I've been thinking...

I've been thinking today. About us as a human race. About what makes us tick and move and interact and be.

We're essentially a mesh of skin and bones and blood and organs and all the little things in between. A scientifically proven complexity of different functions all working together to create this one thing... Humanity.

But we're also more than that. In amongst all the physical workings and basic needs that one human needs to exist, there's this other element. This even more complex and completely unfathomable notion of emotion. We feel and we love and we need and adore and hate and have indifference to all manners of things that are external to us but which contributes to what makes us, us. Having this extra layer of functionality or dysfunctionality, whichever way you want to look at it, we move on from not just existing but living.

And living involves so much more than we will ever even begin to understand. It causes us to live outside of ourselves and reach out to those around us, drawing in the personalities that we are attracted to for friendships and relationships, it allows us to bond and find meaning in others' opinions and beliefs. It allows us to form our own personalities out of all the things that have influenced us throughout our lives.

We can have one seemingly innocent conversation with a stranger and form whole relationships out of it. We learn to trust and love and, as we grow older, we learn what it is to be hurt and let down by those bonds of love. We cry and fall down and feel pain and suffering. We question why and try to form reason out of the hurt we feel.

We learn to forgive and do what we can to forget and sometimes we can do just that, forget and dust ourselves off and not think of it again except in a memory that later we can roll our eyes at and wonder why we had let such a thing upset us in the first place.

But sometimes it's harder. Sometimes the hurt can harden and cause us to question our own selves and the way we come across. Sometimes we never quite are the same after that hurt. There are parts of us that are wary of allowing people into those areas of our hearts that have been damaged by others.

Most times however, we show our resilience, dust ourselves off and let people in once more. And the next time, perhaps it doesn't hurt as much. Our attachment instead just grows, we love deeper, maybe get married and grow old with that person.

But the act of allowing a person in to that extent can seem scary, something that feels like it comes at too high a price. We remember all the failed relationships in the past, remember the things about ourselves that caused people to walk away. What if this new relationship formed ends the same way? Suddenly that relationship we crave so much becomes the thing we're most scared of. The act of letting someone in, opens up the possibility of them rejecting us.

I've yet to know what it feels like to fall in love with someone. Hell, I've yet to know what it feels like to just share my time with someone. But I have loved. My heart is spread out between my friends and my family. I know what it's like to feel hurt when they hurt and laugh when they laugh.

I also know what it's like to lose those that I've loved. To suddenly be cut off from a friendship that I considered precious and so, so crucial to me. I look at those and wonder why it is that I continue to let people in and love all over again.

And then I remember why, I'm human. We all are. And for some inexplicable reason that means we keep on going. Which, when I really think about it, is pretty awesome.

Peace out my lovelies.