I have been feeling very selfish lately. It's actually something I started to feel a couple of years ago, though I relished in it because I had never really truly been selfish. I felt deprived of taking care of myself and giving myself what I needed and putting myself first. There are so many things I want to do in life that I'm afraid to do anything that might stifle accomplishing those things. I guess what has finally brought me to actually right about it is because lately the thought of children has passed my mind more and more often.
I'm at that age, my body sometimes tells me how much it wants me to have a child, but I am no where ready for that. I have always known that. I've felt that I've wanted children in my life very badly, but always when I was older. Now I am older, I am getting older, and as I get closer to the age of last possibilities (which I realize is still a far way away) I still keep saying, maybe when I'm older. But then I start to wonder, how old "when I'm older" will I be? I have wanted children since I was a little girl. But I want to travel, I will want selfish time with my husband. I will want time with myself. I have so many books I want to read. I have so many things I want to do. I feel the need to not be dragged down by schedules or necessities. Babies cry all night and need constant care and attention. Children need raising, the cost, the time, the effort. Why did I want children again?? To have something fun to play with, to dress, to watch grow and learn and know I brought it into life? Is that really that appealing? And yet I can't imagine not having children. That distresses me.
But I really start to wonder, do I really want children? I really don't know. And perhaps I won't know until my selfish phase passes, which I know it will pass. But I don't know if that is what controls the feeling of wanting children or not or if it's something deeper. I have so much to learn in life. I like not being tied down. I like being able to experience things on my own, when I want, how I want. I like my freedom. I don't know, it is just a very uneasy feeling at the same time. It must mean I feel imbalanced. Can I really have the best of both worlds though? Maybe I should just stop worrying about it all and learn to live life as it comes. I still have not mastered that yet. I would very much like to one day. I think Jason can teach me a lot about that. Hopefully he will teach me and I won't ruin him with the way I worry. Hopefully I will learn much more about myself and others through this masters program. Hopefully I will get in! Until I find out though, I can practice living one day at a time, living in the now. Finding peace in time passing by at the rate it will pass. I need a lot of practice.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Death and Ceremony
So my grandmother passed April 11th. Death is such an unusual thing. My great grandmother passed away last September and I mourned but I wasn't as close to her. This seems a bit different but at the same time it doesn't. I didn't have the chance to go to my great grandmother's funeral but I was able to fly home and I attended my grandmother's funeral and burial. On the plane ride over I was reading a dream psychology and active imagination book by Robert Johnson and there was a chapter about how important ceremony is. It made me think a lot about ceremony and its importance. The book used the example about modern people (this book was written in the 70s P.S.) who walk away from going to church because they don't believe they need church to enhance their spirituality. It also spoke about how our primitive ancestors put so much emphasis on ceremony because they understood the importance of ceremony and how it is able to bring you closer to spirituality.
The author wrote about how our ancestors were closer to spirituality and their inner selves and how much ceremony plays into that. This all makes me think about symbols and metaphors and how ceremonies cover these things. For example, I really am not a big funeral fan. It doesn't do anything for me. I understand how some people need to gather and talk about the person and mourn together, but it just has never done much for me. I even felt slightly inappropriate because I couldn't help myself from smiling a lot at people at my grandmother's funeral, because I am just used to smiling at people usually. I also wanted to laugh to myself because everything felt so, oh I don't know, movie-ish, it was almost comically depressing. It just really didn't have a lot of meaning to me. Though when I went to the burial, it was completely different. I had more emotion and was able to take that ceremony much more seriously.
Listening to the preacher say the final words over her casket and laying the flower on her casket and watching them lower her into the ground, that meant so much more to me. It was beautiful and I was able to let go and mourn properly. I watched my tears fall onto her casket in the ground as I leaned over to rail to look down at her for the last time. It was all very beautiful and very sad. But the words and their metaphors as well as the metaphor of lowering her body into the ground as a final goodbye was really amazing. I really believe it helped me process her death and allowed me to let go and find my peace with her spirit released into heaven. This week has really made me think more about ceremonies and how important they really are. To take away the importance of a ceremony takes away the higher connection it has to the inner self and the power of the universe. I think I may focus more on ceremonies and look deeper into their metaphors to understand their importance and how it can help my inner self and my connection to spirituality. Though that may be a more difficult task in today's society, but who doesn't enjoy a challenge?
The author wrote about how our ancestors were closer to spirituality and their inner selves and how much ceremony plays into that. This all makes me think about symbols and metaphors and how ceremonies cover these things. For example, I really am not a big funeral fan. It doesn't do anything for me. I understand how some people need to gather and talk about the person and mourn together, but it just has never done much for me. I even felt slightly inappropriate because I couldn't help myself from smiling a lot at people at my grandmother's funeral, because I am just used to smiling at people usually. I also wanted to laugh to myself because everything felt so, oh I don't know, movie-ish, it was almost comically depressing. It just really didn't have a lot of meaning to me. Though when I went to the burial, it was completely different. I had more emotion and was able to take that ceremony much more seriously.
Listening to the preacher say the final words over her casket and laying the flower on her casket and watching them lower her into the ground, that meant so much more to me. It was beautiful and I was able to let go and mourn properly. I watched my tears fall onto her casket in the ground as I leaned over to rail to look down at her for the last time. It was all very beautiful and very sad. But the words and their metaphors as well as the metaphor of lowering her body into the ground as a final goodbye was really amazing. I really believe it helped me process her death and allowed me to let go and find my peace with her spirit released into heaven. This week has really made me think more about ceremonies and how important they really are. To take away the importance of a ceremony takes away the higher connection it has to the inner self and the power of the universe. I think I may focus more on ceremonies and look deeper into their metaphors to understand their importance and how it can help my inner self and my connection to spirituality. Though that may be a more difficult task in today's society, but who doesn't enjoy a challenge?
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Monday, March 3, 2008
Guilt
I’ve been told that guilt is a useless emotion. I agree. It doesn’t accomplish anything. It doesn’t make you feel good, it doesn’t help you process anything. And yet, I still feel it. I feel guilty because I am leaving the current job I have been working for the last three weeks. At first I wasn’t very happy with it, it doesn’t really fit me well. I know I am adaptable and over the last three weeks the habit of this job has started to set in. But the job I have just been offered was one I wanted so badly and I know would be such a better fit for me. Not to mention the schedule would be nicer, 8:30am-5pm instead of my current 7am-5pm. The overtime money is nice, but it’s not worth the drive. I hate having to drive for an hour in traffic to get home and then only having three and a half hours of my evening time so that I can make sure to try to go to bed early enough to get enough sleep to wake up at 5:30am. It just sucks. Not to mention I’ve been terrible about going to bed at 9:30 so I’ve been tired. This job is only 20minutes away and it’s a private college and reminds me so much of my job at UNC. I think I will be much happier there. But there is still the issue of guilt of leaving my first job. I am only temporary right now, I was placed through a temp agency, but they had plans to hire me on permanently and I know they had big plans for me to help with payroll and HR and other things. I know people really like me here and have appreciated the work I have done. They are very nice here and very encouraging, I get a compliment a couple times a week about what a good job I’m doing, that only digs the wound deeper. Also, I am aware of the fact that they have had a hard time keeping anyone in this position, and the fact that I am leaving after only a month and to know they will have to start all over again tears me up.
But then on the other side, I start to feel like I’m being conceited or something. I’m sure they can find another replacement, probably someone who would stay longer and be happier here. I feel like I’m making myself out to be some great thing, but I am replaceable. So I don’t know. I guess the other thing to is that I have started to get to know a few people here and I have started to develop some coworker relationships, though not really, since this is such a corporate place. My job is very isolating, but there are a few people who come and talk to me a bit and have been just wonderful to me. I hate to think I’d never see them again. But I am always like that, I hate goodbyes, I hate thinking I will never see someone again, even if I have only known them a few weeks. But that is something I have had to deal with my entire life. I had to leave all my childhood friends, the city I grew up in, the school and teachers I loved, everything I knew, to be shipped out to New Mexico. That was traumatizing for me and I will never forget the pain of leaving all that and not understanding why. I think that is why I fear goodbyes, because that pain still haunts me and I am afraid every time I say goodbye more pain will come. But I’ve never experienced a pain like that again from a goodbye. My good friends stay in contact with me now and everyone else remains a fond memory but nothing more. I think I can be okay with everyone I work with being a fond memory. I just need to let go of the fear and guilt, move on, and know I am doing the best thing for me, and that is what is most important. I cannot sacrifice my happiness for a bunch of people I hardly know and who it most likely doesn’t even really matter to on the greater scale of things. I think I blow everything out of emotional proportion, but that’s just me! I wouldn’t change it for anything.
It will be hard to say goodbye, I know this, it always is. I don’t want to disappoint anyone. Hopefully they will understand, and if now, at least I know why I have chosen this and it won’t matter in a few weeks because I will be happy at a new place and enjoying what I have to do every day until I take my next big step in life.
But then on the other side, I start to feel like I’m being conceited or something. I’m sure they can find another replacement, probably someone who would stay longer and be happier here. I feel like I’m making myself out to be some great thing, but I am replaceable. So I don’t know. I guess the other thing to is that I have started to get to know a few people here and I have started to develop some coworker relationships, though not really, since this is such a corporate place. My job is very isolating, but there are a few people who come and talk to me a bit and have been just wonderful to me. I hate to think I’d never see them again. But I am always like that, I hate goodbyes, I hate thinking I will never see someone again, even if I have only known them a few weeks. But that is something I have had to deal with my entire life. I had to leave all my childhood friends, the city I grew up in, the school and teachers I loved, everything I knew, to be shipped out to New Mexico. That was traumatizing for me and I will never forget the pain of leaving all that and not understanding why. I think that is why I fear goodbyes, because that pain still haunts me and I am afraid every time I say goodbye more pain will come. But I’ve never experienced a pain like that again from a goodbye. My good friends stay in contact with me now and everyone else remains a fond memory but nothing more. I think I can be okay with everyone I work with being a fond memory. I just need to let go of the fear and guilt, move on, and know I am doing the best thing for me, and that is what is most important. I cannot sacrifice my happiness for a bunch of people I hardly know and who it most likely doesn’t even really matter to on the greater scale of things. I think I blow everything out of emotional proportion, but that’s just me! I wouldn’t change it for anything.
It will be hard to say goodbye, I know this, it always is. I don’t want to disappoint anyone. Hopefully they will understand, and if now, at least I know why I have chosen this and it won’t matter in a few weeks because I will be happy at a new place and enjoying what I have to do every day until I take my next big step in life.
Happiness
This last month has been a fabulous month for me, with the exceptions of a few things here and there. But mostly it has been just fabulous. I was able to start working so I could make money so I could pay bills, that’s a plus. Then I was just recently blessed with a different job that I had been coveting and praying for and now I am so happy that they offered it to me I don’t know what to do with myself. And last, but definitely not least, I started dating an amazingly fabulous guy. I feel very blessed this last month. I have also become a lot closer and stronger in my spirituality and I am enjoying that a lot. It feels nice, comforting, I love that feeling of closeness and comfort. I think I just realized I finally feel like I have my feet on the ground again, though they are very light, but in a good way. I don’t feel stuck or like I have to dig my feet in for dear life. I feel like I am walking lightly on the ground and I am ready for when it slips out from under ma again. I think I have taken a step further in becoming comfortable with uncertainty, even though that word still brings out a bit of an anxious feeling in me. I am closer, but not quite there yet.
I am settling into Florida, I still love it here. I am getting used to working, though I’ll have to adjust all over again next week when I start my new job, but I have a feeling it won’t be that hard of an adjustment. I am living my life and it feels good. I haven’t closed myself off or isolated myself, I have been going out and seeing what Florida has to offer. And other than gas prices, it’s a pretty easy thing to do with limited money. Especially for someone like me who is just happy staring at a lake. My birthday is coming up at the end of March and I’m always excited for that, it is my favorite day of the whole year after all. I love March too, such a great month. I haven’t been so happy in such a long time and I am just soaking it in and letting it flow over me. It is really weird to think about where I was a year ago, and it is even weirder to feel like it just doesn’t matter anymore. I am here now, I knew I would get here eventually, I am glad that it is now. That’s all I really have to say. I am just plain happy and I am so excited to start my new job next week and see where it takes me. I am so happy to be with such a wonderful guy. I am so happy to be in Florida. I am just happy. :)
I am settling into Florida, I still love it here. I am getting used to working, though I’ll have to adjust all over again next week when I start my new job, but I have a feeling it won’t be that hard of an adjustment. I am living my life and it feels good. I haven’t closed myself off or isolated myself, I have been going out and seeing what Florida has to offer. And other than gas prices, it’s a pretty easy thing to do with limited money. Especially for someone like me who is just happy staring at a lake. My birthday is coming up at the end of March and I’m always excited for that, it is my favorite day of the whole year after all. I love March too, such a great month. I haven’t been so happy in such a long time and I am just soaking it in and letting it flow over me. It is really weird to think about where I was a year ago, and it is even weirder to feel like it just doesn’t matter anymore. I am here now, I knew I would get here eventually, I am glad that it is now. That’s all I really have to say. I am just plain happy and I am so excited to start my new job next week and see where it takes me. I am so happy to be with such a wonderful guy. I am so happy to be in Florida. I am just happy. :)
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Good Moments
So I realized a lot of my latest posts have just been sort of insane and more on the depressed side of all the chaos in my life so I thought I would post something when life is going good. Right now life is going good. I am super happy to be back in Florida, even though I don't have a job yet. I am not worried about that so much anymore though, I have faith and I know something will come my way just in time and I'll be fine. I am enjoying my time off for now though, even though I've gotten into a terrible schedule of staying up until 1, 2, 3am and sleeping until 12, 1pm. I will have to change that when I start working, but for now I am enjoying it. I like having the time with my friends here who I love dearly. I watch them suffer in the program I dropped and have such empathy for them but secretly I am just gleeful that I am not in their position. But they are different people and they want it a lot more than I did and they will do fantastic.
I'm always thankful for the calm peaceful times in my life that allow me to reflect on how lucky I am. I have so many wonderful people around me who fully support everything that I do, it really makes me feel like I can do no wrong, I love it and am so so so thankful. I actually feel like I'm in a good place in my life right now. There are a few small things going on with my life that are chaotic and have the chance to cause some inner turmoil, but I guess that's life. I haven't quite fully figured out how to accept uncertainty but I think I am definitely learning and becoming more comfortable with it. It's a process, life is a process. I think the life lessons I've learned in the last year have been amazing and I am at a point where I can look back and appreciate all of them and feel good about what I've learned and how I can apply it to my life now and continue to move on.
I really have been feeling good lately. I have a feeling of accomplishment, which is one of my favorite feelings, and I think I have accomplished a lot in the last year. I think I'll just take this moment and live in it and feel it's goodness. I hope everyone can have times like this.
I'm always thankful for the calm peaceful times in my life that allow me to reflect on how lucky I am. I have so many wonderful people around me who fully support everything that I do, it really makes me feel like I can do no wrong, I love it and am so so so thankful. I actually feel like I'm in a good place in my life right now. There are a few small things going on with my life that are chaotic and have the chance to cause some inner turmoil, but I guess that's life. I haven't quite fully figured out how to accept uncertainty but I think I am definitely learning and becoming more comfortable with it. It's a process, life is a process. I think the life lessons I've learned in the last year have been amazing and I am at a point where I can look back and appreciate all of them and feel good about what I've learned and how I can apply it to my life now and continue to move on.
I really have been feeling good lately. I have a feeling of accomplishment, which is one of my favorite feelings, and I think I have accomplished a lot in the last year. I think I'll just take this moment and live in it and feel it's goodness. I hope everyone can have times like this.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Decisions
Well, I have made a decision. After all that turmoil I finally feel at ease, mostly. I have decided not to continue with my program and instead move on to other things that are calling me in life. I am now back in Orlando, but I am not going back to school. I am going to just work for a while, have a bit of a life before I pour myself back into school. I think I needed a longer break than the six months I had. I am now looking at graduate schools instead. And now, drum rolls please.... dun dun duunnn! I want to go into psychology. Oh my graduate psychology friends, are you so shocked? I miss you so much! I have always had a love for psychology and it's always been a thought in the back of my mind and it's finally caught up to me. I really want to get into counseling, I think it would feed my soul and I'd be very happy in that field. So that's sort of my tentative plan now. I am going to find a job here in Orlando for awhile and give myself a bit of a break and a bit of a life, find some time to study for the GREs, eeek scary, and then get into grad school in Fall 09. That sounds like a good plan to me. But so far I am hating the transitions. I still don't like change and transitions and I don't think I ever will. I just need to find a way to get through them and take comfort in the fact that they're temporary. I know I will be okay, it's just going to be an interesting and adventurous time in my life, I should try to enjoy it. So yea, that's my life, full of curious details, I always wonder what's yet to come.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)