How is it at one moment you can be so excited for something until you hear about a better deal? then you feel like you are being cheated. Good things are happening in my life. GOOD THINGS. and I know how grateful i am for them because a couple of months ago i could not say that, but yet allowing myself to hope for good things makes me want great things and when i dont get great things, the good things dont seem to satisfy.
This is the downfall of America. We all want what we cant have. The next big 'it' thing. We are all in debt up to our ears and millions including yours truly are jobless, but we cant seem to help ourselves. It is a disease. I am sure that in a couple of years there will be a category for it in the DSM.
I am trying to learn to be grateful. To be thankful. To count my blessings and to be happy with what i have DAILY. Ive had nothing, ive felt despair, so I should be relieved to be in a better place, but the stupid american dream is making me want to hope for more, wish and dream and not appreciate the journey I have made which isnt neccessarily a bad thing, but is one slipe and slide away from disaster.
I want to embrace this time. I have found a place of freedom. I have stepped out of fear and into grace, and yet I keep trying to steep into envy/greed/comparison. I guess we are all one step away from the arms of grace, and I am choosing to step back into them. What will you do?
“No,” croaked Kate, as she rolled over. It was Saturday and it was the one day she did not have to get up early for school or church. Kate was eight and was in the 2nd grade. She liked school, but she liked sleeping in better. Emily being only 3 and not in school yet did not understand this rare occasion. To her Saturdays were the one day where she was able to spend the whole day with her sister.
“Come, Come, cartoons are on!” shrieked Emily.
“Give me 5 more minutes, please Ems and I then I promise to watch Rainbow Brite with you!” stated Kate as she pulled the pillow over head. Emily just learning to tell time was excited about this game.
“Okay!” she screeched with glee, “I’ll be back in 5 moonuts! Emily ran off with her red hair flying wild behind her skipping into the living room.
Kate jerked awake as the horn blew on the train. She
pushed her hair off her forehead and checked her watch. “9:20,” she mummer. Her
train was supposed to arrive at 9:30 in Wellesley station. She was meeting her
sister there and she was a little nervous. She had not seen her since Christmas
and that was 10 months ago. Even then they did not see each other on a regular
basis. Their parents had gotten divorce when they were young and had separated
them. Kate lived with their father James in North Carolina and Emily lived with
their mother Mary in Massachusetts. Needless to say that they only saw each
other on major holidays. They lived different lives and were as different from
each other as two random strangers. You couldn’t even tell that they were
really even sisters. Kate was medium height with blonde hair and Emily was
slightly taller with red hair. They did however have the same intense eyes just
like their mothers. Kate’s were a more emerald green were Emily tended to be
more of an aqua green. The differences didn’t just stop with appearance either.
Kate was quiet and reserve and you could tell she was always thinking something
magnificent. She was very smart and ambitious, but she had the tendency to be a
people pleaser satisfying other’s before her own happiness. Some would say the
typical behavior of a first born of divorced parents. Emily was outrageous,
outgoing, and flaky. She was very popular, always had tons of energy and up for
the next great thing. Where Kate was always pleasing others, Emily was great at
manipulating others to please her. The two could not have been more different
if they had grown up in different families. And now they were going to live
together.
Kate kept going over the reasons why she had agreed to this in the first place. She had been out of school for a year now and needed some new scenery. She had been working at a car rental place in Wilmington, NC and living with a friend when her life turned upside down. She hated her job and realized that sales was not what she wanted to do with her life. In the midst of all this soul searching for her life ambition her boyfriend of 4 years broke off their engagement. She realized that her life was not where she had imagined it would be by the age of 23. She was relaying this info to her father looking for some advice to where she should direct her life when he mentioned that Emily was looking for a roommate. Emily was living outside Boston working in an art studio and attending classes whenever she felt like it. Emily was more of the free spirit where Kate was all about planning and setting goals. Somehow her father had convinced her that a new place of scenery would be good for her and she could experiment with career options. What her father wasn’t telling her though was that they two needed each other more than they realized.
Well, I did it. I went and made a public commitment. And here I am, doing it again, because lo and behold, if I say it out loud and proud, maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to stick with it.
Possibly? Maybe? I can't believe it's been over a year but the urge to blog has finally returned. At the very least, it'll be a place to post all the crap I don't want to forget about.
So we'll see.
Being a girl I tend to get things confused, misinterpreted, over analyzed, out of context, etc, etc, etc when it comes to the opposite sex. I think there are things that bind us all down, invisible chains and handcuffs that hold us back.
I would like to think that in reality that we are all scared of the same thing: rejection, abandonment, hurt, pain....ultimately it all boils down to Love. To love is to open ourselves up to someone. To share our deepest and darkest secrets and truths. We become vulnerable, a feeling that we do not like to experience often. But it is only in this place of vulnerability that we are being true to ourselves.
When I am in this moment I feel so free. I feel like the ultimate me. I feel whole. I feel good to be me. Just me. Nothing more. The world makes sense for a moment and everything seems aligned to bring these two imperfect people together at this place where perfect exists for a few fleeting seconds. A smile, a titled head, a laugh, the deep stare that shakes you to your core as you feel this person sees right through all your bull crap right to the very essence of you and does not run away but instead holds that gaze and invites you to do the same.....all seem to slow down and enter you into an alternative world where only you two exist.........
Then something snaps and you are back to reality, other voices enter in, people fade back into the picture and you realize that you are not alone and are instead surrounded by people. You walk away and the sureness you felt a moment ago evaporates and you begin to second guess everything. Nothing feels real anymore and you are sure that you imagined it.
I wish I could stay in the perfect moment forever. I wish I knew how to lose my chains that hold me back, and believe in myself. I take one step at a time hoping that today is my day to make it my way. I laugh with a broken smile, a mysterious denial screaming to break these chains because I am nothing more than wasted energy....wasted on lies.
Our choices weigh on our shoulders, never over because we all fall from such great heights because everything looks perfect from far away. But perfect is not real.
I like the way I feel when you are around
Grief is like the ocean.It is deep and dark and bigger than all of us.Yet we all face it. Grief can bring us together or tear us apart.
Pain is like a thief in the night...persistent....unfair.....diminished by time, faith, and love. It rips us into pieces and makes us want to crawl into a hole and hide from the world, but we can't.
Life is about facing the pain, embracing the pain. Exclusion only brings us further from comfort, further from love. Grief is not something to fear. It is necessary and part of life. To live is to encounter loss and be able to face the future with yesterday's tears.
Pain...loss....death... they are all hard, BUT they are what make us human. If we close off the world we may be able to escape some pain, but the bareness of our heart is a pain worse than death.
To LIVE completely and fully, we must LOVE completely and fully. Are you ready to dive into the ocean?
 |
| From summer |
Death is not a new concept. We are all confronted with death on a daily basis and we all accept that we are going to die someday. It is the living part that we have difficulty with.
The sad part is that we think we are living. We wake up EVERYDAY, we go to work EVERYDAY, we eat, we sleep, we bathe, we converse, we watch TV, and we do it all EVERYDAY with a smile on our face and believe that we are truly living. NEWS FLASH!!!! That is not life. That is not what we were meant to be.
We live in Fear of what could be our lives choosing to accept a mediocre existence. But we are more than mediocre, I want more than mediocre. This is not a new concept either, but it is one that is overlooked. There have been songs, books, and even movies revolved around the idea “what would you do if you had 30 days to live?” We watch these, read these, and sing these words of “living like you were dying” but it only lasts for a short time eventually falling away to our routine of mediocrity. Our routines become our ruts leading us into a life not lived. We settle back into the fear and let it rule our emotions and actions.
What would you be life if you did not live by fear? If today was your last day what would you say? What would you do? Who would you spend time with? Putting things into perspective is not the point, though that does happen. The point is that we are governed by fear of living, not dying. Everyone dies, we know this, but not everyone lives. I am going to try to do something every day that I am scared of because I do not want to become mediocre. I want a life worth living. Death is inevitable. We are all going to die. But life is optional, we do not all truly LIVE.
What I have learned this week so far....
- the world does not revolve around me (much to my dismay)
- money doesn't grow on trees (again much to my dismay)
-everyone does not think like I do, and therefore have Different priorities
-I am a little obsessive compulsive when it comes to cleaning (not cleaning, cleaning, but keeping things in their place) and my new roommate apparently is not.
-just because you talk about doing something doesn't mean you actually have plans
-not everyone writes everything down in a planner, and hence forgets they are already busy making you have to rearrange…if only they would use a planner that wouldn't happen!
- people do not operate on my schedule, just because I am ready to do something doesn't mean they are….(again….ummm why not??? It would be easier!)
- I cant make everyone happy, I can only make myself happy and that is hard enough.
- I can only rely and depend on myself, not in a depressive way of thinking that no one can be counted on, not at all, just that if I try to depend on others too much I get myself in trouble, so I can only truly depend on me. That is the only guarantee… and I have to get used to it.
Realization: sometimes it is better to just stay in the dark because once you realize what your brain has been hiding to protect you, it HURTS. Growth is painful and unfortunately it is necessary. All you can do it hope you pull through a better person, a whole person. Because the flip side is not an option. So here is to pulling the band aid off and letting the pain ooze. "Don't lick your wounds, celebrate them. The scars you bear are the signs of a competitor"
"There's a point in your life when you get tired of fixing everything & trying to make everyone happy. When you finally decide to quit, it's NOT giving up. Its realizing you don't need certain people and the bull**** they bring in to your life."
