In the great yonder that is adulthood, it's always kind of been my thing to live my life with intention. I've always sort of known what I wanted to go after, or what I wanted to do and what I didn't. I've had this sense of who I am, and who I'm not. Up until the year from hell. Since I've felt like I'm away from myself; like I'm waiting to wake from a weirdly mediocre dream. I've just been living my life.
It occurred to me recently that after I lived in Paris and traveled through Vietnam, I was convinced I was going to change the world. That was six years ago now, and all I've done is live my life. I haven't done anything all that grand. And after the bad year and its residue trickling into this year in a way I didn't expect, I don't feel like I'm living with much intention.
I've been stuck on a crazy rollercoaster and there have been some things that have stood out along the twists and turns and sudden drops. A listening ear is a powerful healing tool. Showing up is key. When you feel broken into all sorts of weird pieces with sharp edges, the very thing you need around you is someone who can handle that. Being that someone to another takes intentionality.
For several years, my best friend lived two states away – a six to eight hour drive. We talked on the phone for an hour or two every week, and probably texted an obnoxious amount. She moved back to the cities two years ago now, and since we have seen each other nearly every week. For a while, it was Thursday nights. No matter what other thing I had, Thursdays were off limits. I think that consistency has saved my life. The intentionality we both put into our friendship makes it possible and meaningful. The amount of time we've logged filled with laughter, tears, and food is invaluable. She's my best friend because I can count on her and she uses intentionality in the way she does relationship.
Not long ago, I realized I don't have so many of those consistent relationships. I have flippantly flitted around and made a lot of weak friendships on fun but not a lot of effort. That's not to say the people aren't worthwhile, but the depth isn't if it detracts from having more relationships that are of greater depth.
Finally I find myself at the end of the current rollercoaster, a dating relationship that looked like a fun easy coaster at the beginning and turned out to be a high-speed nonstop wooden corkscrew. As it pulls to a stop, I'm of course nauseous and disoriented. There are the people who are there to help you off, hold a bag while you barf, and put an arm around you to help you stumble away.
I'm really tired of being the mess. It's been a while since I've felt like as big of one as I've been for over a year now. Whenever things have been good for anything that classifies as a stretch, I'm hesitant to admit it to anyone who asks, for fear of crying wolf and being a sad hermit mere moments later. I look at the ones who've been there for me, and I want to be them – not for the lack of my pain, but because I admire them. I want to be the one living with intentionality again, not the mess that needs someone to just listen for an hour. I want to be the one that sacrifices bedtime because her friend needs someone to go to a concert with instead of being alone. I want to be the one who listens and says I'm sorry.
It can be easier to live without being intentional. Flutter around on whatever wind may carry you. But then you're not the master of the direction your life is headed. There's so much of life that's out of our control, such as whether someone loves us back, but there's just as much that is a choice, such as loving without expectation of return. I ran myself dry giving away all my love in the wrong places, but when I get filled back up...I hope I've learned enough to use it well.
Friday, March 31, 2017
Monday, March 27, 2017
The Thing About Enduring
The song's words hit me, the beat matching the pace of my feet, and I felt something starting to crawl up out of me – don't breakdown at the gym.
A treadmill run is different than a run on pavement, concrete, and dirt. I listen to music on a treadmill so I don't have to hear the repetitive thud of my feet with each labored step, let alone the grunts of the guys who are trying too hard in the nearby weight-lifting area. I have a playlist of trusty songs that help set the mood. Tunes or not, I use running as a time to think through things in my life. I focus in on something and I "run it out", or run toward it. I know it could sound silly, but for some reason when my body is in that intense of motion and I'm pushing that hard, it's the perfect time to think through the tough things and remind myself I can survive; remind myself I am enough.
That run, that day, that one familiar song hit me in just the right way.
To endure means to continue, last or survive; to suffer without yielding, to suffer with patience.
I thought about how I got where I did with running, I had to push past a lot of resistance in myself. In moments like that one, and usually a moment in every run, there's a choice. It's an incredibly fine line, but it's still a choice: push on in spite of a block, physical or mental – or slow down, even stop. Usually if you can push, there's this feeling like you're weightless, your breaths are effortless, and your body is a machine. I lovingly call it the zone. I hope for a stretch of it in every run.
Sometimes a song will put me in the zone and that day that song did. I realized that enduring through something in life is the same. Like running, if you don't press on through a difficulty, you don't get to the good stuff. You have to endure to get to the place where you are floating and breathing easy and moving forward.
The summer before last, an injury caused me to take several months off from running. When I came back to it, it was so difficult I was sure all that I'd put in over the span of about three years was lost. I'd lost my breath, and when that was working my muscles weren't, and if it wasn't one of those it was my motivation. It became so much work it wasn't enjoyable and I could not get to the place that made it all worth while. My body was no longer a machine. However, over only a few weeks recently, pushing through the discomfort and the disappointment has brought me back to the place where I can do it and I love it.
And that's the thing about enduring, it takes an intentional push to get through to a better place.
A treadmill run is different than a run on pavement, concrete, and dirt. I listen to music on a treadmill so I don't have to hear the repetitive thud of my feet with each labored step, let alone the grunts of the guys who are trying too hard in the nearby weight-lifting area. I have a playlist of trusty songs that help set the mood. Tunes or not, I use running as a time to think through things in my life. I focus in on something and I "run it out", or run toward it. I know it could sound silly, but for some reason when my body is in that intense of motion and I'm pushing that hard, it's the perfect time to think through the tough things and remind myself I can survive; remind myself I am enough.
That run, that day, that one familiar song hit me in just the right way.
I'll give you one more chanceIt nearly knocked the wind out of me and my eyes welled up. I fought it. I pushed and breathed through it. And then I thought about how a friend told me the other day she was proud of me for enduring. Although I questioned if it were true, I also immediately thought she hit it right on the mark. I have endured things I didn't know I could, and I am enduring right now. Endurance isn't easy or pretty, but it takes strength, patience, and drive.
To say we can change or part ways
And you take what you need
And you don't need me
...
And you know you don't need me
And if I recover
Will you be my comfort
Or it can be over
Or we can just leave it here
To endure means to continue, last or survive; to suffer without yielding, to suffer with patience.
I thought about how I got where I did with running, I had to push past a lot of resistance in myself. In moments like that one, and usually a moment in every run, there's a choice. It's an incredibly fine line, but it's still a choice: push on in spite of a block, physical or mental – or slow down, even stop. Usually if you can push, there's this feeling like you're weightless, your breaths are effortless, and your body is a machine. I lovingly call it the zone. I hope for a stretch of it in every run.
Sometimes a song will put me in the zone and that day that song did. I realized that enduring through something in life is the same. Like running, if you don't press on through a difficulty, you don't get to the good stuff. You have to endure to get to the place where you are floating and breathing easy and moving forward.
The summer before last, an injury caused me to take several months off from running. When I came back to it, it was so difficult I was sure all that I'd put in over the span of about three years was lost. I'd lost my breath, and when that was working my muscles weren't, and if it wasn't one of those it was my motivation. It became so much work it wasn't enjoyable and I could not get to the place that made it all worth while. My body was no longer a machine. However, over only a few weeks recently, pushing through the discomfort and the disappointment has brought me back to the place where I can do it and I love it.
And that's the thing about enduring, it takes an intentional push to get through to a better place.
Sunday, March 19, 2017
Feeling Pulled Apart
I want to cry.
I sit here and that's what I want, but it can't be turned on even though I feel like a spigot with the supply right there. I was out with a friend this evening, filling her in on my mess and right when I even got to the point of starting to cry, the waitress walked up. Impeccable timing.
Crying actually makes you feel better. It's a part of our biology (which is fascinating), it releases endorphins. But I haven't been much of a crier in recent months. So much so that when I'm really tired, I'll feel on the verge of tears, but for no known reason. Generally I cry easily about things that are moving, but I think the year of pain shifted something in me. I haven't been able to cry much about this breakup even though I feel it, heavily. A week or two ago, I watched an incredibly sad movie just to get some out of my system. I of course palate cleansed with Parks and Rec after...because it's not that I like feeling sad, but I feel it and like it's big and unavoidable. I saw another friend tonight and she asked what's giving me life right now — running. That's about what I feel like is going right. And Mondays watching The Bachelor with my best friend and her husband who brings us dinner [like a champ!]
I guess I'd say I feel sort of pulled apart. I can't figure out why that is a fitting way to describe my mental-emotional state right now, but it is. I don't feel right, even my appetite is hardly there. I can't get my mind off of it, wake up thinking about it. See I was in an okay place when this new relationship happened, and it felt as if it was going well, something was finally going well...and then it wasn't. It fell almost as quickly as it rose to its high heights. And now I can't help but see I'm in a limbo that reflects the way my previous relationship dragged on after it was "over". So there's a tension in me: lean into potential familiar pain in hopes of holding onto something good; persevere, or turn away and try to wade back to hope that something else good is out there. Classically: fight or flight.
In spite of the fear that's stirring around in me at the familiarity of relational purgatory, I've been fighting. I want to show up and I want to love well. The weight of it all sits on my chest. But I think until it's really truly done, I just can't cry.
I sit here and that's what I want, but it can't be turned on even though I feel like a spigot with the supply right there. I was out with a friend this evening, filling her in on my mess and right when I even got to the point of starting to cry, the waitress walked up. Impeccable timing.
Crying actually makes you feel better. It's a part of our biology (which is fascinating), it releases endorphins. But I haven't been much of a crier in recent months. So much so that when I'm really tired, I'll feel on the verge of tears, but for no known reason. Generally I cry easily about things that are moving, but I think the year of pain shifted something in me. I haven't been able to cry much about this breakup even though I feel it, heavily. A week or two ago, I watched an incredibly sad movie just to get some out of my system. I of course palate cleansed with Parks and Rec after...because it's not that I like feeling sad, but I feel it and like it's big and unavoidable. I saw another friend tonight and she asked what's giving me life right now — running. That's about what I feel like is going right. And Mondays watching The Bachelor with my best friend and her husband who brings us dinner [like a champ!]
I guess I'd say I feel sort of pulled apart. I can't figure out why that is a fitting way to describe my mental-emotional state right now, but it is. I don't feel right, even my appetite is hardly there. I can't get my mind off of it, wake up thinking about it. See I was in an okay place when this new relationship happened, and it felt as if it was going well, something was finally going well...and then it wasn't. It fell almost as quickly as it rose to its high heights. And now I can't help but see I'm in a limbo that reflects the way my previous relationship dragged on after it was "over". So there's a tension in me: lean into potential familiar pain in hopes of holding onto something good; persevere, or turn away and try to wade back to hope that something else good is out there. Classically: fight or flight.
In spite of the fear that's stirring around in me at the familiarity of relational purgatory, I've been fighting. I want to show up and I want to love well. The weight of it all sits on my chest. But I think until it's really truly done, I just can't cry.
Thursday, March 16, 2017
Choosing Compassion Over Spite
Square peg, round hole; square peg, round hole.
This phrase was bouncing in my head a few weeks ago because I figured maybe wishful thinking had disguised itself as hope again. Hope is a tricky bugger. See, I've been learning this thing about my gut and how I should listen to it, it's where I felt hope. I can't really explain it better than that, or in a way that's more relatable to a non-intuitive person. My gut is my compass. Where I get in trouble is when logic gets involved...
It bothers me at a deep level when someone assumes because I'm whatever personality type, I don't know how to engage logic. To the contrary in fact, logic has been known to save the day! It helps diffuse my emotions about a situation, or healthily defer them altogether. But I struggle in that there are places where logic just doesn't cut it. There are times when, not emotions, but choice takes the wheel. Some things just don't make any sense, but we do them. We could blame them on faulty emotional moments, or we could recognize that they're human moments. They're not logical, but they're not fully to be blamed on intuition either. Like love.
As I struggle through being hurt by someone, the logical side of me strives to make sense out of why that hurt is so easily overlooked. It's something I've never been able to make sense out of, because as an adult I see that my response is to do something hurtful in return; act out of spite. I had never fully realized my capability for spite until the last few weeks. I'd never been able to name it: when I get hurt, I want to hurt in return. That's something I've known for a long time, but I had never put the name to it and found a reason to disarm myself. Once I was able to name it as spitefulness, it's been much easier to spot it coming into play and let go of it. It's been easier to make a choice of my actions.
Just tonight I realized something that's incredibly important to my worldview: I have a strong, near-insatiable desire to understand where someone's coming from. When I'm hurt by someone I love who claims to love me, the questions begin to flow. They're echoing and deafening: why? Now, admittedly there's some part of me, especially aspiring to practice therapy someday, that will have to learn to let go of even the "why" to someone's actions or speech. At the same time, the altruistic search for possibilities as to why someone would, say, run a red light, helps steer my heart toward compassion as opposed to anger. Maybe they're going to the hospital. Maybe they're late to a job interview after months of unemployment. Logic saves the day when it's able to show me the way to compassion.
I pondered tonight for a second, among days of intermittent seconds of pondering, why love wouldn't work. You could throw all the love and good patience you have at someone, and it might not work. Every single factor could be in the right position, and still, it may fail. I struggle to make sense of it... However, if for a second of those seconds of wondering I can find compassion within me, it proves me right. If I can find my way to making sense out of the rejection of love laid down, I can prove it's merit still stands. See, compassion would have me understand that some wounds need to be healed and some perceptions addressed before love will be welcomed back in. Some adaptations of love in the past may have been damaging, skewing the perceptions and values of it for the future.
However, the lens does not change the reality that is seen through it — save for by perspective.
This is a place my intuition and my logic can coexist. It's a place of compassion for the past that others have known (same as I have) and how it shapes and even warps their perceptions of the very reality before them. Sometimes, sadly, the reality they see cannot be altered or corrected, or highlighted. Quite simply sometimes those differences can only be held; acknowledged in the heart, with honor for the pain of another. And still can love be dared to be chosen, because it is not altered or weakened by the lens, but a strong and beautiful statement. It is still a willful choice of acceptance and admiration. Another place intuition and logic coexist.
This phrase was bouncing in my head a few weeks ago because I figured maybe wishful thinking had disguised itself as hope again. Hope is a tricky bugger. See, I've been learning this thing about my gut and how I should listen to it, it's where I felt hope. I can't really explain it better than that, or in a way that's more relatable to a non-intuitive person. My gut is my compass. Where I get in trouble is when logic gets involved...
It bothers me at a deep level when someone assumes because I'm whatever personality type, I don't know how to engage logic. To the contrary in fact, logic has been known to save the day! It helps diffuse my emotions about a situation, or healthily defer them altogether. But I struggle in that there are places where logic just doesn't cut it. There are times when, not emotions, but choice takes the wheel. Some things just don't make any sense, but we do them. We could blame them on faulty emotional moments, or we could recognize that they're human moments. They're not logical, but they're not fully to be blamed on intuition either. Like love.
As I struggle through being hurt by someone, the logical side of me strives to make sense out of why that hurt is so easily overlooked. It's something I've never been able to make sense out of, because as an adult I see that my response is to do something hurtful in return; act out of spite. I had never fully realized my capability for spite until the last few weeks. I'd never been able to name it: when I get hurt, I want to hurt in return. That's something I've known for a long time, but I had never put the name to it and found a reason to disarm myself. Once I was able to name it as spitefulness, it's been much easier to spot it coming into play and let go of it. It's been easier to make a choice of my actions.
Just tonight I realized something that's incredibly important to my worldview: I have a strong, near-insatiable desire to understand where someone's coming from. When I'm hurt by someone I love who claims to love me, the questions begin to flow. They're echoing and deafening: why? Now, admittedly there's some part of me, especially aspiring to practice therapy someday, that will have to learn to let go of even the "why" to someone's actions or speech. At the same time, the altruistic search for possibilities as to why someone would, say, run a red light, helps steer my heart toward compassion as opposed to anger. Maybe they're going to the hospital. Maybe they're late to a job interview after months of unemployment. Logic saves the day when it's able to show me the way to compassion.
I pondered tonight for a second, among days of intermittent seconds of pondering, why love wouldn't work. You could throw all the love and good patience you have at someone, and it might not work. Every single factor could be in the right position, and still, it may fail. I struggle to make sense of it... However, if for a second of those seconds of wondering I can find compassion within me, it proves me right. If I can find my way to making sense out of the rejection of love laid down, I can prove it's merit still stands. See, compassion would have me understand that some wounds need to be healed and some perceptions addressed before love will be welcomed back in. Some adaptations of love in the past may have been damaging, skewing the perceptions and values of it for the future.
However, the lens does not change the reality that is seen through it — save for by perspective.
This is a place my intuition and my logic can coexist. It's a place of compassion for the past that others have known (same as I have) and how it shapes and even warps their perceptions of the very reality before them. Sometimes, sadly, the reality they see cannot be altered or corrected, or highlighted. Quite simply sometimes those differences can only be held; acknowledged in the heart, with honor for the pain of another. And still can love be dared to be chosen, because it is not altered or weakened by the lens, but a strong and beautiful statement. It is still a willful choice of acceptance and admiration. Another place intuition and logic coexist.
Saturday, March 11, 2017
Before I Knew
Sometimes I wish I could pull a Dorothy: click my heels together and go back to a simpler time. I'd go back years ago, to when I'd never had a relationship before and didn't really know what it was like; back to when my faith rose up to life's challenges; back to a time when my feelings were big but it was sort of expected.
Nearly eight years ago was one of the toughest times of my life. I felt such deep pain, I thought if I weren't alive that would be the only thing to relieve it — thankfully time would, though I didn't know. This past year I went through another such pain, though romantic not platonic. As I trudged through, day by day, I quietly thought the same thing but dared not to tell anyone for fear of being committed.
When I was younger and went through hard things, it was different. The emotions that came with everything at 19 years old were more acceptable. Sure, now that I'm an adult I know how to manage my emotions better, but that doesn't mean heavy pain gets any easier. On the contrary, as an adult there's a job you go to so you can pay the bills that don't wait for time to pass for you to heal. As an adult, you have to squeeze your feeling into the free space in between it all.
I began this year thinking it would be "my year", whatever that even means. And here I find myself tired. Nearly daily battling anxiety. Feeling the slow creep of apathy because nothing really feels good. Nothing's really going well. It all feels...hard.
I worked toward a financial goal last year that has me the most independent I've ever been. So it's ironic that as I finally feel like I'm settling into adulthood, I long for that time before, when things were so easy. When I first moved to the city, all the days spent biking around and goofing around. I spent my days pining after guys who worked at coffee shops, yearning for a boyfriend, for love. I had no idea how much love would hurt me; not a clue in the world how much relationships would teach me about pain. I expected love to build me up, not weaken me. I didn't know how hard it would be to walk away. I didn't know what it would be like to try not to loose it at your desk. I always thought love would be important, I just didn't know it would be because there's so much risk.
When you break a bone, even long after it heals, a cold front can bring about aches. Right now, life feels like a lot of the aches. I find myself nostalgic for the simpler time, before I had the scars I do, before I was tired.
Dorothy clicks her little heels together, repeating, "There's no place like home, there's no place like..." and you watch with a swell of hope. And I guess that's what I want, to be able to find my way back to a place of hope.
Nearly eight years ago was one of the toughest times of my life. I felt such deep pain, I thought if I weren't alive that would be the only thing to relieve it — thankfully time would, though I didn't know. This past year I went through another such pain, though romantic not platonic. As I trudged through, day by day, I quietly thought the same thing but dared not to tell anyone for fear of being committed.
When I was younger and went through hard things, it was different. The emotions that came with everything at 19 years old were more acceptable. Sure, now that I'm an adult I know how to manage my emotions better, but that doesn't mean heavy pain gets any easier. On the contrary, as an adult there's a job you go to so you can pay the bills that don't wait for time to pass for you to heal. As an adult, you have to squeeze your feeling into the free space in between it all.
I began this year thinking it would be "my year", whatever that even means. And here I find myself tired. Nearly daily battling anxiety. Feeling the slow creep of apathy because nothing really feels good. Nothing's really going well. It all feels...hard.
I worked toward a financial goal last year that has me the most independent I've ever been. So it's ironic that as I finally feel like I'm settling into adulthood, I long for that time before, when things were so easy. When I first moved to the city, all the days spent biking around and goofing around. I spent my days pining after guys who worked at coffee shops, yearning for a boyfriend, for love. I had no idea how much love would hurt me; not a clue in the world how much relationships would teach me about pain. I expected love to build me up, not weaken me. I didn't know how hard it would be to walk away. I didn't know what it would be like to try not to loose it at your desk. I always thought love would be important, I just didn't know it would be because there's so much risk.
When you break a bone, even long after it heals, a cold front can bring about aches. Right now, life feels like a lot of the aches. I find myself nostalgic for the simpler time, before I had the scars I do, before I was tired.
Dorothy clicks her little heels together, repeating, "There's no place like home, there's no place like..." and you watch with a swell of hope. And I guess that's what I want, to be able to find my way back to a place of hope.
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