Tag: companionship

  • It’s not always about you

    It’s not always about you

    The truth is, if you want to matter that much to someone else, shouldn’t they matter equally as much to you?

    If they do, and you find that they don’t have as much time for you as they used to, or are behaving differently to what you know them to be about, do you claim your privilege to be treated better than that, or do you show sincere concern for what they may be dealing with?

    Busting mental health myths is essential to break the cycle that feeds toxic victim mindsets.

    The problem with this meme is that is encourages self-centered perspectives and denies the struggles that someone else may be going through.

    Sometimes the ones we love may be so overwhelmed by what they’re going through that withdrawal from the world is the only way that they believe they can cope.

    It’s not about how much you may want them to lean on you, or take comfort from you. Sometimes, their battle with themselves drives them to want to protect others from the impact that it is having on them.

    Don’t be so quick to write people off. When you do that, you lose the right to ask others to give you the benefit of the doubt when you’re going through a struggle that no one else understands.

    Sacrificing what you need in favour of understanding someone you love, is sometimes the greatest gift of love you could give anyone. Even if they don’t realise it at the time.

    It’s about what you want to gift to them, not what you need from them that matters.


  • A silent betrayal

    A silent betrayal

    The betrayal of trust is not always due to blatant acts of dishonesty.

    Most often, it’s the silence or the restraint from a loved one when their words or their embrace is most needed.

    It’s the shrug when we reach out to them or offer them support, or the deliberate obliviousness when we express our need for them.

    It’s the trust that bonds hearts that is more fragile than the intellectual trust.

    Reconciling dishonesty is easy because we have tangible evidence to work with.

    Understanding what’s in someone’s heart when they keep it a secret, or when they become subdued after having been expressive, leads to more anguish than any lie of the tongue.

    It is the not knowing that tortures and tests the trust we once placed in someone, especially when all the evidence conflicts with their claims.

    That’s when breathing becomes a labour in search of love, and exhaling feels pointless.

    Photo credit : Adobe Stock

  • My silent scream

    My silent scream

    When rage is all you have left in you, know that you’ve surrendered yourself to the betrayal of the world.

    When rage becomes a silent scream or a deliberate protest, despite your best intentions, you are still defined by that betrayal.

    When rage colours your view of the world, you see demons in angels, and persecution in love, because they both, the angels and the love, carry with them the threat of a broken trust.

    Worse still, when rage defines your response to life, you not only reject anything that demands trust, but you strike preemptively at the hint of what you once courted, hurting the ones invested in your peace.

    When we view the world through angry eyes, innocence is tainted, sincerity appears as manipulation, and affection feels like a self-serving act of the one offering it.

    Discarding the good doesn’t only deny you that good, it also creates space for the festering wounds of the past to contaminate even more beauty and innocence that once filled those spaces.

    Breathe, beloved…

    Just breathe…

    Don’t let the betrayers of your past cause you to betray your future.

    Photo credit : Adobe Stock

  • Thus, is love lost

    Thus, is love lost

    In affection, we focus on our beauty

    In rejection, we focus on our deficiencies

    Perhaps that’s why the world is so harsh

    Too many are waiting for their deficiencies to be accepted before they share their beauty

    Or need their grievances with one to be compensated before they accept the beauty of another.

    Each time we wait for the past to be redressed before

    we invest in the future

    We are discarding the future in favour of the very past we wish we could leave behind

    Thus is the gift of love discarded

    And bitterness courted.

    Photo credit : Adobe Stock

  • Dancing with destiny

    Dancing with destiny

    A snippet of a thought from the sequel to my novel, An Incomplete Love Story.

    We’re living in such uncertain times, and the uncertainty seems to be seeping into my thought processes.

    “Whether we were cut from the same cloth before time began, or we were shaped by life to be perfectly matched, it doesn’t matter. Destiny doesn’t always win. Sometimes, we avert destiny because we prefer the familiarity of our fears rather than the uncertainty of hope.”

    This, if ever it is written, will be central to the theme of my next novel, Taqdeer: A dance with destiny.

    Tell me what you think. Should I write the sequel, or should this be one of those love stories that should forever remain incomplete?

    Photo credit : Adobe Stock

  • The balance of happiness

    The balance of happiness

    Without meaning to, life can become a trading exercise in which we give something with the expectation of receiving something else in return.

    That’s when it gets complicated. When the assumptions of one or both becomes entangled in the belief that happiness lies in a like-for-like exchange of sentiment or gifts, or perhaps effort.

    Sometimes, happiness is found in the opportunity to love without resistance to it.

    The ability to have your expression received graciously and appreciatively, because in such acceptance lies the happiness of the one who gives, and the gracious acceptance forms the expression of love of the one who receives.

    Happiness is found in differing expressions of love creating a beautiful whole.

    It’s when servitude meets devotion, or nurturing meets strength that the two complement each other, rather than compete with each other.

    Happiness is found in the balance that is born from the two, not in trying to create a singular expression between the two as one.

    Too often we assume the happiness of another to be dependent on our active contribution towards them, rather than realising that it is simply our appreciation of their contribution towards us that creates the fulfilment that would calm the souls of both.

    Calm souls create beauty, while anguished souls create destruction. Breathe beloved…just breathe…

    Photo credit: Adobe Stock

  • A gentle neglect

    A gentle neglect

    It is better to die of violence, swift and decisive, than to die of a gentle neglect, slow and painful.

    The violent episode holds the promise of a quickened relief from the anguish of life, while being abandoned offers a view of our decaying spirit, while tortured by hope.

    Living with hope is a curse when immersed in a reality of hopelessness.

    Hopelessness is a convenience that spurns love, and embraces the cold comfort of solitude.

    It is the absence of risk, but also the absence of joy.

    Nonetheless, it carries with it the promise of not being betrayed…again.

    Again, because hopelessness only sets in when we’ve been viciously abandoned before, making the hope of being cherished too painful to consider.

    We nourish the cruelty of the world that kills our spirit, when we abandon what we love in favour of holding on to the familiarity of what we loathe.

    Thus, we destroy the very remedy for which we’ve been praying to heal our broken soul.

    Our eyes reveal the hollow in the light of day, and the stinging brutality in the quiet of night, knowing that none look close enough during the daylight hours, while praying that the one who sees everything takes pity on our souls in the tortured darkness.

    Breathe, beloved…just breathe…hopelessness has no home in a cherished heart.

  • A life beyond being

    A life beyond being

    Without experiencing the joy of living, life will remain a dutiful encounter.

    Similarly, without experiencing the sweetness of true love, love will feel like a need to serve and to be served.

    It is only in connecting with an experience beyond what we imagined to be the limits of what is possible, that we begin to pursue the impossible.

    But such an experience cannot be taught, nor can it be studied to be appreciated.

    Intellectualising it makes it a dream, while experiencing it makes it the only acceptable outcome.

    But…fear…

    Fear destroys dreams and replaces it with complacency.

    Because the fear of losing what we deeply yearn for, is more daunting than living our dream.

    So we protect our dreams from abandoning us, or us abandoning them, by convincing ourselves that such romantic aspirations are not for this world.

    Because what was birthed in heaven, cannot be sustained on earth.

    Faith is all that stands between a life worth living, and an existence worth protecting.

    Have faith, beloved… And just breathe…