Butterflies

On the weekends, we spend a lot of time together. Yes, we spend every weekend together, but as most of you know, weekends are hectic.

A typical weeknight follows as such: I get home first and take care of the apartment and any clean-up left over from the night before. This includes washing dishes, just tidying up in general. I fetch her at her duty then have dinner together.

We talk about our respective days. We regale each other with funny stories about so&so and whatsherface. Then we eat, then we crash. Romantic, right?

So, we claim the weekends. It's our time. The time where we can just sit and talk for hours about anything on our minds. Where we can travel to anywhere we want and the grocery store and it feels like a mini-date. Where we can be as serious or silly as we want to be.

Everything feels better when you’re with your best friend.

During one particular talking sesh, she got to talking about regrets. As we talked and got past the surface of her regrets, we both sort of realized something. Having regrets is something that usually never goes away. You can apologize for your wrongdoing, you can forgive someone else, but sometimes the sheer act of letting go is what people cling to.

One sentiment she settled on, which we can all relate to, is regret about past relationships. Not the things we did wrong during those relationships, but for her at least, all the time and effort she spent on certain people only to end up burned in the end. How is that we ended up where we are after selling ourselves short for so many years?


I think it’s safe to say we all have had a relationship where we feel we put more effort into it than we got back out of it. And that is where the light bulb clicked. Our relationship works because we both put into it what we get out of it. The feeling of selflessness and the desire to do something for someone goes above and beyond because we never sit around wondering when our turn is. We never have to put in any extra effort because every effort we do put in is because we want to.

Every person we date is a slight variation of someone else. You’re together with someone for a time, you break up, and then the next person you date is fairly similar. It’s not surprising. We all have a type and certain attributes we’re drawn to. But if you feel like you’re stuck in a rut, it’s time to take a chance. It’s time to deviate from the normal path you were taking.

I recently gave the same advice to a friend who had a steady boyfriend but also had a crush on someone who was a good friend. She was confused about which person she should move forward with and as we talked, I asked her, “Is (crush) the same kind of person you’ve been dating in the past?”, to which she replied yes, he was. Her crush still lived at home with no change of that in sight, was not overly ambitious, and didn’t really want the same things my friend did in the long run.

When I asked about her boyfriend, her face lit up and she said, “He is completely different from any person I have ever been with before.” And to that, I advised, “Then you need to move forward with him and see where this goes. Push yourself out of your comfort zone…because you already know where the other path leads you.” They got engaged this month.

It’s just a reminder – every passing moment is another chance to turn it all around. Especially when after years, that person can still make you weak in the knees and give you butterflies. JMP