one step forward, three steps back

Finally, we are in December.
The last month of the year.
It's a year punctuated with changes; raw reality; friendship and basically, the real crossroads of my life to-date.

I remember the Feng Shui masters were saying that 2008 is the beginning of a new cycle - well, they are right - there wasn't any facet in my life that didn't change. I have never made this many changes at one go, always preferring to do things bit by bit, for adjustment sake.

Whilst I contemplate the year, I know that I'll never be able to think that I'll not be alone because I know that I will be. There isn't anyone who will be able to consume me in such a way that makes me helpless, or dependable because I have lost trust in people long time ago.

But that's not to say that I'm not happy.
Happy is a state of mind.
Happiness doesn't have anything to do with being alone. People are able to be alone and happy.

There are people out there, many who manipulate and secure their comforts first. My pain, for too many years, is that I bore the brunt of another person's selfishness. Long apologies won't do it.

Remember the movie, the Love Story.
Love is never having to say you're sorry.
I thought about that for many years and could never understand what she meant.
Now I know.
If you really loved a person, you'd never put them in a deliberately painful, hurtful position that you'd need to apologise for.

They would have meant everything to you, that you would rather hurt yourself than them. Saying you didn't know it would hurt them is not Love - because when you love someone, you know what would hurt them.
Saying you didn't know means, you don't care enough to find out.

What's painful about this realisation is :
When you have lost faith in people, relationships, how do we give another person a shot?
It's one step forward, 3 steps back.
Perhaps that's all there is for me, since I don't seem to be able to get past that one step forward that I sometimes hesitate to make, because i'm plagued with so much pain that it does hurt when i breathe.