I hear people say, that you meet people either for a season or for a reason.

It's odd because both imply impermanence.

Does that mean relationships are not meant to last? Are we meant to hang on to it for dear life, in order to make it work?

I love people. I'm afraid of them, but I love them.

I spent most of my life sitting in a corner, watching them, observing the minute details of their behaviors. That brow lifting at the comment of someone, the twitch in the eye when they catch a whiff of some bullshit, that dead look they just don't know they have. How they give away everything when they lie: a shrug, a change in tone, a split second hesitance, swallowing, double blinks or not blinking, a cough - all these tiny things you think mean nothing but are actually everything.

People are so... complex. You could meet some and they could mean absolutely nothing, not a damn change, and then you meet some that just fucking ruin you. Tear you from the inside out and leave you begging for mercy. And then you meet some, that turns dark into light, and cold into warm, like a switch hiding beneath your skin you never knew you had in you. Like a mirror sometimes too, or a wake-up call, or just... truth retold, in someone else's voice - because you needed to be told.

That you matter.

That you need to show up.

That you gotta fucking chin up and get with it.

That things will never go your way, but that's fine.

That there's help. Somewhere.

I have met so many people in my life, who have saved me, held a mirror to my face, unfolded me, disentangled my messed up self-perception.

I have met people who gutted me, and made me believe I was not enough, and made feel lonely in a crowded room, in my own home, in my own skin.

And they have come and gone.

Some of them have left scars, an imprint, a lesson, hope, despair, regret... some of them I cut out of my life, walked away from, forgot, let go... some of them I came back to, held on to, tried to save, tried to love, tried to hate...

Why am I saying these things? Because right now I'm on the verge of making changes in my life. And I never know which people to take, to keep, to foster and nurture and let in.

Which people to love.

Truly, honestly, without fail.

I want to go somewhere in my life where I am enough.

Where love isn't conditional, or transactional.

Just free and boundless.

I am tired of people.

They are beautiful and scary and so fucking lovable.

But they're all so different... from me.

And it hurts each time.

Trying to be like them, just so we could be friends, lovers, partners...

And no matter how many years I observe and uncover all these tiny tell-tale things every human does... I never understand their intentions. What they want from me.

I never truly get it.

People are, infinitely, a mystery to me.

Maybe that's where the attraction stems from. But why do they have to come into my life and do what they do to me?

Why do they leave footprints at my beach when I don't have strong enough waves to erase them off my shore? Why make me feel the way I feel and then disappear or, worse, never leave?

Why do I meet... the people I meet in my life?
To what end?

Build my character?

Teach me a lesson?

Show me my weakness?

Show me my strength?

To be loved?

To love?

What?

Why?

I love people. They are scary, complex and just mysterious.

And they are draining. And fulfilling.

And never mine.

In the end, no matter how they make me feel, or how hard I love them.

There's glass in between, and I am always outside... looking in.