Acceptance is Yellow Nourishment (WARNING: Long Post)

There is something that has been on my mind lately and it all feels very deja vu-ish, so if I've already written about this, however extensively, I apologize. This is weird... I feel the need to censor myself all of a sudden. I haven't felt that for a long time, I have no idea where it came from.

Anyway.I just wanted to share something I was thinking about the other night. I was laying in bed; as you can tell by now, majority of my nuggets of beauty come to me when I'm in bed.

I'm almost 27 years old. In one week and 2 days, I will be 27 years old. I remember being 11 years old and being prompted by an adult to write down my life goals in 5 year terms. I had absolutely no perspective, haha. I didn't understand life as a series of stages... and what I wanted to complete by whatever age. All I knew is that I wanted a family. I wanted to be a young mother... not maturity-young, but bodily-young because I wanted to experience as much of this world as possible with my children. I wanted to be a younger grandmother because I wanted to experience the joy of my grandchildren... I wanted to be an active figure in the lives of my children and grandchildren. I really hoped to be a great-grandmother. I remember my friends were horrified at the idea of living to be over the age of 90... they just thought that would be miserable. Me, I wanted to see as much of history as I could and I wanted to experience it with my posterity.

I never had the goal to complete my college education by a specific age, or to begin my career at another age... I never set a time for marriage, or for family; I just hoped that I would be blessed to joy in them all for a really long time. I had friends who planned every detail of their life. When they would meet the "man of their dreams", when they would do "everything" there was in life to do... and for some of them, they've achieved their goals, but they aren't joyful... they don't like the men they married. For others, none of their goals came to be, they were the ones who planned to study abroad and then live in Europe and work for major corporations and write brilliant novels on the sides... they are the ones who are married with children and they are happy and it's beautiful to watch them in their family units.

What is the point of this post? I guess I've been feeling rather nostalgic lately. I think Nostalgia is a good thing, though if left to its own devices, it can turn into a sickening thing. Where am I today? Where have my "life-goals" led me, or not lead me to, for that matter? I am a mother, I'm an "other" kind of mother, but I'm a mother all the same. And I do take great joy in the child of my heart. He is everything I ever envisioned joy to be. I'm not married. I thought I knew what love was when I met Baby Daddy... and I was sorely wrong. I have met true love and he was/is... everything I ever hoped for in a companion. As an 11 year old girl where the world still seemed possible to navigate, I didn't anticipate my life going this way. No one ever anticipates that their future will involve placing a child for adoption. No one ever anticipates that "love" would be so hard to recognize. No 11 year old anticipates... having to start over so many times in one lifetime.

I was thinking about all of this the other night and I think, it would be quite easy to be angry about everything. Is it sad? Yes, it is. Is it frustrating? Absolutely. Is it maddening? Fur sure. Does it make life more difficult. It would be silly to say no. Where is Joy? In all of this, there is joy. In a way, I've found exactly what I hoped I'd find as an 11 year old girl, I just didn't expect joy to be dressed the way she's presented herself in my life. The only thing I wanted for my future was joy, and I knew I would find it in my family... my own children and husband... and I will find that. The joy that I've found to this point looks slightly different, but she's still been found.

The thought that came to my mind the other night as I thought on all of this was, "The greatest joys in life are compassion, endearment, originality, friendship, and acknowledgement of the past; however very painful it might have been. You are no longer there; acknowlege this. Live your life where everything, even the impossible, brings you great pleasure. This is true nourishment." I would like to replace the word pleasure with joy.

I am not afraid of the impossible. I do not run from the difficult. I am not afraid of the difficult. I have joy. My life has taught me compassion. Compassion: the sympathetic awareness of another's distress combined with the desire to alleviate it. There is joy in this because I know that all the difficulty that I've experienced has taught me to be compassionate and I am joyful in this knowledge.

Endearment is the most beautiful form of love I think that exists. Endearment: a word or act that expresses affection. Sometimes the only thing that makes the difficult bearable is a hug, the touch of someone's hand holding your's to show a sacred form of solidarity that they are with you in that moment when you need someone's compassion the most. Endearment says what no words can. I'm not afraid to comfort and show love. I used to think I was, but recent memory has shown me the exact opposite.

Originality... this one is harder to express and explain. I don't have any remorse or regret for how I've lived my life. The only things I would have changed is that the father of my son would have been a different man... a specific man I know, and that he and I would have been in a place where we could have raised our son together. I don't regret the life of my son. Given the circumstances that surrounded his birth, I don't regret that his parents are who they are. They love him like I love him and I couldn't ask for anyone better. I created life. I created a family in a different way than I ever anticipated doing so. I'm a unique kind of mother and I don't regret that. I live life through experience... not through the example of another person's life experience. I see color where others see only black and white. There is no such thing as "bad" to me, only life. Life experiences are not so easily termed as "bad" or "good". People are not so easily categorized as "bad" or "good"... and I am joyful that my life experiences have taught me that everyone deserves love, no matter how different they are from me. That may not seem like such an original concept to you, but where I come from... it's amazing how closed-minded people can be, and I say that with as much respect as can possibly be applied to that sentiment.

Friendship: the quality of being friendly; not hostile; showing kindly interest or goodwill. It's easy to be friends with someone. It's easy to be an ally when the person you are friendly towards is similar to you. It isn't easy to show friendship towards someone who has hurt you or someone you love... I'm not perfect in this. This is definitely one I need to work on, but I have been shown this kind of kindness and I'm grateful to the person who has extended their friendship towards me when, it would seem to many around them, that their "loyalties" could easily be devoted elsewhere. I hope to one day achieve this brand of kindness. Again, I'm working on it. This kind of loyal compassion brings a joy that was unrecognizable before. It's truly beautiful.

Acknowledgement. This one is self-explanatory. It takes pondering and recognition of the difficult to come to terms with the good that is there. It may be hidden extremely well, but there truly is good in all the difficult that comes. I'm grateful for my life and how it's played out. I'm grateful for the hardships I'e experienced because it's given me perspective.

Live. Definition: to continue alive; to have a life rich in experience. "To continue alive", how beautiful is that. I'm finding that there is poetry in simple statements. To continue through difficulty, not with the sense of surviving, but with the goal to live the experience. To not be afraid of the moment of trial, but to meet it and welcome it and live it. To experience experience. To not hide from the possibility of hurt, and to open yourself up again to the potential of hurt. To be grateful that you can feel. To be grateful that you are affected.

Nourishment: the state of being nourished. I'm going to take creative liberties with this one. I'd like you to, instead, think of emotional nourishment in regards to this word. I think that nourishment comes from when you no longer view a situation as, "what was done to me," but rather, "what I now know having experience [insert situation]". This is a hard one and one I'm not very good at... yet. The first step in doing this is to recognize the shift of thought. Life happens... fast. It comes at you out of nowhere, you will be going along comfortably and then something completely unexpectedly rocks your world. Nourishment does not come from turning those moments into the purpose of your life. Nourishment comes from letting them happen and continuing to live through them and after their quake. It's hard. I've only recently caught on to this... and I know where I can apply the knowledge to... it's just learning to let go of the hurt that is hard. And that's the point, there isn't anything productive about hurt. There isn't anything nourishing about hurt. Hurt is cancer. Nourishment is acceptance.

Acceptance is yellow... it is balance.