Lately it seems like every few days someone else I know is getting engaged or pregnant or leaving the country or other such big, life-changing, enviable things. And that's great, you know, yay, good for them. But still... sometimes I end up feeling that life has kind of left me behind. Like everyone else is growing up, except me. Unless you count working three part-time jobs and being stressed 75% of the time as grown up stuff, which is I guess, it's just not the part that you really want to celebrate or see as a milestone.
But you know, I've learned that everyone is on a different path, which sounds obvious, but it's easy to forget that that also means we have different milestones, and a different order of events. No one is behind schedule or in the wrong place at the wrong time. I am right where I'm supposed to be, with the right relationship status, the right job, in the right country. And also, I do have my own markers and small thing to celebrate. They won't get me much congratulations on Facebook, but what does that even do anyway? It's not about what anyone else thinks, I don't genuinely care about what they think anyway, and so... it's fine. I don't need affirmation in that way.
I realize that a lot of people think that keeping a blog proves the opposite of what I just said, but I can't agree. It can be an outcry for compliments, but in a lot of cases it's not. I blog for the same reason I journal, just from a different perspective. Here it's to process and assess my creativity, and also to find gratitude and joy in the beauty of my life that I so often miss when I don't take this time to look and reflect. In my journals the assessing and processing is more of myself and my thoughts and emotions, along with life as it comes at me. But it's the same motion of externalizing in order to properly internalize. Like deep cleaning, bringing everything out so that it can be properly gone over and organized. It's not for everyone, but in my own case it is vital.
Anyway, life, milestones, life altering things (both big and small), that's what I was talking about. Right. So here it is. I'm ready to let myself have milestones of my own. The ones that don't make a Christmas newsletter or even my Grandma's ears, but they matter to me. For example, I finished A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens last weekend. A book I've been wanting to read for some where close to ten years. And I did it you guys, I read it! And I loved it, just like I knew I would. Also, I bought a new mattress, up-grading my bed to a double. Simple, little things, but I don't have a kid bed anymore! Woohoo! See, it's kind of silly, but I like it. Little things that are a big deal to me, I'm letting them matter, instead of comparing to others who "have their life together" or whatever. It's freeing. It's my life, it's my joys. Hallelujah.
Love, Clara
PS: Photos are from the short little trip I just got back from to Wasilla and Anchorage.
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