@wayeast - Tumblr Blog

what’s up with you?

Sometimes i find myself in situations that have once before played out terribly with my ex. I get anxious and nervous that I’ll ruin the good that i have with someone. But to my surprise, i find that with this new interaction, it’s nothing like how it used to be. It seems so silly to think that this surprised me, but one way a particular relationship functioned/turned out sometimes ends up being carried with you in new relationships in bits and pieces and it’s mind boggling when you realize it doesn’t always have to be “that way”, the wrong way.

#a click moment

monicatramos

Work for Stanford Business Spring 2017: Should You Strive to Stand Out at Work or Stick to the Pack? Words by Eilene Zimmerman. AD Shigeto Akiyama

huariqueje

American Vogue Illustration - Tod Draz 1950s

American 1917-2002

shesfat

iambaby-j

IG | Twitter

ourmelanins

happy birthday legend

#a legend

eatsleepdraw

Lightly surreal, my work explores a calm sense of isolation. Drawing on arid landscapes and modernist architecture, the sterile spaces are punctuated with touches of organic idyll and passive figures. My instagram handle is @edey_ and my website is www.charlotteedey.com

yxen

minimalistgrufti

y'all may not know this but my fat ass can dress

boringangel

https://instagram.com/p/BexNiJvnu56/

sethnocentric

Milk Shot by @sethnocentric Instagram.com/sethnocentric Model: Nyakim

petalya

in therapy my therapist and i were talking about my own feelings of self worth in relationships. and she asked me to say qualities about myself that someone else would be attracted to, on a romantic and platonic level. so i named some things like compassionate, empathetic, etc. and she said “you named things that you can give someone. ways you can serve, rather than ways that you are” and y'all..my mind was blown that’s gonna stick with me forever like she then proceed to tell me actual innate qualities about myself that she liked and thought anyone else would like as well and i hadn’t even considered those because like she said i was focused on things i could do outwardly to attract and maintain connections rather than who i was as a person..goddamn!!! thats tea!!!

petalya

With this in mind, this also makes me think of the ways people describe us. When people say the reasons that they love/like you or describe you as a person, are they only naming ways that you serve them? Are they equating your worth with how much you do for them?

ex. “You’re such a good listener. You’re so generous, you’re so compassionate. You’re always there for me. You always hold me down. You’re reliable”

vs.

“You’re so funny! You’re very vibrant. You’re creative, passionate, and intelligent. You’re optimistic. You’re so talented at ____” , etc. I think that’s very telling.

#more cool reads!#i like this one

acutelesbian

A lot of people ask me what my biggest fear is, or what scares me most. And I know they expect an answer like heights, or closed spaces, or people dressed like animals, but how do I tell them that when I was 17 I took a class called Relationships For Life and I learned that most people fall out of love for the same reasons they fell in it. That their lover’s once endearing stubbornness has now become refusal to compromise and their one track mind is now immaturity and their bad habits that you once adored is now money down the drain. Their spontaneity becomes reckless and irresponsible and their feet up on your dash is no longer sexy, just another distraction in your busy life. Nothing saddens and scares me like the thought that I can become ugly to someone who once thought all the stars were in my eyes.

fat-thin-skinny

this fucks me up every single time

acutelesbian

I never expected this to be my most popular poem out of the hundreds I’ve written. I was extremely bitter and sad when I wrote this and I left out the most beautiful part of that class.

After my teacher introduced us to this theory, she asked us, “is love a feeling? Or is it a choice?” We were all a bunch of teenagers. Naturally we said it was a feeling. She said that if we clung to that belief, we’d never have a lasting relationship of any sort.

She made us interview a dozen adults who were or had been married and we asked them about their marriages and why it lasted or why it failed. At the end, I asked every single person if love was an emotion or a choice.

Everybody said that it was a choice. It was a conscious commitment. It was something you choose to make work every day with a person who has chosen the same thing. They all said that at one point in their marriage, the “feeling of love” had vanished or faded and they weren’t happy. They said feelings are always changing and you cannot build something that will last on such a shaky foundation.

The married ones said that when things were bad, they chose to open the communication, chose to identify what broke and how to fix it, and chose to recreate something worth falling in love with.

The divorced ones said they chose to walk away.

Ever since that class, since that project, I never looked at relationships the same way. I understood why arranged marriages were successful. I discovered the difference in feelings and commitments. I’ve never gone for the person who makes my heart flutter or my head spin. I’ve chosen the people who were committed to choosing me, dedicated to finding something to adore even on the ugliest days.

I no longer fear the day someone who swore I was their universe can no longer see the stars in my eyes as long as they still choose to look until they find them again.