By nature I am a person that sees the glass as half full. I am usually the kind of person who is glad that there is anything in the glass at all. I would even go so far as to say often I am just content to have a glass, even if its empty. (Because I could probably make something out it). I have usually had energy to burn and ideas and dreams far too abundant to ever achieve all of them. I aim high. I am not quite a realist. I am an idealist. I am a dreamer and a visionary. I know I am. I can’t even recount the number of times I have put forth an idea and everyone involved has looked at me like I was missing my nose and I’m thinking ‘what?’. To be fair, I’ve had many incidents when they thought the idea was great as well, with one disclaimer – I’m the one that makes it happen on their behalf.
I know I am an idealist. Oh the times I have envisioned a scenario only to be utterly disappointed when others tell me its undoable (because they are realists). Unfortunately, I am also an introvert and non-confrontational so I don’t usually argue with them even though I know in my heart of hearts it can be done (or at least some version of it). I am also not a perfectionist. In my thinking, perfectionism is the antithesis of progress. And I have always been more of a ‘getter done’ kind of person. I’m with Robert Kennedy when he said, Some men see things as they are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?
So I have journeyed though life in my own little bubble. Always believing for the best and making it happen if I could. I have just wanted to create and surround my life with beauty and live in the moment and do what I love and make memories and leave legacies but the realists in my life have cautioned me to be more practical and get my head out of the clouds. Come back down to earth and live like the rest of them. So…I did. I let the same things that bring them down, bring me down. Because of my insecurities, I second guessed myself and decided that maybe they were right and I needed to have more tunnel vision and be more realistic. In other words, I have lived a lot of my life influenced by the fear of others.
That’s not to say I don’t have my own fears. Oh, I do. But I am responsible to deal with my own fears and rise above them. I can’t really do anything about other people’s fears and I don’t have to live imprisoned to them.
All this to say, I have recently passed through a very dry and lonely season. A scary season even. I wasn’t quite myself. I wasn’t myself at all, I fear (there’s one of those fears). I didn’t recognize myself – where did I go? I doubted myself or whoever it was staring back at me in the mirror. I berated myself. I loathed myself at times. I tried to get away from myself. I didn’t believe in myself. I started to feel like everyone was right. I had nothing to offer but my pie-in-the-sky ideas and endeavors and there was no place for these in this mad, tumultuous, realistic, practical, ever darkening world. As I was journeying through this season, I started to see the world as it was and I didn’t like what I was seeing. Why had I not seen this before?
One thing I can boast about is this… that in spite of a difficult season, I still have hope. I must say that if I give into despair, its not for very long, because I have a hope and hope does not disappoint. Even though I have spent a lot of my life disappointed. Disappointed in life. Disappointed in people. Disappointed in circumstances. And I think this is because I have such high expectations of everything and everybody. Sometimes, even I can’t live up to my expectations. Whats the common denominator? Well, clearly its ME. So I need to adjust the sails of my expectations. But when my hope is in the creator of the universe, I will not be disappointed. I want to take creative lessons from Him. I want to make beautiful things from nothing too. I want to create a little heaven on earth too.
And I am starting to envision the possibilities. I have come out of the thick, scary, tangled, cold, dry underbrush and I can feel the heat on my skin and the sand between my toes once again. I can hear the ocean waves crashing against the shore in rhythm once again. I can feel the water rippling around my ankles. I can see the sunshine reflecting in the sea. My lungs fill up with fresh, life giving air. I breathe deeply. There is space to run free. Space to dance and leap and twirl with abandon. And room to reinvent myself, yet again. It seems after a difficult season I need some reinventing. I’m going to call on my reinvention stylist…my heavenly Father.
I am ready for change. I am ready for courage. I am ready to embrace life again.
PS….I am also ready for a vacation by the sea.
The Red Plaid Apron 