Lessons: Lived, Learned and Yet to Be Learned

Mood: Pensive and Restless
Music: Green Light - John Legend feat Andre 3000
Date/Time: Friday, 8th January, 2010/11:26AM

Today I want to talk about lessons learned and lessons yet to be learned.
I realise that with age, does not necessarily come wisdom or experience - because sometimes I make the same mistakes over and over before realising that the problem is me for doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different outcome. But after all, isn't that the definition of insanity according to Einstein?


Normally, I like to learn from the mistakes of others, but some lessons, have to be lived to be learned. I have discovered that a woman that hasn't done something stupid in the name of love or sex - has never been in love, loved by a man, or been proper fucked.
It sounds crass, but if you think about it, you will agree.
Love and amazing sex can reduce the most intelligent of women - into idiots. Whether it's a woman that stays with an abusive lover, or a woman that maxes out her credit card to pay for her lover's lifestyle: love makes you stupid.

I'm not knocking love, I think it's a beautiful thing - and having experienced it before - I think that the whole was greater than the sum of it's parts...but it's those parts that make the sum, that made me do a few things I'm neither proud of, nor care to repeat.
Stop fishing for gossip, wait till I write my memoir so you can contribute to my retirement fund.

But is love worth it when you start to lose friends? Is it worth it when you stop talking to a female friend who warns you that a man is up to no good? Is it worth it when you stop talking to one of your closest female friends because you're convinced that she and the man you love will end up sleeping together - even though they both deny this? And in both cases - why stop talking to the female friend, and not the man? What do you do when the man leaves you for someone else, and you have less friends that genuinely care about you, because of your own actions?
When the man walks out, isn't it a friend that wipes your tears as you cry on their shoulder? The friend that assures you that everything will be all right, and they will be by your side as you heal?

A few lessons lived and learned:
- A man will tell you he loves you and mean it but will continue to hurt you as long as you let him.
- No one can live your life for you and at some point you have to stop blaming others for your mistakes and accept your own mistakes and their consequences.
- Never allow someone else who thinks they know better, to tell you how to live your life - because when the shit hits the fan, you are the one stuck cleaning up the mess.
- Right now, there is someone in your life that loves you but is unable to tell you due to circumstance or their place in your life - when you hurt, they hurt and for every heartache you suffer, they wish they could wipe your tears and replace the one that broke your heart. You are either too blind, too stupid, too shallow or too preoccupied to see them. If you don't believe me: consider that the reverse has been true because at some point you have wished you could do all these things for someone in your own life.

Lessons yet to be learned:
- How to completely give myself to someone, without waiting for the other shoe to drop.
- Truly appreciating all the blessings bestowed upon me in the department of love.
- Striking the perfect balance between "not settling" and being "too picky".
- Sharing when I should share and shutting up when I should shut up.
- How to find a man with less issues than myself.

2010 is off to a very interesting start. It's only the 8th day and already I've been reacquainted with my muse, and lost him like he was a set of keys. How does one lose a man that is 6'3" and 200 pounds? When I figure out the answer, I will get back to you. But for now he is in the category of lessons lived and learned...

Love,
Ally.

Photo Credit: Sunday Morning in the Orange Orchard; Sunday, 6th December, 2009