thesearchwithinme

I think one of the most difficult skills for a human being to master is empathy. It’s ironic, being able to empathize may be the only unique characteristic that separates human animals from all other animals. But you know, it’s hard for us because we want what we want. We are what we are, and at the end of the day I live inside my head and you live inside your head. We have limits.

We met at a coffee shop right down the street from your apartment. I didn’t know this coffee joint was so conveniently located for you, but alas, I am not sure it would have made much of a difference if I had. I am 26 years young, with lined eyes, ringlet curls, and intentions to keep up the walls that I’ve constructed in my mind, made out of self-protecting boundaries. But can you blame me? We all self-protect, and what better time to do this is there than when meeting a stranger at a coffee shop.

The problem is, no matter how many walls I construct at certain times they are not enough to weather the storm of a bleeding heart. I put band aids on, but it doesn’t stop it. I admit a part of me loves the feeling of that rich, honest red dripping down and spilling out. I am learning to make my walls hardier so I can carry both the strength and the courage to embrace the challenge that comes with having a bloody heart covered in band aids.

Back to us.

You see me. I am a young woman, with soft olive skin. I am small, my hands could be swallowed in yours, and my head reaches just below your shoulders. My eyes are almond shaped: a combination of bright white defined by ridges of dark brown encompassing dilated pupils. You look at me like a hourglass, my curves spiral in and out from my hips, then retreat down my wide thighs to my feet that meet each other at a point on the earth. I am your hourglass; you wonder if you could flip me over and measure the time it would take until you cannot just see the nature of my curves, but feel them with your bare fingertips. I know this, I love this, and I hate this. I work with it in the way I move and in the creases of my smile as I gravitate towards you. It’s nice to meet your acquaintance.

At the same time you see me, I see you. And maybe, no surely, in many ways I am just as much to blame. I can’t help but love that you are taller than me and could caress me in your arms in a way that I would lose myself in you. I can feel in my nerves just as much as I look with my eyes at the veins in your arms winding underneath your skin. And if I am an hourglass in which sand is flowing from top to bottom, then you are a street sign. You are an upside down triangle with a large metal pole welding you to the earth. You are strong and bold and if I needed to I could hide behind you. I already want to depend on you.

Our laughter fills the coffee shop.

But here’s the thing. While our separate worlds are real, we are both wrong. I may be young, but I am not naïve. In my mind I know I cannot depend on you, you are a moving target. You will leave at sundown, when the last grain of sand falls to the bottom of my hourglass and you see no more use for me but adventures to be had elsewhere. And you are wrong (but I don’t know if you know this), because I may look like an hourglass but I am not. I am a bleeding heart, and every time you touch my bare skin electric currents jolt me and my body absorbs the shock. When you electrocute me, then you leave, you know I will be left in a pain deeper than I can control. This pain will entangle around my mind and my soul, becoming a small piece of my identity even after it fades away. I can go about my day and pretend like it’s not there, but pretending doesn’t make things disappear. The pain will energetically spew underneath the surface of skin until I am nothing but a shell curled up underneath bedsheets.

So I’m sorry. This cannot happen.

It turns out, you are not a street sign and I am not an hour glass. We are both simply two human beings that don’t fully understand each other’s needs and desires. It turns out we are much more complicated than what we see in the coffee shop just down the street from your apartment.

I find it funny- I always feel hungry to write when I know I need to be doing a million other things.  Maybe me avoiding my responsibilities is one way among many that I am no different than anyone else.  Even so, I have to remind myself that these moments, when all I can do is little else than get lost in my writing, are a blessing.  My urges to write are rare enough that if I don’t act on them I miss out on opportunities.  So here I am writing, with a million other things to do and a real shortage of time to do them.

But it’s okay because life is fleeting.  And although I realize thinking too hard is crippling, sometimes I get thoughts  I want to solidify into something physical.  Regardless of whether they are good or bad, I need to put them on display before I walk away from them.  Maybe it’s so I can revisit them, or maybe it’s because I have a small amount of hope someone will see them and make some sort of connection.  Most likely it’s a little bit of both.

It’s another laundry night. This is only notable for the fact that when I find myself in the middle of the laundry-doing process, a sensation that took place over a year ago overwhelms me.  It’s only a memory; only a shadow of an event that stays etched into my mind… an event that under usual circumstances would have no real reason to be shared.  But somehow, this event still matters enough to me tonight, which is why I am choosing to share it.

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It’s late.  I am tired, but I am so buzzed on my stubbornness.  My exhaustion couldn’t hold a candle to my conviction because in the end, the heart tends to wins.  I slide my puffy black boots on, with no one to question me but a weak echo in my head that resembles a sort of hesitation: “Katie, what are you doing?”  My cats follow me as I shuffle towards the door.  “Shh… I have nothing left to lose…”

I step out the door and I press one foot after the other into the snow.  Flurries sweep around my pink face and land on my nose, leaving it raw.  The air is bitter and fresh.  The snowflakes are tiny, but their majestic number is dispersed so widely that when they twirl around, they break up the dark sky behind them.  The tall buildings frame the world, and the lights between them and inside them highlight the speckled air.  I’m bundled up so tight that I’ve swapped feeling cold for feeling anything at all.  Because of this, my gloves create a barrier that keep me rechecking on the sealed envelope crunched between my thick fingers.  This letter will not be returned to the sender- this letter has no sender.

How is it so quiet outside?  As I walk, my eyes fill with a wetness that glistens and grows until my tear ducts can no longer hold the weight.  Small wet drops become warm salty streams that glide down my face, welcomed by all too familiar pathways.  The light air around me contrasts the heaviness of every aspect of my body… but it’s okay, I am grateful for this.  This space seems to give me permission to go as slowly as I need to, as the blue postal mailbox grows bigger in my peripheral view.  I need this contradiction: I need to feel hopeless while still holding on to hope, I need to be alone to feel connected, I need the quiet to know the storm that’s brewing inside me, and most importantly of all, I need one last real embrace to own this final goodbye.

I drop the envelope in the big blue box and it’s over.  It’s a relief because it doesn’t make a difference now.  I turn around and slowly, never more alone…never more alive, I make my way back up the path from which I started.  Soon enough I see the warm glow of the light framed in the glass doorway of my apartment building.

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Sometimes there is no moral to the story.  At the very least, there could be a moral but there is value in knowing there doesn’t have to be.  In this case, the why and the how are not as important to me anymore as they would have been a year ago.  Now, the only thing that matters is that this simply happened, and while it feels sad, it also feels raw and beautiful.  It’s hard to talk about being vulnerable, but I know that people feel it all the time, and in many ways it is something that is loved regardless of how scary it seems.

 

 I am a natural thinker.  These days, I don’t think in the way of rumination (although, I’d be lying if I said I that I am never preoccupied by my thoughts) as much as I think with curiosity.  This kind of questioning leads to a value system I have adopted, resulting in some unconventional behaviors on my behalf.  My approach goes like this: Why the hell not?

Why not.  Why can’t I be vegan.  What’s stopping me?  Why can’t I humanize myself (appropriately) in the middle of a “business situation?”  Why can’t I sing in the car, with a friend sitting on the passenger side next to me (maybe even singing along too!)?  Why can’t I dance when I am not drunk?  Why can’t I play in the mud?  Why can’t I make mistakes (or rather, accept that I do)?  Why can’t I enjoy my own resources, my own company, without having to sell my soul to a person or an idea that society has created?  Why can’t I live a little more wild, a little more free?

I am not perfect, and thus am not on my A game with this mindset all the time.  In me admitting this, I will take it one step further and say that my imperfection is just another quality that I find beautiful.  Ultimately in a roundabout way I can accept it is not about mastering my wild side; It is about me practicing it.

Two weeks ago I started running in the graveyard by my apartment again.  I did this all last summer, a handful of times a week.  I like to run in the graveyard by my place when the sun is out, the sky is blue, and it is moderately warm enough that I am not shivering in a tank top and work out shorts.  I usually run with my earbuds plugged into my ears, listening to music or an audiobook from my iPhone, with bright pink toe shoes that emulate what it feels like to be barefoot.  I go out there and I run when I feel like it.  When I don’t feel like running or need to take a break I kindly let myself wander, just enjoying the atmosphere- the trees blowing in the wind, the art etched into the gravestones- because why not.  I am not trying to prove anything except kindness to myself and to feel respectfully connected to my environment.

Some people may find this different.  Politically, running in a graveyard could seem like a sign of disrespect.  As a thinker, who does not just do this type of thing without some kind of introspection, this is the way I look at it:

Number one:  Someday when I die, if I still have a sort of consciousness, I would love strangers to visit me.  Not because they were sad to see me gone, but because they were just living their lives and they were open to celebrating my life by just passing through.  I would not want them to be afraid or uptight, just because I had once lived but am no longer living.  I would want them to know that even though we never personally knew each other, we share more in common than we could imagine, so we are friends enough to also share the soil of the Earth.

Number two:  We are afraid of death because we are afraid of things we don’t understand.  I am frankly, tired of living this way.  It is nice to just accept things as they are, without having to try to interpret their meaning all the time.  Even when we think concepts are concrete enough to be understood, I believe many times it is just an illusive comprehension, fogged up by personal biases and prejudices.  If we can’t accept death, how can we accept truly embracing our lives?  If we can’t accept things as they are, however they are, how can we really let go enough to live?

Number three: I find it humbling that each one of those people underneathe their graves, at one point had lives, dreams, personality, ambitions, fears, just like I do now.  In life, they struggled, as I do… and hopefully, I can dream that they found love in some capacity.  This feeling makes me connected to these people, like- even though they are dead we are truly all in this thing called life together.

Everyone is entitled to their own approach.  Maybe running in Graveyards is not your approach to life.  If you can take anything away from this entry, I hope you are inspired to explore ways in which you can embrace the full expression of you regardless of what anyone/anything else tells you.  It’s hard to find yourself (trust me, I know) when you are being fed messages about how you should look, how you should think, how you should feel, what you should do- 24/7.  As I said at the beginning of this entry, my energy goes less into ruminating over how I don’t fit into the expectations of these powerful messages, and more into why these messages exist and where they come from in the first place.  Polititics, and perfection at the end of the day are just ideas (not facts) and sometimes I queston if these ideas are created with the most compassionate intentions.  My gut says that they aren’t, so I consider it my responsibility to take initiative and make intelligent but compassionate judgement calls on my own.

I met a lady at the craft store the other day.  She was headed towards the checkout line, and so was I.  She must of noticed I was in a hurry by reading my body language, as she took a step back to let me go in front of her.  I responded to her gesture by immediately stopping in my tracks.  Motivated by nothing but political correctness, I offered to let her go in front of me.  She looked at me and despite my frustrated tone, she kindly insisted that I step in front of her.  I took her up on her offer as I shuffled my way in front of her.  Then I diverted my eye contact to the floor, ashamed of being so impatient that I lost my ability for basic decency.

Then to my surprise the lady started talking to me.  She introduced herself as Judy.  Judy approached me with wide eyed curiousity, geniunely showing an interest in my life through her attuned listening.  She expressed a realness about herself, discussing her reasoning behind buying zippers at a craft store, her reluctance towards sewing, and her relationship with her mother, sisters and daughter.  We played ball- I spoke and she responded, then she spoke and I responded… it wasn’t long until I swear I forgot about everything else.  Judy listened, then discussed how she admired my motivation for what I want to do in life. We talked about obtaining gratitude through looking at the world and facing the reality of all it’s adversities.  Judy told me that she was inspired to be more grateful, and I told her that I noticed  the way she talked about her daughter was a reflection of her gratitude in itself.  There were times in the midst of talking that I noticed Judy’s expression and felt perplexed by the notion that she, a stranger, was really invested in these moments that we were sharing together.  There was something unusal and special about it.

Then it was my turn to check out.  I said goodbye to Judy knowing I would never see her again, but also being okay with that.  I knew the exchange we had was so perfect that somehow it was best to leave it be.  Our conversation would stick.  I would hold onto a time and place when there was a realness that settled in between two strangers. This realness was not defined by the content of the conversation that took place between us- but by the atmosphere that we created for each other.

Thank you Judy.

Things don’t always go how I want them to go in life.  The mind thinks it knows what it wants, and it seeks exactly those things.  But I don’t believe in my mind nearly as much as I believe in the pleasant experiences that life presents when I am not looking for them.  I believe that these surprises, big and small are fate, and maybe fate has more in store than the plans my mind creates.  To be honest, things are in transition right now, and while I might have moments when I find I am losing to my mind… I have to believe that everything is going to be just fine, even when things seem not fine.

As the New Year creeps toward me, I am trying to ground myself.  I may be getting older (almost 25 now) but right now is as young as the start of any other beginning in every way.  This moment moving forward will unquestionably bring fresh opportunities and insights that come anytime there’s a new start.  These days, I am trying to approach my time with a sense of curiosity instead of carrying old resentments with me from day to day.  Letting go is the only way I find I can both learn and unlearn information to my advantage.  In order to let go I have to constantly remind myself that I know nothing and my feelings do not extend as true beyond their presence in my mind.

It will never be, in human time, December 25th, 2016 again.  However, In reality it is debatable whether time even exists beyond our collective minds.  As far as we know time is as close to reality as our brains can contemplate.  Time may be just a thing that happens in the space we perceive it and everything beyond that could hold an infinite number of answers we will never truly understand.  But we rely on our best version of the truth so we can believe in something acceptable, dependable, and comfortable.  We seek safety in having concrete beliefs.

Here’s a thought though.  What if the things we hold onto actually don’t bring us comfort at all?  What if accepting that we know nothing- including time, is really difficult for us to do, but it is actually where we can find comfort?  Accepting that we know nothing can include letting go of concepts as big as time or ideas as small as believing someone is good or bad by fact.  Letting go of knowing is letting go of reasons to feel resentment, reasons to be afraid, and/or hatred of others.

In theory it works but I admit it is such a hard thing to do.  Up until just a couple of years ago my hope has always taken shape in the form of magic.   This magic was something I naively grasped and often created within myself.  My truth was constructed by me, a blind artist and a dreamer who created work that was either irresistably blissful or deeply painful.  It’s funny how things change; for better or worse.  You could say that I’ve lost my inoccence but I no longer try to make things up from scratch.  Instead of magic, I now find my faith in science and wisdom that’s been established outside of me.  It is far less magical but I feel happier for it.  I even feel safety from it.

This holiday I am trying to remember that letting go is love.  I remember I know nothing accept that we are all here and all in whatever we are doing together.  The walls we put up and the judgements we form are nothing but our own creations and letting them go is deciding to emerse ourselves in true compassion for everyone and everything.

 

My mom sent me a web link this morning via email and asked me what I thought.  I reacted so strongly to it that I felt it was necessary to make a blog post.  This article claims that saying “All Lives Matter” instead of “Black Lives Matter” is wrong because:

it promotes Colorblindness

It dismisses the oppressive history associated with being black

It is just another way to refocus attention on white lives mattering

It supports the idea that being “black” is taboo

This guy comes from a great place in his heart, I am sure.  I think it is interesting that we have to categorize people in order to address their oppression.  I think categorizing is actually counterproductive because it alienates groups of us from each other.  Putting people into cateogories never has worked (It’s called segregation) as it makes people less relatable and promotes a hierarchy of social power.  I am not really sure why we think it is going to work in our favor now with this emphasis on “black lives mattering.”  Seperating groups of people has never worked before.  If you think about it, us seperating ourselves as “whites” and “blacks” is how we created the slavery system in the beginning of this nightmare.

What is racism?  Why do we experience it in our lives when we so desperately want to overcome it?  Did anyone ever ask these officers if they blatently mean to shoot black people in these scenarios?  I cannot imagine that shooting another person in this context could be a rational and well thought out decision.  I can’t imagine that police officers have the ability to make rational and well thought out decisions when they are in situations of panic.  They are as human as the rest of us.

There are a couple different reasons why racism exsists and I believe there are ways we can overcome it, but first we have to understand where it comes from.

Human beings are interesting creatures.  We have some survival mechansims we don’t take the time to understand because we are too busy blaming each other for everything.  When you are never exposed to something in your enviornment and then you are exposed to that something, it can be biologically startling for you.  Your brain reacts and thinks that experiencing some one relatively different than you is a threat.  You get stuck in fight and flight mode, and you react with absolutely no thought involved.  This is why when some of us claim we are unbiased it is not true… we all are at least somewhat biased.  We were built to be that way.  Unfortunately, most of the time our brain doesn’t adjust to the fact that we don’t need to be on high alert since we live in a civilized  environment.

So what do we do?  How do we solve this because I agree that we cannot live this way.  The answer is: We start exposing ourselves to diversity and we stop isolating groups of people.  We experience that fight or flight response when we put ourselves in these types of situations, but we let our brains know that we are not in danger.  We say hi to people we aren’t comfortable around and we smile at them.  And we do this because we realize we are all human beings regardless of how we look, act, or live.   We all originated from the same place- the Savannahs of Africa, 200,000 years ago and all even started off with dark skin. White skin is nothing but a genetic mutation barely visiable on the human genome.  We all know what it is like to feel happy, sad, angry, scared, mad…  and so when someone has these human experiences, we can easily relate to that person no matter how different their physical appearance may be.  We have this amazing ability to empathize and humanize each other.  No other animal has this kind of ability.  How about we shut up and use it.

I am one of those “fellow white people” Mr. Halstead refers to in his article that has adopted the philosophy “All Lives Matter”.  Is it because I want to take attention away from this issue, dismiss that black people experience oppression, or be colorblind?  No.  It is absolutely not.  I have no problem noticing physical characteristics- such as differences in skin color, differences in height, visible physical disabilities, etc. and also noticing the social struggles associated with those characteristics.  Racism is very real and has been real since the beginning of humanity.  In the United States the oppression of blacks started when they were forced to come here to be sold as slaves against their will.  For too long black people were treated as inhuman by white people.  This mistreatment had to be heavily internalized by black people, and the ability to mistreat black people had to be heavily internalized by white people.  Even after they were freed, for generations and generation black people have passed down this internalization of their treatment, and white people have passed down their social advantages over black people.  This is called Systematic racism, and it is thorough throughout the Gorvernment and thorough within each of us.  Even if we are not aware of it, it is rooted in our upbringing as we were raised within this system.  We can fight this type of injustice if we choose to approach it by understanding this roots of the problem.

All lives Matter.  I am not going to pretend like anyone is fighting a battle that is not my own battle as well.  Even if I am white, and even if I was born in a priveledged situation.  I still take all of this personally, as it still has something to do with who I am.  I still consider every person I come across as a part of the human race that I call my own.  I don’t care what you look like on the outside- black, white, purple… if you are human, you are still like a brother or sister to me as far as I am concerned.

So how do you fight racism?  Well, you can shut down your computers and stop paying attention to media that fuels resentment and hate.  You can start by going out and smiling at the next person you see in public that makes you feel a little uncomfortable on the inside.  You can even strike up a conversation with this person and ask them how his or her day is.  You can do this every time you see someone who makes you feel uncomfortable- regardless of their social status, skin color, religious background, gender, etc.  Eventually you will find yourself being more comfortable around people in general and embracing people will be something you do without a second thought.  This may just be one small change, but in order to make changes in the world first we must make changes in ourselves.

It’s everywhere around you, every day, all the time.  It’s an epidemic most people are completely blind to because it is so good at hiding itself.  It’s so sneaky, it makes us want to blame all of its destruction on other sources. It hides in single words, in people’s heads, in conversations, in intentions, in actions, and it’s stirring in each one of us all the time.  We don’t have to look to find it- it’s something we are constantly exposed to, to varying degrees at different times.

It’s judgment.  And it is literally killing us inside.  We don’t see it, so we don’t fight back.

Judgment happens in all forms.  It takes place when the voice in our heads tells us we aren’t good enough.  It happens when we respond with our body language to things we don’t like.  It happens when we take “sides” against each other during conflicts.  I even see it happening between people who undoubtedly have so much love for each other.  In fact, judgment is not always malicious- sometimes it comes from the most loving places.  However, whether judgment is made out of anger or out of love, it is still judgment… which makes it still damaging.

Judgment is easily passed on.  For example, a parent may raise a child to believe he has to meet some sort of expectation.   These expectations could be anything from having a certain level of athleticism, maintaining a specific kind of physical appearance, achieving a high level of academics, etc.   As this child grows, his parent may make statements hinting at him not being good enough when he doesn’t meet the established expectations.  Chances are the child will not be able to meet the established expectations at some point, and the parent will in some way make the child feel less valuable because of it.  The judgment will be projected externally onto the child by the parent.  As the child grows up into adult hood, he believes he should be a certain way and he puts immense pressure on himself throughout his life.  When considering his failure in meeting the expectation, he feels shameful.  The judgment is now coming from inside the adult, even though it was once being fed to him from the outside.  He will judge himself, telling himself he is not the way he is “supposed” to be. This cycle continues as the adult sees others around him and makes judgments about them because they don’t fit into what he considers to be “right.”  The people around him will feel the impacts of his judgment, and will in turn probably end up judging themselves or feeling defensive and angry.

Everyone has problems.  No one is perfect.  That’s easy to say, but hard to remember.  No one can permanently meet the golden standard he or she is brainwashed to believe is true.  People are people, not machines.  So… Here’s a thought: what if we aren’t “supposed” to be a certain way?  If we are what we are, whenever we are, why can’t that be good enough?  We don’t have to let loving our current selves hold us back from self improvement…there’s no reason we can’t have both.  What if we don’t give in to the judgments as soon as we start to feel them surfacing within us?  What if we just noticed what people do and who they are?  Not feeding into our resentment will allow it to eventually die.  I believe if we approached the world like this more often, we would be saying goodbye to so much of the pain we endure in life.  We would be saying goodbye to what fuels our hatred.  We aren’t designed to be perfect; our problems are as natural and normal as the sun, the sky, and the ocean. Just as you can observe that nature is always changing, you can observe and expect problems to always be in constant fluctuation.  Sometimes problems transform, get better, get worse, or are replaced with new problems. Either way they will always be there but in many ways they can bring out the best in us if we give them the chance.

Even mistakes don’t have to turn into judgments or resentments.  Making mistakes is humanizing.  Chances are every single person you have ever come into contact with has made many mistakes.  I think mistakes should be fully owned and celebrated.  It’s refreshing to know we can make them without letting them define us.  We are neither our mistakes nor our problems.  We are just people who can use our mistakes and problems as driving forces of empowerment.  If you don’t let them kill you, chances are they will only make you stronger.

If our problems are natural and here to stay, then maybe we should just let them be what they are.  Fighting them is like trying to turn the sky a different color.  Ultimately, our true problem isn’t our problems; it’s our judgment of our problems.  The resolution we crave can happen when we embrace everything we are with compassion, all the good and the bad.

 

My first steady job ever was pushing carts at the age of 15 years old.  The job was by no means glamorous-to most it would probably seem unappealing.  I spent about 15 hours a week collecting grocery carts around the parking lot of a general store, shoving them into each other and lining them up against a dirty brick wall.  My other (less important) responsibilities included cleaning up “spills” in the aisles of the store, collecting trash, helping customers load up their cars with heavy items, and facing any surprises left for me in the bathrooms.  I did this job because at 15 years old it was my only real option for making money.  For the longest time I tried to find a different job within the store, but because of my age I was always pointed back in the direction of my cart pushing and janitorial duties.  As time passed on I continued to carry my frustrations but developed enjoyment for some of the simplicities that came along with my job.  To this day I will never forget things like the way the black top glistened after a rain filled day, and the peaceful aloneness of the empty lot at closing time.  I remember the distinct satisfaction that came from winding down after  frantically rushing carts into the store for hours on end.  There was nothing quite like strutting around, dirty and filthy, and just not caring because there was absolutely no reason to impress anyone.  As a cart pusher, I learned I could be invisable or noticable at my convenience.  You would think pushing carts would be mostly an isolating job but while I got to enjoy the solitude of being alone, I also had the balanced opportunity to enjoy people.  Many times my “invisability” would come in handy when resentful people saw my insignificance and couldn’t care less enough to give me a second look.  Because of this, I rarely had to deal with negative situations.  I minded myself while most other people focused on their priorities.  Happy people usually noticed me as they were often eager to pour their contentment onto someone, and I was the perfect subject for this.  Old people, young people, and people from all different walks of life would gravitate towards me as a teenage, petite girl pushing rows of heavy carts.  I believe my “standing out” was mostly due to the fact I was a young woman laboring over a job that was primarily thought to be fitting for my male counterpart.  Both my bounce and my non threatening presence made me approachable to all who were looking to approach.  Often, people would stop me to talk about their day, lecture me, get things off their chest, admire my work ethic, or preach to me about something ridiculous.  Regardless of what we talked about, people expressed gratitude in my willingness to take the time to listen to their thoughts.

Over nine years later, there is still one conversation I go back to from this period of my life.  It was the first time I learned about the ever changing nature of living, and so I consider it to be one of my biggest life lessons.  It was a clear, sunny day and a nice elderly lady had approached me to strike up a conversation.  When she first started talking I assumed she was just another person that was going to preach something religious.  While I didn’t radically hate religious preachings, I did feel a slight resistance when people pushed their beliefs onto me.  However, as she continued talking I started finding myself intrigued.  This lady…let’s call her Mary… started describing something she called “Super Consciousness”.  According to Mary, Super Consciousness is this idea that people are lent to us with a time restraint. Whenever someone comes into our lives, they may stay for a long or short period of time, but they will be taken away from us at some point.  Mary went on to describe her relationships and how the concept of Super Consciousness applied to them.  I remember Mary getting teary eyed while she described the timeline of her marriage to her husband.  She emphasized the joy she had when she lost him to the same extent she as  she emphasized the joy she had in the early days of their relationship.  Mary explained that there was a higher power who gifted her the amazing relationship with her partner, and when he was taken away she could only feel appreciation for the time she had gotten wth him.

While this is all logic in a way, it was extremely shocking at the time.  It is so easy to take relationships with people for granted and think that when they start, they will be there forever.  But the reality of things is that nothing is permanent and endings are always inevitable.  Some things end sooner, and others end later but every relationship, situation, and “thing” will at some point cease to exist as we know it.

Recently I have questioned whether anything we are familiar with is actually “never ending”.  It seems as though the only thing plausibly immortal might be matter itself.  Even the universe, while it is seemingly grand and invincible from our tiny perspectives, could have an ending if it follows the natural process of everything we know.  Endings are always difficult for people as we struggle in our adjustment to change and try to maintain permanence with what sits well to us.  The battle of accepting change carries on, but if endings can be viewed more like transitions, we might find our adjustments a little less uncomfortable.  The realization of constant shifts happening everywhere around us may help eleviate the shock and discomfort when something ends that we never thought would.

Well, I guess to sum it up- life is hard… but no one said it was going to be easy!  I believe we can still find our peace.

…So I wanted to say thank you for that.  And I am not just thanking you for me, but I am thanking you on the behalf of all the people who have ever been through this-whether they realize it or not.

The other day I heard the saying, “expectations are just premeditated resentments”.  My response was, this is true.. But what exactly are we supposed to do about it?  It is part of being human to have expectations; to have dreams and to hope for them in our future.  I don’t think it’s even unhealthy, or that we should be afraid of the possibility of disappointment.  The worst is to live life in fear of anything.  It is unpleasant and it holds us back from being our best.

If we are able to go into something with expectations, fantasize about an outcome (dream about it), face the possibility of the outcome not being what we hoped for,  feel that resentment if it doesn’t work out for us, then find acceptance in the outcome, that is strength. Strength is not avoiding, but it is pushing through with grace. Of course, there’s some things that are appropriate not to go into with expectations, but some things sure as hell are worth it!  So it’s good to realize this because you don’t want to risk the emotional exhaustion if it’s not a situation that’s worth going through this cycle for.

Acceptance goes beyond just accepting the situation for what it is when it doesn’t go our way.  Acceptance one step further is accepting that although you didn’t get what you want, you are getting something better.  You are getting an opportunity for growth, to learn about life and yourself, and to gain insight into different perspectives you never considered. One “no” leads to a million opportunities for “yes” in alternative directions.  You will find your yes, and it will be the perfect yes for you.  You will eventually find the yes that helps you find yourself.  So don’t be afraid and realize even when you’re not getting what you are looking for, you will ultimately get something better. Heck, you may have already gotten something better. If you can’t be grateful for this now, I promise you’ll find yourself grateful down the road.

It’s been nearly two years since I have been back to the house I grew up and spent 22 years of my life in.  I haven’t been back since the summer we moved out.  Not only that, but when we did move out I made no effort to give the memories I left behind me in that house a formal goodbye. I have been avoiding taking a trip back there for reasons I haven’t really thought through.  Today on a whim while I was out driving, I decided to go back.

And here it is.  Significantly different in many ways, and also eerily the same as when I left it behind.  When I saw it today I almost felt like I was in some sort of alternate reality.  It was like I was intruding on someone else’s life- but I was revisiting my own life.  It was hard to decipher between what was mine and what was theirs.  I know in my head this house is someone else’s home base now. It is where the family that lives there makes their own memories similar to my family’s past memories. Birthdays. Holidays. Fights. Make ups. Family dinners…  Still, in my heart… there is a piece of this house that will always be mine.  Something I feel can’t be taken away from me.

As I drove up the first thing I noticed was the brightly painted blue door.  While the whole house presents itself in a alternative variety of colors than I am used to, the blue door grabs the most attention out of anything.  The next thing I noticed was that the bright blue door framed a dog that looked like some kind of spaniel.  The dog barked at me as I slowly pulled up to the house, protecting what it learned to be it’s property.  This dog reminded me of our family dogs (ironically, one was a springer spaniel) that had sat in that exact spot throughout my entire childhood, doing the same thing.  Not only do I have engrained memories of all of our dogs sitting and barking and waiting in this spot, but I have physical pictures of our dogs in this spot that I believe are still on my phone.  Admittedly I couldn’t help but to park my car and get out just to stare at my old house.  It was tempting to go up to it and start to explore all of the familiar crevices that I have known for so many years, but it was also deterring to know that what I wanted to explore was no longer mine to explore.  At one point a little boy appeared in the doorway next to the dog.  The little boy was probably only 3 or 4 years old, and I can only assume that he was a little confused as to why there was a woman parked outside his house- blindly staring.  Not knowing what to do I waved at the little boy which caused him to wave back without hesitation.  The boy stared at me for another couple minutes before he disappeared from the door frame.  I had  an urge to tell the child that I had been a child in his exact spot; however, I knew he might not care about this idea even if he was able to comprehend it.  Not soon after I figured that my presence was already intrusive enough, so I left.   I hopped in my car and I made my way back to my life after this house- the one I started nearly 2 years ago.

Some things we have to leave behind but it doesn’t mean they should ever be forgotten.  The memories we revisit may not be current, but they are as real as the moment when we were in the midst of them.   Memories manifest themselves as a physical part of us, make us who we are, and define what we do.  While it is bittersweet to leave behind and revisit old memories, I think it’s neat when they get to be a part of someone else’s life.  I hope it means as much to them as it does to me.