I guess change can be a good thing, but right now it feels like I'm treading water in the middle of a surging ocean. I feel overwhelmed and slightly seasick.
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Life is messy. Life is not the neat, contained bundles of feeling and carefully scripted plot that you see in a movie theater. Life is painful and it hurts, but it’s also poignant and it's beautiful. So beautiful. It connects and intersects us to one another in ways we can’t fully understand and mostly don’t notice.
Life is a roller-coaster. Each day is different; life can throw surprises at you left and right. Just when we think we’ve got it all figured out, life slips a new feeling or a new experience out of it’s sleeve and whips it at you with a flurry. Or maybe it breaks it to you gently, the way the spring breaks through the cracks of winter, pushing past the cold and melting the ice and filling the tree branches with golden shards of light and warmth. It can light you up and make you so grateful that you never despaired of life, and the next, it can cut you up inside, leaving you lonely and bare and wanting nothing more than to run away. You never truly know what each next day will bring. Some days I look into the mirror, and wonder at that smiling face I see, wonder at a new discovery made, wonder that a bad day ended in a smile...and the next day, I look at the same face and strain to see value and beauty...and pray that somehow I would know what I am meant for. Life is a classroom. Where one learns to appreciate the value in oneself, to not base those understandings on what one thinks others think about them. Its about learning to be humble, and selfless, to see that others are hurting, and you can’t do anything about your own hurts, but you can help them in little ways. Where you learn how to become the world to one person who needs you. Who keeps pushing you away in every way they know how but still needs you. Life is meant to be lived. Don't you dare let yours slip away. You get one chance at this. Grab each day by the coattails and live, live, live. Life is pain. Don't be afraid o If someone were to ask me what I hate the most about myself, I would be able to answer immediately. I hate that I'm so shy, so quiet, and so reserved. It kills me. I wish it were as easy as some people think it is when they say "just speak up more"--as if I can help it. If I could change it, I would. In a heartbeat.
Not that being reserved is always a bad thing, but when you can't speak up, even when you want to, you begin to feel trapped in your own body. I haven't always been this quiet...but that's a long story. Now, if someone asked me what it is that I love the most about myself, I'd have trouble answering. I'm really not sure. .... If I could have just one wish granted right now, I'd ask for a hug. A long, warm, solid hug. I've had the worst day today, and it has sort of torn up a bit of this barrier that I had between me and my past. All this pain and these feelings that I've suppressed came rushing back at me, and I don't want to feel them. I've spent enough time crying and grieving and I don't want to feel any of it again. Praying to God tomorrow will be better... Remember:
Life is too short not to try. Give more than you take. Observe others. Watch what they are like, what their body language, their clothes, the friends they have, the way they speak tells you about them. And then don't come to any conclusion about them. Keep an open mind, because no matter how much you think you know about those others you were observing, you don't even know half the story. Smile more often. Enjoy the world around you, because if you can leave your home without fear, you are more blessed than those others who cannot have that luxury. Listen when others speak to you; stop focusing about yourself, worrying about how they perceive you. Be a friend to them and make their day better with whatever time you spend with them. Look at your fears as a challenge--an area in which you can improve. Look them in the face and see them for what they are. Overcome, then leave them behind in the dust. Don't look back. When you look at your face in the mirror, don't agonize over the blemishes, the big nose, the frizzy hair, or the eyebrows that you never get right. You are beautiful. Stop criticizing yourself every time you see your reflection. There is no other person like you in the world, and there never will be after you. Keep your head up. Stand up straight. Walk with purpose. I found an interesting blog recently, and I've only read a couple of the posts so far, but I've bookmarked the page and visit the site occasionally. Today I visited the page and found the following post:
Waiting on my return. It made me tear up; it was so beautifully written with such insight. It was like finding a gem on a dusty sidewalk; I wasn't expecting to find it, but there it is nevertheless. I'm just about to write my last exam!!!!!
I stayed up all night...can't wait to get this over with. :) I just watched this video online... ...and afterwards I started thinking: I don't know if I could ever trust someone like they trust each other. They've told each other everything about their past lives.
I've never trusted anyone that much, and somehow I feel like if I ever told anyone everything, everything, about me, that there's no way they would love me anymore. The weird thing is that when I think about it the other way, and I think about if it were someone else telling me those same things about themselves, that I would love them in a heartbeat; I would love them no matter what their past was like. But it's so hard when everything is reversed. I've been thinking about marriage lately, about how sometimes people fall in love and then fall out of love. I mean, the divorce rate is ridiculous. Maybe we as a society don't understand what marriage means. I'm not sure that I understand. I've heard that a marriage is never what you're anticipating when you're not yet married, that it takes a lot of work and commitment, and communication. But I can honestly say that I probably have a very small understanding about what marriage really is. After watching that video, I just felt like a window opened somewhere and added all this dimension to my concept of marriage. There was a part of me that hurt a little bit, to be honest. I'm not completely sure why. Country music always makes me feel like crying. I don't know why I'm having so much trouble concentrating. I've been sitting in the library for the past 5 hrs trying to finish a paper, and I've written probably less than 20 sentences...This usually doesn't happen to me.
Life is a funny thing. Some days we feel hopeless and lost, and then all of a sudden, when we aren't looking for it, something beautiful is born.
It's too easy to waste time. It's easy to put things off and say it'll be done later, but later never comes. Sometimes you can become so used to living in the shadows of your misfortunes of the past that you forget you are free, that you can live and accomplish and conquer, that you are not what the past made you believe you were. Leave the past in the past and live. I keep forgetting that bad days don't last forever. My days may have been filled with darkness and pain, but God gives me hope and strength; it is He who lights the path that is my tomorrow. |