As tired as I am, rest and sleep seem elusive tonight. Thoughts, however, those are plentiful!! So instead of being lost in some great and amazing dream, here I am atop my soapbox perch lost in a rant.
Life, or rather navigating life, is an all too crazy experience. What is important? What matters? What should I do? What shouldn’t I do? The questions are endless and we can spend our whole lives looking for answers that we miss the opportunity to fully enjoy the precious time that is given to us. They say that hindsight is 20/20. Of course it is! If I knew everything then that I know today, I would be a fool not to make changes! Or would I!?! Because every change that I would make to my past means an alteration to my present and so if I fixed the “bad” of then would I still appreciate the “good” of today?
Each of our histories are full of things that we are probably less than thrilled to recall. Lord knows that mine is! I like to think of myself as a smart, educated, kind, generous and likeable person (the list could go on and on!), but for each of the positive adjectives that I would like to use to describe myself, there are probably countless other less-desirable words that could be used to identify me at one point or another along my journey so far, and rightfully so.
I’m not perfect. Not even close! But on a daily basis, we market ourselves. From our Facebook profiles to our resumes, to our cocktail hours we put our best out for others to see and hope that is all that they buy. And believe me, I am not pointing fingers! I’ve already said it before – I have an approval addiction. So I am certainly not one to embrace and share my hiccups, heartaches and general eff-ups. Well, not unless I am paying you hundreds of dollars per hour. In that case how much time do you have!?!
Life isn’t about being perfect, easy and ideal. Sure, that is nice to idealize, but it’s not reality. Life is about reconciling our eff-ups so that we can make a better tomorrow in spite of yesterday. The struggle, strife and conflict that we endure, and more importantly, how we endure it, is what really makes us who we are. It’s easy to wallow in self pity. It’s harder to own and embrace our faults and expecting and require others to love us despite them too! I am working on this one... Baby steps.
Live. Laugh. Love. Those are more than words that adorn pictures, frames and home décor found in our mother’s homes. They are words to live by (hence the first word!). I want to live and enjoy the time that I have. I want to laugh and find the humor in all, even when I make mistakes, when I hurt or when life seems unbearable. God gave us the ability to laugh, even thru our tears, for a reason! It’s okay to laugh at myself and from time to time it may even be okay for others to laugh at me too! (KEYWORD: MAY be!)
Lastly, I want to love. I want to love regardless of rules, regulations, or expectations – imposed by myself or anyone else. I realize and accept the risk that I may not always be loved back as equally as I love and as hard as that is and will be, it’s okay. I can make it. Have before, and I can again. I want to love with all my heart because not until I know what it’s like to offer full and unconditional love will I know what it’s like to receive the same in return.
I don’t want to worry about the “what ifs”, “what abouts” and all of the things that I can’t change. The fact is I’ve messed up and I will again. I’m going to fall, but as soon as I do I am going to pick myself back up and do my best to learn not to fall in the same place again. And I do then I will look for another lesson to be learned. Like the prayer says: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Courage to change the things that I can. And wisdom to know the difference.” AMEN and goodnight!!!
