The grass is always greener, the trees are always redder

I wrote this in September 2012, four months later everything and nothing has changed in the best ways...



If I were to look at my life as an outsider, just as it is right now, I would assume this person made their life choices based on a magic 8 ball answer. In a year and a half I have moved three times. Strangely enough each brought me closer to home, until I was. Each move had its own motive, something I was trying to accomplish. So now I am back, exactly where I started, attempting not to find that very depressing.

What is not disheartening in any way is being surrounded by girl friends I have known for almost ten years, some more than that. It is wonderful to be around my family again; having a glass of wine with my dad on the front patio, meeting up with my little sister four streets over, and shopping with my mom when we hear of a really great sale.

The hardest feeling I have to swallow is that the adventurous gypsy in me is taking a back seat. While a year and a half may not seem like a significant amount of time, it felt like a lifetime that flew by me in a lightening bolt. I feel like I was just there. I didn't know anything and was learning all the time. I got to see leaves change and snow on my windshield and giant skyscrapers and public transportation filled with more accents than you could imagine.

While I admit to physically being back where I started, I am not the same person I was a year and a half ago. I cannot actually have taken any steps backward because what has changed in me and the ways I have been affected are irrevocable. I have seen the beautiful and the ugly, the kind and the cruel, the truth and the lies, the awe inspiring and the things you want to turn your head away from. I have made friends, lost friends, lost a lot of things actually, but gained a ton, luckily none of which will ever have to fit in my car.

With Fall approaching, I feel pangs in my heart knowing I won't see red or orange or yellow. I know it won't smell the way it did to me last year. I always thought I could smell Fall coming in this little beach utopia, and maybe I could, but now everything I can make out is salt washed and hard to decipher. Human nature is insanely ungrateful. I remember loving watching the leaves change living in Portland and the first few times it rained after our 2 1/2 month summer of sunshine, I was enamored by it. Truthfully it did smell amazing. But I also remember longing for the sun to come back. I remember five to seven months of wearing only rain boots and longing for my sandals and flats. I remember reminiscing about the days that we'd lay out in January and February...because it was around 70 degrees and we could. So I am at the crossroads of "grass is greener" syndrome. I guess we can have it all, just not all at once.

All these things that I've done

There is still so much I have to learn. It’s funny acknowledging that mostly because it’s such an obvious concept that still feels so novel. Maybe some part of me believes I should be getting it by now, catching on quicker. Not so. Accepting this does not allude to my believing my efforts were made in vain. Maybe knowing that you still have so much further to go is proof of how far you’ve already come. 

If I can practice seeing things from just my side of the world, knowing my intentions, I can feel proud of my actions and reactions. One thing I have always struggled with is spending too much time worried about how I have come across to others and whether or not my intentions were clear, practically obsessed with clearing my name. While it took some time to get it, I realize the actions I felt so intensely about committing were the ones that were unnecessary in the end. There is some Dr. Seuss quote from the Lorax (I think) and it goes something like, “the ones that care, don’t matter and the ones that matter won’t care.” For me, that meant I had been spending so much time for issues that could have easily been water under the bridge if had just let them be. Not only that, but I was giving so much attention and care to the wrong people. It sounds so very wrong but I am practicing seeing things from my perspective, keeping my hands clean and making apologies where necessary but otherwise, letting it go. If I have to look at the world through a pinhole in order to see what’s important, I will. I’ve had it backwards for so long, trying to soak in, see and understand everything. It will never work. I am practicing achieving that perfect balance between confidence and pride with vulnerability and humility. I’ve learned the importance of putting up walls and how doing so can be a good thing. I’ve torn down too many for the wrong reasons. It feels very affirming to recognize that I can dictate who and what I want around me and if I don’t want something to exist for me, it doesn’t have to. Again, I’m shocked by how commonplace yet novel this concept is to me.

Another thing I have learned is the power of my own mind. As often as I’ll allow it, it’s my worst enemy. It goes into overdrive and tells me all the wrong things on a film reel that takes every effort to shut off. It also has the power to unlock every truth I have tucked away, unearthing itself at just the right moment- which is often much later than I would have preferred. While equally powerful, it can be the most difficult to harness. But I’m working on it. Learning to be comfortable with being uncomfortable has been one of my biggest feats. I have a giant urge to laugh at how ridiculously hard I have tried to make things feel good that didn’t need to, and that just letting them be there was actually the key to feeling good.