"What You Bring To It"

"In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock." -Thomas Jefferson

So far, December has been an interesting month. [Okay, the past six weeks have been interesting. Don't even get me started on the last 3 months...] 

We live in an old, circa-1930s, dusty house. I've been cleaning my brother's old room/family game room. For weeks. At least two days a week for the last four weeks anyway. Read: cleaning aka inhaling "vintage" dust until I cannot breathe properly, followed by taking a medical cocktail of albuterol, benadryl, and whatever allergy medicine I can find first and praying I'll be able to breathe when I wake up. Finally, I am essentially done. I have a few more boxes of donations and recyclables; a few stray things yet to be put away. But essentially, it is finished.

Work is work. It is always interesting, for various reasons. 

Life is interesting. I know this sounds crazy, but recently it's really sunk in that I'm not in high school anymore. Let me explain what I mean...

In high school, I was that girl. I tried to talk, and get along with, everybody. I got good grades, and was very involved. I was involved in FOURTEEN groups/activities (that I can remember). I was always told I was a flirt (who me?) and at one point gave up dating for an entire year on a bet, just to prove I could. What can I say? I loved high school, and high school loved me.

That's the thing about high school though. I was one of the lucky ones. Sure, I have a few scaring memories from junior high. Who doesn't? But high school was my play ground. I had a few casual boyfriends. More than a few casual dates to school dances. I didn't take life too seriously and came out on top. I guess you could say that's my inner free spirit. I tried to be friends with everyone, which was easy since I was in so many organizations.

 While I coasted through life, making memories and enjoying high school to the fullest, I have some clues to what it felt on the other end of the spectrum. Teammates who were misunderstood at school, and friends who supplied the sarcastic, caustic social remarks. 

But I'm not in high school, or even college, anymore. And it occurs to me that high school may have had it wrong anyway. I was looking for words to explain how I feel and I found this on a website:

I immediately zoomed in on "...keep finding out what makes you feel happiest and this oftentimes will be the easiest thing for you to do."

Here are a few more gems I found:

"There is only one success - to spend your life in your own way." -Christopher Morley

"We can travel a long way and do many things, but our deepest happiness is not born from accumulating new experiences. it is born from letting go of what is unnecessary, and knowing ourselves to be always at home." -Sharon Salzberg

"In a true partnership, the kind worth striving for, the kind worth insisting on, and even, frankly, worth divorcing over, both people try to give as much or even a little more than they get. "Deserves" is not the point. And "owes" is certainly not the point. The point is to make the other person as happy as we can, because their happiness adds to ours. The point is -- in the right hands, everything that you give, you get." -Amy Bloom

and last, but not least

“Being happy doesn't mean that everything is perfect. It means that you've decided to look beyond the imperfections.”

I must admit I've been wrong about certain things. Wrong, or reluctant to realize, I suppose. It turns out people, at least the ones I know, are remarkably non-judgmental and amazingly supportive. My coworker at work, after our shift last night, takes the cake. And that's why I love her. Now I think I know what I want; I just have to figure out how to get it.

"I went looking for my dreams outside of myself and discovered it's not what the world holds for you. It's what you bring to it." -Anne Shirley