"I have a very strong feeling that the opposite of love is not hate - it’s apathy. It’s not giving a damn." — Leo Buscaglia
Date a girl who takes photographs.
“Date a girl who takes photographs. Date a girl whose favorite sound is theclick-click of the shutter as it closes and opens to capture a memory. Date a girl who sees the wonder in the simplest things. Date a girl who looks at the world and wonders how to put a little of herself in it.
You might find her in the park, lost behind her lens, the world a blur around her as she tries to capture a single moment in time. You might find her in an exhibit, a look of concentration on her face as she contemplates a photograph that called out to her as she was passing by. Or maybe you will find her in a bookstore, a book in her lap as she pores over photographs of weddings all the while wondering what hers would look like.
Take her out to photo walks and laugh as she tries to take a picture of you. When she gets tired of walking, buy her cupcakes but wait until she has taken pictures of them before proceeding to eat them. Listen as she tells you her ideas for a photo shoot on the ride home.
Take her to a restaurant and wait patiently as she surveys the menu carefully, appreciating the food photography. And again, wait until she has taken a photo of your food before digging in. Allow her to introduce you to Ansel Adams while you both eat your lunch. Introduce her to your favorite musician as you wait for the bill to arrive. When you get home, change your Facebook profile picture into a photograph she took of you. She silently hoped for it.
Take stolen shots of her. Compile it and give it to her on her birthday. Tell her you love her over and over until your voice replaces the click of the shutter as her favorite sound. Kiss her after she lifts her head up from the camera. Give her camera-shaped necklaces. Go places with her.
You will never be bored again.
Date a girl who takes photographs. She will never whine about a little dirt on her favorite pair of jeans as she kneels down to get a better angle of her subject. She will never be afraid to take adventures with you. She will take photographs of you not just with her camera but with her mind as well and keep it to herself to admire at night. But above all, she will teach you how to look at the world with a brand new perspective and she will do that unknowingly.
Marry a girl who takes photographs. Ditch those wedding photography books and give her the most beautiful wedding you could. She will teach your kids to find the beauty in everything just as she had taught you. Every day will be an adventure as she tries to create memories photograph-worthy with you. She may wake you up in the middle of the night because she is buzzing with ideas but she will make it up in the morning with a stack of hot pancakes beside a steaming cup of your favorite coffee blend.
Grow old with a girl who takes photographs. Sit with her on the front porch as you both pore over the bits and pieces of the moments you’ve had together. Stroke her hair as you both relive the photo walks that you took and the places you have been when you were both young. Smile as you both reenact your clever wedding vows.
Date a girl who takes photographs because she will always see that “something” in the most “nothing” of things. She will never let anyone take you away from her like she never lets anyone steal her photos and that is just one of the evidence that she loves you.”
“Regret is an odd emotion because it comes only upon reflection. Regret lacks immediacy, and so its power seldom influences events when it could do some good.”
"On some level, I don’t mind having a broken heart because it reminds me that I’m alive and that stuff is happening in my life. The worst is an unattended heart. It’s not full, it’s not empty; it’s just there."
— Thought Catalog, "You're Going To Break My Heart"
[11.22.11]
At some point in your miserably blessed life, you realize which friends are worth keeping and which won’t even notice being forgotten. Sooner or later, you find out who’s worth getting affected over and who’s easily dealt with through numbness. But, when that time comes, much to your surprise, you discover that being affected goes hand in hand with going numb. Without PAIN, you have no reason to end your friendship. There’s no reason to shut off all your emotions towards someone until feeling everything all at once becomes too much to handle. That’s why it’s best to expect nothing… because no expectations means no disappointments.
“I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in life. And I am horribly limited.”
“I do not want to fix someone. I’m too busy working on myself. I wouldn’t want to date someone who isn’t doing the same, who doesn’t see the value in growth. I’m not here to hold someone’s hand while they learn how to grow up. I’m not a pre-school teacher; I’m not a therapist. A man is not an art project to be cut up into little pieces and glued back together. You’re your own fixer-upper, honey; do with that what you will.
I don’t want to date someone indifferent to themselves or to me. Is it an oddity that I don’t want to be treated like crap? I do not have time to hopelessly await someone’s phone call; I do not have time to place heaps of unwarranted blame on myself when someone or something seemingly ‘disappears.’ I don’t have the time to jump through hoops to prove that I am worthy of someone’s affections, and even if I did have the time? That’s not how I would spend it.
Which is why, when given the choice, I want to date a Good Guy. I want someone who is a real, flawed human being – someone who, despite those flaws, makes the conscious, ongoing effort to act benevolently toward the people around him. Someone who is capable of letting go of whatever Grave Injustices were done to him, who doesn’t blame the world for his misfortunes. Someone who respects himself, who wants to be with someone who will treat him the way he deserves to be treated. Someone who is nice but not a doormat, someone who is confident but not an asshole.” On Dating Good Guys
"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable."
— C.S. Lewis
“Crying is all right in its own way while it lasts. But you have to stop sooner or later, and then you still have to decide what to do.”
Three Weeks
It wasn’t until I spent time with my cousin that I realized how much I missed laughing my heart out at the dumbest things, staying up ‘til early morning talking about anything, doing pointless things just for the fun of it and tearing up because of some cheesy line they say on tv. It wasn’t until I spent time with her that I realized how much I missed being happy. I’ve gotten so used to not feeling anything that it’s hard for me not to miss being with her. That feeling of being so comfortable in my own space and, at the same time, sharing it with her with nothing to worry about or drag me down to some bottomless pit of burden. We could both be sitting in the living room doing nothing useful with our lives and, yet, it would still feel like I’m at the right place at the right time. Just the mere simplicity of seeing nature at it’s best while walking or riding a bike with her, having an incredibly late lunch together, falling asleep with the tv on, watching and making fun of how psycho the girls are and how clueless the boys are on Glee, and waking up knowing that we both had each other if ever something was to go wrong. For the past three weeks, I was so at peace with the world. It reminded me of how life used to be for me: simple and innocent. It got me thinking: this is what home should feel like. And if it wasn’t for my cousin, I wouldn’t have been able to feel and experience what I haven’t in a long time. Sooooo THANK YOU NG B… I LOVE YOU! ^^ xo.
Crying With No Tears
It’s kind of like desperately screaming out for someone with no response. Not because they cant hear you but because they choose not to. The pain you were supposed to let go of turns out to be the one thing that you end up holding on to. Your stress reliever ironically becomes your stressor.
Green Street Hooligans
"Once you’ve taken a few punches and realize you’re not made of glass, you don’t feel alive unless you’re pushing yourself as far as you can go."
“But he hadn’t been overwhelmed to the point of incapacity. The after-effects had not weakened or permanently damaged him. Perhaps he’d even been strengthened. That’s what bad events were supposed to do to you, provided you were tough enough to start.”
What does it mean to be happy?
I used to know what it meant. How it felt. Of course, everyone’s happiness is different. Mine was this feeling of belonging with a definitive sense of purpose. But, for a while now, I seem to have lost it. I’ve grown numb to the bumps and bruises that life shoves down my throat and indifferent to the surprises thrown at me by the path of which I’m meant to take. I’m just like water that won’t freeze in the cold nor evaporate in the heat. I simply remain stagnant with no direction to go on. I’ve caught myself on the brink of depression so many times. I’ve cried my heart out until it was dry. And that used to be normal for me. Crying myself to sleep. But, after a while, I stopped trying to figure myself out and just stopped feeling altogether. I used to find happiness in the simplest things in life but, now, I shock myself when I realize I’m laughing or even smiling. I used to think that it would be hard for me to actually and truly fall apart because of my vulnerability and fragility… that maybe I’d get used to it and that my weakness in itself is what makes me strong. Now, when I really think about it, I’ve come to the conclusion that I was dead wrong. All this time, I’ve been brainwashing myself into thinking that I could handle it. The truth is: I’m scared. Scared of myself. Of what I’m turning into. Of how I’m changing. Because, under all the stress and pressure, I’ve reached the point where I say “that’s it.” And that’s when I tell myself that I’ve finally broken. So tell me. What does it mean to be happy?
The trick is finding someone that you are attracted to enough, that if after an amazing week they looked at you over dinner and said, “I love you”, and your melted, instead of winced thinking, “how creepy”?
All of us have wondered (well, not really) how the ditzy, yet attractive girl always gets the guy you have a crush on or the really nice and sweet gal always goes out with the neanderthal that treats her like dirt?
The thing is, Brad Pitt (or insert whoever your star crush is) could show up on your front door for a first date, bring you flowers, take you to an extravagant restaurant, share a desert afterwards while sitting on a quiet coffee shop couch talking for hours, text you on the way home, and the next day could leave you a long letter about how great a night he had and you would think, “Wow! He is the most romantic guy in the world”!
…But if someone you were not as attracted to, yet went out with anyway did the same thing, you might think, “weird, too early, too forward”, etc, etc.
Unfortunately, we don’t all pick who is necessarily the most compatible personality wise…and if you make that mistake, you’ll most certainly regret it years later because STRONG physical attraction is never enough (but I won’t deny, it is a factor in people getting together initially).
What I am saying is, be picky…when it comes to who you envision will be the Father or Mother to your children in 10 years.
Be picky…when it comes to a persons loyalty to you. How much you trust them. How, when you are most down, they would be the first one you would run to and the last to let you go.
Be picky…when it comes to someone who is unequivocally for you, not because of what you do, but because you are. — dad-isms
"Next time, ask: What’s the worst that will happen? Then push yourself a little further than you dare. Once you start to speak, people will yell at you. They will interrupt you, put you down and suggest it’s personal. And the world won’t end. And the speaking will get easier and easier. And you will find you have fallen in love with your own vision, which you may never have realized you had. And you will lose some friends and lovers, and realize you don’t miss them. And new ones will find you and cherish you. And you will still flirt and paint your nails, dress up and party, because, as I think Emma Goldman said, “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.” And, at last, you’ll know with surpassing certainty that only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth. And that is not speaking." — Naomi Wolf
"People change. Feelings change. It doesn’t mean that the love once shared wasn’t true and real. It simply just means that sometimes when people grow, they grow apart." — 500 Days of Summer