With the new year comes new resolve, new needs, new requirements and challenges. Some self-inflicted, but many just the result of time moving -- constantly pushing and pulling against the rocks on the shore, smoothing them and yet chipping away at them grain by grain.
But it's that continual erosion. That falling away, whatever form it may take for you that's so hard to ignore. So hard to resolve in your mind. It's almost as if your self-image is set too early, your self ideal doesn't realize that while exciting and virile, youth is fleeting -- and it's who you choose to become as you grow that defines you so much more than what you looked like and who you ran with when you had acne.
Of course, if it were just a mental process -- just a weighing of differences and perspectives, everyone would get it. But it's not just that. Your body changes, your health varies. Your environment, the people in it, your financial standing, your personal momentum, the lenses you see the world through -- so many things pulling against you, trying to break you down.
If life were a movie, each extra 10 pounds would be a plot point to resolve. Each loved one we lose would come back to us in the form of a new plucky pet, or a ghostly spirit telling us we need to go the Dagobah system.
But when you're here -- on the other side where you know all the characters' names on TV shows you don't watch, where you twitter/formspring/facebook/myspace/blog more to people you'll maybe never even meet than you do with people you see every day..
When you feel the acceleration of the current all around you, but all you can seem to see and react to is the way it feels like it's washing you away all the while -- that's when it's all to easy to let yourself get lost in that feeling. To lament your perceived inabilities, to overplay your imagined circumstances, to lend weight to the things that you think are holding you down..
Now is the time. This is the call. You have to step out the door. You have to stretch your arms out to others before they can embrace you. You have to put down the McMuffin. You have to stop talking about moving, and find a way to get there.
I know it's hard. I know it's so much more familiar on that couch, in that job, at that weight. I know that sometimes having an ideal image in your mind is just enough comfort that it's sometimes easy to just be warmed by that fantasy instead of going out into the snow, cutting down the biggest tree you can find and start building with it.
The trick is to love the polish, and not lament the losses.A smooth river stone is mature. Classy. Unique. Resilience rewarded with a natural beauty that can't be bought in a store or injected by a doctor. No two are the same, but where there is one, you are bound to find more. In a lot of ways you want to find more.
But it's that continual erosion. That falling away, whatever form it may take for you that's so hard to ignore. So hard to resolve in your mind. It's almost as if your self-image is set too early, your self ideal doesn't realize that while exciting and virile, youth is fleeting -- and it's who you choose to become as you grow that defines you so much more than what you looked like and who you ran with when you had acne.
Of course, if it were just a mental process -- just a weighing of differences and perspectives, everyone would get it. But it's not just that. Your body changes, your health varies. Your environment, the people in it, your financial standing, your personal momentum, the lenses you see the world through -- so many things pulling against you, trying to break you down.
If life were a movie, each extra 10 pounds would be a plot point to resolve. Each loved one we lose would come back to us in the form of a new plucky pet, or a ghostly spirit telling us we need to go the Dagobah system.
It's odd, because when life is fluid, changes frequently come at you too fast. You constantly hear people saying they wish everything would just slow down, that they need some sort of break from it all.If life were a film, montages would fix everything...But it's not.
But when you're here -- on the other side where you know all the characters' names on TV shows you don't watch, where you twitter/formspring/facebook/myspace/blog more to people you'll maybe never even meet than you do with people you see every day..
When you feel the acceleration of the current all around you, but all you can seem to see and react to is the way it feels like it's washing you away all the while -- that's when it's all to easy to let yourself get lost in that feeling. To lament your perceived inabilities, to overplay your imagined circumstances, to lend weight to the things that you think are holding you down..
I don't know anyone who's ever only spent one Christmas alone.Why we let ourselves sink is sometimes hard to say, because it's slightly different person to person -- but once you let that inertia free, it's hard to push it back. It takes time to break the habits, to walk into the cold without the jacket you've wrapped around yourself so tightly.
You know this already. You know that you have to get up. To work out. To redefine. To reclaim those things that are yours, and to let go of the weight that holds you back. You know, but it's not enough.But you have to do it.
Now is the time. This is the call. You have to step out the door. You have to stretch your arms out to others before they can embrace you. You have to put down the McMuffin. You have to stop talking about moving, and find a way to get there.
I know it's hard. I know it's so much more familiar on that couch, in that job, at that weight. I know that sometimes having an ideal image in your mind is just enough comfort that it's sometimes easy to just be warmed by that fantasy instead of going out into the snow, cutting down the biggest tree you can find and start building with it.
While I'm here. While I'm able. I'm going to live. I'm going to laugh. I'm going to love. I'm going to stop worrying and learn to love the bomb.But I swear, if I have to spend another Christmas alone. If I have
to go through the holidays even one more time looking out the window..
And I want you to come with me.
Add your own soundtrack if you need, but right now this one is working pretty well for me.
[Listening to: The Cool Kids - "One Two" ]
Comments
this was a really good pep talk you gave yourself here...
as far as being alone on Christmas I guess I never put that much stock into it...I can count on 1 hand how many Christmases I've spent with someone...and I'll be 40 in June (remember my b-day you are going to give me)
shoot there have been a few where I sent the boy off with his father and I stayed home with a good book...didn't even visit my family...my mother cussed me out but I was still here in this house by myself...and quite content...
I try not to let the nothing (loneliness) control my life...because when you do you make stupid mistakes and end up with someone that isn't worthy of you...
don't be to hard on yourself and don't let the nothing have that much control....