Lessons of my thirtieth year: part 1

So when I turned 30 I decided that i would start collating some of the important lessons I've learnt in my life. I'll try and put together the 30 top ones when I turn 31. This is the beginning...

What my thirtieth year has taught me so far...

1. Never say never! Life is very unpredictable and, even in the decisions we make, life can happen to us where and when we least expect it. The most important thing is to own your decisions and be strong in them. 

2. Life is great and terrible all at the same time and for the same reasons (equal and opposite direction reactions).

3. No-one can or will love you or understand you in the way you get yourself because no one has experienced your life like you have. 

4. I still need to learn a lot about self-assertion! I need to assert my agency to live out the adventures of MY life.

5. I need to learn to let go of the responsibility I feel for the happiness and joy of other people, except my children and those of my mother.

6. I need to learn to hear and listen apart from my ears. To learn that silence is not a negative space - it is NOt the absence of joy  or positivity

7. In so many ways you make the life you live through the decisions you make and those you choose not to make. Fear can keep you company and make you feel justified but will desert you as your companion when it counts the most. If you are driven by fear, you will crash at the sharp bends because fear itself is scared. If you're full of fear you will feel empty when it counts. I have learnt this but still have to learn to live with it. 

Dreaming with a broken heart

I wish I didn't cry when I get angry. I stole that line from the blog of a friend I greatly admire, and it hit me again this morning as my eyes stung from what I felt was a great injustice. Even after checking on my role in the issue I felt justified, like I haven't done anything wrong, yet there I was angry and crying. In hindsight I realise that I've always been an emotional person, prone to spilling tears when overwhelmed by anything. But my failure to explain or describe this has led me to hide my emotionality so that it can't be misunderstood as blackmail (only a guy could see it as that!), or weakness, but as a way of relieving pressure and making room to process and deal with the issue with the emotions out of the way. Most girls know that nothing is as cleansing or empowering as a good cry - over anything! Even if it's a good cry over a hearty laugh. Perhaps we should schedule times when we all just get together and weep then give good hugs and carry on with our lives. Cos sometimes all you need is a cry and a hug.

27 January 2013 - Love and Betrayal

Betrayal first. Cos I hope it will be a shorter write.
Was talking to Shep last night about friendship and just being on the cusp of ending one. The betrayal I felt/ feel went deep - it wasn't about the act but about the perceived lack of consideration behind it. If this person can take 7 years of friendship and put their feelings before that, not even before my feelings but before the investment and all of our selves that we have poured into it, then what's the point? Why continue investing if I can no longer have the assurance that they will stand up for me when I'm not there? Why continue sleeping with someone I feel could kill me in my sleep? I know I should find it in my heart to forgive and move on - and that may be my biggest achievement of 2013 - but to get to that point I most overcome Mistrust and its associate Fear and, knowing God, it's going to be a hard journey to become that big a person!

Now on to love! Yay!
It's dawned on me that after 5 years I love my husband SO MUCH MORE than I did back then, and I thought I COULDN'T love him more than the day I gave myself to him, then the day I married him, then the day I realized we had survived the first 2 years and it had been worth it! Now the love I feel for him is intense and explosive! It also means that as far as it goes in one direction it also goes hard in the opposite direction when that time comes. That's the part I will learn to overcome in 2013. I love being ruled by my positive emotions but I need to learn to rule my negative ones. I say I must rule them not get rid of them because they have cleansing abilities. They give me a chance to have a fresh look when it's called for. But they can also cloud me and force me to stand still so I don't destroy something I love in a frivolous and indulgent moment. But back to love! I find that my love for this crazy amazing man is both wide and deep. It's generally large. Its width is about the varied things I love about him, the him I've come to know who exists only (mostly?) between him and me - the intense philosopher who feels things deeply, the one where I get to see how he thinks and not just what. I love seeing him live out the potential I saw in him from the beginning. He justifies my love for stationery and the potential that it holds! Lol! I love the him who is constant and unchanging. Who decided who he was and continued to be that person. That calms me in its contrast to my ever changing, never stable self. I love his him-ness. That he walks into a room and I feel complete. Safe. Like I can lay my burdens down cos he's there to get them. Like I no longer have to try so hard cos here walks full acceptance. I hope that he feels the same with me.

The depth of my love for him is in the respect I have for him. His brilliant and sharp mind. His big, warm heart. His generosity - which can be a large part of my insanity because I DO NOT like to share him and he is generous with himself. I love this man who is excellent in a crisis and always looks at everyone's interests! What mind can juggle so many things at once??? It's like multi tasking on drugs! (Or it emphasizes the simplicity of my mind!!) I'm constantly excited for the adventures that our life will take us on - both physical and mental (not so much the emotional ones to be honest!). And there's noone i would rather have beside me as we do it all.

27 January 2013 - life lessons

I never thought I'd be this gutted with the death of a pet. For all our complaining about him and accusing him of being in the way, Brutus was such a part of our family. He is sorely missed.
With all the drama of the past week, with Tanaka discipline issues, various financial and relational minefields, to Brutus's illness, I'm constantly grateful for my husband who is there to share the burdens of life with me. But every time I think of how much I have I think of the same sized gaping hole in the life of the widow of my friend. None of us, when we signed up for marriage, ever imagined widowhood before our 30th birthday. I don't even know where I'd start if it happened to me. But I guess I do have a form of survivor's guilt for enjoying my hubby when she doesn't have one and she didn't ask for him to go or even have time to prepare for his departure. Sometimes life just hurts!

2013 catchup

Hello dear readers - who in my mind is just a future me!!
I've been quite slack and unconfident with posting this year but I've still be writing. So I'll post some stuff with the dates they were written.
Enjoy the ramblings...

If it ain't one thing, it's your mother!

I'm awed by my daughters. By how much I love them but more than that, by how much they love me. The way their precious faces light up when I walk into the room humbles me each time. I spent a day with Tabo (1 year old) recently when I was off sick from work, and from there it was like something triggered in her and she seems to enjoy my presence whereas before she tolerated me as one of the people in the house. And 4 your old Lani! Oh my, she inspires me with her love and adoration everyday! She asks such insightful questions and says 'I love you, Mummy' about 8 times a day! I'm humbled at how easy they are to love and mother (so far!), but I can't help wondering about my own childhood and when my relationship with my mother became difficult. So I find myself on the lookout for signs of stress, though I don't know what I'll do when they come. For now though I'm in awe of God's love and favour, that a terrible daughter like me would have such awesome daughters. And I say this before we hit our second cycle of the terrible twos!! fingers crossed!

The answer to the question...

As I was reading Paulo Coehlo's 'The Witch of Portobello' four days ago it hit me firstly that I'm a hippie at heart! But more importantly that in this phase of my life I'm searching - searching for life, love, answers to all the questions I've ever had (Coelho will do that to you!), but at the end of it all I'm searching for myself! How important it is to know me - the culmination of what I think, dream, hope, my identity in Christ, who I am to other people, but most of all who I am to myself. I often try to stop and wonder if I'm living the life I imagine I should be living but rarely take the time to answer that question. I think finding me and the answer to the question 'Who am I?' that will fit me always is the answer to unlocking the rest of my life.
Seen