Five..

That's the number of stages of grief I'm supposed to experience.

1) denial
2) anger
3) bargaining
4) depression
5) acceptance

Do I even buy this? I don't know. So far I've experience most of these ad nauseum for the past 3 days. Most of it was depression and bargaining. Futile attempts. A bit of denial mixed in for good measure. But no acceptance and no anger.

Relationships are complicated shit. There's no nicer way to put it. You put together two people from two different backgrounds and two different mindsets and expect them to get along swimmingly. It doesn't work that way. Having things in common doesn't mean that you are meant to get along or meant to be together. But it can also mean exactly that at the same time. Having things in common is essential, but it means nothing if you have different ways of interaction, fighting or reasoning. No one is perfect and we all make mistakes. I've made mine. And I accept all responsibility for said mistakes.

Relationships are a pain in the ass. Dating is a pain in the ass. You're praying for someone to accept you for who you are and changing yourself to conform to their ideals. No relationship is without this, I don't think. No relationship involves two people meant to be together who don't have to adapt one way or another in order to be with each other. No change, to me, means accepting contentment and just being plain lazy. I've never been that way.

I'm not perfect and I've NEVER claimed that I was. I have my own problems and my own issues. And issues that present themselves only in relationships. It's so hypocritial though. In some situations I am praying for someone to love me for who I am... but in others I am accepting yet hating someone for not loving me for who I am. Sometimes I say in my head "please, I'm not so bad" and other times I say "fuck you, you're not good enough for me". For different people, they get different thoughts. I've had fucked-up boyfriends and heroes. I've had people save me from myself and those who drive me to want to be anyone but myself. I've had salvations and I've had curses. I've been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the right place at the wrong time. I've made choices too late and exploited chances too early.

The stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depressing, acceptance are a crock, if you ask me. They all either come at the same time, different times, not at all, in different waves or in different order. I'm not in denial. I bargain because I'm afraid and because I am sorry for my mistakes. I bargain because I want to make amends. I'm depressed because all this shit fucking sucks. I don't accept. And I won't. Acceptance means defeat. And I am not defeated and I never will be.

What they don't say about the stages of grief is the strength, resolve and maturity you receive from it all. From all this, how much it blows, I realize how much stronger I am than I realized. I can compose myself as an adult for once and I mature and grow into a person who has learned an important lesson.

While I hope that this isn't the end, I am ready to be ok with it. Not accept it. But resign to it.
You have one life, but you can live so many times in one life. Grief is a curse and gift at the same time. Nothing is forever. Guns N Roses will tell you that. I'm not going to spout some "it takes time", "lean on your friends", "there's more fish in the sea" crap. Fuck that. None of that helps. Your friends mean well but they all say the same stupid shit when stuff like this happens. Or they just offer to go out and get you drunk. And that doesn't help anything. There are more fish in the sea, but during grief, all those fish have salmonella or something in your book. All you are thinking about is going back and redoing the things you did wrong. And then you get the whole "things happen for a reason" and "it was all meant to be". No. Nothing happens for a reason and nothing is meant to be. Things happen from human beings' actions and words. Meant to be is BS in my book. If this were all predestined then why wouldn't the person doing this "life party planning" spare 99% of the population the grief and despair they experience? Nothing is meant to be. Everything is what it is.

But I am not of the crowd that thinks that none of it matters. It does. We should all want to be happy and make someone happy. And we will all fuck up royally in getting to that state.
Live and learn? What doesn't kill you makes you stronger? I don't know.

I'll leave, I suppose with one quote which has always rung true for me and the only one that has every given me REAL motivation and consolation:

"Simply the thing I am. Shall make me live". - Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well.