The Song Remains the Same

"Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh, California sunlight

Sweet Calcutta rain

Honolulu starbright

The song remains the same..."

No reason, I just had this song in mind when I ventured into this musing...

If you begin to lose yourself in loving someone else, step back. Everything you give, you don’t get back. No matter the trinket, whether it’s your heart or a material item, if it’s treasured, and it’s yours—keep it. Give away only what you can comfortably live without. There’s nothing generous about sacrificing your identity or possessions to earn affection from another. It’s bribery, and gets flattery at best in return. It doesn’t mean you can’t donate to the lives of loved ones, or even agree upon a loan arrangement, but don’t invest your heart and your emotional well-being, in getting the same love back that you once gave. It’s not possible. Your love is absorbed and digested in the way it benefits the recipient. You do the same with the love you’re given. Gratitude is only genuinely heartfelt when the receiver of the gift can comprehend its magnitude. We’re all in different places, with different limitations and expectations, yet we try to affect universal applications of a multi-faceted sentiment... love. What the fuck does it even mean? I see so many capable people fail miserably at it, including myself. But I don’t ever remember looking for it. It just kind of snuck me a few times, and really I should be mad about it... Damn babies with arrows.

It seems the more love you accept, the more rejection you eventually face—or have to reject and face the guilt. That’s why you have to keep YOU solid. To separate the parts you picked up in love, that only continue painfully if you carry them with you beyond their role in your life. YOUR life, remember. It’s yours. Keep it. You’re not a possession, nor can you possess another. We are adornments of the outside world to be observed by each person we encounter, so choose wisely in the company you keep. Don’t look back years from now at an ugly picture. If you step in dogshit, clean your shoe. Don’t live your whole life being scorned for the smell. And remember that even roses, pretty as they are, will wither away and die if you don’t take care of your garden. It’s your garden. Keep it. If you delight in sharing from your harvest, then delight only in the act of giving and don’t look for reciprocation. Not everyone has a garden, nor does everyone delight in the act of giving the way you do. Protect yourself, lest your generous nature make you vulnerable to greed.

Theest advice I can give, to myself, as I don’t really expect to branch out far to get readers. It’s not in my nature to seek out attention. Advice, anyway—from someone who agreed to start a family with someone who expressed what he wasn’t ready for, who tried to save a life that was lost before she knew him, and another well, to be continued. . .

I’ve taken the time forced upon me to reflect on my actual hopes and dreams, and found them to be much different than the goals I had been working my whole life to achieve to appease others. There’s much to be said about loyalty and orgasms. Beyond that, I don’t know much. Working and living among the “generous,” I earned a deeper respect for the people who can openly be selfish for what they want. You’ll find they’re generous only when sincere, and you appreciate the honesty more than the gift.