The Power Within

Whether they're strictly platonic or something a little more, relationships are certainly a part of life's challenges. At times the good can be beyond wonderful. It can give you a feeling of freedom and possibility. You may feel complete for the first time, thinking you've finally found someone else who is not only your best friend, but who truly understands and appreciates you. Even in your far from airbrushed moments.

What a letdown it can be when we find out that we don't really know someone as well as we thought we did. After the tears, the inner debating, the regrets, and the game of pretending that everything's fine, we're left with a sense of betrayal. Promises broken. Dreams stolen. Hearts steeled just a little bit tighter.

At the end of a fun night of dinner, drinks, and a movie at an old Hollywood style theater came the story. I'm easy to talk to she says, so it's almost a given that there's going to be a "girl talk" confession at the end. Complete with the type of held in tears that look like they're about to spill across the eyelids at any moment. The words spoken from behind another pair of eyes that stab through your own heart. The words of a story that find you fighting back your own set of tears because you want to help your friend erase this pain. The words of another story that you've played out on your own stage. This tale is just a re-write exchanging the characters involved.

I want to tell her that eventually you forgive him. You let it go just like it was one of yesterday's forgotten embarrassments. Your heart learns to stop aching and contemplating the why's and what-if's. You realize that he's just a person with his own issues to get past. Issues that you had nothing to do with. Issues that it wasn't your job to repair.

Someday you learn to smile back at the good times. You remember it for what it was and not what you wanted it to be. You take the lesson and move forward with a new discovery about a piece of yourself you didn't know. You learn to accept that no one can ever live up to all their possibilities. Promises change. Dreams get woken up from. Locked away hearts find the hidden key.

In the meantime, you always have the power to change. A story doesn't get completed without thumbing through the pages already transposed. New characters are created because an existing one has a need for them to enter the canvas. The blank pages are ours. We're the ones that have to create the sunrise. We just need to remember to pick up the pen.