In short: I am always the one who cares more.

This seems to be a common theme in my life. I don’t get invested in people easily. In fact, most people are of no interest to me. I am friendly but consider few people friends. I have acquaintances but things rarely progress past that. I wish I could be more social honestly. But that just isn’t me.

But when I love and value someone, I do so fiercely. So much so that it has caused me a lot of pain that other’s simply don’t understand.

Example– if someone hurts one of my friends, it hurts me too. I never want to see the smiles that bring sunshine to my world start to fade. I feel anger towards those that wrong the people I care about and feel it is my responsibility to defend their well-being. It is my duty to show them that when others fail them, I won’t.

I can’t remember a time in my life where I didn’t want to protect those I value. This is one of the traits that is simply instilled in me. When I get to the point of actually giving a shit about a person, it becomes very important to me to be a source of reliability and consistency for them. I’m an Aries, so I am inconsistent in my adventurous nature- but I never waiver on my commitment to my friends.

This trait that I feel so strongly about has started to bite me in the ass lately.

Harsh truth of life: not everyone has the same heart as you.

I am slowly realizing that I cannot expect people to feel as strongly about me as I feel about them. The things I consider betrayal are just meaningless to others. Not everyone cares about hurting me. Not everyone cares how they impact me. I always tread carefully when it comes to sensitive topics in my friends lives, ensuring I always have their backs and that I don’t contribute to the hurt that others have inflicted onto them. But not everyone is like that.

I need to re-evaluate whom I put my efforts into invest my heart in. I am beginning to accept that people are vastly different and sometimes they even completely oppose things and actions that I find to be moral obligations.

Another harsh truth of life: you cannot change people.

The only thing you can do is decide for yourself what and who you’re going to let consume your time and thoughts. People make it really easy to tell if they give a damn about you or not. Listen to their actions, not their words. Accept nothing less than the energy you put out and always know your worth.

(Also, sorry for going M.I.A. for months …. that’s another thing that comes naturally to me).

-Lauren