… But will take longer to undo.
Saying “I am not in control of that” is not the same as being helpless.
Counting is not productive.
Trying harder sometimes doesn’t offer results, but rather drives you a little nuts.
“What am I to conclude when my grandmother says that the happiest decision of her life was giving up everything for her husband and children but then says – in the very next breath – that she doesn’t want me making the same choice? I’m not really sure how to reconcile this, except to believe that somehow both these statements are true and authentic, even as they seem to utterly contradict on another. I believe that a woman who has lived as long as my grandmother should be allowed some contradictions and mysteries. Like most of us, this woman contains multitudes. Besides, when it comes to the subject of women and marriage, easy conclusions are difficult to come by, and enigmas litter the road in every direction.” – from Elizabeth Gilbert’s Committed.
I can’t control other peoples’ thoughts and feelings. Nor, if I’m to be honest do I want to. What I decide for them takes away from me making healthy decisions for myself.
Other people making a decision I do not like is not a slight on me as a human. I am still in tact. I can say my piece in peace without expecting them to bend to my will. In fact, I want to enjoy the freedom of talking out my feelings knowing that it does not change the outcome of life. My words won’t make or break the world and the people in it. I am not that powerful. I don’t want to be that powerful. I want other people to feel comfortable making their decisions based on what they need. Would I like for them to consider my feelings when they choose to follow that decision? Yes. Do I want my feelings to be the basis of their decision? No. God, no.
What I want and what I need are allowed to be out of sync sometimes, as long as I take time to process my wants and needs in a calm manner without panic – without drama – and without superfluous descriptions. As a writer I am apt to take a small situation and find the epic, extraordinary, or devastation in it. As a survivor I take big things that may actually be epic, extraordinary, or devastating, and belittle them – act as though they are nothing. (Someone dies, I roll with the punches. Someone says something irritating, I come out swinging. It doesn’t make sense. It has been a long running joke among many of my friends that I’m the girl you need at a funeral. I’m the girl you need in a physical crisis, on the battlefield even. Put me in a room of people having a good time, and suddenly I’m twitchy.)
These are things I used to know, and for various reasons, I have lost sight of. These are things that I need to remind myself daily, if not hourly.
So my newest truth above all – there is no shame in reading self-help books and memoirs by people who have a very different world view from yourself. There is no shame in believing that, “this woman should not be condemned or judged for wanting what she wants.” In fact that’s a very beautiful belief.
Finding balance is the hard part. When does what you want step on what someone else wants and needs? When does what you want need to be suppressed and when does it warrant being spoken? My understanding of this balance is erratic at best.
Making a very open attempt to find this balance has been interesting too (I say this as though I’m well seasoned at the effort that I’ve been making for a whole of four days). I am diving into all this for myself. Go back a few blog posts and you may notice my sanity attempting to escape me. Yet, it hasn’t just begun to calm me, it’s helped me stop and smell the roses.
Roses that, though not real physical red petals and thorny stems, are more present than I supposed.
Roses like: I actually get more done when I am busy acting instead of busy reacting. Roses like: when I attempt to be as direct as I once was my husband attempts to woo me like he once did. This is nice. I’ll take that rose. Yet, I am not being direct so that he will woo me, I am being direct because I need to be, the wooing is just a happy accident. And, for once, wanting to be wooed doesn’t sound like an act of selfishness – it sounds like an act of being feminine. Yes, I’ll admit that typing those words were difficult, that in that admission I nearly panicked.
I don’t have all the answers. In fact, I have pretty much no answers. The only answer that I do have is that I hope to be less self-destructive this year than last year. I hope to be more open, but less vulnerable.
This year, I plan to internalize something that’s been hanging in my own Grandmother’s kitchen my whole life…
God grant me the serenity To accept the things I cannot change
Courage to change the things I can
And wisdom to know the difference.
Be patient with me, God is not finished with me yet. And, I’m not done reading this book!