried alive: they seep and then come back around as inappropriate behaviors... So when the storm finally hits, we try our best to go through it by putting one foot in front of the other, praying for God’s grace and strength everyday. We do so by trying as much as it depends on us to keep our heads high during the day no matter how hard it is and our knees on the ground during the night seeking God’s direction and reassurance because that storm is shaking and tearing everything apart in our life from the ground up, making everything fall apart in the most brutal and unexpected way.

However, if we take time to be silent in the midst of the storm; if we take time to truly be with ourselves and sit in the heart of the storm and sit in the heartbreak it brings along, if we reach that place where we can quiet our mind in order to ask ourselves the right questions, we might understand the purpose of the storm. We have a habit of seeing the evil in everything but only when we learn to look at life and its most unfortunate situations with a grateful heart, we can find the meaning into and the purpose behind every situation life throws at us, even the most violent storms. Sometimes it is to reveal another layer of ourselves we had no idea existed. Sometimes it is to remove everything so that we can have the opportunity to restart on a clean slate. And sometimes the things we believe are falling apart are actually falling into place and even when we think everything is crumbling, perhaps they truly are. Perhaps they have to crumble for us to build better foundations for our lives and for us to be able to put the pieces that are crumbling back together the way they were meant to be, the way we intended them to be or perhaps the way God intended them to be.

There isn’t necessarily something good about a stormy life but by training our mind to look for it we always end up finding something to be grateful for. And if after searching in your mind and your heart you can’t find anything, just remember that the good thing about hitting rock bottom in life is that there is only one direction you can go and it’s up. And this doesn’t give you hope, I don’t know what else will.

-Excerpt from a memoir I will never Write #4

The Reality Of Love

"People will do anything to have you until they realize they cannot handle the reality of you"

Most of the time we walk into relationships with that idea of perfection about the person we are about to enter that adventure with. We walk in with that idealization of the relationship looking at it through rose tinted glasses. But this is not what love is. Love is not all figured out. Love can be messy and complicated sometimes. But it all comes down to taking a pledge to work it out and stick together through thick and thin.

Love is understanding that sometimes we fight but it doesn’t mean the love is gone. Because the truth is the minute one party doesn’t bother enough to engage in the resolution of a conflict, it means that there is nothing worth fighting for anymore. To love means stop hiding behind excuses and own up your mistakes, apologize when you mess up and make an efforts to make things better. Love is stop judging each other for failing to be who we want each other to be, for what we want the relationship to be and embrace the reality of the now whether it is the relationship or the people we are at each stage of the relationship.

Love is being there for each other, deciding to grow together but still having enough space to be able to nurture our dreams, passions and go after them. It is encouraging each other and bring out the best. It is also making concessions sometimes. It is putting the other person first sometimes because when you love, you have the other person’s interests at heart. Love is being accountable for the other person’s heart while still understanding that you are not responsible for their emotions and their feelings.

Love is everything but easy. It is multifaceted and there is no contradiction. It is just what it is and you just have to embrace it as it is, even though it never makes sense. It never has and never will because it not meant to make sense and because the matters of the heart never make sense. Love can be a mess. And I would go as far as to quote Rainbow Rowell and say that “Love is like art, it is not supposed to look nice and beautiful, it is supposed to make you feel something.”

Love is beautiful and yet, it can be messy and complicated sometimes. There is no contradiction : it is just multifaceted.

-Excerpt from a memoir I will never write #2

Beauty From Tragedy

 “If somebody digs a whole in you, plant nice flowers and tell that person to go fuck themselves”

Unknown

I certainly did find it funny the first time I discovered this say mainly because it is the kind of thing I would say. However, past the hilarious laugh, I never really took time to reflect on it and find actual meaning in it. And then one day, while I was running up and down the stairs at work trying to get things done, in a moment of pure serenity and calm it finally hit me.

Planting the flowers is replacing the ugliness of the void with something beautiful to you. Something you care about, something that bring beauty, peace and calm where there used to be a gigantic void. I find it amusing to complete it with “then send a nice bouquet to put on their grave” Sounds mean… but most of the time some people dig holes in you in hope to see you crumble. But then you find a good use to it and whatever beauty that stems from it will surely make them miserable to death. So you share that little bit of beauty with them (let your bright life and new found purpose light their dim life). So that even in death (metaphorically: when they are enraged about not having met their objectives) they can still remember that you found a purpose in the pain they tried to inflict you.

Not only the flowers represent repurposing an unfortunate situation into something more meaningful for you, it also serves as a monument. A place that you revisit to remind yourself of how strong you are, what a long way you have come. It is a place where you go to meditate on how what you once thought ruin, chaos and destruction, was another chance at making things better; another chance at letting go of things that did not belong in your life to make place for the things and the people that are meant to be in your life and in your heart.

And then one day when you meet someone sitting in the middle of their ruins too, trying to figure out life, wondering how they are going to fill the void and move on,. And you invite them to visit your garden. And you tell them about you, about your story, about your garden which stands right where your ruins and hole used to. You tell them about how you turned the brokenness into something beautiful and show them this garden, those flowers, those beautiful things you have invited into your life when letting go hurt but was the only option, as a undeniable proof that they can make it through too.

A proof that beauty can stem from pain and brokenness, a proof that blessing can sometime arise from tragedies.

-Excerpt from a memoir I will never write #1

La Therapie des mots

Une page blanche qu’avec le temps on apprend à remplir,

Comme l’armoire de l’âme qu’on remplit de souvenirs.

Je me suis surprise a ecrire non pas pour supporter la vie

Mais tout simplement parce que dans ma douleur mon inspiration a repris vie.

Trouver les mots pour faire sortir ce que l’on ressent,

Ecrire pour soulager l’âme de ce qu’on n’a pas pu oublier malgré le poids du temps.

Mes écrits n’ont jamais été à l’échelle de ceux de Grand Corps Malade

Néanmoins ils ont efficace a guérir mon âme malade.

Les mots ont su éteindre le volcan de ma colère;

Celui auquel n’ont jamais pu venir à bout tant de larmes au gout amère.

Amères car nées de tant et tant de regrets,

Amères car sur le chemin de la solitude j’ai perdu tous mes repères.

Rêver de liberté, d’amour, d’évasion,

Passer d’un monde gris à un monde en couleur, lever les yeux et dire au revoir à cette prison.

Vivre une vie où tout va bien dans le meilleur des mondes

Car j’ai appris qu’avec les mots on pouvait conquérir le monde.

J’ai trouvé en moi cette force pour cultiver ce don,

Juste pour faire la paix avec moi-même et non pas pour me faire un nom.

Avec une feuille et un stylo j’ai mis à nu mes faiblesses

J’ai compris qu’a cote de l’amour et de la gentillesse il peut parfois y avoir des mots qui blessent.

Même si aujourd’hui certaines blessures sont encore ouvertes

J’ai aussi appris à laisser la porte qui mène à des lendemains meilleurs entre-ouverte;

Car, si comme Grand Corps Malade « mon envie n’a pas maigrie »

C’est sans doute parce que l’espoir d’un jour rencontrer le bonheur la nourrit.

"C'est surtout dans l'ecriture qu'est la magie" - Nathalie Rheims