Looking at my last post (Quitting Day), it looks like I made a promise I wasn’t really willing to keep. But one thing is for sure, I’m back, if only for today. I don’t know, maybe my homie Ben inspired me to get back on the ol’ horse.
I have to be honest, though, not many people have requested that I start writing again. Maybe I don’t have as many fans as I thought I did. Whether I do or whether I don’t, it doesn’t really matter in the end. I’m back, for now, and if you’re reading this, it’s all good. You don’t need to apologize to me for not begging me to come back.
The last few months have been interesting. I’ve got no desire to explain all the details, but I think one word encompasses the general mood and activity as of late: DRAMA. And not a lot of it has been good. However, all this drama has taught me a few things about life, and I’d like to share a few of these things, if you don’t mind.
1. There’s nothing more important than family.
While this isn’t a new concept to me (my family’s always been very, very important), it’s something that has come into play in an exceptional way recently. You never know what you’ve got until you’re in danger of losing it. For the few of you who know what my family’s been dealing with for the past while, you know that it hasn’t been easy. For those of you who don’t know, you’ll just have to take my word for it.
It’s been amazing to watch my family come together during times of heavy stress and trial. Just the resiliency alone, the ability to bounce back from increasingly more negative and harsh realities, that my parents and siblings have demonstrated has shown me what it means to love and to move forward when it would be much less heartbreaking to just sever ties and move on. When you really love someone, you simply don’t let them destroy themselves, even if there’s a chance that you’ll be destroyed in the process.
As hard as it’s been, we’re now entering a time of hope and possibility, and it’s a good place to be. In the end, even in the face of my own skepticism, I believe that everything will be ok. I haven’t been able to say that in a while. Which brings me to my next point…
2. Forgiveness ain’t easy, but nothing worthwhile ever is.
I’ve never claimed to be great, even though I’ve often thought that I’m smarter or superior to many other people for many reasons. I’ve convinced myself that I’ll move through life and achieve and benefit based on the merits of my talents and attitudes. I’ve never really thought that I needed anyone else.
I’ve been wrong.
Throughout my quarter-century on this Earth, I’ve had a lot of people pass through my life. A lot of the people I’ve cared for the most are gone forever, in one way or another. I’ve been hurt and I’ve hurt others. It seems sometimes like we’re all just a bunch of objects floating through time and space, bumping into one another and affecting each other’s lives, often without meaning and intention.
It’s so much easier to realize what others have done to me than to realize what I’ve done to others. This last little while, however, one of the people I love the most has done a lot of damage to me and to other people I care about. It would be the easiest thing in the world to hold a grudge and be angry, and that’s a road I’ve contemplated going down many times. But I simply can’t do it, because the ONLY thing that person needs from me is forgiveness, and it breaks my heart to think that I’ve been willing to withhold that from someone. No longer will I allow my inability to forgive to poison my heart.
At the same time, I find myself in a similar situation with a couple of people I barely know, and they barely know me. They don’t know my heart and they don’t know what I’ve dealt with recently. Basically, anyone who knows me knows that I can be a bit of a smartass. I enjoy pushing people’s buttons. I don’t go for the easy jokes, but often the “I can’t believe he just said that” jokes. But I’m not malicious or mean. I like to laugh, and I like to laugh at myself when, on the rare occurrence that I mess up, someone makes fun of me for doing something dumb. I forget sometimes that others don’t have the same disposition that I do.
This attitude, coupled with two dumb, easily avoidable mistakes, have convinced these two people that I’m a bad guy. There’s nothing I can do, because they assume that my apologies are inherently insincere and that I’ve got nothing but evil motives. As far as I know, these two people who barely know me are the only people in the world that see me this way.
The worst part is that there’s absolutely nothing I can do but hope that they have a change of heart and forgive me so that we can all move on. At least, that’s what I’ve thought until now. Perhaps by forgiving others, some kind of karmic force will help me to be more easily forgiven.
…
Those are only two of the lessons I’ve learned lately, but I got a little wordy, so I’ll leave it at that for now. I wonder when I’ll be posting again…
K
ps – Here’s a cool panoramic photo I took with my phone outside my apartment…
