The main reason I started writing this blog was to talk about Open Adoption and offer my perspective on it as a birth mother. From this I have learned more about myself and who I was and I have a really good idea about who it is I want to become. What I've noticed along the way is that it is so much easier to look back to another time and see who you were and then look forward to recognize the type of person you want to become; but the current "who am I right now?" is the hard question to ask because you are stuck in the "now". I don't know if I've talked about this before or given this specific example but there is this little story that narrates better what I'm trying to say... to a degree. It goes something like this:
Imagine you are a carrot and you are going along in life as you know it, minding your own business and going with the flow when all of a sudden your world and all that you know is interrupted and you find yourself spinning out of control and you start colliding with potatos and pieces of chicken and celery. With each collision you feel more and more pain but you can't figure out where it is you are and where you're going, but all you want to do is to get back to where you were because you weren't spinning out of control then. You go on in this fashion for quite some time and just when you think that all is lost, or you will never find yourself again, you are out of the muck and you are looking down on the confusion and chaos. You look around yourself and take in your surroundings and you wipe the muck away from your eyes and you look down at where you came from and it all makes sense finally. You understand that you are part of stew.
I know that sounds so silly. And I don't mean to make light of the gravity of what I will be attempting to say from here on out. Here's the point, we are all part of stew. Life is stew and we are part of it and every now and then our lives will be interrupted by a big "stir". For the most part we won't see the "stir" coming until we are swept away in it. That's when life is chaotic and hard because you feel like you are out of control... like you have no control over your own life anymore. You collide with people that leave you hurting, you collide with experience that leaves you feeling damaged and incomplete, you lose every sense of security you used to have and realize that you took that security for granted and you want desperately to get back to the place that felt safe. And then, before you know it, you aren't spinning anymore and things are calm and quiet. You are still a little dizzy from the "stir" but it's easier to find solid ground and you can see and what you see is where you came from was no where you'd like to be again and the bigger picture is more obvious. It's in that moment that you understand where you want to go and you know a little better who you are, but even that is confusing because you are a different person from who you once were.
I'm in that place right now. My eyes are open and I can see. It's so interesting because I had this idea at the beginning of this year that I would live my life "red"... or fearless. Well folks, that's proving more uncomfortable than I ever thought it would be. And that's okay. This is what I've learned so far this year:
1- Fear is always there. The point is to break through the fear that is holding me back.
2- It's not healthy/good to base all your dreams and goals into one "thing" because if you do and that's your only focus then you will miss all the important lessons that come with the experience of living.
I've been working towards a major goal and I pushed all other goals out of the way to make it to this one goal and I am so near completion that it's liberating, but during this process my life was "stirred" unexpectedly and the original goal has somewhat changed or been postponed... or is unattainable at this point. And now I'm understanding that outside of that one goal, I didn't have anything else to work towards, so now I'm left wondering "what now?" And that's the point. "What now?"
One thing I've noticed during the process of this blog is that I learn things about myself I never set out to learn and they are invaluable. With the support of some very dear friends I am learning how to be happy in myself rather than placing my happiness in things that are "to come"... what does that mean? "To come" is not a subjective time frame... it's a horizon. That "to come" may never come and depending on how invested I am in the stuff of life, I might not recognize the "to come" should it actually come.
I need to find happiness in my self and I need to find security in myself before I can ever be a security for anyone else. I'm glad I see this now because it could have lead to some very disastrous and unnecessary hardship. That's not to say that life won't stir up more difficulty, but I feel better equipped now to face it when it comes. I'm learning who I am and I'm learning to love her and appreciate and respect her. I'm learning that she's a bit quirky, but she's full of compassion and has so much love to give even if sometimes it doesn't seem that way.
My goal is to get back into school. My goal is to focus on my hobbies and develop my talents. My goal is to speak kindly to myself and not put myself down. I really want to eliminate the word "can't" from my vocabulary... that one may take a little more time to accomplish and if I don't accomplish it, then I would at least like to retrain my thoughts to not automatically turn down something I would have never thought to try in the first place because, maybe when I try, I'll like it after all. How do you know you aren't able to do something or that you won't like it if you don't at least give it your best attempt at least once. This is the direction this blog is going to take. I know who I was, now is the time to focus on who I currently am and that will naturally lead into the person I want to become... and she's pretty stellar because she's who I am now and ever was; the only difference is she knows it.
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