Insight To Chaos

I’ve never really been one to put too much stock in New Year’s resolutions. Yet, come the end of August every year as my birthday approaches, I find myself reflecting on all that’s gone on in the months since turning another year older; the laughing, the loving, the crying. By my birthday every year, I will have asked myself if where I am is where I wanted to be a year ago. I’ll rejoice in the achievement of certain goals and make a plan to refocus the ones that haven’t yet come to full fruition. I’ll pick pieces of me, emotionally or physically, that I think could do well with a year’s worth of concentrated evolution. My own little A-type self experimentation in achieving a personal best from one year to the next. In part, I think it’s good – always trying to find a better me. But if this last year has taught me anything, it may very well be that the details or carefully-picked pieces can just as easily blur a picture as it can clarify it.

A long time ago, I promised myself that I wouldn’t invest myself in others or allow them to invest anything in me until I honestly felt there was something worth the venture. I found, even as a teenager, that it was all too easy to get caught up in somebody else’s version of version of me – that definition of happiness (or sadness, in some cases) by what others saw or felt. That has never been a bad thing, of course. It’s an absolutely exquisite feeling to see and enjoy how elements of you affect others. But that’s just it – only elements of you. How often do we show people all of who we are? How often do we keep parts of ourselves hidden for fear of judgment, or ultimately the stealing away of that happiness, defined by people who never had the full picture? We are complicated beings, all searching for love and happiness and thus, more often than not, ruled by fear and vulnerability. But…what’s so wrong with that entire picture of any one of us that we might not deserve that which we seek so desperately? Answer: Nothing. But who is ever going to love us how we want or need if we don’t do it for ourselves first?

So, back to me, 19 years old, birthday-vowing no more investment until I could first be the person I wanted me to be. Great plan; hard to carry out quickly with life still rapidly whirling around me. And here I am, 10 years later, on the eve of another birthday, asking myself the same questions. The catch is, this time all of my answers are finally different. Yeah, I have accomplished some pretty cool things this year. Yeah, I have other goals and stuff I want to get done. But as for the other stuff? Invested. Fully. In myself, in the people I love, in the people that love me. Funny thing too, it took the love of another to finally set that last piece in place – to show me what was already there, just a bit askew from trying to focus on too much detail. Ironic indeed, nevertheless completely apropos.

Here’s the thing, if our perceptions are truly our own – if our uniqueness is in HOW we see things, shouldn’t it be in how we feel things as well? My answer: Yes. Yes, absolutely. It’s all out there: love, happiness, friendship, malice, anger, guilt. It’s what we each choose to do with ALL of it, how we allow it to be part of our lives that really make us who we are. In that and only that, we are thus solely responsible for our own happiness and our own sadness. The affect we have on others, the affect they have on us can, of course, add or subtract from each experience. But ultimately, the experience as a whole is 100% purely our own, whether we concentrate on the pieces or the whole.

Obviously a lot has happened in 10 years. Each new experience has brought new opportunity to learn and expand, a chance to come closer to being this ideal, put-together A-type test subject I have always thought people would most like to keep around. And that description is me…to a point. As for the rest of me though…turns out people see that too. The ones who are actually looking anyway. Somehow, this year, all the walls came down. I invested in my friends, my village – finally trusting them to accept and love me for all of the stuff I bring to the table. Made new friends. Re-connected with so many old friends. I invested in myself – finally forgiving me for ever being so fallible as to be human. I sought forgiveness in others for pain that I have caused. I opened my eyes, looked around and found love – accidentally, intentionally, ever-present, unwavering. I’ll be honest, it’s completely overwhelming to all at once realize just how much you are capable of loving and of being loved in return. I have finally perceived the reality I sought out so long ago. It’s pretty darn awesome. Nobody else can change that for me now either, nor do I have any desire to alter it myself. My 28th year has been wild indeed. A LOT of happy, a fair amount of sad and absolutely no regrets whatsoever.

I’m not making any goals for this year. If for nothing else than to enjoy the hell out of my last year in my twenties…and let whatever will be, be. I’m taking all the good, leaving the pain and carrying it forward with nothing but hope for more to come and faith that it will. Happy new year.