For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a tumultuous relationship with getting my hopes up. Generally speaking, all things I’ve struggled with are because something didn’t go the way I’d hoped… I don’t imagine that I’m alone in that. We come out of the womb this way– blindly trusting, annoyingly optimistic, and assuming the best in everyone. Then, life starts to rough us up. We grow up to become cynics who are inconsiderate, and assume an apathetic life to avoid pain. We assimilate to the harshness of our present reality, and we hold each other down because our misery craves company. And I hate it.

I detest restriction and all things prohibiting. Every idealism-stripping experience hurls me into a depression. Seriously– unless the experience is a lesson I’ve already mastered– I wallow. Yeah, it is pitiful. Yeah, I could just be a grown up and pretend I don’t feel, but what the heck is that going to do to better our decrepitly depressing society? Absolutely nothing. For as sucky as it is to feel hurt by everything that is less than I expect, I couldn’t live knowing that I chose the easier option.

Dating is a whole lot of let downs. It’s a whole lot of people not recognizing that feeling is the key to ascension (I should say Love rather than feeling, but that’d freak people out faster). In my experience, any acknowledgement of feelings, whether positive or negative, makes dudes run (I’m sure women do it too, but I’m not dating them). When I’m letting my hurt fester, I consider how I could have avoided finding myself in that pain. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems like the only solution to every dating let down I’ve been experiencing would be if I stopped expressing my emotions. Remember my last post? Millennials being the loveless generation? That’s the way to play the game.

The thing is, I don’t want a game. I want to live genuinely, as myself, with another human who gets IT. And, I get that I’m young, that I’m still figuring out how to date, that there are plenty of fish in the sea, blah blah blah, but the endless parade of disappointing men is just so gosh darn depressing. The people I love tell me to just have fun with it, to enjoy myself, and I’m trying. However, for me, fun is dreaming, and hoping– that’s how I enjoy myself. How do I have fun without dreaming? No idea, but I’m trying to figure it out.

There’s this song that is, perhaps, my most powerful tool in picking myself up. I shouldn’t have to tell you that it’s a Coldplay song. We know each other well enough by now– you can assume. I listened to it on repeat this morning, because I needed its help. As it replayed, I thought about what to write today. I realized that the reality of dating is consuming most of my thoughts. I started to freak, and then I listened to the words in my ears.

If you’ve not had the pleasure of listening to “Birds” by Coldplay, I hope you can take a second to do it now. If you’ve listened to it, and are anything like my mother, you might struggle with understanding what Chris Martin is saying. I realized, this morning, that this song, and it’s words, are the epitome of the love and life I’m looking for. Quite literally. They hit the nail on the head, and I feel like you should know that this roadmap to a more love-based reality exists. Yay, Love.

-M (and Coldplay)