Every Step, Every Breath

How should we count the moments in our lives? Is there really a measure of time when it comes to living? Minutes and hours and days.. they fly by before our eyes. But time is only a perception, is one persons day really longer if there is more meaning to it? Should moments be counted in the amount of "stuff" we check off of our lists or by the amount of people we talk to or by the time we have wasted in our days? Can moments even be qualified?

I think our lives should only be measured by the experiences we have with each step. Instead of measuring moments in the amount of time it takes for moments to pass, to simply come and go, maybe it is time to start to let go of the factor of time and take each step with every breath and simply live. To live in our world without time... maybe that could be less stressful.

What really matters... family

Lately I have really been thinking about how truly important my family is to me. With such a wonderful family who supports me and loves me and laughs with me and at me, how can I ever feel lonely or unsatisfied? My parents are two of my best friends and even though my brother is mean to me a lot of the time, I know that he would do anything for me. My grandparents support me to no end and love to here about everything I am doing. My aunts and uncles over the years have become my friends too. And even though all of my cousins are younger than me, ranging from 16 down to 7, all so close to me that all of them are like siblings.

I think that is why sometimes I really wish that I had not gone so far away from them when I came to college. I never wanted to be thought of as a home body and just wanted to get away from the small town that I grew up in, but I never thought about how I would feel being that far away from the people who have always been there for me and who I love so much. There are very few times at school when I have really been upset because of being homesick like when I came back for sorority recruitment during winter break freshman year. However, I think that maybe it has been an ongoing feeling of discontent that I have really never been able to place a specific reason on before. After I graduated from high school I moved 4 hours away from my home to live with my aunt and uncle outside Philadelphia where most of my dad's side of the family lives. I thought that this would be a good way to adjust being away from my mom and I really wanted to get out of town. I loved it and thought that I would be fine coming to college after that because I would have had a nice adjustment period, however, maybe to me home is where the family is. It does not matter which part of my family that is, but I really do love to be around them. I think it is extremely unique how close my family is including our extended family.

Family is something that really matters to me. I need to remember in college how important those relationships are to me and make sure to keep those ties strong so that I do not feel like something is missing in my life. I need to make sure that I do not just call my mom to talk to her everyday, but also need to make sure that I talk to my aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents on a regular basis too. That is something so far that I have not been very good at. I think that it is important for my cousins to have me in their lives because at their ages they probably would love to be able to talk to their older cousin about things that they are troubled with. I need to be there to talk to them about things that they are not comfortable talking to their friends or parents about. This needs to become a priority of mine before time passes by before me and I was never there to be there for my family.

I have always felt the love and comfort that my family gives me and I want them to feel the love I have for all of them too. I cannot let the tight ball of yarn holding our family together become loose.

"And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity."
Colossians 3:14 New International Version

What really matters.. true friends

Sometimes it is so hard to see what you have right in front of you. Is it because we are goal-seeking or is it because we always think we need to want something more?

I am so blessed in my life to have wonderful friends and the most loving family in the world. How can I not be complete content with that alone. I know that I am always trying to make more and more friends, but why do I try so hard that it causes more stress than needed. There is a difference in being friendly to people and hoping that maybe you either add a little something special to their day or that maybe they will return the kindness and trying to make them like you or hoping that they take great interest in you. The first is an act of a Christian, the second is more vain. Being a Christian means that you will go out of your way never hoping for a reward, but doing it because that is you, that is who you are. Being vain is trying to gain for your own personal interest. Both may be pleasure seeking, which is why it is sometimes hard to distinguish. However, being a Christian is much easier in the end and actually ends up being much more rewarding because instead of causing stress because your initiative to be friendly is never shot down because you are never not getting what you want out of it. If you are always looking for response to your actions than you might never be happy. One cannot control if others will reciprocate in the way you are hoping for and why should be expect them to. Who knows what is going on in their lives that would make them respond negatively.

In retrospect, I think I would be a much more satisfied person if I accept the fact that I have the best of friends from high school and college and others that I have met along the way. Why should I ever need to put so much energy into trying to form relationships with everyone? I should instead focus that energy on relationships in my life that already make me happy. If more wonderful relationships happen into my life than I will gladly reciprocate. I think that I always feel the need to be friends with the most people and have everyone like me instead of building stronger relationships with the people that share energy in a relationships.

My friends are great and many already, what more could I ask for. I have true friends.

Reflections

Every step in life can be a step forward just as easily as it could be a step back. Life would be easier if all steps were forward, but life is not easy. We need to just remember that those backward steps are simply reminders and we cannot be too frustrated by them or dwell too long on them. Every step backward needs to be followed by a step forward because once we get too far back it only becomes harder to overcome.

I think maybe by reflecting on what I have discovered this week may limit me from taking too many steps backward.

So first I must ask myself how my life has changed since I moved into my apartment?

I really think it is starting to allow me to be more myself. I feel so much less stressed being in this "safe zone" where I can actually separate from the bubble and remember all of the great qualities I have individually. It helps me to feel like the independent person that I am once again. It reminds me what it feels like to be just me and separates me from those things that are simply a part of who I am. ADPi, Wake Forest, the business school, for examples, are a part of who I am, but it is nice to feel myself away from those things. I remember that it is important to do the things I want to do instead of feeling like I need to prove myself to people. I do not need to prove to my sorority, to my professors, to my friends, to future employers anything. I just need to be myself and naturally people will like me because I really do have so much to offer. If they don't see in me what I have to show them, then I probably won't fit the part anyway.

On a similar note, I really was kind of surprised as to how I presented by storybox. I had a lot more in my notes on my note cards to see than words that came out of my mouth. I really thought I was brave enough to tell this story to a room of my peers, but it turns out that something instead of me turned off. I do not know if it was a fear of being ridiculed for the deep symbolism I was using.. band-aids covering the clear glass jar just as my ailments cover up the clarity of my life. Sometimes they made it hard for me to see what's coming next and that can be uncomfortable. Also I put a mirror in the box as a way to symbolize that I know that my identity is not formed by my health problems, but rather they make up a part of me and sometimes that is a struggle. I do not want people to see these problems of mine because I feel like people fear people who struggle, who have these "imperfections." I think that might be why I held myself back in my presentation, for fear that people would think I was crazy, especially after hearing about one classmate losing their grandfather and another talking about her experience with poor women in Honduras. I did not want to complain about my problems when in the big picture they really are so minute compared to the struggles that so many people face. I was also going to tell about in high school when I gained 25 pounds from throwing up due to my gall bladder for 2 years and then two year later I lost 25 pounds. Everyone thought that I was anorexic and talked about me behind my back making up rumors as to how I lost all of that weight. It was hard enough losing the weight by working out a lot and eating extremely healthy when most of my friends were pretty lazy and binged a lot because they still had the metabolisms to get away with that, let alone people asking me if I had a problem. I think that I did not end up sharing this with the class because I was not looking for pity from my story, I would rather focus on the better things that have come out of it and hopefully I did touch on those things enough.

I must say though, as much as I wish that no one had to experience medical issues especially at our young age, hearing other people tell about there medical problems in their stories was actually quite comforting to me. They were also surprising. When Anna told the story about her arm, I was, interestingly, both relieved and ashamed. She was the one's whose scars I had spoken about in a previous entry. I thought that the scar was from trying to commit suicide, when really it was a mark of trying to stay alive. I felt bad that I had misjudged her because I know how it feels to have people misjudge your actions and features because you have to do something "different" to support your health. I really do think that we build compassion for each other through these experiences of ours. They may be tough to go through and when you are dealing with them, it seems like they will never go away, like there are not enough forward steps to get you out, but when they do pass, you realize that you were one of the lucky ones. Some people can die in an instant and I am sure that given the chance, they would have suffered many years to be able to experience the good times that we still face even if it does comes with some pain and discomfort.

Another thing that I was so inspired by in so many of these stories was how much people's faith got them through and how much their experiences, as unpleasant as they may have been made them grow in their faith. I know that God does not want to see us suffering and does not want his children to be in pain, but maybe sometimes we just are not ready to except his miracles and he is just trying to teach us some patience before he heals. Maybe as much as we pray, we are not letting him in. Maybe we do not think we deserve his grace, just like I did not feel like I deserved the sympathy from the class.

"But You, O Lord, are a God full of compassion, and gracious,

Longsuffering and abundant in mercy and truth."
Psalm 86:15 (NKJV)