One of my good friends recently pointed out that I have been 'weird' since the new year's started. I pointed out, in turn, that actually I've been 'calm'. I guess that's the price of being 'content'. I've been less happy but at the same time, I've not been extremely sad.
So I guess in a way, it's true. You cannot have one without the other.
I've also learnt that some dreams are meant to be dreamt at a certain time [in life]. When I was a little girl, I used to give guests to the house a 'tour' of my wedding plans. I had my dress chosen and set aside, the type of roses I would be given, the shoes I would wear and even the very age I would marry at. Matter-of-factly, I expected that one day I would be loved and cherished the way girls and princesses were - in the movies and stories (Disney, to be precise).
Laughable in retrospect. I was all of 7 or 8 years old at the time, so for many reasons it was a dream that had to remain just that, of a little girl. The dress grew too small, the shoes too tight, and as I myself grew, my own perceptions about love grew out of itself.
I held onto some semblance of it simply because it was comfortable, familiar, like an old teddybear or blanket, a trinket of the past that served as a souvenir of naive times, that reemerged again and again from the flames at those times when I tried to burn it away.
You cannot burn your dreams without being burnt yourself. Out of the flames, I emerged, changed. Jokier, more 'miss know-it-all', goofier, sarcastic, quicker to laugh. I've become a me that's a shell of merriment and laughter, maybe more so in attempt to erase the frailer, vulnerable me.
If anything, perhaps it has made that vulnerability deeper and stronger, because although easier to laugh away hurt, for that hurt to exist it then travels deeper and is felt more intensely. Although rare to open up the bottle of emotions and show that vulnerability, for that ability to care and love to exist, the more deeply the shards pierce when knocked down or aside.
There must exist a bridge between memory and serenity. For serenity cannot be disillusionment of that which has passed, it must face it full on and let it crash upon and into itself with all its power, and remain standing, yet still, with understanding and fortitude.
