Why We Find It Hard to Move On

If your heart is your home, then feelings are visitors. Sometimes their presence is expected, and other times they would pay you a surprise visit, but the question lies ... for how long? Most of the time, your heart will be welcoming their arrival with open arms.Some feelings would drop by only for a mere moment, others stay a little bit longer, and if you're unlucky, certain feelings will even permanently reside in the deepest core of your soul - overstaying their welcome, eventually taking up the space you have been saving for something life-changing and meaningful. They will consume everything you have and change everything that you are, and they will be the part of you that you never knew you needed. They will be that missing puzzle piece in your life that completes you in such a way that you can no longer imagine living life before them.

And that is it, you're screwed. If the analogy is true, there is no eliminating the feelings that grow from within you, after all, how rude would it be to simply kick out a guest who pays you a visit? Even if you do, you would ruin everything you've had with this visitor especially if things do not end on good terms. Nothing good ever comes from trying to abruptly snap yourself out of a feeling that has gotten so strong.

Yes, you might have that false sense of freedom once you feel as though you have completely eliminated unnecessary emotional baggage with such haste, but how sure are you that they won't recur?

Some say feelings that return are feelings that never left the first place, otherwise they would have just been temporary, like perhaps a crush you had on your classmate in high school. You were so infatuated back in the days, you felt as though it was the real deal and that it would have been impossible to get over them - then again, you eventually did.

Then comes that person from college who drove you equally crazy and beyond, whom you have mistaken for yet another infatuation. You thought the feelings would be gone the second you hold that roll of diploma in your hands, and you could think of nothing but starting your new career life as you flung that mortar board in mid-air. You thought you would have a one-track mind again just because you will no longer see that object of affection. Wrong.

What happens when you suddenly see this person again in a different phase of your life? Perhaps you end up working under the same organization, or worst still, you bump into them while they are on a vacation with their family - now happily married while you are still trying to figure out your life? Will you be able to leave the past behind and stay on platonic grounds with them? Or will you find yourself trying very hard to keep a straight face, lying to yourself that you are happy for them while in truth you are crumbling from the inside; stuffing your face with half your weight's worth of ice cream later that night in your hotel room alone to drown your sorrows? If you find yourself reacting similarly to the latter, you're a goner.

Your feelings have evolved into something so colossal, that it is now overpowering you. It wasn't "just a crush" after all, it's love! Very agonizing, isn't it? Especially with the fact that there is absolutely nothing you can do to stop it. After all these years, you thought you were finally over them, and then something shows up to prove you wrong.

Sometimes, the most trivial of things from your surroundings can be a trigger that brings back memories from the past, making your old scars bleed again. As much as you want to forget something or someone, sometimes there are just no effective way to do it. It can be a song that takes you back to a timeline when you were so smitten by a particular person, it was as if there was no tomorrow. There was only now, you lived in the moment and you wished it would never have to end ; once you return to the current reality, you feel ashamed of yourself for living in the past.

"Live in the moment, because when time has passed, it will never return." A piece of advice repeated but a broken record, nevertheless often subconsciously ignored anyway because people tend to hold on to the past so firmly that they tend to take the present time for granted, and at times they tend to forget that there is still a future ahead of them. Why? Simply because the future is scary and uncertain, while the past is so well-defined, much like a comfort zone to return to whenever things get messed up in the present. This is why it is so hard to move on.

So if we are not supposed to force ourselves to stop our own feelings, what are we to do? Ironically enough, the cliche' "Time heals" applies here, regardless of how overrated the relative concept of time is.There are just certain problems in life that you can never find a solution to, so you ought to resort to waiting instead. As pathetic as it may sound, you have to know when to stop pushing. Treat your feelings like your visitors, let them naturally come and go as they please.

There comes a moment in life where you just have to buckle up and sit back ;  let the universe take its own course and just enjoy the ride. What happens next? Time will tell. Let destiny surprise you. For all you know, you're heading for the ride of your life.

How HIMYM Should Have Ended

SPOILER ALERT!

One of America's Most Watched comedy of the 21st century, How I Met Your Mother, has finally closed its curtains last Monday with a one-hour special finale, but here comes the big question, how happy were the fans with how the writers concluded the show? What with the fact that the finale confirmed one of our greatest fears sparked by online theories : the Mother's death. It was a rather morbid way to end a comedy, really, in spite of how the writers had cleverly slipped in hints of seriousness amongst the multiple misadventures thoughout the 9 seasons such as Robin's infertility, passing of Marshall's dad, Ted being left at the altar, Barney's quest to find his long-lost dad and even Lily's career conflict that made her leave Marshall as she made her way to San Francisco.

Speaking for myself,and some of the fans of HIMYM who are acquainted with me, I can say that fans who rooted for the Mother to end up with Ted are extremely disappointed with the sudden plot twist. Not only is it sloppy - cramming every single huge detail revolving around the mother's passing and Robin & Barney's divorce into one confusing episode, it is also anti-climatic in a sense that it defeats the purpose of Barney having a legendary wedding in the first place if he's going to split up with Robin anyway. Just as we thought that Barney has finally settled down,he knocked up a girl (whom he addressed as number 31) during his one-month streak and had a baby named Ellie whom he later found out to be the true love of his life. I was clearly unhappy with how the writers wrapped up the final season. They could have at least introduced one of these major points earlier on rather than throwing lame puns upon lame puns to the audience just to 'stretch' the season to be longer. With that being said, here's how I've imagined the ending to HIMYM to be instead :

It starts off as usual, Ted's two kids seated on the sofa as Ted tells them the story that approaches the moment he met his wife (their mother) where he mentions his last night in NYC before he was leaving for Chicago the next day. He was seated at the dinner table where the wedding reception was held,and he saw The Mother, on stage, playing bass for the band who were performing for the wedding.Barney saw Ted and the Mother locking eyes,and wanted to be Ted's wingman one last time but before he could pull off the usual "haaaave you met Ted?" charade, Ted walked out and refused to play as he was already leaving NYC and it wouldn't be realistic. He then said good bye to everybody in the gang individually. While he hugs everybody and gives his little speech, the Mother observes from a distance,wishing she could meet Ted.

It was fate, as Ted was waiting for his train in Farhampton, he tells the old lady next to him about the bassist girl he had seen earlier and seconds later, she showed up with her yellow umbrella and her bass in a hard case. The old lady encouraged Ted to approach her,and so he gathered all his courage and spoke to her. They started to connect through coincidences, and it all started to make sense to Ted. The train finally stops and the Mother got off, bidding farewell to Ted but she left her bass in the train by accident. Ted went after her,carrying the bass with him and they met each other again right before the Mother got on the cab. Both of them exchanged glances and greeted each other with an awkward "hi", then the scene ends.

As Ted wraps up the story to his kids with "So that kids, is how I met your mother..", his wife walks in with a baby in her arms,smirking as she says :
"You're finally wrapping up that story huh? Classic Schmosby. Now come on over here partner, I need a hand with Ellie." Ted walks over to his wife, gives her a gentle peck on her cheek and helps her tuck Ellie into bed while their kids wait outside the bedroom. Robin & Barney walks in a few hours later to get Ellie,and thanks Ted & Tracy for babysitting for them while they were away for a news trip in Argentina. The camera zooms in on Ted & Tracy's wedding photo where the flashbacks began. Robin & Barney got into a huge fight during the weekend of the wedding because of Robin's hectic career, but they then realized that there was a way to make it work by merely observing Marshall,Lily, Marvin and Daisy. With the help of James (Barney's gay brother),they managed to get hold of the right organizations and adopted a daughter which they agreed to name Ellie Stinson- Scherbatsky.

The scene ends with the camera zooming in to the photos of the happy families in frames - The Eriksens with Marshall in a judge suit and all of them surrounded by Lily's paintings, The Mosbies beside Ted's most glorious architecture model, The Stinsons and finally the entire gang with their children in McLaren's Pub,flashbacks of all the coincidences come in snapshots on the screen, including how the rest of the gang were first acquainted with the Mother. and finally the yellow umbrella positioned near the bar to conclude it all.

That, is how HIMYM should have ended in my perspective.