This past week has really shaken me to my core! It's made me step back and realize the necessity of stepping back, even from your own thoughts, to gain a little perspective on who you are and what exactly it is that you're doing. In general, I think it's safe to say that we gravely underestimate the influence we have on people around us. In turn, I think it's safe to recognize the influence that others have on our lives as well; this is a lesson that is quite easy to recall when I think of my mom's saying, "Elizabeth, if you run with the wolves, you howl with them." The general idea that you are the company you keep is one that we've heard for years and years. Lucky for me, I've been blessed to be surrounded by amazing people who I have not only been given the gift to love unconditionally, but felt that unconditional love in return. From family, to friends, I would be lying if I ever questioned how lucky I am to have the people in my life that I have!
What lesson then has been so profound for me this week? Why do I feel like my MacBook that has just been rebooted?
When you're surrounded by such amazing people, it's easy to get caught up and enamored with who they are and the things they choose to do. Oh, the transparency I am risking by saying that sometimes I hang out with these amazing family and friends and come home thinking, "That's amazing that __________ is doing that, I should look into that!" or "I just talked to her on the phone (in Iowa) and she's doing this and this and this. Yeah, I should look into that, too!"
Before I know it, I find myself frantically grasping and pulling myself up onto someone else's mountain top, not my own. Beautiful and majestic as those outlooks can be, they are not mine to capture, rather, mine to appreciate. A not so subtle difference lies between the two.
I have had a hard week. A week where I've questioned just about everything about myself and my life from start to finish. A week where I've slept like miserably, ate miserably and felt just that.... miserable! I realized last night why I'm feeling so miserable and it's kind of beautiful in it's own way. I am feeling this way because I love and respect my family and friends so much that I compare myself to them, constantly. I consider it everyone else's fault, really. I mean, geez people, stop being so fun and interesting and this intrigue would cease!
So, I rebooted. I held down my start button until the screen went black and the electronic humming stopped. I waited a few minutes and as my index finger hovered over the white button, I thought to myself, "When this sucker comes back on, it's me and God this time."
I pressed down and voila, I'm still here and still me, just sans the evidence of all the times I've tried to fit into someone else's mold.
I want a family, I do. But right now, at this exact time in my life, I don't have that blessing. The other blessings I do have though, they are brilliant and mesmerizing and I cannot keep living my life not giving them the glory they deserve! Who knows, maybe next year, I'll be writing this blog from a city that I've never lived in before, sipping tea (coffee hurts my tummy, although it would be a much more romantic version of this sentence) thinking, I can't believe I wasn't embracing this!?
