Tag Archives: #selfesteem

How Backbiting and Gossiping Ruined My Happiness

26 Comments

Why, or rather when the opinion of others matters

Spend precious moments stubbornly biting your lips, speaking sternly, and acting openly… – Olya Aman

Dima was my first boyfriend. A terrible bore as he was, I loved him dearly. I always thought him to be above the average in the firmness of his mind. He read classic literature and spoke the language of 19th century romance. We were young and very much in love.

Dima was a sensible and handsome young boy of twenty at the time. I was a smart, pretty girl of eighteen with merry grey eyes and lofty, intelligent forehead. Today when I see a photo of us together, I remember how contagiously happy we were.

One incident ruined our happiness. Dima thought himself deceived, duped, and hopeless. A slough scandal was spread through the entire village and finally found its way to Dima’s ears. The tempest of doubt and dread, of jealousy and rage, almost blinded him. Some shallow minds believed it right away. People that wished us bad luck were rejoicing.

I got to the root of it only by hints and innuendos, as no one dared to speak openly with me about it. I stopped any intercourse with the poisoned humanity, the ones that readily accepted the circulating vile slander.

Dima’s spirits rose almost to madness when he heard the dreadful story of me being unfaithful to our love. I thought nothing could crush his faith in our shared future. The story was a lame one. Unfortunately, he believed that I could swear love to someone else.

The first night after discovering that his best friend was an instigator of the slander, a paroxysm of anger disquieted Dima’s breathing, and he bitterly reproached himself for the moment of weakness. His friend, a worthless reprobate, an impracticable fool, gave food to envenomed tongues, and they started to talk about me as if I was a little frivolous kitten going around and gifting my love to insipid individuals.

Eventually, Dima cut all ties with that false friendship. Forgot the way to his friend’s house. Wiped him off his phone contacts and social media accounts. He brushed the dirt of this acquaintance from his life. After what happened, Dima knew too well to keep such people at a great distance from his life.

My heart rejoiced when my parents and my elder sister took my side in this insinuated story. I felt strong support and stoic faith from them. My close friends showed me the true value of their relationship. People that sincerely wished me to be happy took pains to consider everything thoroughly. They recollected what they knew about me and found not even one reason to surrender to the falsehood circulating in the village.

This occurrence served as a great lesson for both of us. Dima’s so-called friend, being a jealous and wicked person, ruined our happiness. He did his utmost to bring about a fatal collapse to the true love between two faithful hearts. That unfortunate affair taught me to avoid provokingly jealous, heartless, and artificial people. I clean my life from any false attachment.

Today I make my life a pleasant experience, awakened by grand people. The mention of any piece of news that concerns me is heart-felt when coming from a loving soul and easily forgotten when coming from a distant and unimportant acquaintance.

My Father Died From Cancer, and It Taught My Mother to Write

19 Comments

I painstakingly pieced this story from the several treasured excerpts of her diary

You must have a divine heart to be so full of vigor when life is a misery, filled with it like a precious vase… – Olya Aman

My mother makes beauty beautiful. She dreams in words of love and hope when her life is tragic enough to make my face distort with darkness.

Her life is a sad song for an outsider and a bright red fire for those who have the privilege to know the divine rebellion of her smile and the great resoluteness of her mind.

My mother gifted me with her beautiful diary on my 30th birthday. I painstakingly pieced this story together from the treasured excerpts of her diary.

May 1988: “I buried myself in the full of soul eyes of my dying husband. I know I need to think of my dear child and myself for her sake, but it is so hard to tear myself from his bedside. His sufferings make my heart weep. I wish I could sacrifice myself and save him. His voice rising painfully when he holds my hand and pronounces my name. I quiver with restrained grief and smile to cheer him up.”

My father was going through tormenting sufferings on his way to the end of life. His pain, the result of advanced incurable cancer, was inadequately relieved. The question of surgery was not even possible to discuss. It was too late.

May 1988: “My diary is my salvation. I often write and hold his hand in mine. I put on paper what I feel and fold it in two. I plead and pray to God and hide it in my soul.”

July 1988: “He is in constant pain but looks the very incarnation of quiet bravery and love. Even in his intolerable condition, he strives to carry away my disquietude by talking about the beauty of life after death and the pleasure I should feel on this earth even when he will leave me.”

August 1988: “Whenever he is awake from his tired slumber he asks me to write the messages to daughter so I can deliver it to her when she will grow up to understand the preciousness of every word that was voiced through pain and suffering. I like to listen to his sentiments. I love his extreme good sense, his exquisite taste, and the feeling of life. He urges our girl to be uncompromisingly bold in the defense of her opinion and life principals, to be earnest and keen in pursuing her dreams, and to win the esteem of her mother and father by vindicating her character from any unkind inclination.”

October 1988: “With an agitated, burning heart and brain, I live through every minute of my life without him. How do I dare to live when he is not among the living? The one who in intellect, in purity and elevation of soul, was immeasurably superior to anyone I know. I rush outside to cool my feelings in the balmy winter air, and to compose myself each time I feel the hot tears coming to my throat. The solitude of my garden helps me to put on a gleeful smile to cheer my child.”

December 1988: “The poison of this loss spreads through all my essence. I now recognize its harmful intentions. The serious depth of it may kill life within me. I fight it, turn my back upon it. I seek retirement for my pain in taking care of my girl. She is my salvation. I let my head to be carried away by her childish ideas. There is no better cure like a merry, simple-hearted child — ever ready to cement broken heart, to melt the ice of freezing soul, and overthrow the walls of sorrowful isolation.

March 1989: “My mother is my faithful friend. When I see a flash of love in her eyes, a glow of sincere care on her face — I think that one day I will cease to feel this pain. When throbbing recollection flashes upon me, and a cloud of sorrow darkens my eyes, I talk to her: in person, on the phone, or in my mind, and a moment of inward conflict gives place to quiet conduct. I start to behave with exceeding calmness so that she never had to reprove me once.”

November 1989: “I started my diary with more truth than wisdom. In the beginning, I was still fearing to be rooted to my loss. Often the paroxysm of pain and despair was preventing me from saying what I was intended to say. A torrent of tears stained the pages with misery, and I prayed for forgetfulness. But only memory gave life to my words. Never do I endure so long, so blissful nights as when I write. I go through every moment of happiness and pain all over again. My goal is to keep the fire of my foaming and swelling with emotions life engaging and bright, so it warms the heart of my child when I give it to her to read and remember.”

September 1990: “Smiles and tears are so alike with me. I often cry when there is nothing left but to laugh and smile when I am in bitter grief. My diary is my remedy. I feel graceful easiness and freedom about all I do these days. The expansion that this new activity gives to my mind is so refreshing.”

October 1990: “I cannot stop writing. A broad sea is rolling between my past and present. My soul is forever united to the one that is dead in body but always living in my heart. My husband is my everyday companion. I feel his soothing presence. And this feeling of our reunion is not sad anymore, but rejuvenating.”

My mother started a diary and found consolation in putting her feelings on paper. Writing those down by-the-by brought consolation. It brightened the doomed comprehension of life. The melancholy musings and painful lamentations stayed on paper.

The words of sorrow, written in her diary, purchased solace and tranquility.