They Were Right

(NOTE>  I did write this on January 2nd - just didn't hit the right button to publish it.  Sorry for the lateness.)


I remember when I was growing how the "old folks" would talk about how fast time flew the older they got.

Pffttt! I would think.  Of course, a child has no real concept of time.  Someone tells you when to get up in the morning; when to go to school; when to go home; when to go to bed.  In the summer, time was daylight to dark.  But how could it go faster?  60 minutes in an hour.  24 hours in a day. 365 days in a year. 

Time was finite.

Au contraire!

Now, I get it.  I woke up yesterday and it was 2014.

How did that happen?

I have no idea, but I do know that 2013 was a very good year.  (After 2011 the bar wasn't really very high, but still, a good year is a good year!  I really don't remember much about 2012 as 2011 was carrying over.)

One of the highlights, a beautiful trip to the Emerald Isle with my mom.  Love her for taking me on the trip and allowing me to cross an item off my Bucket List (and yes, I really and truly do have an honest-to-goodness handwritten list in a notebook).  I need to write all about it, and I will.  We had a lovely time and I met some very nice folks with whom she travels.  I want to go back to Ireland with Billy (and not just so I can stand on the Cliffs of Mohr) and do a few more things but it was a great scouting trip.  (Mom has now decided that she has seen Europe and will forego any other destinations.)

I completed my first triathlon in 2013.  I say "first" because I had a ball (and a bawl - it's on video) and I intend to do others.  I'm anxiously combing the websites for 2014 dates.

 I also did two bike events last year.  The first was 16 miles which I was extremely proud of since I was on a borrowed bike and decided about a month before the event that I was going to participate.  The second was a 50 miler.  Half of the Big Dam Bridge 100.  What made that even more special was that for probably the first time since we were on a swim team together, Andrea and I were in the same sporting event.  She did the full 100 miles.  I know my limits.  I even have the one picture of the two of us together before it started.  Mom managed to see both of us as we rode and we gave her framed pictures of us together and our individual pictures crossing the finish line.  (Side note - Billy's reaction to Mom opening the present was to ask what made us think she would want pictures of us on our bikes?  It's a mom thing.)

Billy and I took our two annual trips and had wonderful, peaceful times.  No stress (equate that with no hurricanes while we were away) and no outside worries.  We just packed up and left.  Both trips are for events that require us to put the cell phones away and lose ourselves in the moment.  Our two favorite weeks of the year.

Our family stayed fairly constant in size in 2013.  2011 and 2012 were both marked by significant losses, and a population explosion of grandsons for my uncle (3 in one year's time!), but we didn't really gain or lose anyone this year.  No funerals.  I like consistency.  There were some births on the Rodgers side of the family but we're all so spread out (geographically, chronologically) that those seem a little harder to track. 

So 2013 came and went without a ton a fanfare, which was good for me.  That is not to say it was without its trials and tribulations.  Some things cut pretty deeply and there is seemingly no end to my stress at work. 

But I have work.  Others don't.  

In my life I am surrounded by people I love and that return that love to me.  Many aren't that fortunate.  I come home every day to a Herd that acts as if I've been gone an eternity, even if I only went out to check the mailbox.  I love getting my face slurped!  No matter the events of the day, you cannot be in a bad mood in this house for long.  You have to leave it on the porch because these furballs will bring a smile to your face.  Some people never get to experience that true unconditional love - from man or animal.

I am blessed, and I know it.  I try my best to say Thank You every night.  (I never forget but sometimes I'm so exhausted at night that I'm asleep before I can even get started on all for which I have say thanks.)

It is sometimes a chore to remind myself to be happy.  You wouldn't think so, but it can be.  I have to stop and take stock every once in a while and remind myself that work will always be there and people will always disappoint and situations may not always go according to my plan.  But things will always go according to the Higher Plan and for that I am grateful, and happy.

So Happy New Year to one and all!  I hope that 2014 finds me here a little more often.  This is part of what makes me happy.  I didn't write enough in 2013 - but I did get some interesting reaction to some of what I did write. 

And that makes me happy.

And I now understand.  Time flies.  And it goes too fast to spend a lot of it on things that don't make you happy.  It is finite.  I commented one time, many years ago, that I didn't have time for something (since I was talking to Andrea it was probably exercise-related) and she commented that I had the same 24 hours in a day as everyone else.  Very true.  It is all in how you decide to spend yours.

(Remember, work will always be there.)

Au Revoir, 2013!  You were a very good year.

Bonjour 2014!  Can't wait to see what you bring!

Forgiveness: The Gift You Give Yourself.

Anyone that reads this very often realizes that I have been through some struggles in the last year and half or so.  Things too personal to put out here, but things that were shaping my life on all levels.  I had been extremely hurt by some people that I thought never would, and I was really dealing with that.

We all hurt people we love.  Rarely do we intend it.  But it does happen.  And if you are in any kind of relationship at all with someone, those hurts hurt.  If you aren't in a relationship then you usually blow it, and maybe the person, off and move on.

This particular string of events for me, and it was that -  a series of hurts that just kept compounding on themselves, left me very angry.

Very angry. 

Angry that this person could say and do these things.  And seemingly without conscience.

Angry that someone else that I love very much was wounded beyond measure by these events.

Angry that the actions of these other people were dictating things in my life.  Things that were very important to me.  Selfish, I know, but I resented it on so many levels.

Angry that years devoted to these relationships was cast aside in really a very short time.

Just angry.

And I found that anger consuming me and my day.  I thought about the situation all the time.  I let it effect some very important aspects of my life.  I was in a perpetual state of upset.

Someone asked me why I was allowing all of that to dictate to me.  Why was I giving these people this much power over my life?  Why was I making decision to do and not do things based on what was going on with a relatively small group of people.  My priest asked why I would allow the "SOBs to steal my peace".  (I have fairly straightforward priest.)

Why?

A very good question.  One for which I had no good answer at the time.  I was upset and I was going to stay that way.  The whole situation was not going to change.  The players involved were going to see to that.  But these were people that I was supposed to like and care about and have in my life.  I was struggling to reconcile the reality with what I thought I was acceptable.

But I could change.

After all, the only person I could control in this whole mess was me.

After a time I found what I could consider "forgiveness". 

I started by forgiving those I felt had wronged us.  That is really tough to do when there has been no apology.  No request for forgiveness.  Just an empty space in our lives that I had "forgive". 

 Then I forgave myself. 

And that was a very necessary step to healing.

I had to forgive myself for all the hard feelings that I harbored and then felt guilty about.  I had to understand that the world is not always rainbows and roses. I had to accept that not everyone is going to like me and that is okay.  I have absolutely no control over that.  I can only be myself and if the other person isn't happy about who am I then I really don't need them in my life.  Even if the societal conventions of the day say they are "supposed to be".  I had a very black and white view of the world and these players in it and it wasn't panning out that way.  That's not to say this was a gray area.

There was no gray.  None.

I guess it was more of a case of things I viewed on one side of the line ended up being on the other side.  White became black.

I had to say that it was okay to be angry.  Anger is a God-given emotion.  It is what we do with that anger and how we process it that makes the difference.  We can allow it to destroy us - eating away at the healthy relationships and good things in our lives; act on it which can destroy our very beings; or process the feeling and put it away.

 I had to say to myself that feeling as I did - angry, betrayed, disappointed. disillusioned, broken - was all perfectly normal, acceptable reactions to the situation but they were merely that - feelings.  They couldn't be guiding forces.   My values and morals had to continue to guide my actions, or inactions.  They, in and of themselves, were not going to change anything one iota.  I had to stick to my guns, what I knew to be right, and let the chips fall where they may with the other parties.

That "letting go" of all those emotions was a way of giving myself forgiveness.  Of saying, yes, you have wasted a lot of time and energy on a situation that isn't going to change but you won't let it effect the rest of your life.  I forgive you for the lost time.

None of this I did with a real consciousness of purpose.  I sort of woke up one day and realized that this issue that had been all-consuming for months, permeating every minute of my days and a lot of nights, was not longer as ever-present.  I thought about it less.  Actually didn't think about it all on some days.  So the forgiveness was not overt, but it had to be there.  Without that acceptance I don't think I could have moved forward.

Some might think I'm confusing forgiveness with acceptance, and you'd have a good argument.  But I think the two go hand in hand.  Without accepting the situation, or whatever it is that has you bugged, for what it is and accepting that it may never change but your reaction to it can, then I don't think you can forgive.

Webster's Dictionary defines to forgive as follows:

for·give  [ fər gív ]

 

1.   to stop being angry about something: to stop being angry about or resenting somebody or somebody's behavior

2.  pardon somebody: to excuse somebody for a mistake, misunderstanding, wrongdoing, or inappropriate behavior

How can you stop being angry unless of two things has happened - either the situation has changed or you've accepted it for what it is and are willing to move on?

The gift of forgiveness was truly for myself.  The other parties have no idea.  I never called them and said "I forgive you".  But it was a gift.  I got my life back.  My health improved.  My mood certainly improved.  I started doing things again that made me happy and moved out of that space.  (Some might think I need to call and have that conversation to truly have closure but I don't think so.  I do not have to live in a world where I like everyone and everyone likes me.  We're all made different.  We do have to coexist.  And you can love someone without liking them.  I firmly believe that.  I can love my neighbor as myself without all the strings).

As my priest would say, I had peace again.

I only wish I had done it sooner.  I lost some valuable time.

And besides, who doesn't like to receive a gift?  Even if it from yourself.