3:48 PM - Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2004
Evening Wake-up Call
I had an epiphany last night. It came to me sometime between 11 PM and midnight. But first, let me start with my evening and how it eventually led to my awakening.
The moment I got home from work, I laid down on the couch in the living room. It was 5:30 PM. The next thing I know, it's 8 PM. I had fallen asleep. I turned on the telivision to catch some shows, but by 9 PM I became bored. So what do I do? I get up and go back to my computer. I start to fiddle with it, trying to figure out why my web connection at home is so slow when its supposed to be fast (as in cable modem fast). I end up restoring my computer to the point before I had downloaded any MSN games onto it. Ever since I had downloaded Spiderman onto my computer, I've had to deal with more pop-up ads, and other annoyances. I have yet to attempt true access after such a feat.
Anyhow, I started to think. And when is thinking ever a positive thing overall? I shouldn't say that. Thinking can do people a lot of good. It just usually makes me end up in a depressed mood. Well, I was fiddling around with spider solitaire when some thoughts struck me. I was thinking about Cory, Casey and David. Why? Well... here's the thing:
Cory is one of my best friends. He's more than likely the man I'm meant to be with for the rest of my life, and I love him. I'd do anything for him.
Casey is my ex-boyfriend, and now he's becoming a very good friend. We get along extremely well. We always have. He'll make random comments about our future. I'll say something like, "You see? Ashley (my cat) and Chloe (his cat) are meant to play together!" In which he'll say something like, "Just like we're meant to play together." We've been able to recapture our friendship, and I'm glad about that. I care about him.
Which brings me to David. It may not seem like it, but I am over him. I just have difficulty with the fact that we're not even friends anymore. You see, I'm a very private person. The only place I share anything and everything is online. I have difficulty opening up to people on the phone. That's why, when I find somebody I can talk too openly about anything in the world, I try to hold onto that person. It's very rare for me to feel comfortable enough to tell someone everything. It took me 26 years before I could even begin to open up to my parents and not feel some sense of shame or guilt for my private issues. And David was one of those rare few with whom I opened up too completely. It's one of the reasons, if not the only reason, I can't let go of an attempted friendship with him.
So I did this: I mailed David a long letter explaining my difficulty with the situation. I apologized for any immature or improper behavior I may have committed, and offered him a token of friendship. I left the letter open-ended. Therefore, if he chooses to never respond, I will be okay with that. I did my part. I tried. I care about him, no matter how poorly things ended between us. Just like I care about all my exes, even the ones with whom the relationship was a disaster. If he chooses to respond, then I'll be glad to just hear from him every other year or so just to make sure life is treating him good. It's the way I am. It's the way I will always be. I check up on people in my life at random, just for the moment, to make sure they're okay.
Well, this all led up to the epiphany. I looked back on the last couple of years of my life. I looked back in order to see where I was. And it hit me. It hit me like a baseball flying through mid-air after a pitcher has pitched a fast one. And this is what I came to the conclusion of... When I dated Casey, he became my world. Every spare moment I had was spent with him. We'd talk in the morning. We'd talk in the afternoon. We'd talk in the evening, and we'd talk late at night. We'd play Sims Online together. We'd watch TV together. Basically my life was waking up, going to work, then going home and hanging out with him. The process was repeated every single day for three months. Of course, I did do other things. I mean, I was at my parent's house for Thanksgiving, my grandparent's house for Christmas, and other stuff. Well, I realized something. It was the same exact thing that happened with David. I wrapped my world around him. It may not be a big deal to anybody else, but it was a big deal to me.
I know why I did it. I was depressed. They made me happy. They made me feel like I had something to wake up and look forward too. They fed my emotions to the point that I became dependent upon them in order to be happy. It wasn't their fault. It was mine. I latched onto both of them so they could be my emotional crutch, my reason for existing. And when both of them broke up with me because they couldn't handle the emotions (not necessarily mine, but theirs for me), it was as if they yanked the rug out from under my feet. My world crashed down. Everything that made me happy and brightened my day was gone. Everything I had come to depend on was no longer there.
And the epiphany was all of that, but it was mainly this: I was blind. I was desperate. I was needy. I was hungry for love, desperate for change, blind to my attachments, and in need of emotional support. And there's no one to blame for the failure of the relationships because they were what they were. They were what they were because of the type of people we were while in it. And I forgive myself for the mistakes I made in them. I was strong back then, but I wasn't this strong. And now that I'm this strong and growing stronger? I can look back on the relationships and learn from them what I was meant to learn from them in the beginning.
What was my lesson? Something I always knew deep down, but never understood completely until now. You cannot depend on somebody else for your ultimate happiness. You cannot live your life around the life of another. You cannot find satisfaction in life when basing your existence upon that person. And the main thing I learned was that I was doing all of that. I never saw it. It never felt like I was that dependent, but I was. David tried to tell me that but I didn't want to hear it. I wouldn't believe him because I couldn't see it at first. Now I see it plain as day.
But you know... looking back on my life, I've come a long way. Sure, it took going on Prozac to balance me out emotionally and mentally so I could work on myself physically and spiritually. But... well... my past is my past. I'm not going to regret any of it. I made a lot of mistakes, but I did a lot of good, too. And I love who I am now and I wouldn't be that person if it wasn't for those experiences.
And while I don't really want to focus too much on my past, there are moments when everybody can't help but look back. I can't help but look back. It's my history. It's my notes on life. It's the lessons I've learned, and the issues to look back on and learn new things from. I won't spend too much time anymore reflecting on the past. I never have and more than likely won't spend that much time thinking about the future and its endless possibilities. I will, however, attempt to find myself relishing in the moment more often. There will be days when I take the moment for granted, times when I won't be able to appreciate the people and things in my life... but I swear to myself right now. From this moment forward, I'm going to do all I can to improve and enjoy my way of life.
I'm beginning to ramble here. I'm about to begin repitition of the things I've already said. I just feel like I have a lot to say, even though I really only have different ways of saying the same thing. I know what I'll do. I'll make a new list of goals. Hmmm.... I'll go do that now.
