Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Patience

I think I’m being taught a lesson in patience.

I’ve never really thought of myself as an impatient person, except for maybe when I’m driving, but over the last few weeks I’ve noticed that I have been eager for things to happen right away. I want people to call me back right away, I wish trips didn’t take as long, time between work and when I go swim cannot ever seem to pass quickly enough, and my work day never seems to end. I’m not sure why all of a sudden I’m so jumpy and anxious to get to the next moment, but it’s starting to stress me out a little.

Last night and all morning I have found myself checking my e-mail every 2 minutes and checking my phone every time I have to step away from it. When my phone does ring/vibrate my heart skips a beat and I wonder who is on the other end. I saw that I had a new e-mail in my inbox and again, my insides jumped and flipped about as I anticipated who it might be from or what it might say. I’m being ridiculous I know, but part of me can’t help it. I’ve opened this door and now I’m facing the consequences of my actions – not that they’re all bad.

The sad part about all of this is that because I am so focused on wanting one specific thing to happen, I am not appreciating the other things that are occurring around me. If a friend calls I am excited to talk to him/her but it’s not the person I’ve been waiting for to call and so there is some disappointment in the back of my mind. I don’t want that. I enjoy talking to my friends and I don’t like that I find myself wishing it was another name that showed up on my caller ID.

I’ve decided that I don’t like the way my brain is acting and I’m going to try and change it. I am going to be patient. I am going to enjoy all the moments of my day and not just sit around and wait for a certain one. I am taking action against myself in order to do something for myself. I will be patient, but I will also not become a slave to the waiting game.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Life Lessons

There are times in life when things don’t work out the way we want them to and we have to do unpleasant things and deal with unfortunate situations. I have gone through a few of these times and am currently experiencing another. Please don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to complain, I’m simply wishing to share a fact.

I think that hard times are a part of life that we all must experience in order to grow as human beings and broaden our experiences. I also think that the highs in our lives also teach us lessons, but occasionally there is something about walking through a valley that makes you appreciate those peaks more than you did when you were in the actual moment – at least for me anyway.

I’m going through a dip in my road, a pot hole if you will. It’s not a big one and it’s nothing that is going to set my path off course. It’s more of an inconvenience, something that I didn’t anticipate, and something that I’d rather not deal with, but something that I must. My life will continue on just fine once I pass on by but hopefully I will learn something from it – and honestly, I think I already have.

I’ve learned that I need to trust my instincts and to be more honest with myself. I’ve learned that my life passions really are important to me and they are my main focus right now. I can see how I have become distracted and could become even more so – and I don’t want that. I do not want to settle and I don’t think just anything will do. I am confident and not just content, but happy with my life. I don’t need anything else right now.

The situation that I am in is not fun. It is difficult and tricky and has the potential to blow up in my face. For better or for worse though, I have gotten myself into it, and because I am a responsible adult, I will somehow get myself out of it.

Monday, March 16, 2009

Better Than I Know Myself

I love my friends. I have said this many times before, but I really do think that I have the most amazing friends in the world. I also think they are all empirically attractive people – I’m not sure how that has worked out since I don’t think of myself that highly, so maybe I’m the ugly friend, or I’m just more attractive than I realize. (For those of you who don’t know me as well, please realize I’m not vying for a compliment here nor do I have low self esteem, just throwing stuff out there.) My point though is that I am often reminded of how wonderful my friends are and how blessed I am to have them on the most random of occasions.

Last week I had the opportunity to have dinner with an old friend from high school who I have kept in contact with, but not nearly to the same level as we were in contact before college. He was one of my best friends, is an ex-boyfriend, and is probably one of the few people in the world who know me so well that I am 100% confident that when I say, “You know,” that he actually knows what I am talking about. Prior to our dinner I hadn’t seen him since he left for grad school (about a year and a half ago, maybe longer) but I wasn’t nervous to see him, just excited to catch up because it had been so long. I figured it would be easy to talk and we’d spend an hour maybe two chatting and updating each other about our lives. Well, needless to say, that isn’t exactly what happened.

We spent over three hours covering family, relationships, faith, movies, school, dancing, and so much more. I’ll never forget how he was able to ask a non-direct question in a way that felt like he had some insight into my brain and what I was going through in my life. Maybe it was completely unintentional, but as I began to answer his question I could feel myself shed a protective layer that I didn’t realize I had built up over the last few months. I knew that I could be completely vulnerable and honest with him and that there wouldn’t be any judgment but that I would receive a bluntly honest, yet respectful, response that would challenge me without undermining my intelligence or thought process. It was like he knew me better than I knew myself and I had forgotten what that felt like.

This last week there were a number of things that happened in my life – all good for the most part – but things that kind of left me asking the question, “How is this my life?” I realized after each of these events occurred that there were a few key people who I instantly wanted to tell and who, I knew, would appreciate each story in its entirety. Kind of along the lines of my last post, I realized how I love and need to verbalize my experiences with each of them in order for me to gain my own understanding of it. Each person brings their own perspective and somehow I am not complete in my own comprehension without each of them.

Many of my close friends are no longer local, which means I can’t just show up at their door to share my ridiculousness in person, but it’s nice to know they are only a phone call away. I love them dearly and I hope that they never get bored with my life and abandon me for a more entertaining (or perhaps more sane) friendship with someone else. My life would be so much less without each of them and I don’t think I could be truly happy in life without them. I wouldn’t be able to be my true self. There would always be a wall built up around me and that’s not the kind of life I want to live.

So at the risk of being so cheesy that you want to gag yourself and swear to never read my blog again, thanks for being my friend. You mean the world to me and you all know exactly who you are.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Extrovert

I think I’m more of an extrovert than I realized. It’s funny because I remember taking a quiz in middle school and it telling me that I was an introvert and being really angry because I wanted to be extroverted. In high school I took a quiz and it said I was extroverted and that made me happy. In college I took the test and was introverted, but was finally at peace with the concept realizing that introversion didn’t mean I was anti-social, I just internally processed things. Well I’ve taken the Myers Briggs test again recently and to my surprise I came out as an extrovert. I’ve learned over the years that I sit on the cusp of introvert/extrovert and I never really know which one I’m going to be.

I had a really hard time falling asleep last night – I literally laid in bed for over 2 ½ hours! As I was lying there trying to think of ways to trick myself into sleeping (counting sheep, listening to music, watching TV, lying in darkness and complete silence, etc) my mind started to reflect on why I wasn’t able to sleep. Was it the little bit of a cold that was stuffing me up? Was it because I was too hot or too cold? Did I have too much on my mind? Probably all were true, but what I landed on was that I hadn’t talked to anyone about my day. I hadn’t debriefed with anyone and it so everything was all cooped up in my head still.

This is when it hit me – I really am an extrovert. As much as I like to be alone and I like to process things on my own, I have to externalize things. I have to share them with others and know that I’m being heard. This of course made me decide that it would have been perfect timing for me to have a husband simply for the fact that I could then roll over and poke him and make him listen to me debrief my day so that I could fall asleep – because yes, I know that’s what husbands are for.

I’ve always known that I can talk and talk and talk and talk. Anyone who has met me should be able to easily determine this. I like to share and I’m very open with people. I always just thought it was me being friendly or whatever, but I realized last night it’s my extroversion. Of course this makes me sound completely selfish and self absorbed. I promise that I do like to listen to other people and I enjoy hearing about their days and lives as well. It’s not all about me, it’s reciprocal.

Being in Europe I realized is going to be hard for me because I won’t be around anyone that I know well. Yes, I am planning to blog and to skype with people, but it’s not the same as being there having that face to face conversation. I think it’ll be good for me though, and it’s not like I’m going to be gone for a year anymore. I will survive and I’ll probably learn some new things about myself. Maybe I’ll fluctuate to the introverted side of my personality again and it’ll be perfect. Or, I’ll be a full fledged extrovert and never be able to fall asleep. :)

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Passion and Practicality

I haven’t blogged in awhile. I know, I’ve been horribly absent and I know you’ve all missed my postings. The truth is that I’ve actually started quite a few different topics, but can never manage to find enough time to finish my thought and complete anything more than a few sentences. Well, the internet is down at work which means that I can’t check e-mail, work in the scheduler, or in our software - basically now I just sit and wait for the phone to ring and then tell people I can’t help them until everything comes back up – so that means I have time to write (and of course post it later once the internet is back up)!

On Sunday night I was catching up on the latest sermon series at my church. The series has been entitled “Letters to the City of Seattle” and we’ve been going through the letters in the early chapters of Revelation that are written to different cities of the time. In the letter to the church of Laodicea (Rev 3:14-22) Jesus tells them that he wants them to be hot or cold and not lukewarm. The sermon picks up on this point and talks about the people of God being Passionate versus Practical people. The pastor quoted someone who gave a commencement lecture who encouraged the graduates to pursue careers that they love and to do something that they’re passionate about instead of basing their lives on something they should do to make sure they are taken care of down the road.

I really appreciated this message because I am a practical person AND I am a dreamer. I have plans and desires and things that I want to do but more often than not, I talk myself out of doing it because it’s not realistic or practical. I so often sit in the in-between of practical and passionate that I don’t go anywhere and I get stuck. I love that someone (and someone of authority none the less) has encouraged me to pick a side – and has pushed the passionate over the practical.

I know it’s not practical for me to spend a long period of time traveling – but I am passionate about seeing the world. It’s a HUGE desire of mine. I know it’s not practical for me to dream about someday having a career in the film industry, but it’s something that I care about and am truly interested in. If anyone has ever heard me talk about my desire to travel or review and discussing films they can sense and know my passion. I can talk endlessly with them about my thoughts on a specific film or a whole genre and I can rattle off various cities and countries and landmarks that I want to see before I die.

Yes, I want security. It’d be ideal to have security and be able to do everything that I could ever dream of, but that’s not practical either. I don’t know if I completely ascribe to the idea that practicality and passion are 100% mutually exclusive – as in you always have to be practical or always have to be passionate. I do however, think that in whatever moment you are in your decision falls into one of those categories, but in the next moment you may swing the other way. I think that I am practical by nature but I desire to be passionate.

When I was younger, it seemed like being practical was the mature, responsible way to live. I always made decisions with that in mind and didn’t ever stray far from what was expected of me. Now that I am older, although admittedly I still have a lot of life yet to learn, I am beginning to realize that I need more risks in my life. I need to do more that feeds my soul and makes me excited about being in the world that I live in. Sometimes I feel like the passion that seemed to always bubble beneath the surface has been beaten back for so long that it’s afraid to come out and shine.

So here’s to life. Here’s to me being passionate about the things that I love, embracing opportunities, taking advantage of life, and pursuing my dreams. This is what God gave us life for isn’t it?
 
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