Not Easy

I am not an easy person. I am not easy because I ask the most of myself and the most of the people in my life. I have huge expectations. I give more than I have and sometimes I am left exhausted and defeated. This is not a bad thing. It is not bad to aim high. It is not bad to be alone because I absolutely refuse to settle or to slide backwards. People are intimidated by that. Let them be. Let them choose easy roads. They are never easy in the end. I am confident, even when I am scared. I will make you love and hurt and feel and open. But I will never be easy.

Grace

Last week I was full of grace. I had grace coming out of my ears. I had spent the last two weeks embroiled in a state of confusion, self-doubt, anger and fear. I had spun my mind into a web of mass chaos to the point that I could hardly talk about what was going on with me without feeling like there was a fist closing in on my heart. This anxiety had much less to do with the actual situation that was occurring and much more to do with my perceived inability to give my problem to God and ask for help.

Finally, I "hit my knees" as my friend Liz says. I hit them and I asked God for help. Help me please to be okay with this. Help me to give this to you and to leave it with you instead of snatching it back every 10 minutes. Help me to trust you. And, he did. He gave me an answer that has helped me to live with my problem. He infused my heart with compassion and with acceptance. I am not going to lie and say that it is there every moment; it is not. I still try and grab it and run, but I know I have someone on my side who is going to make it okay for me.

I am trying not to plan so much. "Plant expectation and sew disappointment" is a quote that keeps coming back. Slow down, breathe, enjoy the moments of frustration knowing that without them, you dont know joy. My running coach gave us a mantra that i use in races all the time but I am finding that it applies to much of life as well. "It is going to hurt, the trick is not minding that it hurts". That is the grace. That is God working in me, letting me feel and know without coming unglued. I can be sad and grateful all at the same time. Who knew.

Go forth and set the world on fire

In yoga the other day Patty challenged us... who am I kidding, she always challenges us, but this time it was a mental challenge and one that has seriously taken me to task. She told me that I was full of BS. That what I do is for other people, not for myself. That everything is "look at me, look at me". Love me, praise me, tell me I am worth it. Bitch was right. I can't stop thinking about it. She specifically talked about posting things on Facebook; pictures, stories, quotes. We are trying so hard to create and sell an image to others. I am trying so hard to create and sell an image to others and you know, it is that very creation and maniac selling that keeps me from knowing who I am. I can do so much more when I refocus my attention on knowing myself. It is a really scary thing to do, I think mainly because most people do not do it. Most people get caught in the spin and live within a box of what is normal and expected. My brain asks why, how and is there a better way. Sometimes I dont listen and then I end up shattered and broken and wondering what in the world happened and how did I let myself lose what I know and value about who I am.

It is so hard to detach from what is considered normal but I just dont see another way of achieving what I know I can be. I dont see another way of letting myself grow and learning about what is underneath. I'm scared but the thought is there. I need to roll the stone around in my mouth before I swallow it. I know there is a bigger story for me and I am at the edge looking in.

Spinning Wheels

I took a few minutes last night to read through my old postings. I think I needed to remind myself of what I am doing and why. I was feeling defeated. I have been feeling defeated. I am trying to define myself so hard that I so often forget to stop, breathe, feel. I have also been really hard on myself lately. Constantly looking at what is wrong and what needs to be fixed.

I posted back in January to remember that monumental moments in life are few and far between. My 20s have been filled with so much change that everyday I find myself perched on what the next big adventure will be. My eyes are open and I am poised, but nothing is happening and I am frustrated. PATIENCE. Again, that ugly word. that lesson that God is trying so hard to get across to me. I need to remind myself all the time that part of transformative experience is reflection. I can not jump from one major life event to another and expect no fall out. I need to slow down, to enjoy the company of others, to excel in my job because these are the things that compose my life.

I have been spinning like a top for the past 6 weeks and I needed someone to slap me and slow me down, make me recognize (again) that life does not happen on my schedule. And, that even if it did, what is the fun in that? The most beautiful part of all of this is the unknown. It is the scariest part for sure, but it is the heartbeat. It is what makes me breathless in the best and worst ways. In yoga the other day our teacher shared a line from Barron Baptist.. "If you look for the sh*t, you are going to find it". I have been looking for what is wrong and I needed the reminder to appreciate and be grateful for what is right.

Did you ever look so nice?

EXPECTATIONS. Holy crap. I may need to work on managing my expectations. When I know what I want, I fully expect that everyone else will play by my rules. Lately? Not so much. Lately my ego has been getting some bruises. It's needed, I will benefit from it, but it hurts my feelings. It makes tears sting behind my eyes. It makes that bump in my throat show up. I haven't felt in awhile. I have been living in swaddling clothing, safe and sound and pretty dead inside. Now, I am a turtle poking her head out and NOT at all liking when the foot comes down. But I promised myself not to retreat. I promised this to myself 6 weeks ago when I got on the plane. Better to go and learn and cry and feel. Better be crushed and broken on the floor and alive. Security is a double edged sword.

Humilty

I am being taught a lesson. It is not an easy pill to swallow and I am working on accepting it, but it is necessary and I understand that. Humility. How do you remain humble while also knowing your self-worth and what you deserve? How do you show someone that you are worth more than they are giving you without coming off as demanding? I deplore dating. I love relationships and I love being single, but I am not great at getting to know someone slowly. I either immediately know that I am not interested or I fall hard and want everything to happen according to my agenda. I have been unfair to escape dating. I have let people believe that they could marry me when I have no intention of allowing that to happen. I have done it out of selfishness, out of fear and out of convenience. It is rude and unfair. I know that better now. I understand the ramifications. I have also gone from a walk to a sprint and have allowed people that I barely know to get deep inside and disappoint me. I thought I was clearing my ego out of the way be being vulnerable, but I am coming to realize now that I grip the steering wheel and jerk it left and right and then cry when there is busting glass and totaled relationship. I am bad at letting things happen and unfold in front of me. I am bad at giving someone else the reigns. And the weird thing is, I really like who I am and I know that other people really like me too, so what's up with the song and dance and the trying to maneuver all the time? Where is it coming from?

In Eat, Pray, Love, there is an awesome quote about getting comfortable with loneliness. Elizabeth Gilbert encourages herself to sit with loneliness, feel it, make a map of it. I am trying to get comfortable in a place of chaos. A place where I am not in control. Go there, dip your toes in. Get burned, get frozen out. It has got to be better than the cycle of false control and disappointment. Today, get humble, get vulnerable and feel your feelings. Let's not be so quick to run away from hurt, fear and discontent.

Listen

I am not a patient person. I want what I want and I want it now. I hate, HATE the word no. I hate waiting on people, I hate when the universe does not make things happen on my time. I know this about myself, I am aware when my inner toddler takes control and yet, I don't seem to have a good way of tempering this attribute. I try and emulate people that are calm. That seemingly float on the ebb and flow of life. It is beyond me. I rationalize it by telling myself that they go home and pull their eyelashes out one by one, or have secret jobs as phone sex operators. There is no way that they are normal.

But some are. People have different nervous systems and mine just seems to be on overdrive when I have to wait for things. I have been getting the same answer from God (and everyone else) lately. It's not about your time, life will happen in His time. The things that I want will come to me when I am ready to receive them. Once my ego has quieted down and I am ready to put others in front of myself. It is a lesson that I know I am learning every moment of everyday, but that doesn't mean that I like it. I understand but I am working to accept. I am catching myself more often. Not allowing the full demise into tantrum happen quite as easily. It still happens. The limits of my desire for control are boundless, but I am learning.

You can't control in love and that means that I am not ready for love. I am still fighting for the power to make it happen by my standards and until I can really, honestly surrender, it is not going to happen. I get that. But I love control and order. It is hard to let go. Breaking up with yourself is a rough thing to do.

Perspectives

I can not believe it has been a month since I came home. A month of endings, beginnings, laughs and tears. A month of knowing every moment that I made the right decision. But, as I look at my home with a fresh set of eyes and a new appreciation, i can not forget how important it is to look inside as well. I am noticing things about myself that need improvement. I recognize that I require too much attention. I fluster when my inbox is quiet for more than a moment, I get annoyed when someone does not respond to me immediately. I thrive on having a million things to do and then I sputter out in sheer exhaustion just to start the entire cycle over again. I am working to find outlets for this need. A few things that have worked:

Family - Thank God for family. Whenever I don't have someone to listen to me or someone to spend time with, there are always about a million family members who are happy to pick up the slack.

Yoga - I am getting back into a strong practice routine. I am on the mat at least 4 times a week and for the hours after I practice, I am calm and focused.

God - I really need to pour myself more into this. I have continued with my bible study and have been attending church fairly regularly. I just can't help but feel that I am having a difficult time plugging in. My ego is in the way. When I pray, I feel rushed, I feel like I am not sure what to say. There will be moments of intense connection and emotion and then, just like in meditation, as I am reaching a peak, I back off. I don't know if it is fear (I think it is fear), but I feel it. I am thinking maybe a retreat to find ways to move out of myself and into trust.

I am still looking for contentment, I am closer, but there are still a thousand stones to overturn and lessons around every corner. I am trying to move beyond fear. Beyond the feeling that in an instant I could lose it all. I am trying to build faith and crash through my ego which so often stands in the way.

It's sunny today. I think I will be grateful for that and spend my time focused on the light instead of the shadows.

Transient

As I pack up everything that belongs to me (which thanks to a complete closet overhaul now consists of one car load, 6 boxes and an 11 pound cat), I can't help but think about how this doesn't feel sad. I am not sure what my problem is, I have awesome friends here, I am leaving a wonderful man and people do shift work just to have the opportunity to be in this great city... and yet, I really dont have any second thoughts about leaving. Maybe in time I will look back and miss this place terribly. I don't know. The truth is that none of this ever felt real. I felt like I was living someone else's life. I have felt this way for a long time and I think I just now have the balls to admit it to myself. While this place has fed a great need of mine to come back down to earth, the most important relationship that I cultivated here was with myself. Maybe this place and then people in it served as a kind of detox for me. I feel strange saying that, as if it is some kind of an insult, but it is not. I needed each and every person, sight, smell, day and night. They all served a purpose in getting me to where I am. I just out grew it.

At home, every 17 years, we get swarms of cicadas. Big, nasty beetle bugs that sing a song that you can not escape all summer long. They outgrow their shells, leaving hollow reminders that they passed there and then continue on their way. I feel a little like that today.

Meaning

My friend Christy posed a question over cocktails the other night that I have been thinking about for some time now; "Do you sometimes feel like your purpose on earth is to teach people things about themselves?" Yes. I feel this way all the time. My best friend and I joke that we have Florence Nightengale syndrome meaning that we pick the broken toys and fix them for the next girlfriend. The past two relationships that I have been in have been with addicts, and at the end of each of those relationships, the addiction was addressed and the man was restored. I dont have the illusion that this is solely because of me, but I do know that I changed their lives. I wonder if maybe that is why I am here on this earth, to not live entirely for myself, but instead to be a catalyst for change in others.

That is not as selfless as it sounds. When you change someone, it is enormously gratifying and gives a huge amount of affirmation. But I think I am getting tangled up in trying to solve the riddles of another soul while also trying to advance my own objectives. I rather like the idea of being someone who passes in and out of peoples lives, changing them and making lasting differences, even if I am not the one who benefits from them in the end.

I think we are all this kind of person for each other. I have also met people for a few hours, a few months, a few years who have singlehandedly altered the way that I look at the world. My friend Liz has been one of these people. She has changed the way that I look at love. the love between her and Mike is one that you can feel as soon as you enter a room with them. It is electric. I have decided that i would rather be alone than settle. I want to feel that feeling of souls being mixed. I want to be breathless when he walks into a room. I want to live in a world of big feelings, good or bad. Safety is what I needed after Nick, and now, something different.

There's beauty in the breakdown

It's weird in relationships how one person can be so sure that it is right and the other so sure that it is not. It's like what is the point in believing that there is one "right" person when, even if you can find them, they might not feel the same way. I have been on both ends of this equation and neither is an enviable position. But then sometimes you see it and BAM, 2 people who feel the same way about each other and meet in the middle, and then your faith is restored. Today I am comfy being on my own. It's the open road as opposed to the bell jar. It's universe versus caccoon. It's definitely more dangerous on the outside, but is there another way to live? Not for me, not today at least.

The Seeker

I joined a bible study group and... I LOVE it. Today God made me smile even though I am dealing with a bunch of ugly crap by basically making the entire lesson about what I am feeling... Imagine that, haha.

The opening began with a girl speaking about the values of trust, persistence and patience. I could not be less patient of a person. I want what I want now and when that does not happen, you better get out of the way. She talked about praying.

I pray. I pray for what I want. "Dear God, please let an amazing apartment for $600/month open in downtown Georgetown". That is certainly a kind of prayer that can be helpful... ask big, ask specific. However, the kind of praying that I need to get better at is the "Dear God, please bring me comfort while I wait for your will to unfold". We had a passage in ACTS from this week which says that God has made a time and a place for each man. I am on the road, everyday I am in my time and my place and waiting is actually my action for the day. Wait to meet the right person, to know yourself better, to appreciate what comes to you. Stop grabbing at every experience trying to make it a life altering one and just appreciate the life that transpires between these huge momentous occasions.

We also talked about Paul's journey to Athens and his encountering of the idols. What are my idols? The physical idols and the idols of my heart. My friend Jennifer had an enlightening answer.. and AH HA of an answer to what are the idols of today. 'Relationships' she said. Interesting. Relationships can be an idol when treated in an unhealthy way. So often we cling to other people. In Eat, Pray, Love the author describes clinging to a lover as if he was the last helicopter leaving Saigon. I think we have all, at one time or another, felt that way. I know I have. And that is a form of idolatry. The only thing that we should cling to with that level of intensity, is our relationship with God. At the end of the day, no matter what, that is the only thing that can not disappear. And, if that is the strongest part of your life, what an amazing sense of comfort that provides! The thing most important to you in the world, can never be taken away.

Today that message has kept me afloat. It has helped me to reprioritize things in my head. It has brought me peace in dealing with an ending relationship and the start of exploring the road ahead. No matter what happens, as long as I feed my relationship with God, I will be okay.

New Start, Old Territory

So I did it. I took what has been bothering me, grabbed it by the shoulders and confronted it. Do I feel better? One minute yes and one minute no. I hurt someone that I care about and that, quite literally, makes my heart hurt. Hurt like it is hard to catch my breath. Hurt like I wonder, maybe I can just deal with this and plow through it. But I know that is not the answer. I know that eventually it would cause more hurt. I know that this is the most responsible and respectful way to treat someone who has been nothing but wonderful to me.

I described it to a friend on our weekly run, 'it's like being served the most beautiful steak dinner after you have been craving steak all day. But then, when it arrives, and it is actually in front of you, you realize that maybe it is not really what you wanted after all. Nothing wrong with the steak, just not quite what you were looking for.' It kills me. It makes me wonder if I will ever find someone as good. Probably not. But what good is it to have the perfect person, if they are not perfect for you at this time in your life? I can not deny the fact that I have an overwhelming desire to be alone and to change. It is wrong to deny myself that. And even if I do it the rest of my life and never commit to anyone, that is okay too. I need to be true to myself and let the life I deserve come to me at it's own pace.

So back to DC we go. Back to my home of homes. Back to my family, my network, my people. Forever? I don't know. But for now, this chapter is closed and it is time to look forward to a new beginning in an old place. My heart hurts, but it is also still beating. New, fresh blood for a new fresh start.

Pulse vs Impulse

I am feeling impulsive today. I have been feeling impulsive everyday for about the past month. I don't know if it is that i am in the wrong place, or if i am having growing pains or if it is hormonal or what, but I feel like I need to stretch my arms, my skin, my soul. I feel like i want to pick up my life like a picnic blanket and shake out all the crumbs. I want fresh, light, new air.

But I am also a little afraid. I have a great life... why the sudden desire for upheaval? Where is it coming from? It is that I really need to change my life path or is it that I am running from growing up? I think I know the answer, but I am not quite ready to deal with it yet.

I have a dear friend with a room for rent in Denver. Is this fate stepping in telling me what I need to do? Or am I over-reaching? So far today I have committed myself to the San Francisco half marathon, the Pikes Peak Ascent, a 60 day bikram challenge, a 10 day trip to California and a dog. Maybe I need to slow down a little bit.

Sharing

Sometimes I make myself laugh. I take on HUGE projects, follow them diligently, and then desert them once the new HUGE endeavor crosses my path. My whole purpose for starting a blog was to figure out how to harness what I can offer other people. They say that you should do what you love in order to be successful. I have had a hard time figuring out, "what do i love?" I LOVE food. I love making food, eating food, trying new foods, messing with different eating styles. I think that I have a pretty good knack for intuitively knowing what flavors go together and making up some pretty freaking good recipes on the fly. I can also pick out items at the grocery really, really well. Meaning, that when I try a new food, or a new product, 9 times out of 10, it is awesome. I am spreading the word among my group of friends and that is something I can say that I LOVE. I also LOVE to work out. This is a weird one because it is not something that has always come naturally to me. Let me back up. I have always loved sports, but going to the gym? No thanks. In the past two years, beginning with yoga, I have found a way to make exercise an integral part of my life. I mix it up, try new classes, new methods and new ideas. I take what i like and leave the rest in a pile of 'not for me'. An ex-boy asked me once what I was passionate about and I had a really hard time answering. Not anymore. I am finding my passions, dusting them off and putting them back in the spotlight. The newest one? God. I am staring my first bible class on Wednesday and I could not be more excited. After having attended Catholic schools for my entire life and then moving into a very secular world, I feel the tug to get back into who I am as a spiritual person. New year, new projects, new passion.