perspective came..

"anything that impedes progress is a sin.."

the picture is just to prove what i said the other day - hair in uppy-doos and new sunglasses solve everything!

today after a run in the pouring rain to the coast guard base and back home again perspective came to me like an old friend returning. i was secretly worried that i would stay somewhat locked out of my own logic. if we were all being honest with ourselves i think we would admit that wandering around feeling emotionally raw and being somewhat illogical is impeding progress. it's my firm belief that nature is meant to be stable, most times when elements come together they automatically combine in the most stable way. i strive for perspective, stability and logical thought about my situations. so here it is... the good the bad and the ugly if you will.

after a long week of change and turmoil i had a stage 5 freak out (includes crying, irrational conversation, panic and very little humor). i should know myself by now and know that i should just talk about how i feel and what i'm thinking so that i'm not bottling up everything. i'm actually known by some of my closest friends for this one flaw - the i'm fine, i'm good, everything is okay until i can't take it anymore and it's not something i love about myself. if i can be so self-indulgent i will divulge some of the things that i should have perhaps mentioned before the stage 5.

1. death: i feel isolated from family because of what my family has always been to me - conflict. my closest person was my grandfather and when he died that closest person became my cousin. i felt as if he and i had a similar background with emotionally unavailable alcoholic fathers. he understood the turmoil and disappointment of feeling as if the most important relationship in our lives (with our parents) is permanently broken simply because too many things have transpired and the trust can never be rebuilt. i often felt at the core of me that if my father never loved me that no one ever would - he after all knew me in a way that a stranger couldn't... he donated half of my dna. so when he continually told me what he saw in me i believed that anyone given the chance to be intimate with me would eventually begin to see those things. i began to build a new family of sorts and leave the one i was born into... and years later some of those hurts have healed - partly from my own experience with parenting and partly because i got so tired of carrying the baggage around i finally just forgave to get on with my life. there is more that is too much to be put here but thats the gist. the loss of the person that could relate the most and help me to build a future based upon what i WAS not what someone accused me of has been a blow... the real fear is that maybe only one person believes in the person i've become and that person is now gone....

2. birth: the passing of my friendship with chad was a devastating blow. i understand it and don't blame him nor myself. i feel as if it was somewhat toxic and i needed to sever old ties to myself in order to move forward. chad and sharon having a child is just a painful reminder that sometimes in life there are people you love but that love just isn't enough to sustain a relationship. i am unable because of what has transpired to even share in the joy in their life - that is an enemy for certain... a person that excludes you from one of their greatest joys is certainly a person that hates you. enter perfect timing for self doubt from above - what if chad and i aren't friends because i'm not good enough, strong enough, smart enough or i simply am all the things that my father said i was?

3. cody leaving: i came to alaska to find myself and started off on a track that i wasn't crazy about. enter cody. i could enumerate all of cody's great qualities but it's somewhat of a side note at this point... let's just say that i couldn't have asked for a better friend. cody and i become friends simply because it's what is meant to be. during our talks and time together i find exactly what i came here for - peace and confidence. somewhere along the way i may have started to like him more than i wanted to (or he wanted me to) but i think he'll forgive me for that. this week when he left i realized exactly how i felt, what i had in his friendship and how much he gave simply by being who he is. enter perfect timing from the two above notes....

i think all laid out like this it's easy to see how there may have been a little freaking out - i'm sensitive / scared of three things:
self-doubt, failure
my past and all the emotions that entails
intimacy

so the perspective is this: i lived. i did it. i believe what i wrote a few days ago in my red letter days blog. the world changes and i simply have to be aware enough to see the many gifts that lie before me and aware enough to face those gifts with honesty and a steady heart. there is no preparation for life's challenges - there is no training or teleprompter to guide us in difficult situations. the real gift here is that i did it all in one week instead of facing all of these things over a series of months... for a girl as impatient as me that is definitely a good thing. for now the important thing is to deal with all of those things in a constructive way and work towards the goals i have set for myself.