More Strange Days

I’m feeling a bit whipsawed by circumstances in life and love lately. I struggle to maintain balance – thankfully, finding it is less challenging these days.  Even my own words and thoughts sometimes tug me this way and that way as if to say ‘how sure are you?’. Like yesterday’s post on Change… I apparently have mixed feelings on some points. My commute home was a conversation with myself [no, not out loud!] that felt a bit like a tennis match…

Pre-occupation looks like bit like this…

…Change can be accepted or rejected, but it just is…

…It’s not okay to insist someone else change; acceptance and compassion are important values!…

…There’s a difference between demanding change ‘or else’, and encouraging someone to grow or consider their values and actions!…

…Is there? What’s it to me? Everyone is free to make their own choices, be their own person, walk their own path…

…We each have an obligation to take care of ourselves, to live our values, and to communicate when our boundaries are violated, or our limits reached…right?…

…It’s not acceptable to dictate values to someone else…

…If a relationship is based on specific stated values, and someone doesn’t actually live those values in their behavior, though, calling them on that… is that okay?…

…Walk away if you don’t like it. Why would it be okay to insist on change?…

…Every relationship I’ve been in as eventually found me facing an explicit demand to change something about myself that seemed an integral part of me, and I really don’t like it. When I capitulate I am resentful, and sometimes insincere, when I push back… oh… I don’t think I actually know what happens then. And I resent the lack of reciprocal willingness to meet needs and grow….

…See? That sucks. So don’t do it…

…Doesn’t it make sense to grow? To become more the being I want most to be?…

…It’s the ‘I statement’. It’s about individual freedom and will. It’s about not attempting to force someone’s heart, or demand that they value what you value, honoring their honest self with your own honest self…

Back and forth I went, as the train moved down the rails closer and closer to home. Closer to calling it a night, getting off my feet, out of the rain, into dry clothes, to enjoy a meal with my family and quiet conversation. I don’t think I found my way to any measure of ‘certainty’ on Change beyond ‘change is‘. It’s enough. I’m happy to have choices to contemplate, values to evaluate, and internal dialogue with good content, relevant to my own experience.

Another day begins. Life has prepared the curriculum. Pencils ready? And… begin.

To reach my destination, I nearly always have to start where I am.