Mirror Mirror

When I bought my now ancient iPhone 3G in 2009 I had the option to buy a screen cover that was a mirror. My immediate thought was, "who would need that?" I don't carry a mirror around with me and it didn't even occur to me that at some point during the day I might want to check my reflection. I chose to get the basic screen cover. Since then I have thought about that choice more often then I thought I would. There have been moments I needed a mirror and I flash to standing in the AT&T store and mentally slap myself for not upgrading to the mirror option. But just because I don't hold a mirror to myself doesn't keep other people from doing it for me.

Mirrors are vital to bettering ourselves. We can do reps for hours but until we look in the mirror and see how we may be adjusting a different muscle group to make the rep easier, we won't know we're doing it. We can blindly, and happily, walk around the city all day, but without the reflection in the shop window showing us we actually have bed hair and mismatched socks we will continue to think we look amazing. Our habits, our daily life, is just our perception until we get that mirror held up to us. Sometimes by force.

Recently I was made aware of my habit to punish an innocent party because of someone else's treatment of me. He pretty much said, "I can't spend my life apologizing for what he did to you."

Talk about a lightbulb moment.

I don't really have a lot to say about that except that he's right and I was taken aback by how succinctly and with razor-sharp accuracy he called me out. I have thought about that sentence a lot in the past week. (And he'll tell you, I might not have remembered it correctly but the gist is there.) I don't want to force my future boyfriends/fiancées/husbands make up for how poorly I was treated for the better part of 6 years. I don't want to spend my life trying to figure out where I went wrong and how is it different this time. I don't want to compare. I don't want to assume. I don't want to do what I've been doing because it hasn't worked so far.

So, for those of you who follow this blog and know I work on myself every day, I have vowed to hold up more mirrors to myself. I will probably still leave the house with bed-head and mismatched socks. But I will not ask someone who wasn't there, who cares for me for who I am now, to fix what someone else heartlessly broke. And I won't spend my life trying to make it "different this time" so it's better. It's already better.

More mirrors, less heartache. Who's in?

Every Day a Little Pain

While I was sitting in the salon this afternoon getting my hair done, I started thinking about how my hairdressers’ arms must get tired. She stands all day, using her arms above the midline of her body. That thought made me think about how in time she probably gets used to it and the muscles she needs to do her job just get stronger. It’s our brilliant body adapting and morphing into what the world asks it to do. When we work out our muscles tear a little then repair stronger than they were. 

I started thinking, maybe it’s the same thing with relationships. Each time they end our heart breaks down a little more, establishing the need to rebuild (along with the pain that brings). This pain makes us stronger and ready to face the next thing the world will ask us to do.

The heart is about the size of your fist and one of the strongest muscles in the body. Its job is to pump every blood cell through every vein to every organ, delivering fresh oxygen and carrying away garbage. Our hearts are amazing. And while I know they are not directly related to the emotion of love, our oxytocin “cuddle” hormone takes care of that, our heart is where we feel the ache of losing someone we love. (And thank you cortisol for your part in that aching feeling.)

This idea of pain has been with me all day. I woke up this morning and my chest felt heavy, like there wasn’t enough room in it. The thought occurred to me, “of course there isn’t enough room. He gave your heart back to you. It has grown so big in his love it no longer fits in your chest.” Hence the pain of fitting this new heart, which has known a love so great I can’t stand to think about losing it, into my life again. Along with that comes the aching pain.

Pain helps us grow. I know that. The pain of heartache helps us be ready for the next time. It allows us to remember what good love felt like and to be ready for it when it comes again. Pain weakens us for a time, makes us cry, grieve, lie silently looking at the wall for hours and takes away our appetite. Pain drives us to have that extra pint in a vain effort to take the pain away. Pain tears little parts of us into pieces, leaving us to wonder if we will ever be whole again.

But pain isn’t forever. Our body adapts to pain and finds a different way of doing something so we don’t hurt ourselves. Our body, including our heart, doesn’t like to work harder than it needs to, so it will find an easier way to do what needs to get done. And loving someone needs to get done. I will not live in a loveless life. So while for now I sit with the pain, I will also acknowledge it. I will flash onto the good memories of him and smile because they happened. I will also flash onto the ideas I had of a good future and cry because they won’t. But through this all, the little tears everyday, I will grow stronger. 

And just like my hour of pain at the gym every morning, this pain will be worth it.

A Bejeweled Depression

Sunday I stayed in bed all day and slept. I should have weeded and cleaned and packed and maybe even eaten. But I didn’t. I slept.

Yesterday I stayed in bed all day and slept. I called in to work and spent the day in and out of dreamless sleep. No eating. No drinking. Nothing but sleep until rehearsal.

Today I went to work. And after catching up on all the “work” I had missed last week when I was away with my family on vacation (which consisted of 11 emails I have nothing to do with and 2 voicemails I have nothing to do with....I was gone for six days), I sat at my desk and played Bejeweled. For an hour.

An hour.

Here is a list of things I could have done instead:
- gone online and researched places to live in UK
- Emailed my advisor about how to get my visa and the steps I need to start working on
- Gone through my mutual fund and looked at stocks I’d like to diversify with
- Email my cousin and tell her about my upcoming move
- Gone on facebook and replied to everyone who has posted after a comment or on my wall
- Balanced my bank account
- Updated my calendar to include my new weekend plans
- Built a grocery list so I have food and can stop eating 7-Eleven taquitos
- Looked up flight prices for the trips I am taking in August
- Done an hour of stretching and abs
- Taken a walk
- Memorized lines from Seussical or Into the Woods
- Written in my journal about the Disney trip we just had
- Written an amazing blog about the changes coming into my life.

But no I spent it playing Bejeweled. Because my heart hurts and that’s all I want to do lately. I want to either be sleeping or mindlessly lining up gems and listening to them explode. I want to be sleeping or destroying. I don’t want to be productive. I don’t want to be exciting. I don’t want to be forward thinking. I don’t want to be here. I just want to be sleeping.

Or playing Bejeweled.