Today was the first rain of the 2006-07 winter. It didn't really pour down, but it was a nice drizzle-to-gentle-rain that washed the dust off the car and the leaves, and freshened the air. It was cloudy and cool, and a nice change from hot-to-warm and parched.
It'll go back into the 80s this weekend, I'm told, but this respite is nice. I'm sure we'll be sick of rain in another few months, just as the constant sunshine in the summer gets to me after a while.
I woke feeling achey-breaky, though, and my stomach was still rumbly -- last night it was most unsettled and unhappy, despite some ginger ale and peppermint tea. So I just took the day off -- stayed in comfy loungy clothes and didn't put on makeup (or even shower...yet) and slept, read, putzed, and didn't do anything very constructive. After several weeks of go-go-go and do-do-do, it felt good to unwind.
Last night, though, we had a wonderful gathering here to celebrate all the photo entries in our local fair, and the many ribbons we all took home. There was food, lots of talking, photo sharing, and generally the kind of gathering we'd envisioned when we built this house. It's well laid out for such a gathering, with greatroom and kitchen and den all flowing into each other. And it was a pleasure to get things ready for the party because Tony was right there, helping and cleaning and tidying. We both worked hard to make it happen, and it was nice.
Living with our choices
We were talking again today about making choices and living with the consequences, about creating our own destiny through those choices, and about establishing boundaries for ourselves. More than ever, we understand how choices we make can affect the paths that are open to us and how the future evolves. Both of us can map our past and how we came to this point because of the choices we made then, both the good and the not-so-good.
I made choices fairly blithely when I was in my teens, 20s, and 30s, and even into my 40s a little, although I remember analyzing and agonizing over career choices, among others, in my 40s. Maybe that's when most of us start to wake up about our responsibility for the way our life turns out.
I know that in the late 30s I began to notice those forks in the road far more clearly, and to be able to project the way my life was likely to go depending on which path I chose. The decisions didn't come as easily then -- in my 20s and much of my 30s, it just "seemed right" to go a certain way, or I could assign responsibility for the not-so-great outcomes to someone else's choices. When you can blame someone else for the things that happen to you -- a lousy childhood, a poor teacher, being in the wrong place at the wrong time -- it lets you avoid acceptance of your own behavior and choices.
I don't mean to downplay the traumatic consequences of abuse or neglect -- certainly they carve life-long scars, and are extra hurdles to be overcome. But there are hundreds of examples of people who are survivors -- who have endured really awful things that were not their fault -- and who have become successful, healthy, caring individuals in spite of it.
I believe we carry unlimited potential inside of ourselves. I believe we become who we choose to become, either by accepting responsibility for our choices or blaming others for our failures.
There comes a time when each of us is alone with who we are. We can accept what we see and change what we don't like, or we can quickly turn away and continue to deny our own responsibility for who we are.
I've watched people turn their lives around and make them into what we all want life to be. Oh, there always will be new challenges and choices -- when you stop having those, you're dead....but life is exactly what you make it.
And I've also watched others trapped by denial of their ability to change their lives and refusal to take responsibility for what happens to them. It is hard to stand by and let it happen -- and yet, there is no other way. The addict does not stop using until s/he finally accepts that he can and wants to change.
I'm sympathetic...to a point. It's so not fun. It's hard, one-day-at-a-time work. We make our own destiny. I'm still working on mine.
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