“We have this idea that love is supposed to last forever. But love isn't like that. It's a free-flowing energy that comes and goes when it pleases. Sometimes, it stays for life; other times it stays for a second, a day, a month or a year. So don't fear love when it comes simply because it makes you vulnerable. But don't be surprised when it leaves either. Just be glad you had the opportunity to experience it.” 

- Neil Strauss

"any unraveled yarn will still retain the original bends and loops”

sum of all the people we have ever met

We are the sum of all the people we have ever met.

There's no doubt this is true, although there are some people that I wish I have never met. The ones where you knew deep down that they did not deserve your time, but you remained hopeful anyway. The ones you want to quickly forget but you know will only linger in the back of your mind the next time you meet someone else. The failed ones that make you more cynical than you were to start with.

Each failed relationship is a tragedy of its own, but the ability to look back on a relationship and reflect fondly on how someone could shape your life and values is very telling. Not all the people we've met are worth remembering.

Getting over someone is a lot like unravelling a sweater. (Stay with me on this corny analogy. I blame skinny girl for inspiring this train of thought) How tightly knit it is will determine how easy it is to unravel. The relationships that hold little meaning will unravel with a simple tug, and the yarn will quickly straighten itself out to point where you never knew that it was ever part of anything. But, if the relationship was very tightly knit, and their lives were so intertwined that they wouldn't be as kind, good, brave, (and any other positive trait) as they are now without the other's influence, any unravelled yarn will still retain the original bends and loops. Don't take my word on this, as I'm no knitting genius, but it's probably easier to knit the sweater back together with the memory of those knitting patterns within the yarn itself.

come on, skinny love

"Come on skinny love, what happened here?"

The lyrics of Bon Iver's Skinny Love strike a chord that resonates in all relationships -- that fail. Of course, when you’re in your late twenties where some of your closer friends have found “the one” and you’re attending more weddings than late nights out, you start to wonder, What happened here??

There are several interpretations to the song but I agree more with the interpretation that the “skinny love” is something that must be developed. “Skinny” describes new kind of love at the beginning of a new relationship. Not the butterflies-in-your-stomach-kind-of -love but the type of love you must find & form when you get into your Nth fight, long after the “honeymoon" stage has passed and logistics of co-existing in a relationship surface. It's a love that needs to be nourished. Without nourishment, skinny love doesn't stand a chance.

Sometimes it’s hard to get past that “skinny” stage. She’ll accuse him of all their problems, as she’ll “be holding all the tickets”. And he’ll be “owing all of the fines”. If you can’t get past skinny, then he writes ”pour a little salt, we were never here”. He urges her to “cut all the ropes” and to let him fall.

Not to be overly cynical in a happy blog - I find the most powerful lines of the lyrics to be the chorus because it offers up hope. And hope is powerful in our always evolving concept of how love is defined as we get older in relationships.

"and I told you to be patient
and I told you to be fine
and I told you to be balanced
and I told you to be kind"

Someone once told me; “we are the sum of all the people we have ever met”. With any relationship, you learn a lot about yourself and you always walk away with something.




There are several covers of Bon Iver's Skinny Love on Youtube but I really like Bella Ferraro's raw and nervous 1st audition (check the microphone shake @2:40).