SPRINGTIME RE-FRESH

Isn't it fresh and pretty around here??

I decided that I was ready for a bit of a change. A change, a refresh, a regroup. A new banner, a lighter color palette, something that feels new.

And a giant post purge.

I have a friend, who I've known for years and years, who used to do this to her blog on the regular -- and it would fill me with abject horror!! The thought of setting digital fire to my thoughts and past seemed like anathema to me. You would lose so much.

But, now, I guess I kind of get it.  Sometimes you need to set a couple fires to free yourself from what's become a stumbling block and to release yourself from the ties that bind you to a past you're finally ready to move on from.

I deleted.  A lot. I had 1300 posts a couple months ago. Now there are 160. I kept the posts that are still meaningful to me, or that are really recent.  I couldn't bring myself to part with any of my Thursday Tales fiction pieces -- they are my babies. But, pretty much everything else got the delete button.

Like my mom's protestations when I try to purge her house of clutter, the first few were really hard. I was just going to Unpublish them -- not delete them.  But, then, I thought, "Really, why?  Is that really going to give you the 'fresh start moving on' feeling you're going for? Be strong, girl!"  So... Delete button, it was - and the more I deleted, the easier it got.

And so, here we are. A mostly fresh space that's ready for me to explore. I hope you'll stick around with me!

MY WEEKEND... IN RAMBLING THOUGHTS

Last year, when I returned from the retreat, I set down a careful accounting of what it was like and what I thought of it. I did the same thing when I went on the first cruise. I suppose that I feel a responsibility to create a review of record for the oldie fans. There is a story arc of fandom that we have all gone through -- and because everyone comes in at different stages, they are at different places on the arc. I can't behave like a newbie or even an enamored fan anymore, and so I don't write for them. But, there is a certain population that I feel I can responsibly represent, and if you want to know what it's like if you are my type of fan, I'd like to provide that.

But, I did that last year -- and it isn't really where my head and heart is right now.  This is really just my own rambling thoughts and feelings. Some of them are probably valid and some of them are probably unreasonable and I'm not sure I'm really making apology or excuse for that. They just are what they are.

I really just didn't want to get involved in silly things this trip. No nitpicking between fan groups (which is still such such such a thing), no indulging in petty jealousies or imagined competitions, and no indulging in those of others. I was there to soak up some music, relax, and spend time with a friend. I do not have time or interest in drama. I don't care where people are sitting for shows. I had my one front row show, and then we just dance in the back. I'm happy with that and I don't care about anyone else or who's flirting with who or etc, etc, etc...  You know?

I'm really not very comfortable in fan groups/cliques. Part of that, I think, is that I've spent more than my fair share of time in them and it isn't where I want to be anymore. Part of it is that my point the fandom journey just doesn't allow for the exultation that makes fan groups click. And a lot of it is that I'm shy. No one believes me when I say that. Ever. But I am -- and groups of people make me nervous and incredibly self-conscious.

So I tend to avoid them like the plague. But one thing I really like about these retreats is picking off 2-3 people to really get to know. I'm a little picky, they have to be mostly normal. But, I really enjoy finding a couple cool people and getting into real conversations with them. I feel like i was able to do that this year, and that makes me happy. Like it was a worthwhile trip.

That bit me in the ass a bit last year. I accidentally befriended someone intimately involved with the talent, and it left me feeling frustrated and really disappointed in them. That was hard on me. It was a bit of a nail in the coffin of a relationship that needed to change anyway, and a lot changed for me after that. I wasn't really sure if I wanted to come at all this year, and how those changes might leave me feeling uncomfortable.

But, I think it was fine. Different in some ways. Not different in others. And I am okay with the way things are now and don't really want or need to change them.

I did let myself into some mild irritation one day, I will admit that. I think that I might just have a 2-day tolerance limit, and in part, this is due to my own habits and decisions. These kind of events, I always give the guys a pretty wide berth. It's their job to mingle and spread themselves around the entire population. And while I would love to take the time to claim that for myself, I very rarely do. I've had a lot of opportunity in the past. I've build valuable relationships based on just that. I don't feel like I need to demand attention here. And I suppose it's because of that that it bothers me so irritatingly when others, especially longtime fans who I feel should know better, hover and hang around and monopolize. Let them do their job.  So I let that get to me.  I mean, I got over it.

I got into a conversation more than once with other women that centered on our families and the importance and blessings of our longterm marriages. Perri and I both have strong and busy family-centric lives -- so it's nice to have an annual trip planned away from everything together to rest and relax and regroup.

But, it's a brief escape by design -- and it's also really nice to get to go back to our families and our real lives.  They're good ones.

COVENANT WITH MYSELF

I decided that I need to practice cHesed with myself. It's a covenantal promise to act in the other's best interest, and I haven't been doing that for myself. My impulses toward people pleasing, toward feeling good in the moment, toward never wanting to treat anyone unfairly - while not all negative desires - have led me to treat myself in ways that were unfair and unhealthy.

I had a member who spoke this week about realizing that the choices she was making were not just unhealthy - but they were choices that were actively hurting her.

And I think that's where I've been. I've been making choices that have been actively hurtful to myself.

That's stopping.

THEMES OF MY LIFE: FORGIVENESS

After the letting go... there is a time to explore forgiveness. That's a word we throw around a lot, but I don't always stop to examine what it means -- what it is, and what it isn't, and why I can find it hard.

I have a tendency to think that forgiveness is saying, "Oh, that's okay, don't worry about it" and moving on.  But, I'm not sure that's it. Forgiveness isn't just forgetting what happened, or saying that what happened didn't matter -- that it doesn't matter. Because it does.

It does matter.

Especially at the moment where you're moving on and letting go, forgiveness has to be a lot more about you than it is about them. It's a lot more for you than it is for them. It's what begins to heal your wounds. It stops what they did from turning into your bitterness and anger and shame. None of us want to be shackled to an unhappy past -- and wallowing in the hate that can build just keeps us chained to it.

Choosing to forgive sets us free from those chains. It helps us rise above what happened -- not because what they did doesn't matter -- but because we do.

But, it's hard. Sometimes I don't want to. I want to stay here where I can be a little angry.

So, I have to be straight about what happened. I have to admit the choices I made, and the ones that they did. This is not the place to sugarcoat for anyone, but it's also not the place to let my judgment fly. Neither for them nor for me. Just be straight...

I need to learn from the past -- but I also need to let it stay there. I live so much in my head sometimes that it's tempting to re-litigate everything that happened. Everything they did. Everything I did. Conversations I'd like to do over.

But you can't go back and change those things.  You can't go back and change who you were. You can't go back and change who they were. All you can do is to choose differently going forward. And, like letting go, sometimes that's a choice you have to keep making.

I'm not done with this step. I know I'm not.  Sometimes I think that I am, and I feel like I can finally take a breath.  And then... my resentment and bitterness flare up, and I realize, "Okay.  Not quite there yet."

I'm not sure it's really them that I have trouble forgiving -- but me.

I can forgive them for lying to me. I have a harder time forgiving myself for believing those lies, for excusing it, for not calling them on it, and for deciding to live with it.  And somehow or somewhy, that manifests itself as still being angry with them.  Because, I guess, I'm angry at us both.

I need to be able to offer the same forgiveness to myself that I try to extend to them. I need it to be okay that I was flawed in all of this, too. And probably I need that more.  Them, I can say Goodbye to.  Me, I have to live with for quite awhile.

And, all of this said, even as I still walk toward that forgiveness and even as I know that I'm not there yet -- I'm not upset about that. I have walked this path before, and I know that I will get there with some time and with some distance. It will come.

Just not yet.

THEMES OF MY LIFE: LETTING GO AND MOVING ON

Broken relationships make me feel ashamed.

That's not to say that I think all relationships need to be unending. I think that there is a natural pattern to some friendships, and it's normal for that to ebb and flow. It's normal for people to become a part of your life and to then sometimes fade out of it. I've often compared it to a tapestry of color in your life. Some people are meant to be a color that weaves itself through the whole piece, and others are meant to add short splashes of color and vibrancy to different parts of the piece. This is healthy.

But, when I look back, there are three relationships that stand out to me as endings that I regret. I think I regret them less for THAT they ended than I do for WHY they ended, or maybe even just for HOW. For the brokenness that necessitated a parting... and maybe for the length of time I tried and failed to hang on to relationships that I should have just accepted were over.

One of the things that has always hung me up is regret and shame over character misjudgment. You go into a relationship, and maybe coexist in a relationship, thinking that you are kindred spirits... or with an assumption that you see them in the same way that they see you, or share similar values. But, when time has revealed the ways in which I have been wrong, it has shaken my confidence and my trust in myself. I have felt ashamed of my own naivete and gullibility. I should have seen things more clearly. I should have been more aware. I shouldn't have let affection cloud my judgment. And if I was wrong about this, what else have I been wrong about? How can I trust myself going forward?

That self-doubt has often had me wrapped up in questions of when it's time to hold on and when it's time to let go. In some ways, it's my own values that have held me in that space longer than necessary. My impulses toward grace and empathy have led me to accept far less than I'm worthy of, and to believe I'm worthy of less than I am. There is a balance between extending grace and demonstrating self-respect, and I have often fallen on the wrong side of it. A friend wrote to me, "Every one of us deserves to be in relationships that are balanced. We are worthy of having relationships where we are getting what we give." And that was something I "reasoned" myself out of way too often.

What it has taken for me is to get out from under the story I was telling myself. That's been different stories for different circumstances. Stories of hope and history and persistence and reconciliation.  All good stories... and stories which are often true.  They just weren't true here, and I needed to stop telling myself that they were.  The real stories certainly weren't as pretty, and sometimes they hurt quite a lot. Actually, usually they hurt quite a lot. But, I found that an unhappy reality was much easier to let go of, once it had fewer illusions to buoy itself up.

I had to accept that it was time to part. Not all roads have to run parallel forever. Not all colors are forever. Pick your metaphor.

Most times that I have come to this place, I have let go with anguish. It has been flush with pain and I have ripped off the band-aid and suffered as quickly as possible. Somehow I bought into this idea that I was weak to hurt, and so the most grown-up strong thing to do was to rush through the healing as quickly as possible. We're not very comfortable with pain and grief, and I'm not sure that we're ever quite taught how to deal with it.

This last time, I took a different route. A little bit of Brene Brown, a little bit of Craig Malkin, a little bit of a couple others. It was one of those months where you read the same sentiment from a number of different sources, and you think, "Maybe the universe is trying to tell me something." And so, I slowed down. I consciously chose not to rush through the pain. I let myself feel the hurts. I let myself feel the disappointments. I didn't try to reason myself out of them or berate myself for feeling the things I was. I just let it be. I let myself accept what it was I was feeling and how things were.

And then...  it hurt less. It hurt less and I began to understand all the things. A friend once said to me, in the midst of a conversation on the inevitible of heartbreak:

Sometimes it hurts. Sometimes it's C'est la vie. Sometimes you're so ready for them to go, it's just a massive relief.

At the time, I don't know that I really understood it. But, with my heart and head in a different place, I finally thought, "Oh. This is what she meant."

I stopped making it all about me, too. I was a card-carrying member of the Self-Blame Club. I can find a way to blame myself for any problem.  And while sometimes there is a little bit of truth in that, I was taking on blame for things that didn't have anything to do with me. I was blaming myself for problems that were not mine. In a nutshell, if I was the problem, I could fix the problem.

But, when I began to accept and internalize that the problems were not things that I could just fix by "being better," I began to see our stories as ones that needed to end. Some stories simply need to end so that new ones can begin. When I realized that, the past lost a little bit of its power over me. I could begin to let it go.

Letting go wasn't a one-time shot. Sometimes I had to re-"let it go." I found that letting it go was a choice I had to keep making until I didn't need to keep making it. Every once in a while, I have to do it again. But, it gets easier every time. Plus, without my illusions, there really isn't anything I want to go back to, anyway. That makes it easier to move on.

Looking back at them all, there are still things I regret. But, I can look on them with a little bit more kindness.

For the girl I was and for the girl I wanted to be and for the girl I am now.