Thursday, March 27, 2008
Rediscovered
I want to thank everyone who has been there for me whenever I have needed them. I want to thank the friends who have known me for years and will sacrifice what they can to make sure that I am okay. I appreciate the new friends who manage to care about me and be there for me, not knowing me for that long or that well, but knowing that our friendship is something special and taking the time to make sure that as their friend, I am doing okay
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Read Me
In the past few weeks, I have started to feel like my life is an open book - more specifically, an open FaceBook. And it is not something that sits well with me. I have never been one to share my thoughts and feelings openly, yet like everyone in the world, there is something about staring into a computer screen that makes things seem a bit less real and yet that much more intiimate. And I share - my status on any given day is a reflection of what I am thinking or feeling, even when I am not ready to share it with those closest to me. I have found myself changing and rearranging things as events happen in my life and more than anything, FaceBook could be the most accurate reflection of my inner landscape. There are so many things that people can't guess at, yet they lie somewhere on here, waiting to be discovered.
But as I said at the start - I am feeling too open at that moment when all I want to be is closed. There are so many things happening in my life that can't even be guessed at because I can only share them with a select few, only share them face to face, and even then, I have learned there are things and thoughts I should hold inside - so I do. But part of feeling so exposed, so vulnerable is I find myself pulling back. I know that I have made some wonderful friends through FaceBook - through various sources, but I find myself feeling a little lost.
I am accepting invites because I feel obligated, not because I have any desire to go out. And when I get there, I feel like I am letting others down - by being one place and not another. Or being out with just one person when I should be out with ten thousand. Or feeling like I have not spent enough time with the people who matter, even if they seem to be permanently at my side. Because I am finding myself constantly surrounded by others, and yet realizing that I know no one. That no one knows me. Even those who should. And even those I want to know, I feel further and further away from - wondering what I need to do to get closer to them, realizing that I may never.
And so I am withdrawing. This is my manifesto to my friends on FaceBook (and you know who you are). I don't have it in me to feel the way I do and to keep my calendar busy. So I am stepping back, stepping aside, hiding away from the world. Whatever you want to call it. I am shutting the book and retiring into my thoughts. I need to feel more grounded than I do at the moment and I need my friends to understand. I know the real ones will - the ones that I will see throughout this time of solitude in more casual, comfortable settings. The ones who will continue to be there for me and the ones who I can depend on. The ones I am happy to know better, to be around, the ones who let me be.
I know not everyone will understand this. I know there will be those who see this as a sign of things to come. That somehow there are changes coming and they will enquire, they will search, they will try to rustle the pages to find the truth. But the only truth that lies there is that I am tired and I am stressed. That my life is good but that I am a solitary creature and I need my time to reflect and let go, as much as fish need water to breathe and birds need wings to fly. Friends like these will show themselves in the coming weeks, I fear, and somehow will fall to the wayside, if they have not already. Friends - true friends - will understand, will not pressure, will not somehow think that this is a judgement on them or their importance, and will welcome me back when I am centred and I have found the calm I am searching for right now
Monday, March 3, 2008
Sustenance
I have been wondering recently what it takes to sustain a good relationship. After all, it's obvious that love is not always enough. We see that everyday - in the news, reading our morning or evening free papers, in shows and in real life - we know couples fall madly in love with each other and yet, they still can't make it through the myriad pitfalls that can strike a relationship. I know that there are people I have loved - people that perhaps I still love in my own way - and yet, we never made it through. Perhaps when the relationship changed, the love I felt changed as well but I honestly don't think it faded.
So what then? Is it trust? I have always believed so but yet, I have been proven wrong. I have chosen to stay in relationships where I felt like my trust had been betrayed. I handed someone my heart, I made myself vulnerable, and in their own way, they trampled on the fire that I felt. Amazing how cold a heart becomes once someone douses the flames - when someone's actions make you question everything else they say and do. So it must be trust. Without it, how could you function as part of a couple? How could you let your partner out of your sight or even out of mobile range? But yet, there are couples who survive the worst of betrayals: infidelity. There are couples who can take the experience and rebuild their trust. Perhaps it is not perfect, perhaps someone will always feel cheated and wronged and always have a niggling doubt; and yet, relationships endure.
So if not love and if not trust, then what sustains a relationship? What is the secret that those enduring couples have that everyone else seems to be searching for. Is it the patience to accept that someone will inevitably hurt you when you date them? That to be in a relationship is to want to place someone's feelings and happiness above your own, knowing all the while that it will fail. Because we are all selfish creatures and we all look out for number one; we all look out and protect ourselves. Perhaps there are moments we can overcome that, but in the end, being hurt by what is done and what is not done just makes you even more protective of yourself. Makes you an even more selfish individual and perhaps makes you more likely to strike out and hurt the ones you love.
If not love or trust or patience, is it the willingness to compromise? To know that sometimes the love grows cold, that you have reached the end of you patience and your trust is some foggy memory of times past, is it the willingness to sit down and talk and figure out a way forward? Words seem a poor excuse for passion and understanding and caring, but perhaps in the end, the most successful couples are the ones who can compromise. The ones who let some of their wants and needs go just to fit into the mold of "the successful couple". Maybe being a successful couple is not about being 'right' for each other, but about how badly you want what you have and the lengths you are willing to go for it. Maybe being in a successful relationship is all about simply molding yourself to the ideals in your mind and following that model. Maybe the only way to be happy as a couple is to concede...
So what then? Is it trust? I have always believed so but yet, I have been proven wrong. I have chosen to stay in relationships where I felt like my trust had been betrayed. I handed someone my heart, I made myself vulnerable, and in their own way, they trampled on the fire that I felt. Amazing how cold a heart becomes once someone douses the flames - when someone's actions make you question everything else they say and do. So it must be trust. Without it, how could you function as part of a couple? How could you let your partner out of your sight or even out of mobile range? But yet, there are couples who survive the worst of betrayals: infidelity. There are couples who can take the experience and rebuild their trust. Perhaps it is not perfect, perhaps someone will always feel cheated and wronged and always have a niggling doubt; and yet, relationships endure.
So if not love and if not trust, then what sustains a relationship? What is the secret that those enduring couples have that everyone else seems to be searching for. Is it the patience to accept that someone will inevitably hurt you when you date them? That to be in a relationship is to want to place someone's feelings and happiness above your own, knowing all the while that it will fail. Because we are all selfish creatures and we all look out for number one; we all look out and protect ourselves. Perhaps there are moments we can overcome that, but in the end, being hurt by what is done and what is not done just makes you even more protective of yourself. Makes you an even more selfish individual and perhaps makes you more likely to strike out and hurt the ones you love.
If not love or trust or patience, is it the willingness to compromise? To know that sometimes the love grows cold, that you have reached the end of you patience and your trust is some foggy memory of times past, is it the willingness to sit down and talk and figure out a way forward? Words seem a poor excuse for passion and understanding and caring, but perhaps in the end, the most successful couples are the ones who can compromise. The ones who let some of their wants and needs go just to fit into the mold of "the successful couple". Maybe being a successful couple is not about being 'right' for each other, but about how badly you want what you have and the lengths you are willing to go for it. Maybe being in a successful relationship is all about simply molding yourself to the ideals in your mind and following that model. Maybe the only way to be happy as a couple is to concede...
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Looking Back
How to read this one:
1) see the poem 'The Road Less Traveled' by Robert Frost and read; this is the starting page of sorts
2) continue on and read the insight into me, taken from my last year in undergrad at university.......
“Don’t put off till tomorrow what can be enjoyed today.”
Josh Billings
Ever since I was younger, I have walked the road less traveled. I have never had to try hard academically and I have always managed to do well. You may be thinking how lucky I have been but I have also never been just one of the crowd. When you are younger, you want to fit in and when you can’t, it changes the very world you live in. I have always been the smart girl, which only holds currency among your elders. To my peers, I have always been the fat one. A label that means I have always been the kid who has been picked on, the kid who goes home crying and the kid who learns not to stand out – to blend in to the background as much as possible and not be noticed.
No surprise that my first semester here (university) was spent with an unvarying routine – class, home, study. I rarely spoke up in class. I did not want to know people and I did not want people to know I was different. I wanted to walk along that road that everyone goes down. I wanted to follow. But life happens, no matter how much you try to avoid it. I went through so many trials during my second semester at UM that I was ready to give up but summer brings a form of redemption. I did not have to face the tribulations of college and by fall, I was ready for whatever would come.
My second year at UM, also my junior year, found me at a crossroads somewhere in my own personal woods. I was not sure whether I wanted to continue the path I had been on or if I wanted to start on a new path. I resolved to step onto an alternative route, a path I had never taken in my life. But new paths mean uncertainties and fears. Yet I decided to stand out and so I joined COISO (council of international students and organizations). It was not that radical a step, at least in my mind. I could be with people I understood, people who were not that different from myself and maybe, I could just be one of the crowd. Besides, I argued, I could always turn back if the path seemed too weary and wondrous. I could quit and sink into the backdrop again.
However, taking that first stride works its magic upon you. It makes you a little more yourself. Maybe it was the people that I met along the way or the experience of just being in an environment with others who choose to stand out and be different, people who refuse to wander off into nothingness, but I changed and I kept moving onwards. My list of activities grew and I started to nurture my inner self that I had always denied. I nursed my caring side and became a peer counselor, I joined Student Government to be heard and I received every honor and distinction that came my way as recognition of what I had personally achieved in such a short time. Every activity included a diverse set of people, a different way of being, but every single one highlighted and built upon differing aspects of myself. Despite this, one concept has always come into play in every moment of my day and that is my willingness to face any obstacle and surmount it. I refuse to be beaten down by challenges and cower into a type of insignificance since I have started walking my path.
And now I seem to have the spotlight on myself. Every where I venture, people know me by name, face or reputation. I admit it has not always been the best renown and the road has not always been as straight or as easy as I imagined it to be once I started along it but it has always been good. I have not regretted any of the things I have done. I have not always walked this path alone but I have always walked it for myself. And I hope to always walk along this cluttered path because it has made me who I am and can only guide me even further in who I am to become. Yes, I may still veil myself in obscurity, never being a president or chair of any of my involvements, but at least I know I am still being true to myself.
In the end, I have not been the first one down this road. There have been leaders before me and there will be leaders after me but the most important thing has been accepting that path. By stepping on to the road less traveled, I made a step towards accepting who I am “and that has made all the difference.”
1) see the poem 'The Road Less Traveled' by Robert Frost and read; this is the starting page of sorts
2) continue on and read the insight into me, taken from my last year in undergrad at university.......
“Don’t put off till tomorrow what can be enjoyed today.”
Josh Billings
Ever since I was younger, I have walked the road less traveled. I have never had to try hard academically and I have always managed to do well. You may be thinking how lucky I have been but I have also never been just one of the crowd. When you are younger, you want to fit in and when you can’t, it changes the very world you live in. I have always been the smart girl, which only holds currency among your elders. To my peers, I have always been the fat one. A label that means I have always been the kid who has been picked on, the kid who goes home crying and the kid who learns not to stand out – to blend in to the background as much as possible and not be noticed.
No surprise that my first semester here (university) was spent with an unvarying routine – class, home, study. I rarely spoke up in class. I did not want to know people and I did not want people to know I was different. I wanted to walk along that road that everyone goes down. I wanted to follow. But life happens, no matter how much you try to avoid it. I went through so many trials during my second semester at UM that I was ready to give up but summer brings a form of redemption. I did not have to face the tribulations of college and by fall, I was ready for whatever would come.
My second year at UM, also my junior year, found me at a crossroads somewhere in my own personal woods. I was not sure whether I wanted to continue the path I had been on or if I wanted to start on a new path. I resolved to step onto an alternative route, a path I had never taken in my life. But new paths mean uncertainties and fears. Yet I decided to stand out and so I joined COISO (council of international students and organizations). It was not that radical a step, at least in my mind. I could be with people I understood, people who were not that different from myself and maybe, I could just be one of the crowd. Besides, I argued, I could always turn back if the path seemed too weary and wondrous. I could quit and sink into the backdrop again.
However, taking that first stride works its magic upon you. It makes you a little more yourself. Maybe it was the people that I met along the way or the experience of just being in an environment with others who choose to stand out and be different, people who refuse to wander off into nothingness, but I changed and I kept moving onwards. My list of activities grew and I started to nurture my inner self that I had always denied. I nursed my caring side and became a peer counselor, I joined Student Government to be heard and I received every honor and distinction that came my way as recognition of what I had personally achieved in such a short time. Every activity included a diverse set of people, a different way of being, but every single one highlighted and built upon differing aspects of myself. Despite this, one concept has always come into play in every moment of my day and that is my willingness to face any obstacle and surmount it. I refuse to be beaten down by challenges and cower into a type of insignificance since I have started walking my path.
And now I seem to have the spotlight on myself. Every where I venture, people know me by name, face or reputation. I admit it has not always been the best renown and the road has not always been as straight or as easy as I imagined it to be once I started along it but it has always been good. I have not regretted any of the things I have done. I have not always walked this path alone but I have always walked it for myself. And I hope to always walk along this cluttered path because it has made me who I am and can only guide me even further in who I am to become. Yes, I may still veil myself in obscurity, never being a president or chair of any of my involvements, but at least I know I am still being true to myself.
In the end, I have not been the first one down this road. There have been leaders before me and there will be leaders after me but the most important thing has been accepting that path. By stepping on to the road less traveled, I made a step towards accepting who I am “and that has made all the difference.”
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