One More Reflection, And Then I Promise A Tri-Related Post

“…I contemplate my life undergoing change – tremendous change. The great fear is this: If I shed many characteristics that stand in my way, what will be left? It is as though I face a great void, a terrifying unknown. Yet, when I acknowledge how far I have come, I can see how much I want to change. The desire to grow and to heal has brought me to this uncomfortable point, because I am tired of the way I have been…I find solstice in the fact that…I need not change anything. I must simply prepare myself for change. I can take all the time I need.

Change will not be effective unless I am ready for it. I need only trust that, when the time comes to move forward, I will know it.”

When you have five days on vacation to sit in your head and reflect on your life, you can come up with some pretty crazy ideas. One of the recurring thoughts that kept creeping back in was that I, for one, am motivated by pain – who isn’t really? I mean, its when things get tough and the pain hurts so bad you can barely breathe, I used to cry and wonder, ““Why are people doing this to me, and how can I get them to just stop?” More recently, I have changed this perspective to sound more like, “Why is it this way, and what can I do to stop from feeling like this?”

And while this, one the surface, may sound like progress (you know, the whole holding oneself accountable thing), it still reflects my need to change, and change QUICK. When the pain is too much, my first inclination now is to change, and do it quick. Move forward as if running, because the faster I do, the less pain I will feel. This includes making really rash decisions. I can really go from zero to sixty in the span of a couple of hours.

And I will agonize over a decision that I believe needs to be made RIGHT NOW, while forgetting that, ultimately, decisions make themselves. I just don’t have the patience to wait for the decision to make up their darn minds, sometimes. But that’s my issue – I want what I want when I want it, and not when I need it.

The main place this is coming up (as some might have gathered from previous posts), is this new world of dating I have recently entered. See, the thing is, I was single for about the nine months, following the demise of a four year relationship. I have been dating (I guess you could call it) this one guy, who, in many ways, is really quite great. Except for this one thing – we are in very different places in our lives. He has a very clear idea of how this should proceed, but I was not sure I was totally on board with it. Even within the span of a date, I go back and forth with what I want. I get in my head, ruminate about whether or not this is right, should I go forward, should I leave, should I stay, yada, yada, yada. If that just made you crazy reading it, imagine the craziness that beholds me daily. I get so serious that I need to know right now what I should do.

And seriously, I need to chill the eff out.

It hit me a couple days ago that this whole process of figuring out what I want - it can’t get solved in a few dates, or a few weeks or maybe even a few months. It’s just that the pain that goes with the changes feels so bad, at times, that I just want to make rash decisions to just stop the hurt. But I can’t guarantee to myself that those decisions will be best for me.

And low and behold, tonight, the decision about the new relationship made itself.

I guess patience paid off. And so did asserting my needs.

And so I move forward.