THE WEIGHT OF LIMBO

It is possible to stand at the fork in the road for too long.

Maybe you don't know which road to take. Maybe you do and you just don't want to. Maybe both choices seem equally good... or equally awful. Maybe you just want someone else to choose for you.

Maybe you've spent far too long peering down each road, imagining every turn that each could take. Maybe you've just spent way too much time thinking about it, exerted way too much energy and emotion on the what-ifs and the buts.

Maybe the more time you give it, the weightier it feels.

Which is why it feels at least relieving to finally choose.

The road may bring a weight of a different kind... but at least you can release the one that being in limbo holds.

WHEN YOUR ROAD ISN'T THE SAME

Sometimes the road you're meant to walk down isn't the road that everyone else is taking.

You meander off on your own... down a path that you know that you're meant to take. But, when you look around, you realize that everyone else seems to be walking a different one.

And it's not that you doubt that yours is the right one for you to be on...  but at the same time... you kind of do. Maybe the other road is better simply because it's more often walked. Surely there is a reason for its popularity that you have somehow missed.

And so you doubt.  You doubt your road. You doubt your destination. You doubt yourself.

But popular doesn't necessarily equate to better. More-travelled doesn't necessarily equate to right. Company doesn't necessarily equate to truth.

So if you honestly feel that the road you're walking is the right road to take, remember that it's okay to go your own way. It's okay if no one walks yours with you. It's okay if no understands why you need to follow that path.

Sometimes you go the way no one else is going to become someone that no one else is meant to be.

BEAUTIFUL MISTAKES

They were mistakes, no doubt.

But, they were beautiful mistakes. Not so much because it was good to have made them, but because it was good to have learned from them.  When she looked back, she could see the turns she had taken that maybe weren't the wisest choices.  But, when she looked back, she could also see how those turns had taught her something.  Lots of somethings.  And lots of somethings that were important to learn.

They hadn't been easy lessons. Some of them had hurt deeply in the learning.  Sometimes they had hurt her.  Sometimes they had hurt other people. They weren't lessons that had come without a price.  Some prices, she was happy to pay.  Some prices, and mostly the ones for which she wasn't the one who had to pay, she wished she had somehow made other choices. But yet, in the end, they were prices that had been paid, choices that had been made, and there was no going back and choosing other things. There was no going back and paying other prices.

So she looked back and she simply found herself grateful for the lessons. She was grateful for the wisdom. She was grateful for the opportunities to grow and change and become something else.

And yes, she was grateful for the mistakes.  Hard mistakes, but beautiful mistakes.

For they made it possible to be who she was today.  And who she was...  well, that was beautiful, too.

2013 THEME: CHOOSE WHO YOU WANT TO BE

Choose who you want to be, 

despite what anyone else does, says, or thinks.

In the end, I suppose this was my theme for 2013. It's something I stumbled across early in the year, and I really liked its idea.  But, I kept returning to it over and over as the year wore on.

I suppose that I am (and perhaps we all are?) a pretty responsive person. I don't act so much as I respond. I change what I do and think and am, based on what other people do, think, and say about me.  And perhaps that isn't un-understandable.  It's difficult to not let those things affect us.  But, I came to a decision early on this year that I was responsible for who I was. I was responsible for what I did and thought and said. And it wasn't okay for me to blame other people for those things.

Because, at the end of the day, I got to choose who I was.

And who I was... it wasn't dependent on other people's choices and thoughts and words.  Those were their things to choose.  I couldn't control those things, and neither should I try.  But what could I control?

I could control me. I had power over me. I could choose the person I wanted to be and I could make choices based on that person.

I'd love to say that I was a rousing success.  But, it probably wouldn't be true. I often had to be very strict with myself and reprimand, "No! You get to choose. Don't change who you are, the person you want to be, the kind of friend/parent/etc you want to be, based on someone else's actions. Let them be responsible for them. You be responsible for you."  Sometimes I listened.  Sometimes I didn't.

But I think I'm ending the year content in those choices. Part of me wishes that I'd chosen deliberate action more often, and responsive action less. But, I think I'm ending the year content in the choices I made, content in the times that I went right along being who I wanted to be, no matter if anyone else was on the train with me or not.

Be the person you want to be, Jo. It doesn't matter what anyone else does.

I think I'll take that into 2014 with me, too.

FORGIVEN, BUT NOT FORGOTTEN

I've been thinking about the idea of forgiveness again. I struggle with it -- maybe not so much with the idea of forgiveness itself, but with the line that lies between forgiveness and wisdom. I've often walked the side where I have been very open with forgiveness and have let repeat offenders cross line after line. I got burned by that, deeply. And then I cowered back to the other side of the line where I was afraid to let anyone who had hurt me before have the chance to do it again.

It seems that there should be some middle ground there and I'm trying to find it.

I want to be the kind of person who can have the courage to extend grace to those who have been hurtful. But, I also want to be wise and not invite in disaster.  It's like if someone came into your house, totally trashed it, and then left -- without a second thought or a care for what they left you with.  It is a good thing, I think, to be able to forgive them for their actions and their thoughtlessness.  But, would you let them back in to do it a second, third, fourth time?

I guess that's the rub. -- But it's also what I think about on both sides of the coin.  I haven't always been faultless either. I've made choices that I wish I hadn't, said things that I wished I'd kept silent on.  So, when I'm faced with someone else's mistrust, I have to understand that and not be angry over it. I have to understand that maybe they're struggling with forgiveness and the ability to trust, too.

That we're all trying to find that middle ground.