Choose Your Battles

At some point, I need to accept that some things are simply not worth fighting for. Give up, and move on. Whether it's a relationship, recovery, or life itself...at some stage, it's time to call it quits.

How do you accept that something is just not worth the hassle? It is painful to want something so badly that you are WILLING to stand up and fight for it, but maybe some things are just not worth the hassle.

I've talked before about my relationships- the will they/won't they. It doesn't happen like it does in movies- there isn't always a "happily ever after" ending in the real world. How do you know if it was right to begin with, and how do you know when to throw down the cards, kick back from the table and just.walk.away.

I seem to invest a lot of time and energy into things which in hindsight, aren't worth it. These people will never be who I want/need them to be. If it is constantly causing more pain than pleasure, maybe cutting my losses is the best decision I can make.

I don't want to.

I am really rather immature when it comes to my interactions with others. I want things a certain way. I want people I can relay on. People who follow through with what they say they will do, people who don't make me feel like I am worthless and horrible. I want people around me who choose to be around me- not because I pay them, because they feel sorry for me or guilty that I have thrown a fit because they cancelled our dinner date.

I want to fight for my relationships because I am scared of being alone. And yet time and time again, with the same people, I end up feeling hurt, angry and lonelier than if I had never gotten involved with them in the first place.

I'm tired of the games, the fighting, the cycle of making and breaking plans, adding and deleting the same people on Facebook. It all seems rather immature. I was like this when I was 12...doesn't seem to have changed. I am amazed that so many people I seem to get involved with are like this too.

Except they don't seem to think it's worth fighting for.

Is there any way of knowing if it's worth fighting for something? If you try, time and time again, only to get shot down, time and time again...at what point is it okay to finally give in and accept that it's over? Is it ever REALLY over? Or was it never there to begin with, and I just WANTED it there so badly I pretended it existed?

My life: the soap opera

I do sometimes feel like I am living in a soap opera. I'm in an awkward relationship- actually, several. Several that are held together by the one thing pulling them apart, and I watch on in horror as if it's somebody else's life unfolding before my eyes- the whole "will they? won't they?", going around in circles, back and forth, to and fro...is it ever going to end? Who knows. The cycle is painfully pathetic to watch. The common theme in all of these relationships is ME. An analyst might say that I put myself in these situations out of low self-esteem/self-hatred/whatever. I think I do it purely because it's all that I know HOW to do. I remain pulled towards something that I know is not healthy for me, yet remain convinced on some level that the relationship has something to offer me.

I cling to hope.

I believe the lies.

I believe that it will all work out well in the end.

All evidence suggests that it most definitely isn't going to work out as I hope- yet I stay stuck, working away, hoping that this episode will have a happy ending. Is there such a thing? Really? This is real life. Not a soap opera. I'm writing the script- the same storyline played out in various scenarios. Where do I find some new material? This is starting to get old.

Fast forward 3/6/9 months and I've moved on to something else. Yet I remain watchful of that old flame which still flickers. I can't let it die out- not yet. As long as there is a glimmer of light, there's a chance that now is the right time to rush in and rekindle it. Ouch. Again, I've gotten burned, and I sit surrounded by ashes berating myself for making the same mistake again, and again, and again.

I want it to be over. REALLY over. I hate feeling that I *need* this. I hate feeling dependant. I hate feeling like my whole existence is based upon my expectations of someone/something else. It's so hard to walk away- I don't know if I can. Or how. Or where I would end up. At least with this, I can predict what is going to happen, as miserable as it may be.