IF ONLY I WERE PERFECT
Have you ever had one of those days when you wished you would have turned over and gone back to sleep, ignoring the alarm clock? Possibly even getting a "do over" for that day would somehow make the circumstances somehow more palpable.
Yeah ... I'm having one of those lifetimes, it would seem. I do things and I say things, and I realize, sometimes way too late, that man!, I wished I'd approached that situation differently. As the events unfold, and as I play them over and over in my mind, beating myself up for them continually for YEARS, I long for a rewind button, but hope beyond hope that the person or persons I might have wronged will find grace in the situation. We are all humans after all. They've got to be making the same blunders also, right? Surely they recognize this about themselves and so, won't hold it against me?
As I've entered my thirties, I've discovered something. I've discovered that my blunders will follow me where ever I go, and that the only person truly willing to bestow grace doesn't actually wear skin at this present time.
I've tried really hard (without the intervention of professional help, and maybe that's my problem) to somehow silence this endless tape recorder in my head that seems to record all those times when I'm complete idiot and then replays those times over and over again. It creates negative self-talk, and I recognize that as being non-productive. But as I've said, I always thought there was grace ...
I have a friend. She is one of the dearest people I know. If ever there was a person in this world that would give the shirt off her back to someone, it is this person. She has incredible passion for others. I often tease her and say, "I know you wouldn't do this because you are just too nice. I, on the other hand, am mean and nasty, so I would."
I always said that sort of tongue and cheek, but I'm now wondering if perhaps it really is the truth ... that prospect shakes me to my core. Perhaps all anyone sees me for are those times in my life that my mouth got ahead of my brain ... to be so judged ... wow. That's a sobering thought.
What has precipitated this serious post on my otherwise frivilous blog? Perhaps it's moving away from all that's familiar and trying to find a new path to follow. Perhaps it's reevaluating my life post PINK SLIP to see how I've handled situations (see the aforementioned self-talk tape recorder) ... what I could have done differently. Perhaps it's the fact that the movers came and picked up all my crap yesterday and announced that they weren't sure when they would be delivering it here (sending me into a deeper spiral of "who the crap am I anyway" talk). I don't know. I do know that I want my life to matter to others, and it scares me to death to think that it doesn't.
I wrote the following back in February, and I find it so interesting that the pain I felt then is the same pain I feel now: "I want to be so much more than a little drip in a tiny mud puddle. I want, desparately to be a big, continuous ripple in the sea of humanity. I can't help but wonder how I can possibly ripple in my four walls in a tiny little map dot on a big, fat, expansive globe ... I don't have DNA that I'm passing on ... I don't have the great love of another that weaves me to him, creating a life of one ... all I have is this one last breath and I want it to have resonance ..."
I want so badly to have resonance, but I fear it's not meant to be ...
Yeah ... I'm having one of those lifetimes, it would seem. I do things and I say things, and I realize, sometimes way too late, that man!, I wished I'd approached that situation differently. As the events unfold, and as I play them over and over in my mind, beating myself up for them continually for YEARS, I long for a rewind button, but hope beyond hope that the person or persons I might have wronged will find grace in the situation. We are all humans after all. They've got to be making the same blunders also, right? Surely they recognize this about themselves and so, won't hold it against me?
As I've entered my thirties, I've discovered something. I've discovered that my blunders will follow me where ever I go, and that the only person truly willing to bestow grace doesn't actually wear skin at this present time.
I've tried really hard (without the intervention of professional help, and maybe that's my problem) to somehow silence this endless tape recorder in my head that seems to record all those times when I'm complete idiot and then replays those times over and over again. It creates negative self-talk, and I recognize that as being non-productive. But as I've said, I always thought there was grace ...
I have a friend. She is one of the dearest people I know. If ever there was a person in this world that would give the shirt off her back to someone, it is this person. She has incredible passion for others. I often tease her and say, "I know you wouldn't do this because you are just too nice. I, on the other hand, am mean and nasty, so I would."
I always said that sort of tongue and cheek, but I'm now wondering if perhaps it really is the truth ... that prospect shakes me to my core. Perhaps all anyone sees me for are those times in my life that my mouth got ahead of my brain ... to be so judged ... wow. That's a sobering thought.
What has precipitated this serious post on my otherwise frivilous blog? Perhaps it's moving away from all that's familiar and trying to find a new path to follow. Perhaps it's reevaluating my life post PINK SLIP to see how I've handled situations (see the aforementioned self-talk tape recorder) ... what I could have done differently. Perhaps it's the fact that the movers came and picked up all my crap yesterday and announced that they weren't sure when they would be delivering it here (sending me into a deeper spiral of "who the crap am I anyway" talk). I don't know. I do know that I want my life to matter to others, and it scares me to death to think that it doesn't.
I wrote the following back in February, and I find it so interesting that the pain I felt then is the same pain I feel now: "I want to be so much more than a little drip in a tiny mud puddle. I want, desparately to be a big, continuous ripple in the sea of humanity. I can't help but wonder how I can possibly ripple in my four walls in a tiny little map dot on a big, fat, expansive globe ... I don't have DNA that I'm passing on ... I don't have the great love of another that weaves me to him, creating a life of one ... all I have is this one last breath and I want it to have resonance ..."
I want so badly to have resonance, but I fear it's not meant to be ...
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