Learning to Stay

While reading a book (by Debra Lynne Katz) today, I realized how often I back away when something even hints at becoming uncomfortable.  I think one of the reasons I barely dated for most of high school and the first part of college was that I immediately saw imperfections in people and translated them as being an uncomfortable situation (I was afraid I would have to break it off, so I just never started it).  But often in life we must go through uncomfortable moments to achieve our ultimate goals.  We have to be the new one in the club or launch out and try something new or simply go through the discomfort of staying with something during the rough parts (relationships, hobbies, spirituality, etc.).  The beauty of a spiritual practice like meditation or visualization is that it teaches you to keep returning to it and to stay, even if it brings up unpleasant feelings.  We must work through these unpleasant times in order to become stronger, indeed, to become our best selves.  What if we faced life knowing that uncomfortable situations will arise, but resolved ourselves to take the bull by the horns and stay with it rather than fleeing?  Imagine what our lives might be like!  Of course, there is a difference between discomfort and knowing a situation should not be part of one's life (this could be a whole post in itself).  But staying instead of leaving when things make you uncomfortable and discovering why this discomfort arises and how it can be resolved, I can see this making us stronger, more self-aware people.

Things are going fine. Even though I'm working 2 jobs, they aren't giving me many hours and I've been a bit bored lately. But that will be good once school begins because then I won't feel too overwhelmed. I've been finding that I really like the working life and being busy. I think keeping busy for the most part keeps me happy. But it's also nice to just sprawl out and relax and read and stuff.

I made a new friend recently. He's a bit of a perv, but yet a very outgoing, self-involved, fun perv. I don't know what to think about having introduced him to my closest friends. I guess they have to make their own decisions, though, and so far they're doing a good job with this one. We had tons of fun at his house the other night (don't worry, Shawn came, too).

At my wine job I met this guy that looked familiar. As it turns out, he is also the brother of this guy I went to high school with and an old, old family friend of Shawn and his family! Since the guy, B, works where we work, Shawn talked with him for a long time the other day and didn't even realize that B was B and vice versa. B is a super fun, cool guy, so hopefully he'll be able to hang out with us soon. As a side note, I'm trying especially hard lately to be friendly and make new friends since a lot of my close ones have graduated and are moving.

I've been housesitting lately. It's fun to live other people's lives for just a bit. I love imagining what my life will look like in a few years. Strangely enough, I could see it looking fairly similar to these people's lives. Even Shawn mentioned that, that he could see us being like them. I'm not quite sure what he meant by that.

Still can't decide on 1 cat vs. 2. Since the precious little boy one fell through, I had thought maybe just one, but there's part of me that doesn't want my sweet little girl to live alone all the time when I'm not there. But I also worry about my life not being the most stable right now, and would I be able to move 2 cats overseas?, and do most places rent to people with 2 cats, & etc...

I'm also reading some very interesting books, but you'd probably think I'm a nut job if I told you what they are, haha. Let's just say they deal with a lot of New Agey concepts. Which brings me to ask, what do you think when you think of 'New Age?' I'd been conditioned all my life to think 'weird' and think of energy 'stuff', but it seems like there are so many things that fall under the New Age umbrella. I'm not sure what people mean when they say 'New Age.' Now, having read a bit more about it, I think of paranormal phenomenon, altered states of consciousness, psychic phenomena, reincarnation, astral projection and out-of-body experiences, energy work, crystals, and the list goes on. I guess I should just look it up on wikipedia, but it's interesting to read what people think who know varying amounts of information about New Age, or anything, really.