RE-EVALUATION

I had such an awesome time up north (Daly City to be exact) with my aunts, uncles and cousins! But not only did I get to spend time with my family, I also chanced upon an opportunity to do lots of thinking about my life: family, friends, career, love. And I know I think about these things often enough, but it’s always been just that…thinking.

I read the first 25 pages of CONVERSATIONS WITH GOD this weekend, and I would love to tell you about how this has changed my life so far, but I won’t because that’s exactly what I would’ve done before this weekend. Let me start over…I realized a lot of things about myself this weekend that I chose not to realize before. I’ve undergone quite a few (actually a lot) of highs and lows (lots of lows) in my life in the last few years, and I’ve spent a great deal of time wondering why I feel the way I feel about myself and about the people in my life. I think I’ve managed to push a lot of people away without knowing it. A light bulb just went on in my head like half an hour ago! It’s because I’ve lost the ability to be honest, with everything and everyone, including and especially MYSELF. I used to think that I was as honest and as open as anyone could be. But I guess when you start thinking that about yourself, the opposite is probably true.

I just had a really helpful conversation with a really great friend tonight. I felt like, for the first time in a long while, everything I was saying to her was coming from my heart. I wasn’t talking to impress or to say what I thought she wanted to hear. I was just being honest, and that made all the difference. Not every word we exchanged was easy for me to say or hear. In fact, some of it hurt a little, but that was the best part about it. It showed me that I can be a grown-up about things enough to face them. This was the first time in a long time and I know it won't be the last. I’ve blogged so much about facing adversity and how it makes you a better person, and here I couldn’t do it myself! Hypocrisy at its finest I tell you!

I live great part of my life in illusions, you see. There are certain situations and relationships that I hold very dear; so dear that I want them to stay the same forever (how psycho). And this, I know now, has been my demise. Has anyone ever read that poem Nothing Gold Can Stay, by Robert Frost? If you haven’t, have a read:

NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY
By Robert Frost

Nature's first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf's a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

I want relationships and aspects of my life that have been so great for me in the past or present to be as wonderful as long as I live. When this is broken somehow, I psyche myself into thinking it’s not and live on in that fantasy which causes more harm than help. “Nothing gold can stay” : it’s a reality check that those most precious to us at one point, will not be precious in the same way forever and we have to know how to deal WITH IT and not AGAINST IT. I always knew this, somewhere in the back of my head, but for some reason thought I was exempt from it. Day one began today…