Why I have killed?

One person can fill the gap of thousands but....thousands cannot fill the gap of one person!

Then you left me to shed tears, are you justified in your act?How can you do it no no no ..... you are of course justified because you are not fool......YES LOVE IS A PASSION OF FOOLS. I'm one one of them.

please come and kick again.....

Relationship of Life:

"What is true Relationship ?" I don't like this question......because I could not find its true meaning. I tried my level best but couldn't drive any satisfactory answer. Just corruption of feeling ,thought and emotions is found as I can see..... I want to live but how?

 When parents are not true to you ..... you want the shoulders of your brother or sister but if ........ you don't find trustworthy !


Then where life exists.......?

Organ of Expression:

     Eyes are the sense organs meant for sight or vision in humans and animals. Eyes are really sensitive to sunrays and chemicals. To shield our eyes from sun rays, we can wear sunglasses. The colour of the pigment in the retina, determines your eye colour. Eyes can be black, blue, green, blue or grey in colour. Eyes enhance a woman’s beauty, especially if they are wide and glittery make-up such as eye-liner; mascara, eye shadow etc. have been applied on the eyes. In the words of Albert Einstein, “Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.”
Tears are how my eyes speak when my lips can't describe how much I've been hurt.

       As a sense organ, eyes are sensitive and should be taken care of. Several eye disorders can trouble you if you don’t protect your eyes from germs or infections. Colour blindness is an eye disorder, when the eye cannot distinguish between colours. Mark Twain had once remarked,” You can’t depend upon your eyes when your imagination is out of focus”, and rightly so.
      Sometimes, our eyes need to be washed by our tears so that we can see life with a clearer view again.

Life & sadness:

         Being hurt is something you can't stop from happening, but being miserable is always your       choice.

There will be many trials and many situations that will hurt you in life, but you have to remember that though they do have the power to hurt you once, you staying miserable is only a result of you deciding to stay miserable. There will be many forms of adversity that you will have to face in your life, and sometimes life will try to lend you its biggest knockout blows.

We should all be so confident in ourselves that we never let anger take us over to the point where it makes us miserable. If you allow for yourself to be miserable and if you allow for yourself to keep a negative attitude, you will only cause your heart more destruction than it really needs. Choose to love, be positive, and to forgive, doing so is the only way to escape a prison of misery and anger and un-forgiveness.

Short Image Of Life:

Love is an all rounder........

Regardless of age, culture, language, or race, all humans have a hunger for love. If that hunger is not satisfied, they are not happy. A medical researcher wrote: "Love and intimacy are at a root of what makes us sick and what makes us well, what causes sadness and what brings happiness, what makes us suffer and what leads to healing. If a new drug had the same impact, virtually every doctor in the country would be recommending it for their patients. It would be malpractice not to prescribe it."

Jesus Christ, who had a profound understanding of and a special fondness for humans, put love for God and neighbor at the very heart of his teaching. He said: "You must love Jehovah your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul and with your whole mind. . . . You must love your neighbor as yourself." (Matthew 22:37-39) Only those who followed these words would truly be Jesus' followers. Hence, he said: "By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love among yourselves."

Love is all these things and more. It is a bond and yet it is freedom, love believes and yet it is unbelievable, love is everything yet it is one.

Love makes other things seem less important, which they are. People often put too much energy into the wrong things because something is emotionally lacking in their life.

Life is difficult. Love smooths out the rough edges. In other words - it makes life softer, kinder, stimulating and bearable. Just my humble opinion.It depends on which love we mean.

If we talk about love in this physical, material world, where we "love" something that is good for us, gives us pleasure, satisfaction, fulfillment, then this love is just an indication that that particular thing, or person is desirable for us.

But if we talk about "true, spiritual" love, when we become capable of leaving our own feelings, desires, in order to feel, and satisfy the desire of another, that love can change our whole existence.

love is an all rounder........

Facing Your Fears:

by Brad Bollenbach Only with absolute fearlessness can we slay the dragons of mediocrity that invade our gardens. – George Lois Since I started 30 sleeps, I’ve always imagined writing to be just one of several mediums through which I speak to the world. The written word can transport a serious payload, but there’s nothing quite like reaching out to people face-to-face. I enjoy the atmosphere and energy of grassroots geek conferences, and I think it’ll be fun to organize and participate in that sort of thing for the “Open Source Personal Development” community. In that vein, I recently decided to sharpen my public speaking skills. Last week, I attended my first ever Toastmastersmeeting. It’s been a while since I’ve done public speaking. I was surprisingly nervous. To familiarize myself with how it all worked, I spent some time on the website of the club I intended to visit. So by the time I was on my way downtown to where the meeting would be held, I knew that for this and the next few meetings, I’d be sitting in as a guest. I understood that I’d probably be encouraged to speak, but that such risks were optional. That left me two choices for the evening ahead: I could either hide behind the comfort of my provisional status, watching members battle their nerves and imperfections to improve their speaking skills, or I could confront the mildly terrifying, but exciting possibility of doing my first public speech in a long while, in front of a group of people I’d never met, and who were obviously much better at this than me. The choice was obvious. My heart rate was visible through my shirt. Opportunity Meets (Lack of) Preparation The meeting started a few minutes late. There were about 25 members present, and 5 other newbie guests like me. These gatherings are not what you’d call “laid back.” They’re focussed, highly structured, and run on a precise schedule. The atmosphere was fun but formal, positive but nerve-racking, entertaining but inherently intense. Shortly after things got rolling, the guests were asked to introduce themselves. I stood up and gave a little spiel. My voice did a poor job of masking my nerves. I was caught off-guard by how shaky I was even just presenting myself to the group. I was even rustier at public speaking than I thought. I don’t feel even a fraction of this kind of fear when I talk to strangers. But when something makes me feel this apprehensive and unsettled, I know I’m in the right place at the right time. Several minutes after introducing ourselves, the guests were given another chance to shine: Table Topics. Table Topics are impromptu speeches. You’re given a question and you come up with a two-minute speech on the spot to answer it. Three members are chosen to do a table topic, three speeches given, then everyone casts their vote into a box that later decides whose was best. The Table Topics Master started by asking if any guests would be interested in giving it a try. Here was my chance to rise to the occasion…and I chickened out. Fuck. No guests volunteered, so the TTM instead chose a member, Don, to do the first speech. Don’s speech was amazing: charismatic, confident, masterfully unprepared, funny, well-delivered. It only emphasized how much I had to learn about public speaking. In selecting the next speaker, the TTM decided to give the six of us newbies another chance, and again extended the invitation for us to participate. There was a moment of hesitation. Then a voice broke the silence: “Alright, I’ll do it!” That voice, apparently, was mine. Confronting Fear Fear is a funny thing. Where some people see a speed bump, others see Mount Everest. There are those who view talking to strangers as something deeply terrifying. Others consider it an entry-level social skill. Some people are so afraid of doing something “risky” like, say, moving to another country, that they’re incapable of even discussing such things outside the context of a joke. But if you’ve read the fine print on fear, you know this: Safety Kills. Opting out of a chance to confront your fears is no different than smoking a cigarette, eating a Big Mac, or taking a hard drug. Avoiding danger can be dangerous. The moment I offered to do a speech, I felt that surge of energy and emotion that comes from knowing that you’re taking a risk you need to take. The question my speech had to answer was this: If a reporter and their camera crew approached you in the middle of a busy street, and they wanted to do an interview with you, what question would you most want to be asked and why? As I walked up in front of the group, thinking of what to say, my body argued with my mind over the magnitude of the challenge before me. In my head, I felt fairly confident and on form, less concerned about how things would turn out, and more just happy with myself for throwing caution to the wind. On the outside though, I was vibrating like a tuning fork. The moment you face a particular fear, you enter a kind of flow. Time goes away. Your worries are no longer worrying. Your fears dissolve. Your thoughts cease. It’s a blissful mode of being, where your every action beats with the pulse of existence. The Speech I stood up at the front and let the words come out: If I were approached by a reporter in the middle of a busy street, and they wanted to interview me, what question would I most want to be asked? I think that question would be: What makes you come alive? To me, this is one of the most interesting questions to ask or be asked. It’s moments like this, giving this speech, that make me feel most alive. That feeling of vulnerability, uncertainty, having no idea what you’re doing and just doing it anyway–that, to me, is aliveness. I can’t remember the rest of it, but I carried that train of unthought for another minute thirty, and closed by asking the audience the same question I wanted asked of me: What makes youcome alive? My stream of consciousness seemed to be a hit. At the end of the night, I was presented the award for the Best Table Topics speech. Every worthwhile step forward I’ve taken in my life has been taken on these terms. It’s never easy. There’s no point at which you finally say, “Ah, I’m finally where I want to be.” It’s never comfortable. You never know how long a good thing will last. The risks associated with living the life you want will never go away. The only thing that changes is how you choose to confront the situation. Will you run away from your fears or will you chase after them?

How to Get a Life:

You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.

– Dale Carnegie

Positive relationships are the foundation of an interesting life.

Regular readers of my blog know that I advocate talking to strangers as a fantastic way of shaking up reality. But that’s not the whole story. If your interactional energy is misspent, you can end up in a repetitive cycle of drive-by friendships, random sexual adventures that are as fun as they are meaningless, and a general sense of wondering why you seem to always end up back where you started.

Making your own introductions is a life-changing force. But how do you channel this bravado into building relationships that last? How do you find friends that will raise the ceiling of your potential rather than criticize you for your passions? How do you meet girls that belong in your world and not just in your bedroom?

How do you get a life?

Love Being Alone

The prerequisite to building a healthy social life is, ironically, being comfortable by yourself. If you’re starting from zero, the reasons for this are obvious: you don’t have much choice. If you have a few friends but find that they drag you down, withdrawing from that crowd and starting anew will probably require staying in more frequently. Also, being too desperate for the company of others will hinder authentic interaction. You’ll be more worried about external validation instead of just letting it flow and being open to discovering connections.

Appreciating aloneness starts by consciously acknowledging the freedom it brings. When you enjoy your own company you can be flexible about who you choose to hang with, instead of letting the ego’s fear of being alone suck you into social scenes you don’t really like.

It also helps to have interests that can be pursued on your own. I’m fortunate to have many: reading, writing, cooking, software development, and online poker, among others. I’m just as happy staying in as going out, as long as I keep a good balance between the two. You can even use your alone time to apply the ideas in this article to help build your social life.

Start With Who You Already Know

Getting a life means becoming a person who initiates interactions, instead of always waiting for others to make the first move. A great place to start is with the people you already know. Most of us can probably think of one or more people that we’re horrible at keeping in touch with. These might be former acquaintances, people you met while travelling, someone you enjoyed working with in the past, old friends, or even current friends. When making this list, reach as far back into your past as you can, as long as you keep finding examples of people you wish you’d stayed in touch with.

Then contact them. I prefer email, especially when it’s someone I haven’t talked to in a while. If you don’t have the person’s email address, try Google. Alternatively, you might have a mutual friend who can put you in touch.

I did this several weeks ago. It was easy for me to think of many people with whom I’m horrible at keeping in touch. I ended up sending over a dozen emails to former coworkers I enjoyed working with, friends in other cities, and even local buddies who I don’t talk to nearly enough, often because I rely on them to always ping me.

I got responses from all but two people. I ended up going for lunch with one girl I’d never socialized with outside of a party setting. I reconnected with a former boss of mine from Quebec City who travels to Montreal frequently, and plan to have lunch with him next time he’s in town. And I reestablished contact with some friends I was starting to lose touch with.

The ROI on this simple gesture made me wonder: Why the fuck haven’t I been doing this all along?

Generosity Is Golden

It’s one thing to take the social initiative with people you already know, but what about with someone you’ve never met?

Sometimes I’ll get an email from a fellow blogger who wants to “network” with me. This is the greasiest way to introduce yourself to anyone. When making a new connection, start with generosity. Focus on how you can help the other person get where they’re going. This is an idea I got from Keith Ferrazzi’s excellent book, Never Eat Alone.

Do you have information that may interest them? Do you know someone whom they could benefit from knowing too? Can you volunteer to help their cause?

For example, I recently moved into a coworking space in Montreal called Station C. It’s a group of independent consultants and entrepreneurs who don’t like working from home. I think Patrickand Dan have done a fantastic job setting it up. It’s an amazing workspace with a great mix of people.

One of the first things I did when I moved in was volunteer to help build the office’s scheduling application. I have a lot of respect for the project and, now that I’m involved as a member, it can only be a good use of my time to make it even better. I also introduced myself to most people in the office early on and asked them to show me what they were working on. I wanted to get a sense of what skills they had and consider ways in which I could give them more work. In showing my own interest, I found others naturally reciprocating. I’ve already been getting work offered in my direction.

One of the best investments you can make in yourself is to take a genuine interest in other people.

User Groups

The best places to plant the seeds that will improve your social life are user groups. A “user group” might be a professional association, a political party, an orchestra, a yoga class, or any other gathering of people who have a common passion.

To start down this road, make a list of keywords for everything you enjoy and every issue that matters to you. For example, mine looks like:

• personal growth
• spirituality
• private health care in canada
• cooking
• longboarding
• grassroots geek conferences
• design
• usability
• eco-friendly housing
• etc.

Do a complete brain dump. If you haven’t got at least 50 lines of output, you aren’t trying hard enough. When finished, head to Meetup.com and see what you can find. Alternatively, add the name of your city to each line and you’ve got a Google search query. This will help you find local user groups, bloggers, discussion forums, businesses, and other organizations related to these topics.

What if you can’t find a group that fits your needs? Organize it. This is exactly how I started apersonal growth group in Montreal. The downside of being an organizer is that it takes a little more time and energy. The upside is everything else.

Finding a great group of people that like what you like may require some detective work, but it’s worth it. A shared interest is the active ingredient in building positive relationships.

Don’t Limit Yourself

When I was doing my 30-day trial on learning to cook, I took inspiration from Laura Calder’sshow French Food at Home. I think she has a unique charm and her enthusiasm for cooking is contagious.

Then I thought: Why not email her?

So I did. And she replied.

Next thing you know, we’re exchanging email about The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle, spirituality, and general thoughts on the art of happiness.

Don’t limit yourself. Take a look at your bookshelf, for example, and ask yourself: Which of these authors might I like to get to know? Email them. Authors in particular seem to have more easily accessible email addresses than other public figures. It’s unlikely that you’ll meet or even get a personal response from most of the people you contact this way, but it’s still fun to make a connection with someone that inspires you.

I’ve turned this last one into a 30-day trial. Every day I email one person I want to know more about, whom I might normally consider out of reach. I find some of the most fun 30-day trials are the ones related to meeting new people. If you feel like you could use some help in the social arena, why not make now the time you choose to break out of your bubble?

it will never Pass into nothingness” Keats the Great:

Keats was considerably influenced by Spenser and was, like Spenser, a passionate lover of beauty in all its forms and manifestations. The passion of beauty constitutes his aestheticism. Beauty was his pole star, beauty in nature, in woman and in art. For him, ‘A thing of beauty is a joy forever’.

When we think of Keats, ‘Beauty’ comes to our mind. Keats and Beauty have become almost synonymous. We cannot think of Keats without thinking of Beauty. Beauty is an abstraction, it does not give out its meaning easily. For Keats, it is not so. He sees Beauty everywhere. Keats made Beauty his object of wonder and admiration and he became the greatest poet of Beauty. All the Romantic poets had a passion for one thing or the other. Wordsworth was the worshipper of Nature and Coleridge was a poet of the supernatural. Shelley stood for ideals and Byron loved liberty. With Keats the passion for Beauty was the greatest, rather the only consideration. In the letters of Keats, we frequently read about his own ideas about Beauty. In one of his letters to George and Tom, he wrote:

            “With a great poet the sense of Beauty overcomes every other    consideration, or rather obliterates another consideration.”

He writes and identifies beauty with truth. Of all the contemporary poets Keats is one of the most inevitably associated with the love of beauty. He was the most passionate lover of the world as the career of beautiful images and of many imaginative associations of an object or word with a heightened emotional appeal. Poetry, according to Keats, should be the incarnation of beauty, not a medium for the expression of religious or social philosophy. Keats loved ‘the mighty abstract idea of Beauty in all things’. He could see Beauty everywhere and in every object. Beauty appeared to him in various forms and shapes—in the flowers and in the clouds, in the hills and rills, in the song of a bird and in the face of a woman, in a great book and in the legends of old. Beauty was there in the pieces of stone with carvings thereon. He hated didacticism in poetry. For the poetry itself was beauty so he wrote, “We hate poetry that has a palpable design upon us.”  ’The lines of his poem ‘Endymion’ have become a maxim:

            “A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
            Its loveliness increases; it will never
            Pass into nothingness” 

He even disapproved Shelley for subordinating the true end of poetry to the object of social reform. He dedicated his brief life to the expression of beauty as
For Keats the world of beauty was an escape from the dreary and painful life or experience. He escaped from the political and social problems of the world into the realm of imagination. Unlike Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron and Shelley, he remained untouched by revolutionary theories for the regression of mankind. His later poems such as “Ode to a Nightingale” and “Hyperion” show an increasing interest in human problems and humanity and if he had lived he would have established a closer contact with reality. He may overall be termed as a poet of escape. With him poetry existed not as an instrument of social revolt nor of philosophical doctrine but for the expression of beauty. He aimed at expressing beauty for its own sake. Keats did not like only those things that are beautiful according to the recognized standards. He had deep insight to see beauty even in those things are hostile to beauty for ordinary people. He said:

            “I have loved the principle of beauty in all things.”

Keats perceives Beauty through his natural and spontaneous application of senses. He has an extraordinary sense-perception. He could perceive objects more intensely than other people. He derived great aesthetic delight at the sight of objects of Nature, of a fair face, of the works of art, legends old and new. Haydon, his friend, observed that “the humming of a bee, the sight of a flower, the glitter of the sun, seemed to make his nature tremble; then his eyes flashed, his cheeks glowed and his mouth quivered.” Every moment revealed to him a sensation of wonder and delight. He wrote, “The setting sun would always set me to right, or if a sparrow were before my window, I take part in his existence and pick about the gravel.” He derived aesthetic delight through his senses. He looked at autumn and says that even autumn has beauty and charm:

            “Where are the song of Spring? Ay, where are they?
            Think not of them, thou hast thy music too”

Keats was not only the last but also the most perfect of the Romantics while Scott was merely telling stories, and Wordsworth reforming poetry or upholding the moral law, and Shelley advocating the impossible reforms and Byron voicing his own egoism and the political measure. Worshipping beauty like a devotee, perfectly content to write what was in his own heart or to reflect some splendour of the natural world as he saw or dreamed it to be, he had the noble idea that poetry exists for its own sake and suffers loss by being devoted to philosophy or politics. Disinterested love of beauty is one of the qualities that made Keats great and that distinguished him from his great contemporaries. He grasped the essential oneness of beauty and truth. His creed did not mean beauty of form alone. His ideal was the Greek ideal of beauty inward and outward, the perfect soul of verse and the perfect form. Precisely because he held this ideal, he was free from the wish to preach. Keats’ early sonnets are largely concerned with poets, pictures, sculptures or the rural solitude in which a poet might nurse his fancy. His great odes have for their subjects a storied Grecian Urn; a nightingale; and the season of autumn, to which he turns from the songs of spring. The appreciation of Beauty in Keats is through mind or spirit. The approach becomes intellectual as he endorsees in ‘Ode on Grecian Urn’:

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty -that is all
         Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know”

Art has captured Beauty of life and made it a truth for all the ages to be “a friend to man.” It is not the logical reaching after facts that helps in understanding the truth of things. Keats wrote, ‘What the imagination seizes as beauty must be true’ and it is his powerful assertion. His logic is simple: what is beautiful is truthful. What is ugly cannot be truthful. Find truth through beauty and beauty through truth. Beauty is no more a sensuous, physical or sentimental affair. It has spiritual associations; it is a concern of the soul of man for the salvation of man. Search for salvation must come from the heart of man and Keats knew it: “I am certain of nothing but of the holiness of the heart’s affections and the truth of Imagination—what the imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth.” But a true poet sees life as a whole. A true poet, in the words of Keats, enjoys light and shade foul and fair with the same delight. Thus, his concept of beauty encompasses Joy and Sorrow and Melancholy and Happiness which cannot be separated. Imagination reveals a new aspect of beauty, which is ‘sweeter’ than beauty which is perceptible to the senses. The senses perceive only the external aspect of beauty, but imagination apprehends its essence. 

"How To Save A Life"

Step one you say we need to talk
He walks you say sit down it's just a talk
He smiles politely back at you
You stare politely right on through
Some sort of window to your right
As he goes left and you stay right
Between the lines of fear and blame
And you begin to wonder why you came

Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

Let him know that you know best
Cause after all you do know best
Try to slip past his defense
Without granting innocence
Lay down a list of what is wrong
The things you've told him all along
And pray to God, he hears you
And I pray to God, he hears you

Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

As he begins to raise his voice
You lower yours and grant him one last choice
Drive until you lose the road
Or break with the ones you've followed
He will do one of two things
He will admit to everything
Or he'll say he's just not the same
And you'll begin to wonder why you came

Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

How to save a life

How to save a life

Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life
How to save a life

How to save a life

I left the love of my life because I thought I could do better:

Laughing and dancing with my fiance at our engagement party, I thought I might actually burst with happiness. 

Surrounded by our family and friends, I looked at Matthew and felt certain I had met the man I was going to spend the rest of my life with.

Quite simply, he was my soulmate. 

Karen Cross regrets leaving her first love and mistook contempt for unhappiness

We were desperately in love and had our future life together mapped out. 

First we  would save to buy our own home, then would come a romantic wedding ceremony and children would follow. 

It all seemed so simple to my naïve, 19-year-old self. I was, I smugly told myself, the girl who had it all.

So why, 20 years later, do I find myself  single, childless and tormented by the fact that I have thrown away the only true chance of happiness I ever had?

Happier times: Karen Cross with her former partner Matthew, who she thought was 'the one'

Eight years after that wonderful engagement party in 1989, I walked away from dear, devoted, loyal Matthew, convinced that somewhere out there, a better, more exciting, more fulfilling life awaited me.
Only there wasn't. 

Now I am 42 and have all the trappings of success - a high-flying career, financial security and a home in the heart of London's trendy Notting Hill. But I don't have the one thing I crave more than anything: a loving husband and family.

'My father warned me not to throw this love away. But I was sure I'd find Mr Perfect around the corner'

You see, I never did find another man who offered everything Matthew did, who understood me and loved me like he did. Someone who was my best friend as well as my lover. 

Today, seeing friends with their children around them tortures me, as I know I am unlikely ever to have a family of my own. I think about the times Matthew and I talked about having children, even discussing the names we would choose. I cannot believe I turned my back on so much happiness.
Instead, here I am back on the singles market, looking for the very thing I discarded with barely a backward glance all those years ago.

I know I can't have Matthew back, and it hurts when I hear snippets of information about his life and how content he is. Fifteen years after I ended our relationship, he is happily married.

Karen met Matthew met when they were at school and started dating when she was 17

At this time of year, so many people will be assessing their lives and relationships, wondering if the grass is greener on the other side. Many will mistake contentment for boredom, forgetting to cherish the good things they have. I would urge those who are considering walking away from such riches to think again.

How different things would be for me now if only I'd listened to Matthew when he pleaded with me not to leave him in 1997, tears pouring down his face. I was crying too, and it tortured me to watch the heart of the man I loved breaking in front of me. But I was resolute. 

Let's try again!

Thirty-three per cent of adults said they’d reunite with their first love if they could, says one study

'One day I might look back and realise  I've made the biggest mistake of my life,' I told him as we clung to each other desperately. How prophetic those words have proven to be.

'I will always be here for you,' Matthew promised. And I, arrogantly, thought that somehow I could put him on ice and return to him.

Matthew and I met when we attended the same comprehensive school in Essex. We started dating just before Christmas 1987 when I was 17 and studying for my A-levels. By that time he had left school and was working as a motorcycle courier.

We got on like a house on fire, and our  families each supported the relationship. Before long, we had fallen in love. Matthew was romantic but incredibly practical, something that would later come to annoy me. His gifts to me that Christmas were a leather jacket - and a pair of thermal leggings. 

While she still loved him, Karen began to feel embarrassed by Matthew's blue-collar jobs

Two weeks later, when we'd been seeing each other for less than a month, he proposed. We were in my little Mini Clubman when he shouted at me to stop the car. Scared something was wrong, I braked in the middle of traffic and we both jumped out. 

Then, oblivious to the other drivers beeping their horns, he got down on one knee in the middle of the road. 'I love you, Karen Cross,' he said. 'Promise you'll marry me one day.' I laughed and said yes, thrilled that he felt the same way that I did. 

In the summer of 1989, while out for a romantic meal, Matthew proposed properly with a diamond solitaire ring. Two months later, we held our engagement party for 40 friends and family at the little house we were renting at the time. 

The following year, we bought a tiny starter home in Grays, Essex, which we moved into with furniture we had begged, borrowed and stolen. We giggled with delight at the thought of this grown-up new life.
I was in my first junior role at a women's magazine and Matthew worked fitting tyres and exhausts, so our combined salaries of around £15,000 a year meant we struggled to make the mortgage payments. But we didn't care, telling ourselves that it wouldn't be long before we were earning more and able to afford weekly treats and a bigger home where we could bring up the babies we had planned.

But then, the housing market crashed and we were plunged into negative equity.

Struggling should have brought us closer together, and at first it did. But as time went on, and my magazine career - and salary - advanced, I started to resent Matthew as he drifted from one dead-end job to another. 

Karen stopped appreciating little things he did, like leaving romantic notes on the pillow

I still loved him, but I began to feel embarrassed by his blue-collar jobs, annoyed that, despite his intelligence, he didn't have a career. Then he bought a lurid blue and pink VW  Beetle. 

Why couldn't he drive a normal car? Things that now seem incredibly insignificant began to niggle.

I began to wish he was more sophisticated and earned more. I felt envious of friends with better-off partners, who were able to support them as they started their families. 

I stopped seeing Matthew as my equal. I stopped seeing all the qualities that had made me fall in love with him - his fierce intelligence, our shared sense of humour, his determination not to follow the crowd. Instead, I saw someone who was holding me back. 

'I hated the fact Matthew was suddenly putting another woman before me. How dare she come between us! Over the next few weeks, I'm ashamed to say I vented my spleen at both of them in a series of heated phone calls'

I encouraged him to find a career and was thrilled when he was accepted to join the police in 1995. It should have heralded a new chapter in our lives, but it only hastened the end. We went from spending every evening and weekend together, to hardly seeing one another. Matthew was doing round-the-clock shifts, while I worked long hours on the launch of a new magazine. 

Our sex life had dwindled and nights out together were rare. I stopped appreciating little things he did, like leaving romantic notes on the pillow or scouring secondhand bookshops for novels he knew I'd love. He was my best friend, yet I took him totally for granted. 

After festering for weeks about his shortcomings, I told Matthew I was leaving. We spent hours talking and crying as he tried to convince me to stay, but I was adamant. 

My parents were horrified that I was walking away from a man they felt was right for me. My father's words to me that day continue to haunt me. 'Karen, think carefully about what you're doing. There's a lot to be said for someone who truly loves you.' 

'It's been 11 years since Matthew and I last spoke, I have to accept that door has closed' (posed by model)

But, I refused to listen, convinced there would be another, better Mr Right waiting around the corner.

I moved into a rented flat a few miles away in Hornchurch, Essex, and embraced single life with a vengeance. By now I was an editor on a national magazine. Life was one long round of premieres and dinner or drinks parties.

Matthew and I remained close, even telling each other about new relationships. But though I'd dumped him, I never felt the women he met were good enough. I can see now I was acting out of jealousy. I clearly wanted to keep him for myself.

Our closeness was, however, called to a halt in 2000 when he met his first serious girlfriend after me, Sara. 

One night shortly after his 34th birthday, I phoned to ask his advice about something. 

Matthew was unusually abrupt and asked me not to call him again. 'Please don't send me birthday or Christmas cards any more either. Sara opened your card last week and was really upset. I have to put her feelings first.'

I hated the fact Matthew was suddenly putting another woman before me. How dare she come between us! Over the next few weeks, I'm ashamed to say I vented my spleen at both of them in a series of heated phone calls. 

I was completely irrational. I didn't want Matthew back, but felt upstaged by Sara.  

Unsurprisingly, after one particularly nasty argument, Matthew put the phone down and refused to take any more of my calls. I didn't realise it at the time, but I would never speak to him again. 

Shortly afterwards, I met Richard. It was a whirlwind romance, and within a year we were engaged and buying an idyllic farmhouse in the Norfolk countryside while I continued my journalistic career, commuting to London. 

He was a successful singer and, as we toured the country, I thought I had finally found the excitement and love that I craved.

But Matthew was never far from my thoughts, and Richard complained that I often brought him into conversations, even comparing them both.

They were so different. Although outwardly romantic, Richard was repeatedly unfaithful, and I never felt secure enough to start a family with him. Eventually, after three-and-a-half years together, he walked out, having admitted his latest paramour was pregnant by him. 

My life fell apart. Over the next year, I struggled to pull myself back together and did a lot of soul-searching. I finally understood what my father had meant. I realised Matthew was the only person who had loved and understood me.

When I heard through a mutual friend that he had split up with Sara, I wrote to him, apologising and asking for forgiveness - and a second chance. It was six years since we had last spoken, but naively I thought he would want to hear from me.

What I didn't know was that Sara was still living at the house and it was she who opened my very personal letter. It included my phone number, and she left me several angry, hurtful voicemails. 

Yet again, I had inadvertently caused problems in Matthew's life, so it was unsurprising I never heard from him, despite writing several times over the next few months. In the end, I left it at birthday and Christmas cards, thinking he'd find a way to get in touch if he ever changed his mind.

Then, I heard a couple of years ago Matthew had married his new partner, Nicola. For a few moments I couldn't breathe, then the tears came.

Matthew and Nicola still live in Essex and, as far as I know, don't yet have children. That's the next milestone I truly dread. 

It's been 11 years since Matthew and I last spoke, and I have to accept that door has closed. 

Perhaps he has found what  he is looking for and I am a distant memory.

I have had one other  significant relationship since Richard - with Rob - but that recently ended after four years. Rob reminded me a lot of Matthew. He was decent and honourable, the life and soul of the party but with a kind and sensitive side. 

But we were each too jaded by previous heartbreak to make it work. And while I wanted children, he had a grown-up son and didn't want to start over again.
So once again I am on my own, my mind full of 'if-onlys'. If only I'd stayed with Matthew, we'd almost certainly be married with children. 

Or, maybe Matthew wasn't the right man. I will never know  the answer, but my decision to leave him has definitely cost me the chance of ever becoming a mother.

Now I can only look back and admonish my selfish, younger self. When I visit friends and family back in our home town, I can't help but hope I'll bump into  Matthew.

I'd like to think I'd say sorry. That I will always be there for him. But I wouldn't be surprised if he turned his back on me and kept walking. 

To those out there thinking of walking away from humdrum relationships, I would say don't mistake contentment for unhappiness, as I did. It could be a choice you'll regret for the rest of your life.

If Shakespeare Knew the ABC of Life:

All the World's a Stage

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.

 

Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school.

 And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow.

Then a soldier,

Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,

Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth

. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part.

 The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound.

 Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. 

William Shakespeare

ABC of Life :

Life is ADVENTURE dare it. Life is BEAUTY worship it. Life is CHALLENGE meet it. Life is DREAM realize it. Life is ENDURANCE cope with it. Life is FRAGRANCE smell it. Life is GAME play it. Life is HEAVEN take it. Life is INITIATIVE take it. Life is JOURNEY complete it. Life is KEROSINE burn it. Life is LOVE enjoy it. Life is MYSTERY unfold it. Life is NAME find it. Life is OPPORTUNITY catch it. Life is PROMISE fulfill it. Life is QUESTION answer it. Life is REALITY face it. Life is SONG sing it. Life is TIME utilize it. Life is URAGE satisfy it. Life is VOICE listen it. Life is WEALTH acquire it. Life is X ? solve it. Life is YEARNING go after it. Life is ZENITH attain it