Contribution
So, i'm learning...
(01/23/2003; 05:40pm) - So, i'm learning...
So I realized while writing for melounge, this phenomena about me having to get involved. Some people don?t mind or care, but not me, I like to help everyone, reach out to anything and most of the time put my foot in my mouth in doing so. It?s really a delightful process, and at least I often know what?s going on with the people around me.
But sometimes I think it would be nice to listen with out having to get my hands dirty. I think at one point, years ago, I used to be very good at that. It?s not my job to fix things in the world and more often than not, people just want some one to take the time to listen to what they have to say. In the end they?ll figure it all out, but having a sounding board is just such a pleasant experience. Hell, saying ?sounding board? is a pleasant experience. So, I wonder where this inherent need to FIX things came into me. Did I learn it from my mom, or get it in my genes or is it something I?ve developed to help me cope with other people when I?m feeling over whelmed? Better than that, is it something I do to end the degree of indecisiveness that I feel when I have no answers.
I know that I hate, hate, hate, hate and totally can?t cope with indecision. It?s why I am indecisive, so that I could get over it before I die and go on to the next world. I think I?ve learned to try to fix my problems rather than patiently letting them sort themselves out. Doing rather than waiting and being.
Shit, yet another age old remedy that I?ve read and read but intentionally over looked for years so that I didn?t have to deal with myself.
So I guess now that is the thing that is plaguing me most. I want answers, I want to know who I am, what I?ll do and how much money I?ll have. I want to know what my profession will be and where I went to grad school and if I have one cat and a dog or two cats, and if I?m married and if I have children. And, even more importantly, I want to know who I am, and how I got to be that person.
But that?s the lovely trick. (and I?m sorry for all you people who know all this already, just read it and enjoy the writing!) Getting to know who you are takes patience and time spent in indecision. It?s not where you end up but the time you spend creating and choosing who you are and how you?ll be when you get there that define who you are. It?s how well you deal with a tricky situation, or a major life change. It is in the end, underneath the daily chaos, the fundamental way you will choose to execute your life plan is laid in how well you can deal with yourself and your space in indecision. In choosing to be, instead of doing or instead of being lost.
So when people look back over their years and ask, have I lived a full enough life? (And believe me lately, I?ve had to think about that plenty.) What determines the answer they choose? Is it accomplishments? Places they?ve been? People they?ve loved? Children they?ve raised? I want a list, with those types of things, but more so, I want to know that I lived each of those days to the best of my ability. That I didn?t run from them. I want to be able to say that I have been honest or direct or clear with people in my life. And I want to say that I looked bravely into the eye of everyone I?ve spoken to and been myself. I was to say ?Wow, I?m 23, 35, 40, 60, 76? and I can?t believe it?s all gone so quickly, but it?s all gone so beautifully, and I am proud to own the years I?ve lived. I?m proud and delighted to be me.?
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Today, right now, with all the bullshit that I admit is getting to me, I am proud and delighted to be me. I accept that things are different and always changing, that I don?t always mentally work the way I once did, that getting an apartment is scary, that being alone is sometimes rough, that not knowing where I?m going makes me uneasy, and I promise myself that I will learn and grow through all of this, and even when I don?t feel like that at bed time, I believe that it will be ok. Because I have faith in that one thing in the whole universe that you can count on, I have faith in myself.