Tag: happiness prjoect

Love is a choice

Life, like love, is messy and complicated, difficult and flat out hard. We want it to be fun and exciting, but things bog us down, make us heavy. The trick to love, is to fight through that hard and find the things that are beautiful.

There have been times where I’m at my heaviest, and I see something so simple, a glimmer in time, and it makes me feel weightless for just a moment. It’s the breadcrumb that keeps me going. The trail leading me to the next bend in the pathway.

My life has been particularly heavy as of late, and it’s got no chance of lifting in the near future. I’ve been seething with anger at people who could have chosen love. I’ve been shattered by words and deeds, crushed by apathy and indifference. Everything has been flipped upside down.

However, just like love, hate is a choice. I can choose to be angry, sad, and destructive toward myself and others. But what good would come of it? My child would see a mother who is consumed by loathing and frustration. A mother set on destruction- destroying the ones who hurt her, and all the bonds for both sides.

I choose love. Through the fear and anger, the betrayal and malice. I choose love. Letting the anger consume me isn’t doing anyone any favors, especially my kid. I need to be a whole person, one who models the life I want to teach. I need to find the grace in what is otherwise a heartbreaking situation. For me, for my daughter.

Am I still hurt? Sure. Pissed off? Yup. But am I going to waste another moment of my life hating someone? Nobody got time for for that.

Ironically, the year of forced growth has put some important things into perspective for me. The last several years have been a bizarre re-enactment of a previous chapter in my life, but instead of playing the “me” role, I’m the other person. I see now, with glaring clarity what I did to completely derail and sabotage my own life back then. It’s taken much longer than I’d like to admit for me to come to that conclusion, but I got here.

Not only do I now recognize my shortcomings in great detail, but I perfectly understand how they felt during that time. I’ve been beating myself up for more than a decade, because I didn’t completely understand both sides of the equation. But here we are. Lesson learned. Because life is messy and complicated, it couldn’t be quite so easy to extricate from as the first time, since, it took me so fucking long to learn it. However, I’m here now in the right place. It feels terrible in every way. Lesson learned. And through it all, I choose love. It’s all I’ve got left.

Thanks for reading.

Photo credit: wordporn

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Let go, or be dragged

The title of this entry is that of a Zen proverb that I recently read and it rang very true to me. This, as any long time reader knows, is something that I struggle with; letting go. I’m a Type A personality, therefore control, being uptight, and regularly stressed out are common symptoms of my being. But recently, I’ve become much more humbled, as things that are wholly out of my control have begun to dictate my life. Granted, I shouldn’t “let outside forces DICTATE my life”, but as I casually say frequently, life. happened. And by life happening, I mean that finances change, relationships change, the climate changes. None of these things can I directly control. If I could, the world would be a very different place, but alas, I digress.

As I see it, because of all these significant changes around me, I want to exert more control over the things around me that I may or may not be able to control. For instance, I feel like things outside my home are extremely chaotic at the moment, which means that I want more order and structure IN the home. My husband and pets probably like this very little, but I feel better. I am currently having some health issues, so I colored my hair. My husband and I are at an impasse currently about hair. He’s not “allowed” to cut his until he “let’s” me cut mine. He was less than thrilled about the coloring aspect, but I’m sorry, I need some grey coverage.

These are just a few examples of how I’m trying to take back control of my environment, considering it seems like nothing more than shifting sand beneath my feet. What I wouldn’t give to regain some of the things that I’ve recently lost, time, money, control… whatever. But here’s where it gets tricky. If I am amble to control or influence everything, would anything change for the better? Would I progress into my most authentic self, without there being a series of conflicts? I’ve read and heard that we do our best soul-searching and most significant positive growth after periods of hardship or struggle. If that’s the case, I think I’m going to be Wonder Woman by the time I’m out of this blasted tunnel, but again, I digress.

There’s a song by the band Modest Mouse that I think of every time I’m feeling down or out of control in regards to the vast amounts of crap I endure on a regular basis. The lyric goes “If life’s not beautiful without the pain, then I’d rather just never see beauty again…”. Often times when you’re in the trench, in the darkness of life happening to you, rather than with or for you, I just can’t shake the idea that sometimes, the hardships are just not worth it. The adage or “what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger” may very well be true, but it also makes people harder, and often times more cynical. I feel like the rocks in the ocean that eventually, after decades of getting pummeled by the sea, end up shattering into billions of pieces along the shore.

But I think this is where the letting go part applies. Without letting go, you will be shattered into a billion pieces, slowly but surely. Letting go allows you to float in the sea, being tossed around, rather than ground into dust. I’ve yet to really decide which I prefer, the steadfast nature of the cliff that slowly erodes into the sand, or the pebble that breaks away to be carried off by the tide to unknown places. I can say for sure that I’m tired either way. I’m tired of holding on, and I’m tired of the unknown surprises that come along in the surf.

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“I Don’t Know How You Do It”

I hear these words regularly about myself from friends and family. They usually are referring to my schedule or how many things I’m usually juggling, but last week it was about my blasted car.

A long, annoying story made very short: I drive an old, beat up car that is feeling it’s age and has come into some mechanical issues, namely not starting when I want it to.

A little back story about myself: I’m the oldest child in my family, fiercely independent and discontent with being anything but self sufficient. Yes, this makes me incredibly stubborn and often very frustrated. So the car hadn’t been starting and I figured it was 1 (or more) of 3 things: battery, starter, alternator. I’ve had experience with all of these things and it took about a day of spotty starting and the occasional jump start to know it was the starter. The battery was changed, because as we know, if there’s not enough power, it won’t start even with the best mechanical parts known to mankind. Needless to say, $300, a battery, a starter (that is not the right one for the car, but the right one for the engine… that leads one to think that it wasn’t a “rebuilt” engine as we were told, but rather a “replaced” engine of a different type than the one that is original to the car) and boat loads of frustration later, the car is “fixed”. There also seems to be a bad battery connection in there somewhere too… but at least it starts (usually) when prompted.

How does this insane story of futility and uncooperative vehicles pertain to “I don’t know how you do it”? Well, I’ve heard this when I’ve told the story this week. Not only has it been because I knew the problem, almost right away, and that’s apparently unusual for a woman in this day and age, but also due to the fact that I’ve not killed anyone or let on in mixed company that I was furious. People at work commented on how I looked like I was far too calm to have just wasted 6 hours of my life wrenching on a car that was still immobile, or that I was sunburned beyond recognition. Yet I still had a smile on my face and was laughing.

I want to mention that inside, I was a complete wreck and I’d had a full on freak out before my friend brought me to work, several hours late. Outside, I have to put on the brave face. There’s nothing that I could do and being upset about it and letting the situation ruin my work day was not an option. But again, inside, I was a disaster.

Now how does this pertain to happiness and my happiness project goals this month? Simple. Instead of screaming, crying or cursing in frustration, anger and sadness, I made the conscious choice (albeit a very difficult one) to appear happy. It made the day go much better at work and afterward, simply because I wasn’t complaining or being overly negative. Yes, the situation sucked, but no, I was not going to let the car get the best of me anymore that day.

I feel better that I was able to put on the brave face, I feel stronger because of it. I feel more confident in my ability to look as though I’m not bothered. I honestly felt like I was going to explode, but after several people assured me that I looked calm and collected, I knew I was going to be ok.

I also feel much better that it got fixed, with the help of a few people, either physically or emotionally, I didn’t explode. For that, I’m truly thankful. And in all honesty… that is how I do it. I have the support of those close to me in times of struggle. Yes, I’m fiercely independent and I shun the thought that I “need” anyone or anything from anyone. However, in all reality, I’d never have made it this far in life without those forces present in my life. The help of others allows me to do anything I am able to do… and even some things I’m not able to do. It’s a blessing and I’m eternally grateful for that.

(The above is what my car would look like, if it weren’t all beat to hell)

(http://theeverydaywarrior.com/2012/05/04/i-am-stubborn-and-i-know-it/)

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