We are not simply the sum of our life experiences – we are fundamentally who we choose to be. While it is true that every person we have met and every place we have been has played their part in shaping who we are – it is us and us alone that decides how we allow them to shape us. That is what defines us… because life will bring great pain and sadness, that is one of its only certainties… but it also has the potential for so much love and happiness if you keep your heart open to others despite your pain.
I have been hurt. I have been hurt more times than I can count in ways you cannot even imagine, and yet the only hate I have within me is of the notion of inflicting what I have experienced onto someone else… the only spite I am capable of is to carry on peacefully in spite of all that has befallen me. The energy we hold within us flows through our bodies and out of our fingertips like tendrils into all that surrounds us… We can choose to spread love or we can choose to spread pain… The pain I bury. I bury it deep within me where I know it can never hurt another and feel content in the knowledge that when I die – it dies with me; I never passed it on to someone else because I knew exactly how it felt and could not bear the thought of another person ever feeling it. And it is love that gives me that strength. It is love that enables me to control my pain and give only my love to others…
And if love can keep pain like that under control… then surely love is the greater force.

Then there is the boy you can never stop thinking about. Whenever you see his name, it trips you up. Even if it’s one that belongs to many others, even if he belongs to someone else. You know he is a symbol of your weakness, your Kryptonite. How he rushes in like wildfire and burns through everything you worked so hard to build since he last left you in ashes.

— What else have you thought of?
— Lately? The past.

If you told me today our being together would result in heartbreak, I would still choose to be with you because I believe that truly living life is in the experiences, not the outcomes.