A little introspection and reflection

Every time I start to give up, something happens to encourage me to get up again, keep stumbling along, trying to find my way to a full wonderful life.  A little unexpected encouragement, a chance meeting with an old friend, making a new friend, appreciation at work, a calm and beautiful day, a day after where the pain isn't quite as bad as I thought it would be.

My life seems so completely different than it once was.  The times where I feel incapable and unable are fewer, the times where I feel strong and powerful are more.  I'm learning to deal with limits, and perhaps some day I'll even be ok with them or even treasure them.

A dear, dear friend told me last night that he did not feel like he knew me well enough any more, that he had not spent much quality time with me recently.  He and his wife are two of my favorite people in the world and are so close to my heart that hearing him say this surprised me.  Part of me thought, "Well, I'm just the same as when you knew me, when we served together, when we had some of the most sincere conversations while preparing and eating dinner in their home."  But then I paused and realized that may not be true.  That these years since college have taught me so much about myself, how I want to exist in this world, how I want to live this life.

I have a job that I love, I have a home that is mine and is peaceful and rejuvenating and large enough to invite people into it and large enough to have children play in it.  I find rewarding things to do with my time, I'm building a circle of people that can fortify me and remind me of my strength when I've forgotten and that I can support and love and offer a shoulder or a meal or a baked good ;).

And yet, to my core, I am the same person I've always been.  I just know myself much more.  I surprised myself last night by being able to be myself around a new person and not feel embarrassed or unimportant or unworthy.  Those feelings of isolation and being misunderstood have hindered me so much in my life, are the lenses through which I saw my life and my interactions.  But they were just veils, visible only to me, veils that kept me separate from the people I loved so dearly.  I'm working every day to move those veils, make them a little thinner, pull them to the side for a while.

I can be myself out loud now.  It still takes thought and concentration and words of support in my head and from my friends.  But I'm getting there.  And when those thoughts of unworthiness come, then God gives me a new light to see things in.  In one sense, I can't do much at all right now. I've gotten my priorities all out of whack, I'm not living the way I think I am or want to be.  But then, I can turn it around and see that although the steps may be small, I'm taking them.  Although I spend so much more time taking care of myself, it means that there are times I can focus on and be of service to others.  The amounts of time may not be equal, but maybe that's partly because I'm not as practiced at taking care of myself as I am at trying to take care of others.

This weekend will hopefully be one of balance.  I'm letting go of the guilt of not working on weekends, of not ever having done enough (but it still creeps up at work occasionally).  I do not miss that part of grad school (though I miss the people and the places a lot).  I will do some homework this weekend, but I will be able to make distinct progress.  I will read the pages and do the problems and then BE DONE.  I will spend some time with friends, spend some time reading, some time outside, some time working these muscles so that they will not rebel against me too much.

I will spend more time in prayer.  God and I have had an interesting relationship these past few months, and I want to make purposeful steps toward strengthening that tie once more.  I want to have people to pray at my house and yet I don't know if I have the physical energy to commit to it.  I've been seeing answers to my humble and unfocused prayers, which encourages me to keep trying, to keep battling through the fatigue and the pain and focus on the sincerity of the prayer, not the length of it.  Not to feel limited because I can't read the three page tablet but only a few sentences, because Baha'u'llah tells us:

"Every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God is endowed with such potency as can instill new life into every human frame."  


If a single word has that potency, then how much a few sentences can do, especially more than not saying any out of a worry of not saying them all.

Remembering

There are days I drop words of comfort on myself like falling rain & remember it is enough to be taken care of by myself.


Today (and every day), I need to remember this.  Remember that it's not all or nothing.  Remember that I have a power and a courage inside of me that I too often forget.  Remember that I can take care of myself.  Remember that the voice inside my head is not always truthful or in touch with reality and is NOT WHO I AM.
I am noble.  I am a beautiful, perfect creation of God.  I have a light inside me that can only shine if I get my self (ego, self-critical, defeatist voice, etc.) out of the way.  God will give me the power I need to grow and act with love if I only ask and let Him guide me.

If I could write poetry that should ever be read, I'd write one here.

I tried out my oil pastels the other day - the only things that came out the way I wanted were B and the tree near us.  I'm too impatient for art, or at least I was at the time.  I couldn't take the time to make things the way I wanted.

I warmed my house last night with friends and prayers and fun and coffee and brownies.  It was very nice.

I asked for help yesterday, and I was rewarded a hundredfold.  It will take time to create a group of people here, but I'm off to a fantastic start.

Today, I get a quiet day.  Maybe my books will make it out of boxes today, around my friend time and me time.

I'm mostly decaf these days - the caffeine really was messing with my system, much more than that little bit of time with the caffeine doing what it was supposed to was great.  I just need to learn to wake up my brain in a different way.

I found my puzzle that I bought at the Friends of the Library book sale for a quarter last fall - I'm excited to start putting that together.

I was told yesterday that I must've been an English major in another life because I wrote well.  That was a first.  I just write the way I speak and throw punctuation in when I pause.  Though, I guess when I take time to compose my thoughts just the way I want, I can speak pretty well.

Teaching helped me overcome my fear of expressing myself out loud even more.  I started the process in Haifa.  It's a journey that will keep on going.

I have even more pictures on my walls, and I love it.  Pictures of the beautiful places in the world that I've been.

Food, glorious food

Foods I'm loving this week -

SC farm fresh peaches (last of the season) and tomatoes from the Livingston Farms stand at the Columbia local farmer's market - they're great, and they even pull out the ripest and best things to sell me :)

Empire apples waiting to be eaten - apparently they grow well in SC

Pumpkin spice cream cheese!

Terra Thai Basil veggie chips - yum

Starbucks iced white mocha with caramel drizzle - yep it's still 90 degrees here, so iced coffee still fantastic

My homemade coffee is getting pretty good, especially with my Tourani caramel syrup I finally bought at World Market

Carrots and peanut butter - a classic favorite

Rain rain go away

I'm sick of this rain.  I'm living in South Carolina, I just put up with horribly hot summer, I'm not supposed to have to deal with rain too.  That was Ithaca.  Although this is certainly SC rain - it's fine outside, and then all of a sudden it's pouring.  Pouring so hard, we can't see the house across the street at my parents' house.  It did give us a chance to meet us new neighbors, and turns out we have mutual friends and the woman knows my mom.  How funny.  The world outside the Faith is small too.  That's Columbia for you.

Work is going well - I rocked when the wealth psychologist came to visit.  Consultation skills and being the chair of a meeting skills are apparently unusual when you're in your 20s.  I had the guy saying "Where did they find you?"  to which I responded "Actually, I found them."

My new place is taking shape.  I'm still hunting for a couch.  I still have a million boxes, due to the fact that I'm studying every mentally awake hour that I possibly can.

I have a fabulous and beautiful new jewelry box, thanks to B and Jer.  I love it - it makes me feel like a grown-up.  I should have more beautiful things.

I'm getting color in my apartment like nobody's business.  Pink, yellow, brown, navy blue, cornflower blue, red, rust red, white, black, purple, a very little green,  more blue, and a turquoise shower curtain.  I love it.  I'm trying to offset the brown carpet and the yellow-y beige walls.

Now to continue my mid-week day off!

New apartment - excitement, fear, fatigue, joy, relief, overwhelmed - so many emotions for one ultimately good thing

New job - balancing act.  reading Made to Stick for Strategy Day, recently met with a wealth psychologist for a two day training on assertiveness, meeting management, active listening, etc.

Same old body - it's kind of working, I'm still going strong on my 5 days a week exercise plan.  Almost 2 months now, go me!

CFA reading - it's kind of stupid that I'm trying to take this exam in December, as I just don't have enough time to study.  I feel like it's my A exam all over again, but I'm trying to learn everything in 6 months.  Oops.  We'll see how this goes.

Loved reading A Cup of Friendship.  Fantastic book.  Made me think.

Now must go to my 8-5 day at the office.  Send good thoughts and prayers my way - Fridays are always tough, endurance and health-wise.

Thoughts

This morning I was thinking about a conversation I'd had recently about God's grace and salvation and the like, when I was reading from the Baha'i Holy Writings.  And I was realizing just how much it's an either/or discussion in so many people's minds, between God's grace and good works.  I love how Baha'u'llah's writings put things in a completely different light, take away dichotomies, etc.  It's grace and the act of believing in God and accepting His guidance and constantly turning to him and trying to abide by the Teachings He's sent to us through these Holy Persons and His love for us, and I'm sure so much more that I don't understand yet.  I find that comforting, and yet it doesn't make life any easier.  In fact, it makes life more difficult because you're constantly trying to live a better life and become a better person.

In more mundane matters, I have a fabulous color of toe nail polish on right now, thanks to the pedicures B and I got after a long day of cleaning the Baha'i center.  I got to clean the front window area to the foyer, and I don't believe the windows have been cleaned since I cleaned them 5 years ago before we opened the building.  IT'S AMAZING what a difference clean glass makes.  My fabulous toe nail polish color unfortunately clashes terribly with my fabulous new red high heels, so I haven't been able to wear them to work.  Oh yes, I'm wearing heels now.  I found two pairs that I can wear and not have horrible pain at the end of the day!  It's exciting.

I can't wait to move into my new apartment.  I'm looking forward to:
 - having room to make iced coffee and keep it in the fridge
 - washing my dishes whenever I want to
 - having my books and kitchen stuff out of their boxes
 - decorating my new space with new and old things
 - having all my spaces closer together... there's something good to be said for having a smaller space.

I'm getting into a routine with my CFA studying, and I only have two more CFP classes to take - Income Tax Planning and the Case Study Review course.  December seems not that far away with how much CFA stuff I still have left to learn.

I had one of those moments today when the entire world was too hard to handle, and there was something I really wanted to do, but the idea of just getting myself to the place much less interacting with people was far too much to handle.  I really need to stay away from loud, echoing rooms/restaurants, and I need to really limit my caffeine intake, even though Starbucks is delicious and my own version of Cheers.

Yesterday, I...

Drove to work for the 4th to last time (who's counting, right?).

Did stupid data entry work, and almost "played the stock market" - good thing they have safeties in place...

Treated myself to lunch, as I was worried I was going to faint on the drive home. Not good when driving a vehicle 70 miles an hour on an interstate. So I stopped for delicious food from Moes.

Did homework at my favorite out-of-home office (along with half the neighborhood) and saw several friends there too.

Treated the cat-stained couch (have I mentioned how much I dislike these cats?).

Made time to go exercise even though I didn't want to.

Got ready and went to First Thursday on Main St, though I way over-dressed... I was shooting for "art gallery and museum going" and should've dressed for "bring out all your craziest artists and put them in 'stereotypically arty' clothes". I was, however, dressed for the ridiculously hot weather. Did see a guy with a firy whip doing a demo in the street. Then he blew fire too. His "lighter" guy held the sparkler in his mouth... we decided it was because he thought he'd look to lame holding it in his hand compared to the guy with the whip that was on fire. Saw a friend's jewelry - it was more stuff I would want to put in a collage or hang on a wall than wear on my ears, but as you all know, I'm pretty conservative when it comes to earrings.

Wandered around the galleries on Main St and saw cool art - one painting I loved and a few photographs that were pretty neat. I'd never been in any of these buildings in my many years of living in this city - I thought that was cool.

Then, afterward, I went grocery shopping for ingredients for treats for my favorite baristas - they always make me smile and make me delicious coffee - I want to reward them for that!

Today - lunch at Blue Cactus, a drive to the upstate, chiropractor, Trader Joe's, and PF Changs. Tomorrow - high school reunion and delivering the truffles to S-bux.