Peace

A summary of the last two weeks; growth, goodbyes, and blue skies.

I wrote one of the hardest messages to someone I loved a great deal yesterday. It was no easy feat and something I'd been struggling with since school started as to if things could go back, trying to make it work, and accepting sometimes we break each other and that can't be undone. I will miss this person greatly as I do every time I have to transition into a new phase in my life but I think it's best for both of us.

I feel a sense of peace about it. That now I can finish healing and stop worrying about texting too much, not enough, about coordinating times to hang out that never happened anyway, about something that has been lost for months now.

At the same time I realized how not close my extended family is last week. It was a shock because as foolish as it was I believed it was like it'd always been that they would fight, make up, and no matter what when push came to shove we'd be there for each other. That is not the case, and I'm making peace with that too.

I cannot force someone to care about me in the same way I can't keep giving all I've got to people who don't care.

I'm happy because resolution is the first step to complete healing and I'm proud because I never thought I'd have the strength to say goodbye to people. I typically haven't in the past. I seldom end things, but I have this time and I know it was right. The variety of connections ending served a purpose in my life, and I'm not exactly sure what that was just now, and I most likely won't be able to see the impact of it for a while but I do know this.

I will be better and stronger this way.
So will they.
I want only the best for them.
and now I can focus on my own future instead of the past.

Goodbyes are one of the hardest things about the human experience but holding onto something that no longer exists is one of the worst things we do to ourselves. I'm not self sabotaging anymore and I know what I deserve and it's better than what fragments were there and now I'm looking forward to blue skies.

Til next time....

Mixed Bag

So my first week in my final year at University is about to end. It's an odd feeling. I think it's been mostly good - well wait - I'll check:

The Good:

All great professors ( SCORE )
Good classes, excluding one potentially dull one
TONS of friend time
Lots of laughs
Have done 3 things I have never done before at school
Wildly successful first STLF meeting
Working with some of the best people I've ever worked with
No bumps in the logistics of starting this new year
Working with other orgs
Tortilla soup is back
My growing and evolving relationship with God(by far the best thing I got from the last onslaught of heartbreaks)

The Bad:

Some STLF messiness from the past that needs to/is getting cleared up (though that could be a good too)
Still broke
Some things seem to never change
I'm confused about what the right thing is in a few areas of my life
Awkward run ins

Yeah, so it is a mixed bag, but it's mostly good. I'm excited about the opportunity to build/rebuild an org that matters to me, I'm excited to focus on school, I'm excited about the sweet roommates I have this year, I'm excited that my theme for this year is to do new things I've never done (at least one a week) but there's still some things and some people that I'm uncertain about, some patterns I'm worried about, and some other stuff.

Every new start had to start with a first step, and this year is mine.
I am proud of me.

Transformation

When we are little we are asked what we may like to be one day?
                  My answers ranged from writer, fashion designer, lawyer, starving artist, and other assorted titles.

As I found myself in college it was less about the title of what I would be and who it was I wanted to be - strong, funny, comfortable with myself, assertive, volunteer focuses, independent, loved, always striving for a better version of myself, open to life and all it's happiness and pain among other things.

As I consider this now, about to start in my last year in University, I find that while my major changed as often as my childhood answer, and my job desires don't even align with the major I'll graduate with and while I've made great progress in who I want to be now it's shifted still. Now instead of desiring a new laundry list of attributes I want or job titles - I want to accept myself, just as I am, highly emotional, passionate, overly invested, flawed but ultimately good natured me. Yes I do have elements of my personality that can be hard to handle, but that's not according to me. That has been according to everyone else. In the last year I had several friends I thought were like family tell me off for those characteristics of being too much to handle in the areas of emotions and ups and downs and by God I am, but I'm done feeling ashamed for it.

This is who I am. I cry my eyes out often, laugh often, and hit very low lows, but I also experience every moment of life and I wouldn't have it any other way and that dynamic quality is something worth loving.( and for the record an acceptable healthy personality type) I'm not a bad person for being myself and as I look to the future I see that what I want is to not lose sight of that self acceptance for anyone, always learn and grow, be a good role model (which admittedly this last year I potentially was not) go on adventures in my twenties, and hopefully start a family (adopted family) in my early thirties. I want to take in the children that were also made to feel decidedly less for simply existing as they are and give them a home in myself. I want to live in a city, far, far away from Minnesota a state that holds too many heartbreaks for me already, and live a life I can be proud of and through doing so move the world one step closer to a better tomorrow. (that's my life motto - the one good thing I got from my leadership minor)

I'm sure this year at school will offer ups, downs, a few good chats, a few good cries, and way too many goodbyes, but I feel good about where I'm going, about my transformation into the next stage of my life whatever it may hold and no along the way I will have no problem finding love, laughter, and people to share it with because for all that is deemed wrong in me I have never had a problem opening up and accepting others. I love like others breathe, automatically, and without effort and for that, even in a world where I'm told I should be ashamed of that, I'm grateful to God for that. It's perhaps the single quality of myself I've grown most proud of.