redeem [ri-deem]
to buy or pay off; clear by payment; to make up for; make amends for; offset;to obtain the release or restoration of, as from captivity, by paying a ransom
Synonyms include: atone, balance, compensate

Time for some non-NBA playoff blogging! Hooray!

I watched Sex and the City: The Movie last night. Hardly a superfan of the show, I've only seen a few episodes, but there are specific scenes embedded in the brain, a bundle of lines cleverly spoken by Carrie Bradshaw's voiceover is scribbled in my journal, and a couple of episodes certainly stand out. I'm not a fan, but I am woman.

Yes, the show's primary audience is chicks ("chix" to you, Leia Beth. haha!), but not because it depicts four women who do nothing but shop, have sex and eat without seeming to gain ANY weight (a fantasy, ladies, I know). The audience it draws is women because the show is about women - women who take chances on love and fail...but sometimes succeed; women who make a lot of mistakes in life...but live to face another episiode; women who, in the absence of romantic love and men in general, find solace and refuge in each other's friendships. For me, Sex and the City is all about achieving the one thing we all seek when we are hoodwinked by the hearts we wear on our sleeves: REDEMPTION.

Through personal experience and observation, I've discovered:

My 3 R's of Achieving Redemption

RECOGNIZE - So you were led on (either by him or, sadly, yourself). How long before the charade of, "I'm okay's" and "This isn't worth my tears" comes to an end? How long before placing blame, making excuses and finding comfort in avoiding any and everything remotely related to the situation going to cease? Step 1 is admitting the emotions we're trying to ignore are there. It's ok to feel like a fool. It's ok to be angry and hateful. It's ok to be selfish for awhile. But recognize that the reason festering in your veins will be there whether you acknowledge it or not so better to say, "I know you're in there - but not for long," than to pretend it doesn't exist and allow it to seep through your pores unknowingly like poisonous waste that'll just infect all the goodness that surrounds you.

RELEASE - You can try to be as silent and hermitlike as you want. You can sit in the darkness of your bedroom and hope that people will stop asking how you feel so that you can stop searching for new ways to look and sound composed. But when you feel bereft of pride, and all you seem to own is humility and pain, the greatest blessings you can ever receive without having to ask for it, is a God who will listen to desperate prayers, a family who will comfort you without having to know why, and friends who have the best timing. Share your burden with people who are willing to carry it with you.

RECONSTRUCT - It's difficult to feel like an entire person when you've given so much of yourself to something that is no longer there. There is no secret to building yourself back up, except to do it brick by brick. Go back to something familiar or try something new. In any case, it all begins and progresses the same way - one step at a time, one day at a time. The catalyst is in how much sooner you'd like a life back.

I don't claim to be an expert on relationships, but I'd consider myself an emotion connoisseur. A feeling is a feeling - you don't need to have been in a 5-year relationship to know and understand what it's like to misunderstand everything and have to suffer because of it. But the silver lining is what it feels like when that R-word comes back around...that feeling's positively perfect.