Settling

What does it mean to settle?  Does it mean to concede to an idea, a concept, a thought, a person?  Does it mean happiness?  Does it mean peace?  Does it mean completeness?  What does settling mean?  A lot of people settle for things, people, jobs, money, anything so that they don't disappoint themselves any further from being denied what they really wanted.  Or they settle because they are afraid of getting exactly what they wanted.  Scared that their dreams may finally come true.  Scared that the fantasy is real.  We as humans are very complicated aren't we?  We strive our whole lives to live our version of our fantasy for our life.  That is the struggle and strife we face everyday.  We fight and have the drama in our lives because we simply do not know any better.  And when we get a glimpse of our fantasy finally coming true, we run.  We run in the opposite direction because that would mean that we were right.  We were faithful and our prayers have been answered.  We have to believe in miracles at that point and there is no turning back from that.  Unless, we deny it.  Unless, we turn away from it.  Unless, we run.  But there are some of us who choose not to run.  There are some of us who want to believe in the little miracles that have been created.  There are some of us who refuse to settle.  Who still believe in the dream.  Who still think that everything they could have ever wished for will arrive.  Who pray for this every single day and refuse to stop believing that God, the universe or whoever cannot hear our prayer.  I find myself stuck between the two camps, the runners and the believers.  When I am having a good day, spiritually, I am a believer.  But, when I am shown that my dream may just be a dream,  I run.  Sometimes you cannot deny the writing on the wall.  Sometimes you have to just accept it and keep going.  But what if you are still unsure of what the writing on the wall says?  Is this denial or is this acceptance?  So as far as settling, I guess I would say that I have chosen to settle for  a day, a weekend, a week.  But, I refuse to settle for the rest of my life.  I refuse to accept mediocre or watered down dreams and try to metamorphosis them into my own.  I refuse to give up.  I refuse to let myself or my heart down. Because here's the thing, when you settle for something that is less than what you wanted, you are happy for a while but that doesn't last a lifetime.  You will always know that you chose to bail out on yourself and what you truly wanted.  You gave up.  I choose not to give up.  I choose to believe.  I choose faith.  "If God leads you to it, he will lead you through it."

Reciprocate

I recently got this pillow cover at one of my most favorite stores that says "Too much of a good thing can truly be wonderful".  I question that.  Can it?  Too much of the wrong foods can make your health deteriorate and put on the pounds.  Too much shopping can lead to an addition... Hello, I am a shopaholic.  Too much foreplay can make you angry...trust me...I've been there.  So I wonder if too much of a good thing can be truly wonderful?  The only thing I can think of that would make this quote accurate is love.  Too much love is never really a bad thing.  Too much love is usually a great thing, unless it is the forbidden love that will only hurt the one person that is doing the loving.  The unrequited love.  In the movie "The Holiday", Kate Winslet's character does a great job of describing the victim of unrequited love.  She also does an amazing job with her monologues one in particular when she describes how she felt loving someone who will not, and cannot, love her back.  She says that she knows what it feels like to be the most insignificant person in someone's life.  I too have shared her sentiment.  I know what that feels like.  And lately, I have felt it more and more.  When I left a man of seven years, I swore to myself that I would never let that happen to myself ever again.  Then it happened.  Right after my divorce to the man that I thought I was going to marry and have children with and a happily ever after.  I remember being so angry with myself that I could get so caught up in someone else that I forgot to do some fact finding.  Does he love me the way that I love him and will he reciprocate my love?  If you have to question it, do you not already know the answer?  I also, a couple years after that, was at a party with some friends and of course a fortune teller was there to entertain us.  She said to me, " you will never be in a relationship again where your love is not returned the same way that you love."  Well, I want my money back....because it happened again.  Recently.  So now I feel so, damaged.  I can't get it right.  I am the common denominator here and that should tell me that I am the problem.  I am the one making all of these mistakes.  As the match maker would say, " your picker is off!".  Yes, you could say that again.  I willing love men who will not, and cannot love me back.  I just don't know what else to do at this point.  I think I'll take some advice from some friends and just "stopping looking so hard".  I didn't realize I was.  I'm just gonna stop trying to find that love that I want and hopefully one day it will just show up.

Mistakes

Some philosophers have said that there are no such things as "mistakes".  Things that happen, are meant to happen, and things that are not meant to happen, simply do not.  I wrestle with this idea.  I have made a lot of mistakes in my own opinion.  But I do have to say that each mistake has lead me to different place in my life that I never thought possible.  Some good and some bad.  Someone once told me that the good has to out weigh the bad.  The man that I fell in love with and stayed in love with the idea of loving him told me this.  Did our bad out weigh our good?  Is this why we didn't make it?  Or was it because of choices, mistakes made by both of us?  I have no idea.  But tonight I face a mistake that I have wrestled with since 2010.  Depending on my mood, my "status", my little world, my decision on this topic wavers.  Did I choose to take a step back or a step forward?  And where has it gotten me?  Professionally, it has gotten me far, for now.  But personally, I still long for my love. And that is my problem.  I took a chance in 2010 that changed my destiny forever.  I left yet another man that I knew loved me, or at least the idea of me to find something else or someone else.  And here I sit. Still waiting.  I do know this, I would rather be waiting here alone, feeling lonely and lost, than sitting here with the wrong person feeling the exact same way.  Trust me. I've been there and it is miserable and no way to live.  How can I have the ability to see other people in my life so clearly and for some reason I cannot see my way out of this.  The only thing I know to do that would be successful is to flee.  To leave.  Like I did before.  When I knew that he wouldn't commit to me, I left.  When I had lost all hope of there ever being more, I left.  I just left.  That was how I saved what was left of me and my heart.  Here I am again.  Faced with the same dilemma.  Only this time it's not so easy.  How can we fall in love so easily when we know that there is the biggest chance in the world that it's not gonna work.  There have been people here who have called me the "ice queen".  People have said, "She is the job and the job is her.  She is as hard as a rock.  No one can penetrate that core." That couldn't be farther from the truth.  I wear my heart on my sleeve.  I have a hopeful heart and a longing soul.  When I fall, I fall hard and fast.  I am loyal and loving.  And all I want in return, is that.  Love, loyalty, trust, commitment.  So tonight I am missing the days when I care freely loved this man, or the idea of him and it was o.k. to do so.  I miss the days when love was easy and fun.  I miss the days where I wasn't known as the "ice queen".  So my little prayer that I will send up to the heavens tonight is this...Please God give me peace.  Please God do not let this be another set back or mistake.  Please God help me to make sense of all of this.  And please God....if you are feeling gracious...answer my unspoken prayer.  Amen.