It is what it is. 

Maybe it wasn’t what it should have been, or maybe it was what it couldn’t be, but that should be disregarded as irrelevant. The tragedy of certain terms have been given a negative connotation, and they add certain meanings to acts that should be considered inherently natural and necessary (to a broad extent) to the human experience.

Maybe the only reason I thought more of anything that has happened to me was because I was told to be traumatized over some things, or to be giddy over others, or to spend hours upon hours thinking of others. But, time and time again, I have come to the realization that I can’t spend my time tripping over myself over these things. I’m not saying that I should forget about anything that I’ve experienced. In fact, I believe the contrary. However, the only way that I can get the most out of my human experience is to systematically process everything that has happened to me, without adding any superficial significance to any one act or occurrence. It was what it was, I need to move on, and I cannot try to change something that has already happened to me.

Maybe the only reason that we can’t be the same again is because we cannot bring the words to our lips this inevitable truth…that maybe not everything is as significant as the labels and meanings that we have assigned to them.

Maybe we cannot get over the idea that we’re not supposed to look at each other the same way again, or that we have shared something that is supposedly sacred and hard to come by. Or maybe that what we shared was a mistake, but does that mean that we must assign this mistake to one another? I’d hate to think of it that way…

Maybe we disappeared from each other’s lives because we were scared of saying goodbye. The significance of saying goodbye comes with added pressures of losing concreteness—what was once a physical being is in the process of becoming a distant memory. But what was once a physical being was still in reach of us…that is, before it was manually cut short of what it could have been.

Maybe a label (or, in time, a lack thereof) destroyed us because we were told to add certain negative pressures and connotations to it. We couldn’t get over the idea of the fact that, time and time again, we were reminded of our limitations and list of obligations and responsibilities. We were bound to the standards that we could never speak of without added stress.

Maybe I was rash in blaming you for what had happened, or that maybe you made a rash decision to test something that didn’t end up going your way. Individually, we have accepted what it was for nothing short of what it really was…but we cannot come to the conclusion that what happened has nothing to do with one another. That a rash decision shouldn’t make me question anything that I didn’t already know, or that maybe you didn’t know that I couldn’t be as strong sometimes. Or that maybe I was nothing more than an object to you…even though I knew that, in this scenario, the idea of anything material between us was not defined by a standard of society. I don’t know. All I know is that it happened, what’s done is done, and we shouldn’t add significance of a rash decision over everything good that has happened between us. 

Maybe we let ideas of what could have been cloud our experience. That whatever label we assigned to one another That my inkling to artificially pushing away what could have been has spurred some curiosity or resentment on your part. And that, in my one moment to explain why, I was too preoccupied with something else. So we let go. We moved on. There was nothing to salvage but a distant memory (and a material object that may or may not have its own significance). Do we allow resentment and shame to cloud our communication? Could it be something that we didn’t think could have been?

So maybe if you happen to be reading this, and think this is you (mainly, this is a compilation of things that have happened to ME and why maybe it shouldn’t have been what it was or why it could have been something else)…I hope that one of us will be given the strength to bring these words to our lips, and to acknowledge that it is what it is, and even if it wasn’t what it shouldn’t have been, it still was, and that we must accept it and move on. 

Should I waste my time trying to enforce that philosophy by changing what was? Because…once again…it is what it is. Regardless of anything else.