TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: Random thoughts by Stella K: Something Better...

Every day was exactly the same as the one before and the one to come would also be just the same. A first wave of pain would hit like a ton of bricks just as she woke up; it was the knowledge of being hurt by the person she loved the most. The second wave of pain would carry on throughout her workday and it was delivered through the constant coming and going of painful memories of the spectaculardestruction of her love story. The third and final wave of pain would appear in the evening when the quiet and stillness did a perfect job of showcasing the emptiness left behind by the one who had left. So one night tired of thishalf existence, before going to sleep she wished with every sad and desperate particle of her being that someday she would be able to let go of the past and finally start walking towards the future without looking back ever again. Turns out life was much wiser than her and considerably more generous than she ever thought possible because slowly but surely it would grant her something

With no immediate relief in sight she made a promise to herself that no matter how heavy her heart felt at least her body would get up every morning and face life and as for her mind she decided to keep it busy with new knowledge. “Eventually my heart will catch up, it has to!” she thought.And just like that the days passed and her heart felt less of a burden because now every morning it too got up and joined the body in living and it found joy in the knowledge acquired by the always busy brain. The memories of the past crept up on her once in a while sending a more modest and brief burst of pain, but she had learned to live with them and see them for what they were…memories.

The Man had come into her life the way all great romances do, unexpectedly. He was smart and quite funny in a not so obvious way, but the fact that she understood this made her glad. He was sufficiently charming, but not too much as too raise any suspicions of insincerity. As they spent more time together she would sometimes catch herself smiling for no apparent reason and her stomach was a good kind of uneasy. One day the Man took her out to a small lake and invited her to take a ride on tiny old paddleboat. The opposite shore of the lake looked beautiful, but for some reason she keptlooking back at the shore they were now leaving behind.This reminded her of her own life, and all the time she had wasted being tormented by the ghosts of the past. She thenremembered about how she had wished to never look backagain, and realized that life hadn’t granted her that, but something better…to be able to look back without agony and bitterness, but as a reminder of how far she had come. She now understood that all the pain of the past hadn’t hardened her heart; it had prepared it for love. She didn’t want to hurt the man, she wanted to love him.