I’ve successfully managed to live on cruise control for two weeks…not sure how long it will last, but for now I’m enjoying my hands-free lifestyle. Which has also given me the opportunity to reflect on all the crap that happened this year. And it was just crap, no giant Tragedies.
And now all I have are lessons, optimism, and strength. The hurt and frustration subsided, and I actually like myself better. I said, hey self, that really wasn’t so bad, you did it, and now you’re wiser and cooler! You’re more independent, patient, learning to roll with the punches, better at empathizing, more even-tempered, better at standing up for yourself, and much less selfish. Then I thought, Yikes! Could I even imagine going back to the person I was 6 months ago? That person sounds terribly immature and annoying! Good thing I had all those nasty lessons so I don’t have to be that person anymore. The human mind is the only machine where more miles per year is a good thing.

Notice that everyone can't swim and/or likes to swim in their clothing...oh China.

Listening - is it my greatest weakness, or my greatest strength? Do I prefer friends who are great listeners, and let me be the selfish one, or is it better to have friends who like to talk, letting me be the listener, the needed one, the support? Obviously it is good to have all of the above situations! However the thing with listening is that it's always changing, shifting, but always feeling great. There's nothing I love more than getting a note from a friend thanking me for listening to them. On the other side, I can't thank my friends enough for listening to me babble about whatever the heck I feel like, and let me tell you, it's not always important!

I recognize that the things I just wrote aren't exactly a new revelation, so let's cut to the chase. I read recently in a psychology paper from here or there, you find a lot of new things on the internet when you don't have a lot to do at work, that said that in a conversation, the listener is actually the one in control, and the speaker is developing emotional dependency on the listener. The other piece of my revelation is that while going through some stressors recently, I found that two of my best listeners were people who really shouldn't have taken that role. I would prefer not to point them out, since all of my friends are created equal (wink), but I'm going to, just to demonstrate the unexpectedness of this. The first is my boss. She's not that much older than me, so a friendship isn't that unlikely, but the fact that we managed to cross some boundaries and still maintain a healthy working relationship was really amazing. The second was my ex-boyfriend's sister. I was literally putting her between a rock and a hard place. She held up like a champ (obviously plays by rule #76). Now that I'm feeling better and don't need to tearfully ramble at painful lengths of time, I look back at them with so much appreciation and respect. Maybe no one knew exactly what was going on, but just by letting me talk, we developed friendships that are invaluable to me, and in semi-inappropriate places! I also appreciate that none of us needed to live our lives in black and white, we were open to see how things would unfold for us.

Attitude and self-esteem should never, ever, be based on your circumstances. It should be vice versa. I'm pretty sure that's called enlightenment or something, so chances are none of us will ever make it to the far side of the spectrum. But perspective checks are constantly necessary in life. I find it very easy to feel good or bad based on what's happening in my life. The thing I discovered is that "what's happening in my life" is constantly changing whether I like or want the changes, so letting my attitude and self-esteem correlate with these events doesn't do a damn thing besides stress me out. The other disadvantage to all of this is that people don't like your more or less based on your circumstances; rather they either sympathetic or envious. Which are fine emotions, but they're not friendship-building emotions. Your attitude and confidence will bring in a lot more good things from the outside than great hair or a respectable job.

I think Lao Tzu said it better than me, "Rejoice in the way things are."

This is me, for better or for worse!

What happens when you lose your job, you move, you have finals for online psychology, several family holidays, and are trying to maintain your sanity, your yoga practice, and all your friendships? And as a result of all this, you've decided you're going to forego the cable/internet bill until the cash flow stabilizes (hey, it's summer, I should be outside anyway, not boob tubing it). Your blog gets the shaft! So I guess it's to be expected, I do rank low on blog consistency! Like I said before - it's a pretty accurate reflection of my life. The moving is done, the psych class is done, family celebrations are on hiatus for a few months, leaving only one major problem. The sanity is slow creeping back. This leads back to my favorite yoga metaphor of all time:
Last fall is when I began yoga, and I wanted to do a headstand in the middle of the room SO BADLY. I knew I was capable of it, so I decided to make it my goal to land it by the end of 2010. Then, like always, life got in the way, I got really sick for 2-3 weeks, I had a Biostatistics final (that one was much more painful than the psych class) and the headstand (hmm kinda like my blog, I'm seeing a pattern here) was all but forgotten. I did a yoga workshop on New Year's Day, and lo and behold! I landed the headstand in the middle of the room! And I hadn't even really tried. I was ecstatically telling my yoga teacher this story, and she reminded me that that is the beauty of yoga: sometimes you let go and things just happen. With everything that I've been trying to sort out lately, I can promise you this is true. Stress is just the devil.

Grace is one of my favorite things. [A side note is that one time I wikipedia'ed it, and the whole definition was related to the Christian God. My contemporary cultural definition is acting with poise and confidence, accepting failure with good nature, and making careful choices when integrating emotion and action.]

A while ago I applied for summer program that takes students to New Mexico and Ensenada to study border epidemiology. I didn't get accepted, and was pretty bummed.

In conversation with the woman to whom I turned in my application, I casually mentioned something about my bachelor's degree, something that happens to be uncommon for my workplace. She knew of a group here at my work where that thing is particularly relevant and sought-after, and has now introduced me to some people there. Now when I am in need of a job. Although I have nothing concrete, it is certainly a hopeful situation. This hopeful situation would never have arisen if I had not applied to the earlier program for which I was rejected. As disappointing as it was, now I see it as nothing but an enormous gift! It is such a good reminder for me to always remember to take things in strides, and wait out situations. You never know what will turn around into your favor (and vice versa... wink).

For icing on the cake, I brought this woman a small thank you gift this morning, and she was thrilled. She also told me what lovely things my hopeful future employers were saying about me.

None of this would ever have happened if I had not worked hard for something and been let down.

So are you going to be this -


or this -

The other weekend I went hiking with a friend and when we got to the waterfall, we started taking pictures, like any self-respecting girl who lives in the northwest would do. My friend climbed on a big rock, you can sort of see it in the left of the photo (and you can laugh at me and tell me it's not that big, it's all relative, right) and she wanted to take pictures there. Then she wanted me to climb on it too. I'm not so great with balance, and I had just rolled my ankle, and I was enjoying the waterfall just dandy from the little rocks closer to the ground. So I opted not go up. It turned out to be a great moment of self. In the past, I might have beat myself up for not being cool enough to climb on the big rock. Or I would have pushed myself to do it and been miserable the whole time I was up there. This time I thought, who cares! She can call me a weiner if she wants. I'm happy with the way things are, so I don't need any validation from others. And I'm even ok taking the dis.

I will note that there are times when peer pressure is good. There are definitely times when I'm wanting to climb on that rock, I just need a little support. The best thing to do is take an internal double-check and determine if you really want the thing you're going after, or if you want people to think you can handle it. The former determines the latter.

One of my friends has a blog I particularly admire because she has a theme, sticks with it, and posts on a regular basis. This situation somehow continues to elude me, even kept me from blogging for awhile because I had failed so miserably at the consistency part. Another friend told me it didn't matter at all if I had that, it was still interesting to read what was written. So, in giving this another go, I realized that although my blog is doing whatever it feels like, it's a very accurate and real representation of my life. Things change - I get busy, I get bored, my perspective changes, I'm influenced by the various people around me, I have different goals. I also realized that this is what gives it character. I was reading Shape magazine on Saturday, whom I used to respect, and saw a tidbit that suggested putting on your favorite CD when you're in a bad mood to make yourself feel better. Zzzzzzzz. Personally, I want something fresh! [Although I do like quotes and Chinese proverbs, definitely not so fresh.] I like the idea that if I write what I want, when I want, and how I want, it might be something people can really relate to. And in this media and advertising driven world, that's definitely something we could use.