I need a mini voice recorder because when I am lying in bed
with insomnia (such as I was last night) I think of a thousand things I want to
write. And then I play a game, going
over and over and over the topic in my mind thinking I will remember or even dream
about it and then bam, no such luck.
2011 did not turn out the way I expected, but then again neither
have any of the previous years so perhaps this would be a good year to stop
having them. Expectations that is.
Life is what you make it.
Don’t sweat the small stuff, and it’s all small stuff…I could go on with
the cliché’s about living life daily and not letting people hurt you or not
getting angry or not allowing someone to make you feel inferior, or
appreciating your job or appreciating your relationships…or growing up and
realizing someone has it so much worse than you do…the point being I can talk
until I am blue in the face about “living my best life,” but the truth of the
matter is, to put it bluntly, shit happens.
When you try to plan for a rainy day, the rainy day comes
before you can totally prepare for it.
You can treat everyone the way you want to be treated but there will
still be one schmuck who ruins it for everyone.
You can sit back and be jealous/envious of what other people have and
especially so at the ones who get those things but never have to work for them,
but feeling that way will not change things.
You can be a friend to someone and think it should be relatively easy
for them to return the favor, but in reality it’s the last thing that they want
to do or will do.
Most of my colossal mistakes in life have been caused by my
own expectations. I think they are
routine. We have expectations at work,
at home, school, in public. They are
ingrained in our heads. We are taught to
EXPECT that A will happen if B is done.
So how is it that somewhere down the line some of us become obsessed
with them and others could care less? I
think people still have expectations, but it’s not a 5 alarm fire for most like
it can be for me. And then you have
people that tell you it is okay to have expectations. It’s healthy to EXPECT a person to treat you
the way you have treated them. The
brutal truth is the world just doesn’t work that way. So for a person like me, (who is in awe daily
at the audacity some people have to simply just exist) this can be a struggle.
Weight loss is a struggle.
Eating healthy, exercising, etc.
You have to change your life. A
lifestyle change. Learning a new
language. Going back to school. Starting a new job of which you have no
experience. Balancing friendships,
co-workers, relationships period…imagine the struggles that you have personally
had in any of those situations and then ADD the belief that all people could
never possibly hurt you, that humankind is simply too good to be cruel.
Yes I experience first impressions. I give EVERYONE the benefit of the doubt and
I am generally really good about separating my feelings about a person from
maybe the feelings someone else has about them.
I will treat a person the way they treat me, I won’t automatically
dislike you just because my brother doesn’t or something. That is between them. I think all people are good decent human
beings until they prove otherwise. My
problem is I set no boundaries. There is
no closed gate into my yard so to speak.
Come one, come all. Open door
policy. I am not guarded; I wear my
heart on my sleeve. Apparently that
attracts the kind of person who takes great pleasure out of somehow getting to
my heart and injuring it in some way.
So, don’t wear it on your sleeve right?
Sure. If it was that easy. But for me it is not. It would require completely altering a lifelong
thought process and would drastically change me. I rather like me. I think me has a lot of work to do, but find
me someone who doesn’t.
Being a heart on my sleeve wearer also attracts people who
don’t abuse that. Hence the group of
friends I have that would surround me at any time. They give back. Or they would not be in my yard to being with. For instance, a friend came to drag me out of
my house the other night, knowing that I had a horrible week, not allowing me
to sit at home and wallow in my anger, really not giving me a choice. It was one of the best nights I have had in
probably months. And I cannot remember a
time anyone has done that for me. It’s
been a very long time. I also rarely
allow someone to do something like that for me.
I didn’t have to break all the crap down that was going on, she just
knew...we didn’t even really talk about it.
So, it is refreshing to know that there are people out there that see
your heart and say, hey, I realize that you are not always going to be able to
protect it yourself…I got your back. She
showed up. THANK YOU NICKI. If there weren’t people like that in my life,
I think I would be a very sad and lonely person, because they make it worth
putting it all out there.
So this begs the question…are the risks of putting myself
out there worth the rewards? Would it
matter if I knew that answer? Would I be
able to change? Highly doubtful.
As incredibly insane as this may sound, I have only fallen
in love once. You know when you are, no
one needs to explain it to you. I am not
ashamed to say that. I have been in
several relationships, but have only fallen in love once. When that doesn’t work out you question
whether the emotions you felt were real at all, let alone that deep. Well, they are. All of the above. I can honestly tell you that the one time
that I did fall in love, I wasn’t expecting to. But it is not something you can pretend didn’t
happen either.
I have spent the past 8 months fostering a relationship that
apparently can be turned off like a switch.
What would I tell my friends if the role was reversed? I would say why? Why have you spent so much time on it? What have you gotten in return? What has this relationship given to you? So it came as no surprise to me when I was
asked those very questions. I only had
one answer. One answer for every
question. The same answer. The answer being, that it gave me something
to believe in. I guess for a while that
was enough. It didn’t turn out to be
that way. Enough that is. It was never going to be.
Isn’t that all we want?
Something to believe in? I mean
that is why people follow religion right?
Well, you see, “people” are my religion.
Always have been. I have always
believed in people. Always believed in
love. Always believed in the concept of
someone having my back. Believed that I
would someday meet someone who would know me better than I know myself.
I have spent a tremendous amount of time breaking down why
certain things haven’t worked in my life.
Way too much time. Most of the
time it is because of circumstances beyond my control, but in regards to
people, it is generally because I allowed my boundaries to be broke down. Or, perhaps I never put them up. Either way, twenty twelve is about
boundaries. Redefining my
parameters. I am not making a
resolution, I will fail if I do that.
For me it will have to be a major lifestyle change. Just like a diet. I completely have to live differently. And it is not something I can do
overnight. It does mean re-evaluating my
current relationships and spending more time on the ones that have my best
interests at heart. That being protecting the heart that I wear on
my sleeve. It is perfectly ok to wear it
there, if it has protection. It sounds
funny but it has been unprotected for way too long.
I need music. All the
time. In my life. And of course, for me, at just the right
moment I will hear a song that I needed to hear by some divine intervention or
fate or destiny or whatever you want to call it. So it came as no surprise that while I was
asking the inevitable question everyone asks when something doesn’t work out,
why, that my answer came to me in the form of a song.
These times are hard…but they will pass. This too.
Shall pass.
No comments:
Post a Comment