This Is The Picture, Part One

"Your problem," she said, "is that you believe everyone is as good as you. They're not. But you believe that they are."

I think... I'm pretty sure...this was and is a compliment.

I think.

But when I found myself on the verge of being homeless, the meaning behind her words didn't matter   all that much.

***
When you follow your heart, you bumble. You don't march. You become John Cusack in "Say Anything", standing outside a window with a boom box in hand, blasting Peter Gabriel into the night because you believe more than anything else that it is the proper thing to do, even if nearly everyone else in the world wouldn't understand it. You ARE Lloyd Dobler. You won't buy anything bought, sold, or processed, you believe you can choose to be happy and that after that it really IS easy, and you kind of think that kickboxing is the sport of the future, which is all just another way of saying that your intentions are pure and that you think the best of everyone.

Unfortunately, this may mean that people take advantage of you.

Sometimes, this doesn't matter too much.

Other times, it is disastrous.

***

I believe that allowing hard situations to make you hard is not the proper response.

I believe that looking away from what is hurting you and seeing the miracle that is love and kindness takes enormous effort.

I believe that the effort inherent in seeing love and kindness is the point. It's the reason behind the struggle. It's the tune inside the boom box, the one you're holding but that you maybe forgot to listen to in your struggle and misery.

But it's important.

It's so important.

***

It's true. I expect everyone to act the way I act in any given situation. I expect hearts to be open, hands to be reached out, and love and kindness to be guiding forces in human behaviors. The fact that this sometimes doesn't happen? I am realizing right now, this minute, that this is not a failing in ME.

This is important, because I have been feing dumb, duped. And used. But I am none of those things. I am a person who made a mistake because I believed in someone, and who thought that because I believed in that person and trusted him, than those things would be mirrored back to me.

I was wrong.

It may be wrong for me to say that I would make that mistake again, but I would, consequences be damned. I would because I think I was right to do what I did, and to believe in the best of people, and to come from a place of love and good intentions. I'd rather be burned for that one thousand times than be spared the pain once and miss the opporumoty to live and love honestly once.

That's what I believe. That's what I know.

And I'm done feeling like an idiot about it.

Mostly.