(Excerpted from The Path, by Michelle Devon, Copyright 2006)
While at the grocery store, in line in front of me was a very attractive woman, who looked as though she had been crying, and on the conveyor belt in front of her was a 1/2 gallon of ice cream, Soap Opera Digest and TV Guide. She reached over and picked up a pack of gum as an afterthought and that’s when I could see how very sad she appeared. I overhead her talking on her cell phone to a friend about how she and her boyfriend had just broken up.
I have a friend who cannot find anything in her life to bring her pleasure unless she has a love interest in her life, but then none of them ever seem to work out quite the way she wants. She gets very down on herself when each new relationship fails.
In fact, most of my single friends seem to always be on the make, looking for the next ‘The One’ with whom to share their life. They usually end up disappointed with each new venture into the relationship pool. I know a few people who are so afraid of being alone with themselves that they move from one relationship to another, never truly investing anything of their true selves into the relationship, and finding someone to move on to before they risk the chance of ending up alone.
When you don’t like yourself, it’s hard to be alone with yourself, isn’t it?
I played that game too for awhile, going swimming in the deep end of the relationship pool, looking for something outside of myself to make me ‘complete’ or ‘happy’, only to be disappointed time and again when I could not find it. Perhaps that’s why, even though I’ve had the opportunity in the past to marry, and even though I’ve had some serious relationships, I never quite allowed myself to fully commit to a relationship before now. I think I have finally figured it all out, at least for me.
I know, beyond a shadow of any doubt, no matter what happens in my life, in my love relationships, even if I end up completely single, I will never be that woman at the grocery store buying ice cream to drown my sorrows, waiting for the next ‘The One” to come along.
Why? Let me see if I can explain it to you.
From a very young age, I spent my life trying hard to please other people. What others thought of me was important, and my self worth came from other’s opinions. It shouldn’t be this way, but I know this is how I lived my life for many years, starting with my parents, then my friends, and then working my way through all my adult relationships.
I found myself, when alone, once I’d dealt with the loss of a relationship, truly liking who I was, where I was heading, and what I was doing.
At the core of who I am, I am strong, confident, secure in myself. But then the next love interest would come along. He would like what he saw in me, the strength, the confidence, the security. As soon as we would become a couple, for whatever reason, I tossed all of that aside to be what they wanted me to be.
No, that’s not accurate. The core of who I am was tossed aside to be what I thought he wanted me to be, and not necessarily what he actually wanted. I tried my best to always do or be what I thought the other wanted, so much so that I would often lose my own identity in the process. Then when I discovered I was not successful in being what I thought he wanted, I would take a hit to myself worth. I would let that ‘failure’ affect my image of myself. I’d shut down emotionally, completely.
Then, when someone would tell me they loved me, I could easily disregard that. I would not, could not believe it, or truly feel it in my soul, because I would always know inside of me that if they only knew the real me, they wouldn’t love me.
Yet, I could never show the real me, because to do so would mean to put myself at risk of being rejected, not for who he thought I was, but for who I truly am.
I don’t think I could have handled that rejection of the core of who I am, so a part of who I am had always been locked away, kept safe from the danger of being rejected, and I refused to truly ‘be myself’ with anyone.
Until an event in my life changed all that and put a lot of things into perspective for me… one of those life altering, pivotal moments that come very few times in a lifetime, the kind that really makes you open your eyes and take stock of not only where you have been, but also where you are and where you are going.
Somewhere in that soul searching, pivotal moment, I found myself. I was locked away somewhere I thought was safe, somewhere deep inside of me, hidden even from my own probing. When I allowed ‘me’ to meet myself again, for the first time in a long time, I realized, “Hey, I like who I am… not who I want others to think I am, not how someone else sees me, not what anyone else wants, but the core of who I am. I like myself!”
I’ve always liked me, at the core, but I haven’t always been able to bring that out and just be myself with others.
Now that I’ve learned to do that, to open myself up and share the core of who I am with others, I am happy. And now, if someone says they love me, I can know that it is truly me they love and not this image of myself I portrayed while the real me was locked deep inside.
And if someone doesn’t like me, then I simply dismiss that as the incompatibility that it is, knowing that my self worth is still in tact, because my self worth comes from inside of me, and not from anything outside.
Yes, once a met myself, hidden away in the dark for so long, I learned that I do like me. There’s so much I wanted to do and have for myself that I am no longer willing to give up or change for someone else. I realize now that anyone who truly loves me and wants to be a part of my life would never ask me to change who I am, neither would they expect me to be something I am not simply to please them.
And that, my dear friends, is what I realized is missing in so many people’s lives—that feeling of truly being content and dare I say even happy with who you are.
Only when you are okay with who you are and truly happy with your life can you possibly hope to share that with someone else and find happiness together when you finally take a dive into the deep end of the relationship pool with another. In fact, no one can truly love you, completely, the way you deserve to be loved unless you can love yourself first, because otherwise, you’ll never understand and fully appreciate the depth of the love that can be shared, because you’ll always think in the back of your mind, “If they only knew the real me…”
If you are one of the lucky ones, then you are a person who knows your own worth and loves and respects yourself as much as you do your partner. If you don’t have a partner, and you truly love yourself, then you will be happy, even if there is no love interest in your life.
But for the rare few who can have both—love for yourself and the love of and for another—then you are truly blessed.
There’s been a shift in my life, and I can honestly say that I am happy, with myself, with my relationships, with my family, with my career—just happy in general. That doesn’t mean things are perfect in my life, far from it. I wouldn’t want it to be perfect, because I love the challenge and sometimes love the fight, but behind everything, there is this feeling of knowing I am finally moving in the right direction. My attitude is positive, my outlook is optimistic, and I’m having fun doing the most ordinary things… why?
Because I’m okay with me!
It’s contagious too, infectious even. When I am happy, it seems everyone around me is in a better mood. Not just from those closest to me, but everyone I touch during a day. The service I’ve received at stores and restaurants has been exceptional. Everyone around me seems to smile and be kind.
Before I met myself again, I had moments of happiness that appeared similar to this type of contentment, but behind it all, I wondered how long it would last—waiting for the ball to drop, and everything to fall apart again. Once I was reacquainted with myself, somehow, I know this time it is different, because I am different.
I am me again. And I like myself.
I create my own reality. I am the master of my own destiny. No one and nothing can change my mood, attitude, emotions, thoughts, feelings or opinions without my express permission to do so. I will never allow anyone else to have that much control over me again. I share myself now rather than give myself up to another. You see, it’s not about controlling others, because you never will control someone else completely. It’s not about someone else being in control of you either.
It’s all about being in control of yourself, self aware, and not allowing anyone else to influence you or cause you to change who you are. No one can make you feel anything you don’t allow.
You choose. It’s that simple. You call the shots.
If there’s one thing I own, one thing that is truly mine that no one can take from me or change, it is what I choose to feel inside of me. I’m fortunate enough to have people in my life now who understand and respect that, but it hasn’t always been this way. I learned also through this process that I get to choose who is and is not in my life too.
When is the last time you met yourself, truly sat down and had a good, long, hard look at who you really are?
Why don’t you do that now? Find yourself, meet yourself, talk to yourself, and learn to truly love you for who you are.
Don’t look at who influences you. Don’t look at how others expect to see you. Look at the core of who you are and fall in love with yourself.
Then, when you do, think about the people you love in your life. What would you want for them? The very best, right? Well, when you love yourself, you should only want the very best for you too. In each new venture, each new friendship, each new relationship, look at it as though you are outside of yourself and ask, “If this were happening to someone I love, would I want this for them?” If you love yourself, then you would treat yourself with the same respect and admiration you would another whom you loved.
After all, you deserve that.
###
(Just a little something I wrote a while back for a quick impromptu contest that I did not win. It was written to a theme… just thought I’d share it here, for no reason whatsoever.)
“Mandy, put your bag there on the couch,” Sheila said. “Let’s get the stuff ready while we wait for Leeza. This is going to be so cool!”
The girls giggled and walked to the kitchen. Just when they made it to the table, the doorbell rang. “That’s Leeza,” Sheila squealed. “You get the stuff, and I’ll go let her in.”
After their greetings, Mandy said to Leeza, “So… did you bring the book?”
Leeza giggled and patted her backpack. “Right here.”
“Dig it out!” Sheila exclaimed.
From her backpack, Leeza retrieved a well-worn, large, obviously old leather-bound book. Leeza handled it with great care, placing it on the kitchen table and running a reverent hand over the tooled cover. “I can’t believe your grandmother let you take her great grandmother’s book out of the house!”
“Well…” Leeza drawled.
“Shut up! You mean, you stole it?” Mandy asked.
“I didn’t steal it, exactly. I ‘borrowed’ it.”
The girls laughed. Leeza carefully slid a finger between the pages of the thick volume and opened the brittle, yellowing pages to the center of the book. The three girls hovered over the book in silence, looking at the drawings on the pages before them.
“What’s that?” Mandy said, pointing to a black ink drawing with one hand, while holding a package from the cabinet in her other hand.
“That’s a black-pot cauldron,” Leeza answered.
“You’re joking? A cauldron? My mom said the cronies used to use those, but I thought it was one of those stories adults tell about how hard things were when they were kids.”
“Nope,” Leeza replied, “they were real. I saw one once, in like a museum or something.”
“What’s that say next to the picture?” Mandy asked, pointing at the book.
“It says, ‘Cast iron cauldron pots eventually become blackened and warped from use over open fire pits, but when properly cared for, will provide years of delicious concoctions, not to mention being the perfect tool for brewing potions and medicines.’”
“Cool. What else is in the book?” Mandy asked her friend.
Leeza slid her finger gingerly between the stiff pages and turned toward the back of the book. “There’s something looks like a journal and then of course the recipes back here, handwritten.”
At the table, Leeza said, “Listen to this journal entry: ‘Movement caught my eye while working on the potions for healing tonight. Maybe it was just the multi-colored leaves being blown about by the wind. It’s cold in here, with the wind coming through the cracked window, even with the fire. This brew will warm me up, soon enough. I keep hearing noises outside though. I don’t know why, but I’m scared.’
“Sounds like she was making something in one of those cauldron thingies, doesn’t it? I wonder why she was scared.”
“What’s that?” Sheila asked, staring over Leeza’s shoulder, pointing at the facing page.
“Looks like a recipe,” Mandy responded.
“It’s for a potion,” Leeza replied. “Look at that, it’s a… it’s a beauty potion, it seems, to keep you young and…” Leeza snorted, laughing.
“What?” Mandy and Sheila both laughed in unison.
“Look!” she replied. “It’s a potion for removing moles!”
“Like the animals?” Mandy asked.
“No, like witch’s moles. You know, the old stereotype about us witches all having moles,” Leeza replied, still laughing.
“I guess a lot has changed. Kind of like the witch’s handbooks now don’t have love potions anymore.” Mandy paused, remembering why they were gathering together in the first place, and then she continued. “So, is the recipe for the love potion in this old book or not?”
Flipping pages, Leeza said, “It’s here. I wouldn’t have taken the book if it wasn’t.”
Squinting at one of the potion recipes, Sheila said, “All right, we need to get to business. Just look at these ingredients, though: tail of frog, eye of newt, hair of a black rat.”
“What’s so strange about those?” Mandy said, opening a package on the counter.
Sheila shrugged. “Nothing, but she wrote here, ‘The fourth ingredient will be harder to find….’”
“What’s the fourth ingredient?”
Leeza shrugged. “The handwriting trails off, here, like she didn’t get to finish. I wonder what happened?”
“What’s that? Those instructions, there?” Sheila asked, pointing.
“That’s what’s so funny about this. Check it out. Those,” she said pointing at the bottom of the page, “are instructions on how to find all the ingredients and where, like by the pound in the foothills, and in the caves up on the ridge.”
“You’re joking?” Mandy said, “You mean, they really hunted for those things themselves? Man, things really have changed, haven’t they?”
Leeza interrupted with, “Sheila, you want Top Ramen Eye of Newt or the Orville Redenbacher’s microwave bat wing first?” she asked, holding up two items.
Sheila stood from the table and walked to the cabinet to look for herself. “Actually, I think Mom bought some of those instant toadstool mixes, just add water. Maybe we should make hot water first.”
“I’m sure glad we live in this century,” Leeza said, and the other girls all concurred and set about working on their potion.
###
The title is a bit misleading in that I’m having a great day all said and done, so this isn’t really a rant or a whine about anything bad in particular, but more a wistful nostalgia about the year that’s passed and how things have changed so quickly in my life. My family wants to take me out to dinner, someplace upscale and fancy, which is how I love to dine – I’m a gourmet food junkie – but I honestly am sitting here thinking, “Man… it takes so much energy to get dressed up…” I mean, who wants to be exhausted and in pain on their birthday dinner? So part of me wants to just stay home and part of me wishes we were rich enough to hire a gourmet chef to come here and cook for us.
There was no breakfast in bed by the kids. In fact, I’m not sure they remembered it was my birthday until I screamed for them to wake up and get up this morning, then they remembered. Just once, I’d love for them to think outside the box and maybe, I dunno, clean the house, make me a fancy meal, or DO something to make my birthday special besides relying on buying something with cash. That’s pretty well taken care of this year, since they are dead broke… the problem is, they will use the being broke as an excuse for not ‘buying’ a gift or giving a gift, when what I really want from them is to have them think about it and share meaning. Write a poem, clean the house, cook a meal, make something, write a letter, do a collage of pictures, something, anything. But alas, they come from the greedy, break it and replace it throw away disposable generation and if you can’t spend good money on it, then it must not be worth doing, giving, having, etc.
Then there’s my health. Oh, I look in the mirror and I most definitely don’t see a 41-year-old woman. I feel much younger on the inside, but my body has taken a beating the last few years. I have purple striations all over my chest, upper arms, belly, thighs, hips. They are ugly. I looked like a stripped tiger or something, purple and whittish. Garish, really. I hate them. They will never go away. My eyes are watering as I write this, as they always water, from the excess edema and fluid, so I look like I’ve been crying all the time, even when I haven’t been. The saltiness of the fluid around my eyes burns and rubs red too.
I’m still on oxygen. The cord for the concentrator is only 50 feet long, so I feel like I have a leash with me everywhere I go. When I try to go to the bathroom, sometimes I get all tripped up in the cord or it gets stuck on something and I have to throw off the cannula, rush to the potty and have someone bring it to me so I can catch my breath. It’s not fun. I don’t like living this way, but I like the fact that with the oxygen I can feel almost normal when I’m sitting and not moving and it doesn’t hurt nearly as bad in my chest when I do move.
None of my clothes fit me any more, and the few that are new that do fit I hate how I look in them. I know the doc says the weight gain is all temporary and is edema from the congestive heart failure and that it’s going away and will go away and I will lose it all in time but that doesn’t change how I look and feel about how I look right now. I hate the sloshy squisshy feeling of my skin, where I can literally feel the fluid sloshing around inside my legs when I walk. My belly is distended and full of fluid and it sloshes too. By the end of the evening, even my neck and face are full of fluid. I hate it. The say it will get better. I believe them. But man, it’s tough right now.
But then there are some good things, like being grateful I’m alive. I am so, so, so grateful I’m a live. Given how bad things were, it’s a wonder I’m alive, a true miracle, really, and don’t get me wrong here — I am glad to be alive — but I can’t help feeling a bit cheated out of life right now sometimes. Why should I have almost had to die in order to be grateful to be alive? Why did my body have to be permanently changed, ruined, just so I could be grateful? I could have found my gratitude without all the pain and suffering. And I’m still suffering. I’m still struggling. I have a perforated septum. For my birthday, I’d like to have a plug installed in my nose! I have a bad back. For my birthday, I’d like a medication that makes that pain go away without making me loopy. I can’t breathe well. For my birthday, I’d like a set of lungs that do what they are supposed to without having to wear an oxygen leash everywhere I go. I mean, the things I want… I’m so selfish! LOL
I remember my birthday last year. I remember it the year before. They were two of the best birthdays I’d ever had. This year, I know it’s a good day. I’m happy, I truly am, so please forgive me for this whining post that sounds so ungrateful, but I just can’t help but realize I’m another year older but not another year better. This year took me down a turn for the worse, and I’m still recovering. I suppose things like anniversaries and birthdays bring you around full circle, make you contemplate the past and the present and ponder the future.
I find that I’m not so much focused on this birthday, today, as I am wondering what my birthday next year will be like. Will I be well on the way back to being myself again? Will I be me again? Will I ever be me again?
Then I think, Maybe I’ll be me again when I figure out who ‘me’ is. Who am I now? Maybe who I am has to change. I don’t know.
What I do know is I don’t feel grown up yet, so it’s so weird to me to have all these medical problems that I used to attribute to being old! I’m not old though! How did I get congestive heart failure? (Yes, I know even little kids can get CHF – but my mind can’t fathom that!) How did I get pulmonary hypertension? That’s something for other people, not me! I don’t want to be this sick person any more. I’m ready to be me again!
But anyway….
Besides those rambling thoughts rattling around in my brain, mostly, it’s been a good day and it will continue to be a good day. After all, it’s my birthday. The whole world should celebrate! ha!
Don’t think for a moment that I’m wallowing in self pity. I’m really not. It’s just that, this day, in particular, brings so many things into my mind to think about… I’m not even including the fact I haven’t sold a novel yet into the equation or whining about when an agent is going to fall in love with my manuscript and instead of telling me it’s a well-written, good story that they don’t know how to market, instead say, “Yes! We love it. We want to sign you!” Then I can give them all my other manuscripts and be that best-selling author I already know I’m capable of being.
I’m 41… I’m ready to ‘be’ there now. Let’s do this.
Love and birthday stuff,
Michy
(Excerpted from The Path, by Michelle Devon, Copyright 2006)
Isn’t it strange how some things that are complete opposites can often be so similar that, to the casual observer, they appear to be the same? For example, can you truly tell the difference between a sunset and a sunrise? Except for the time of day and the direction the sun is facing, there really is no distinct difference in the appearance of sunrise versus a sunset if, for example, a photograph is taken with no indication of the outside factors. Both are just as beautiful, yet, they truly are near opposites in meaning.
The sappy butterfly feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you are ridiculously in love is not any different in physical sensation to the queasy butterfly feeling you get when you look at a serious wound or injury, and both are similar in physical sensation to intense fear. Yet, love and fear don’t usually go hand in hand.
Or do they?
I’ve often heard it said that love and hate appear to be two opposite things, but truth is, there is a very thin line between the two, and that line, that very thin line, is called passion.
Passion makes the intensity of both love and hatred, and truth be known, there isn’t a distinct difference in the manner in which we feel both of these conflicting emotions… just how we interpret and perceive them.
What one person looks at as support and love and caring, another looks at as a nuisance and pesky and bothersome. Whose perception is correct? The one who is giving the support because it is how they intended it? Or the one receiving the support, but not in the manner in which they need it?
Let me share with you a story that touched my heart:
Many years ago when I first met the man who was to become my husband, I found myself ‘playing hard to get’. The only thing was, I was not playing… I truly was hard to get. I was a bit distant, a little bit cold even, and I really made it quite difficult to get close to me without feeling frostbite.
But this man was different, and he persisted. He called daily, once per day, whether I answered or not. He usually left a message, something simple such as he was thinking about me and couldn’t wait until the next time we talked. He was never pushy, but he made it clear that he was interested.
Some days I would get irritated with him, others I would find myself amused.
Whatever he was doing, it worked, because eventually, I relented and agreed to go on a date. It was a nice date too. He was a perfect gentleman. He did things many men don’t do any more such as hold doors open, pull out chairs, and my favorite, although it made me slightly uncomfortable, was that he stood from the dinner table whenever I had to get up for any reason.
He treated me with respect and dignity, and I felt like a classy lady when I was with him. Still, my willingness to commit to this relationship did not exist.
Every day, this man would drive by my house on the way to work in the morning and leave a little note or a card on the windshield of my car. It never said much, usually just that he was thinking of me, but it never failed. Every morning, I knew it would be there. Every afternoon, he would call my house and leave that same one message for me, and I knew when I got home from work that he would be there for me, waiting, if only on the answering machine.
We would occasionally talk on the phone, and once in a while, we’d run into each other in person, and a few dates now and then, but I continued to keep this man at a distance.
Yet, he continued to do these things every day—rain or shine—weekend or weekday—every single day for three months!
Until one day…
I woke and dressed for work. I stepped outside, walked to the car and wondered what little token he would have given me today. However, when I looked, there was nothing on my car windshield. I immediately stopped and looked all around the car wondering if it had blown off on the ground, and I was very disappointed when I couldn’t find anything. I just shrugged and told myself I didn’t care, and I believed that it made no difference to me.
But on the way to work, I could barely see, trying to hold back the tears in my eyes… all because there was no letter on my windshield.
Later that evening, when I returned home, I went straight to the answering machine was, but there was no flashing light. I went about my night in a daze, numb. Later that night, alone in bed, I cried myself to sleep. The next morning, there was again no note.
I knew… he’d given up on me.
The next afternoon, I came home at lunch, and the light was once again flashing on my answering machine. Come to find out, he had been called in on an emergency assignment at work and had to leave to go out of town with no notice, so he couldn’t let me know.
He was back, and this time, when he left his afternoon message, I did something I had never done before. I picked up the phone and called him back.
Three months later, he asked me to marry him, and the woman who had said she would never marry, bawled like a baby and said, “Yes!”
Why?
Because the man would not give up on me. No matter what excuse I gave him or how hard I tried, he never gave up.
His love was stronger than my fear.
I asked him once, about a week after we were married, how long he would have continued to leave me cards and messages on my machine, and he said, “As long as it took.”
I laughed and asked, “As long as it took until what?”
He looked away from me for a moment and then finally looked back into my eyes, taking my face in his hands, and he said, “Until you could love yourself as much as I love you.”
He died seven months later…
To this day, there’s a part of me that still loves that part of myself that he loved. Even though he’s been gone for many years now, I still feel my heartbeat quicken when I catch a glimpse of a note on the windshield of a car or see a light flashing on my answering machine, just a flicker or a memory that still remains…
~~~
Sweet story, wasn’t it? It’s a true story, but I won’t get into the who, why, how of the story itself, though I have permission to share it. I like the story. It might make me teary eyed to read, but it makes me smile too.
Now, after reading the story, ask yourself an honest question: If this scenario had played out today instead of twenty years ago, the woman involved just might have called the cops for harassment and stalking instead of eventually marrying the love of her life.
When do you know where to draw that line? When do you say that refusing to give up and being assertive actually turns into stalking and harassing? When is it cute and endearing and when does it just become annoying?
You see, love doesn’t always look the same to everyone. The story could have easily taken a different direction if the women’s perception had been different.
Another question. and perhaps the most important questions of all: When you love someone, really love someone, do you ever truly give up hope? Do you ever allow yourself to totally walk away from that when you know it’s right? The man in the story said he’d have done it for ‘as long as it took’… I find it interesting that you’ll note his answer – he didn’t say that he was going to do it until she agreed with him or promised to date him or marry him or anything… he said he was going to do it ‘until she loved herself…’
Amazing…. selfless…
Or was it foolish?
I remember once saying to a man, “I will only walk away if you tell me too. Otherwise, I’m here for as long as it takes.”
But the woman in the story, she told him to walk away. Yet he still persisted, and had he listened to her, they would have never found the happiness they shared so briefly.
Then another question to consider: Have you here ever loved someone that much, that no matter the results, you truly cared more for that person’s happiness than your own desires? I’m not talking about giving all of yourself to someone to use up, and I’m not even talking about putting your own emotional needs before another’s. I’m talking only about caring more about another person’s feelings than your own desires/wants.
Have you ever loved that unselfishly? Have you ever given that freely?
I have. And I am blessed for the experience.
And just a few more questions to consider:
If you were the one getting a note on your windshield every day, and if you were to receive that one phone call every day… Would it make you smile? Would it influence you? Would it change your mind? Or would you have asked him to stop? Would you have missed the love that could have been because it didn’t necessarily look like you expected it to look?
As stated earlier, what looks like love and support to one person may not to another. What happens when one person is giving support, and giving support, and giving support, but the other person does nothing in return, doesn’t really even acknowledge the support. Does there come a point where the first person says, ‘Enough is enough—I’ve given and am not asking for much in return, so why is what I’m asking too much?’
What then? And what if the person who is being distant doesn’t even realize how very much he/she is hurting the one trying to be supportive? And that person can’t tell them how much it hurts, because there is no communication, no understanding, no empathy when opposite emotions conflict.
Yes, opposites—they often can appear the same. It’s all a matter of perception again. Perception is everything. My reality is not made up of what you see to be true, but rather the way I perceive it to be true for me.
After all, beginnings aren’t all that much different than endings. They are both intense. They both bring about emotion. The only factor that changes is how the emotion that is felt and perceived.
Beginnings are exciting and new and endings are tired and sad, yet waving hello isn’t all the different than waving goodbye. The passionate kiss you give a lover when they are going to be away is pretty much the same kiss they receive when reunited. It’s only the intent that changes. It’s what is in your heart that tells you how you feel, versus what’s in your mind that tells you how to think, and it’s the middle ground somewhere in between that makes the sense that you need to understand.
Sometimes when you look at something and you see that it appears to be a certain way, perhaps you can now step back a bit and look at it again, from a different perspective and ask yourself: Is this what it really appears to be? Is this really the same—or is it opposite? Is this real? Is this good? Is this bad?
Re-evaluate where things stand. Never take a situation, person, emotion, or understanding for granted.
Always ask yourself, “Am I watching the sun rise, or is this the sun setting?”
…
What do you think when you see someone using one of the electric carts in a grocery store?
There’s a reason I’m asking.
I want you to be completely honest with yourself, and I’m not asking anyone to reveal anything to me or this blog or anything, but if you want to put your responses here, that’s okay with me too. I figure I’ll either get a lot of comments on this one or I won’t get any on it… sometimes people LIKE being honest, too honest, and other times, they prefer no one know the demons that lurk inside the mind, the words we don’t say, but each and every one of us thinks.
I have done it too… not only about this instance, but also about other things. We judge. We don’t mean to. Many of us don’t want to. But we do. We have to. I mean, this judging is an important part of being human, an important part of it. Without our ability to make quick, snap judgements, we would frequently put ourselves in danger. We are walking down a dark alley, we see a big, scraggly man who appears to have a weapon in front of us, and we judge him. We need to judge him. We see someone we don’t know acting a little cagey, and we lock the car doors before he gets close to the car. That’s judging him. He might be the most honest person in the world.
Judging is not bad. Judging is not wrong. We’re not condemning anyone to anything. We’re not acting like a jury and awarding a punishment. We are simply making a judgement call. We have to do that.
So we can’t fault ourselves too badly when we see someone and our brains inside our heads instantly make a snap judgement.
So when I ask you what you think when you see someone in the electric scooter carts in a grocery store, I don’t want to know what you convince yourself of afterward, what you think once you think about it, feel about it, whatever. I want to know your instant, snap judgement.
- If you see that the person is elderly, you probably assume that is part of the reason they are in the cart.
- If you see the person has a cane, a wrap around a leg, a cast, or some other obvious injury, you probably think it’s because of the injury.
- If you see the person has no hair, is pale, looks weak or sickly, you probably assume they have cancer and are unable to walk for long distances because treatment and illness makes them weak.
And you would likely think these things, regardless of the weight of the person, if that person had a visible, easy to see, easy to understand physical ailment. The person in that cart could weight 500 pounds, and if they had no hair and were elderly or had a cast on their leg, you probably wouldn’t think twice.
But what if the person weighed 500 pounds and had no other obvious physical disability you could see? Would you assume, that is, would you judge, that they were in the cart because they were too heavy and/or too lazy to walk?
The reason I ask this today is multi-fold.
I’ve never been a super skinny person, but I used to be slender. I was always slender, never really fought too much with my weight when I was younger. Then I end up with thyroid problems and I gain some weight, and then I ended up with heart failure after the pulmonary embolisms damaged my heart, and the fluid retention has caused me to gain, from what my doctor tells me, about 70-100 pounds of fluid weight. This is called BNP – B-type Natriuretic Peptide. It’s something the brain signals the body to produce when the heart begins to fail, and it causes massive edema and fluid retention. I can gain and lose 60 pounds over the course of a few day’s time, literally. Like my skin is a balloon, it stretches and then gets smaller again as the edema fluctuates. My belly gets hard and rigid and full of fluid, and I get purple striations on my skin, similar to stretch marks but going in the opposite directions (instead of up and down, more side to side), and they aren’t as deep as stretch marks. I hate them, but whatever… can’t do much about it. The skin begins to lose elasticity, which then allows me to gain even more fluid retention the next time I get an attack/flare whatever it’s called.
Do I take meds for this? Yes, but they only can do so much and they only work so well. Doc says in a year or so, I should have this all under control, have the fluid mostly gone. I’ll be going to a lymphodema center soon to help me work with bringing the fluid down even more, but they can’t help me yet until the open wound in my leg, which is still about the size of a quarter or a little larger and is still about half an inch deep into the fatty tissue of my calf, is healed.
So in the meantime, I’m stuck. I look fat. I don’t always look sick. But I am sick, with pulmonary hypertension, making it nearly impossible for me to walk any distance without my sats dropping into the upper 70s or lowers 80s. I wouldn’t be able to be at a grocery store if I couldn’t be in a cart or a wheelchair. The carts are easier for me, because then *I* can shop instead of my family having to do everything for me.
And yet, I refuse anymore to use the carts in a grocery store.
And do you know why?
Because of something I read on Facebook the other day… of course, what I read had nothing to do with me in particular. It was said by someone who was a friend of mine on Facebook, but not someone I know well. And I felt this way before I read the comment too. BUT the comments epitomizes exactly what I feared, what I felt people thought.
Someone who had recently had surgery or an injury was using one of the carts in a store and with the cell phone, this person took a picture of themselves using it. Another commenter came along and said, “I thought there was a weight requirement for using the scooters in Walmart.”
Just to be sure no one misunderstands what this person meant, the commenter clarified it when someone else very legitimately misunderstood and said she didn’t know there was a weight limit. The comment was clarified to mean that, basically, you had to be FAT to use the scooters.
And that’s why I won’t use them. I guess, I feel that perhaps if they see me in the wheelchair, they are more likely to think I’m actually sick and need a wheelchair and less likely to think I’m just lazy and don’t want to walk. Even that bothers me, because I still fear that people think this. I suppose I’m lucky in that I still have the bruises on my arms from all the blood work and I still have the scars on my chest from the surgery… but what if I didn’t? What if I looked normal but was just in a lot of pain that day, or the edema had my chest so compressed I couldn’t breathe well. Or any other real medical reason…
….would people still think I was sick. Or would they think I was just fat and lazy?
Yes, I totally and completely realize that this is MY issue. It’s MY problem that I feel this way. It’s MY problem that I worry about what other people think. It’s MY problem that I have this body image issue with how I look right now.
But… if no one ever thought these things, if I had never heard anyone say it, seen anyone look or make nasty snide comments about people they saw in the carts. Had I not myself perhaps thought it a time or two, I wouldn’t be so worried about what others think of me.
So I’m taking full responsibility for my emotions here. I’m sharing this with my ‘blog friends’ about how I feel.
But at the same time, I do want to challenge you, as I have challenged myself, to reserve judgement. Sure, let your mind say whatever it needs to say to make the snap judgements we all need to survive, but then, take a moment and let your evolved and educated brain take a moment, just a moment, to tell yourself, What if this person is really sick? What if I’m wrong?
And then don’t send your negative energy out in that direction. Look, I was young and beautiful once. I never, ever thought I would look the way I look now. But I do. Don’t think for a single moment it can’t happen to you, because I swore it never would happen to me, and massive bilateral pulmonary embolisms that didn’t kill me (thank God!) later, and I’m alive, and so grateful for it, and I’m trying to learn that being alive and sick and overweight and filled with fluid with purple marks all over my skin that used to be so beautiful and smooth and soft… well, being alive is worth giving all that up, if I had to choose. Well, let’s say I’m still working on the emotional aspects of it, but I’m trying. I really AM grateful to be alive. I am.
Anyway, just rambling and babbling… but I hope you’ll just think about it, just for a moment, and realize that looks can be deceiving and you can’t possibly know. It’s all just assumptions and judgements. My point is, you don’t know. You have no idea why anyone is the way they are, and assuming… well, you know what that does to you. We laugh at the things we fear. We scorn and hate that which we’re afraid of becoming. There are more reasons behind a person’s appearance, attitude, looks, personality, emotions and life than we can possible imagine or even begin to think about when we see them for only a moment.
And what you say to them, around them, or where they can hear, or the way you look at them, or purposely don’t look at them, treat them, or comment or act around them does make a difference in their life–I know this, because it’s made a difference in mine and I’ve read and heard from others who have said the same thing, especially those with the ‘invisible illnesses’ that are so prevalent in our society and yet no less real or painful or troublesome to the sufferer. Not one single one of you would probably say anything other than positive, encouraging, supportive things if you knew it was me. How many of you though are absolutely certain that if you saw me and didn’t know it was me that you would respond the same way? I’m not even certain *I* would… and perhaps that’s part of why I worry and feel the way I do.
Thanks for listening… thank you even more if it made you think, even just a little bit. And even more if I made you CHANGE the way you think.
Love and stuff,
Michy
I wasn’t ready to say goodbye.
There was so much more I wanted to do, to share with you. Remember that restaurant in the shopping center where we used to always shop? I never took you to that restaurant, and I always meant to. Or that pond where the flags are placed every year? I wanted to walk hand in hand with you and watch those flags fly. There was just so much left I wanted to do with you. No, I just wasn’t ready to say goodbye.
I wasn’t ready to say goodbye.
There was so much more I wanted to tell you, to share with you, to show you. You left me alone when I was just getting to know you. If I’d known we would never share like this again, I’d tell you everything about me that I kept to myself, share every feeling and emotion. When you talked about yourself, I’d have listened and recorded every word, every thought, as though they were as precious as they should have been when you were still here, still with me. No, I wasn’t ready to say goodbye.
I wasn’t ready to be alone.
Alone is something I’ve done and done well, something I was used to being. But knowing what it felt like to know someone waited for me, I learned that I did not like being alone as much as I once thought. The comfort in knowing someone was there to turn to with a funny thought, a joke, or to just sit in silence. The comfort of another’s presence. No, I wasn’t ready to be alone.
I wasn’t ready to be alone.
I was scared and hurt and angry. I just knew my whole world would fall apart without you. How would I wake each day, alone, unsure of myself, without my support, my fan, my best friend? It didn’t matter that I’d been alone before and survived. No, I wasn’t ready to be alone.
I wasn’t ready to be in love.
You pursued me, loved me, waited for me. You watched me go through my own personal hell to understand that which still makes no sense. I fought you, argued with you, pushed you away, and yet, still you waited while I gave you excuse after excuse why this would never work, why I was not worthy of the love you gave so freely. No, I wasn’t ready to be in love.
I wasn’t ready to be in love.
I didn’t love myself, so how could I ever love you. I hated him, hated me, hated life, and was angry at God and the universe for the hand I thought it had dealt me, a hand I myself chose, but it seemed insane to blame me, so I blamed everyone else. I blamed you. No, I wasn’t ready to be in love.
Then one day, something changed.
I said goodbye.
I let go, and with that one simple word ‘Goodbye’ the world opened up to me and I knew that I wasn’t alone, not if I didn’t want to be, but I also knew that if I had to be, I could be. So I reached out to that which had waited so patiently. The universe aligned for me once again and brought me everything I needed.
Nothing made me ready…
I chose. I choose.
It’s my choice.
It always has been. I just couldn’t see it, didn’t believe it.
I chose to say goodbye, and when I did, I was ready to say goodbye. Goodbye, my friend, my heart, goodbye, and though part of me hurt, it was the best feeling, the right feeling for me at the time.
I chose to be alone, and when I did, I was ready to be alone. I like who I am, when I’m alone with myself. I like my life, my choices, my heart.
I chose to be in love, and when I did, I was ready to be in love. And to you, my love, the one with whom I have shared my heart and committed my life, when I chose to love you, I made that choice willingly, and I was ready to be in love.
In life it all comes down to choice—the right to choose, the freedom to choose.
When we feel most helpless in our lives is when we feel we have no choices or do not like the choices we feel we do have. In reality, we have an infinite, unlimited supply of choices, and for the most part, we even get to choose what our choices are.
This doesn’t mean we can ‘control’ every little thing that happens to us.
What it does mean is that when things happen beyond our control, we choose how we react, we choose how we respond, we choose how we will feel, and everything else will come into alignment behind those choices we make, the thoughts most prominent in our minds, and the feelings closest to our hearts. We create our own reality through these choices. We choose our destiny. We can’t always determine what is thrown at us, but we always get to choose how we deal with that which is thrown at us.
Choice.
A powerful word, that one.
It’s all about choice.
I chose. I continue to choose.
And because of that, I am ready…
…I am always ready, for anything that comes my way.
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(Excerpted from The Path, by Michelle Devon, Copyright 2006)
What did you think I meant when I told you I loved you? Did you think I was asking a question that needed a reply? Did you think that I was making a promise to you?
Why does saying “I love you” have to mean anything more than an expression of a feeling deep inside?
If I say I love you, I do not expect this means you will love me back. If I say I love you, I am not promising you that I will never fail you. I am not telling you that I want anything in return. I am not even asking for your acceptance of that love.
Love comes in so many forms. A parent loves a child and a child loves a parent—this is a feeling of unconditional acceptance—a ‘required’ love, but it is often stronger than any other love one can ever witness.
- Love can be an emotion.
- Love can be an act.
One can be in love, feel love, show love, make love. But in the end, it’s just a word—a word that holds little meaning when said too often or too little. A word and nothing more, because it’s the actions that make the emotion real, and the emotion that you feel—not the words that are spoken. Read the rest of this entry »
(Excerpted from The Path, by Michelle Devon, Copyright 2006)
A comfort zone is that place you find yourself when you know what to expect, and you are comfortable there, even if you are not in a good place.
Looking back over my life, I have never felt more alive than when I force myself to step outside of my comfort zones. It can be exhilarating, exciting, and sometimes even life altering to step outside of that which is comfortable and explore the realm of possibilities.
I realize in the past that one of the reasons I’ve stayed firmly inside my comfort zones, even and especially the ones that were not healthy for me emotionally and physically, is because of two little words: trust and faith.
In order to step outside of your comfort zones, you have to have trust—trust in yourself, trust in those around you, trust in God or something larger than yourself, and trust in the universe itself.
In order to step outside of your comfort zones, you have to have faith—faith in yourself, faith in those around you, faith in God or something larger than yourself, and faith in the universe itself.
Both words—faith and trust—were lacking in my life. I did not have faith or trust in my life, not in myself, not in my family, not in those I shared my life with, not in the universe. While I thought I had trust and faith in God, the truth was, I often wondered why His plan for me seemed to only bring me down painful paths. I’ve since learned that I chose my path, and any blame I put on God was simply my unwillingness to take responsibility for that direction I had chosen to walk.
I have a hard time putting faith and trust into another person. I know many people who have this same problem. I have learned, over the years, that perhaps the biggest reason for this lack of trust in others was because I didn’t trust myself.
Human beings tend to project their inner feelings on those around them. We see in others that which we either fear in ourselves or that which we admire and want to hold for ourselves.
If I didn’t have faith in myself, I surely couldn’t ‘believe’ that anyone else should have faith in me, now could I? If I’m not worthy of faith, then why should anyone else be?
Learning to have faith and trust in yourself is not an easy path to walk, but it is a worthwhile path to venture.
Think about this. If you were to learn you were going to die in exactly two weeks, without illness, you were just going to drop dead, how much of an impact would that make on how you life your life now?
I’d venture to guess it would have a huge impact on your life, and I also bet you would find that it is much easier to step out of your comfort zones then too.
That’s the intent behind this song:
I’ve read stories about people who find out they have a terminal illness, and after the initial shock and grief, they sit and make lists of all the things they want to do, all the people they want to talk to, all the things they want to say before they die. Then they set out to do all these things.
Why should we wait until we are dying to actually start living?
What keeps us from living, truly living, to our fullest potential are our comfort zones. It is the unknown, the fear, and the fear of the unknown that keeps us stuck in these comfort zones. It is what we don’t know that scares us, that makes us immobile, keeps us stuck.
If you had a remote control that you could use to rewind and relive any moment in your life, at any time, how differently would you live your life?
Think about it. You want to try something but you don’t know how it will turn out, so you don’t try it. Now, if you have this remote control and you can try it and know that if it doesn’t work out, you can rewind it and do something differently, you’d probably give it a go, wouldn’t you? When we remove the element of fear, extending trust and having faith in yourself and in others is so much easier.
F E A R !
When we know we can change an event if it doesn’t turn out as expected, there is no fear.
Fear immobilizes, but truly, there should be no fear. Fear is truly just an illusion. The past can’t be changed. The future isn’t predestined. The only thing that is real is the here and now, and if you live completely in the here and now, there can be no fear, because as long as you are alive and breathing, there is nothing to fear. Not a single moment in time is guaranteed, not one.
I’m the type who likes to plan, to know my future, to know what to expect, and learning that I can’t possibly know that, can’t possibly plan for every contingency, really is quite terrifying to me… but also exhilarating!
Everyone should live their life fully. Everyone should live like they were dying, every day, because the truth is, you are dying. We all are born with a terminal illness. It’s called life. No one escapes it. We all will die from life, at some point, so shouldn’t we make the most of what we have of it in the here and now?
I’m not asking you to let go of your comfort. I can’t even do that. There are things I take comfort in and I will never give those things up. But I think that everyone should, on a regular basis, push the limits of their comfort zones and see where life takes them.
I’ve learned the trick for me that allows me to step outside of my comfort zone now when I had trouble doing so earlier in my life. I have learned that I have to detach from my expectation of a certain outcome. So every day, I find some way to take a leap into my life, into my future. I have no idea when or even if I’m ever going to land, and if I do land, I have no idea where or how… and that’s quite all right with me.
I am flying!
Even if I crash at some point in the future from having taken a leap, the one thing no one can take from me is the experience I had while flying. It’s mine to hold, forevermore, and even if I have to land at some point, I will always have the memory of flying to push me forward to the next leap of faith.
Won’t you stop for a moment and look at your own comfort zones and ask yourself whether or not you’re ready to take that leap?
Come on, now. Step outside of your comfort zones. Quit dying and start living. Come fly with me.
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Well, it’s been about a month since I got out of the hospital this last time. The first time I was in the hospital, they probably let me go home too soon, and the second time, I felt they I needed out of there faster than they let me go. I had a minor surgery the second time, I was overall feeling much better and was more than ready to leave. I still have shadows of bruises from the first hospital stay and still have very purple dark bruises from the most recent one on my arm.
The other day, Lynn was pulled over for speeding. The cop asked if there were any reasons why we were going so fast, in such a hurry. Said, “Nope, just running late for a doctor’s appointment.” Made some comment about the bruises and how I was just waiting for them to poke me. Then there was a joke about Lynn beating me up and leaving bruises on me. The cop laughed out loud and said, “You know,” pointing to the mic on his shoulder strap, “that was all just recorded and the folks downtown can hear it…”
His eyes were sparkling and he was joking with us. You know, cops don’t always LIKE to give tickets. Not his fault Lynn was speeding, right? He was super nice though. I said very loudly, “No, she really didn’t beat me. Promise. I… I… uhm, ran into a wall, yeah, that’s it!” Read the rest of this entry »
I heard a wise man say once that we should only keep those things in our life that are either useful or beautiful. Everything that is not useful or beautiful, we should toss out and not carry it with us.
Once I held something beautiful in my hands. I could turn it around, look at it, and from every angle, I saw the beauty. It was obvious beauty, something anyone could see at a glance.
One day, something happened and this beautiful item broke.
I was sad when it broke—hurt and angry that it broke, and I cried when I looked upon the damage that had been done to what was once so beautiful. While I could still see the glimmers of the beauty that was once there, it was no longer whole, and therefore, no longer the thing of beauty it was once.
Yet, I could not bring myself to throw it out, because I could recall, remember with startling clarity, the beauty that was once there.
So I keep it, though broken as it is, knowing it is no longer beautiful or useful to me, and I use it to remind myself of the beauty that was once. Some days the reminder makes me smile at the memory, and other days, the reminder makes me sad all over again for the knowing that it is no longer beautiful.
In keeping this broken memory, I find that this once-beautiful thing now sits on a shelf beside other things that are not broken, things that are still beautiful, still whole.
When people visit me, they do not see the beautiful things.
No, in fact, they always ask me, “What is this one doing here? It’s broken.” Read the rest of this entry »
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