Yes I can

Year 2011 has been a year of change for me. In addition to finishing my thesis and graduating, I went through a hard break-up and started at a job actually relevant to my degree. More recently, I found a studio apartment, in which I’ll be moving in a couple of weeks, and today I got a prescription for glasses. (Oh my, I truly am getting old!)

So there it is: change. It seems to be around us all the time. However, sometimes it comes pouring over you, leaving you baffled. It takes over your life and messes up your plans. But once in a while, usually when you least expect, it will throw you in the middle of something truly special, something that will make you happy. This has happened to me at least once before, so why couldn’t it happen again?

Most importantly, though, change is not only good for you every now and then—it is inevitable. It might be a cliché, but the only constant in this world is change. Therefore, we should stop trying to resist it and embrace it instead. I am on my way there.

Patience is not my name (yet)

The other day, I was talking about observing other people vs. observing your own behavior with a friend, when it dawned on me: in relationships, I tend to be the "I want it all and I want it now" type. I guess I've always been a bit like this, but recently I've felt the pressure more than ever.

I feel old. Not in everyday life and not in all settings, and I definitely know that I'm not. However, I feel like I should be in a different phase in my life by now. I should have someone special in my life, and we should be living happily together. That is how I had planned my life; that is where I was headed for in my past relationship.

And then, life happened.

Now I need to learn how to adjust. I finally see that I can't just pick up where my previous relationship ended. I need to slow down. I want to take life in as it comes—
I want to live now.

To get there, I need to change. I don't want to hurry the world to make me happy now, when I can just open my eyes and be happy.

"The nuns taught us there were two ways through life—the way of nature and the way of grace. You have to choose which one you'll follow. Grace doesn't try to please itself. Accepts being slighted, forgotten, disliked. Accepts insults and injuries. Nature only wants to please itself. Get others to please it too. Likes to lord it over them. To have its own way. It finds reasons to be unhappy when all the world is shining around it. And love is smiling through all things."

(Mrs. O'Brien, The Tree of Life)

Whatever you choose to call it, I want to take the second path, the way of grace, and love life as it is. Maybe one day I will have what I was "supposed to" have now. Meanwhile, I'll slow down and learn patience, by sewing my fall/spring coat, for example.

 

The process of making the coat is taking longer than I initially expected (partly because I work full time now, partly because it's the first coat I am ever making).

Who knows, maybe everything happens for a reason, and patience was a lesson I needed to learn in life. Or maybe it was all just a lucky coincidence.