What I Learned from My Pillow

I bought a pillow. By no means did I need a pillow to make myself happy, but, at the time, owning a pillow was an idea I was infatuated with. Doing so was an action of little impulse, but it was not an action that I would regret.

The pillow soon became one that I loved and cherished. This pillow was with me in my weakest moments. It was there in times I was angry. It was there in times that I was happy. It was there in times I cried. I had spent time and money making this pillow mine, and in doing so I had become emotionally attached in a way I had not been before. With such a connection brought comfort. I found comfort in having something I could trust in my vulnerable moments, the times when the walls of my ego crumbled. The pillow never healed me, but with its help I could heal myself. For this, appreciated my pillow.

As time passed on, my love for my pillow weakened when flaws of the our connection began to surface. There were days when my pillow, which I relied upon for physical and emotional support, would not support me, and I would wake up in pain. Some days the pain was excruciating, and I was forced to endure the distress all day; but the connection I had with my pillow always brought me back every night, no matter the pain. I thought the pillow might form to my neck and head, repealing the pain and mending the connection we once had if I had just looked past the pain for a short while. The pillow never formed. Our connection never healed. And that short while lasted much too long. I began to realize that we were not compatible.

The loss of a connection brought me to become a person I loathed. I would look for pillows and imagine what my days would be like with other pillows. I did nothing but look. But even just looking brought internal pain because my emotional state was beyond damaged. I felt animosity for myself and my pillow, and it made me hate myself more.

The day came where I had to let my pillow go. Our connection was broken beyond repair and I knew any longer spent in pain and agony compromise myself entirely. I grieved, I cried, and I hated when we parted. There was not a moment in this period of time when I did not reminisce about the times my pillow and I shared where I was happy. But one day I stopped grieving. I thought about why I was thinking of the great times when I spent most of the time suffering. It was on this day I knew my damaged and weak heart had healed. My eyes opened to see a perspective to a situation I thought I completely understood. My heart shielded my mind from seeing the lack of compatibility with a hundred shades of love. I had finally come to my belief: love and compatibility are different and independent feelings that any person is capable feeling.

So when I had a girlfriend of two years, I was happy. Then I endured suffered. And when my attempts at reparation inevitably failed, I grieved. But by the end I came to the same conclusion: love and compatibility are different and independent aspects to any relationship. I firmly believe any two people can love each other. However, for two people to be compatible is far less likely, and yet, far more important. This belief is not an anchor, restricting our ability to reach love or happiness. On the contrary, it is a door that opened my eyes to seek what will last.

This I believe.