Years End Reflection

I am not alone at this time of year to engage in the act of reflection of a year that has gone by so fast that you like everyone else wonder where the time went. Its funny knowing that the time goes fast never seems to invoke the kind of haste and stewardship over our time in the coming years as one would expect. Most of us tend to procrastinate more. In others still we tend to try to cram more into an already busy and blurrlike existence never really getting the full measure of our experiences. I think that I have been a victim of experiencing both. It is almost like I have been leading several lives all at once with differing perspective and approach allowing for different experiences and affects on my life.

As mother the year has gone by exceptionally fast and with much joy and growth. I have watched my precious one go from being a 5th grader to be becoming a 6th grader. The implications of that transition is monumental and only the beginning to other earth shattering transition for her and I. My love for her grows and my sense of liking her as a person ebbs and flows. Most people don't really acknowledge the distinct issue we have in viewing our children but I do. I can't stop loving my angel but I have found that there are times when I don't like her very much. I use to feel guilty about the duplicitous state until I began to try to understand it more. Most of us instinctively love our children because they are part of us but what we don't do is accept and acknowledge that they are individuals in every way so its just as natural not to like them based on their idiosyncrasies just any other individual. We think we are exempt from the luxury because they are our children but we aren't. I think that if we acknowledge it more we can get to a place where we can accept our children better and more completely as they grow into to the person they will be. I cannot and don't love anyone like I love my child and as she realizes herself as a human being and a part of society I have to accept that she may hold some traits and behaviors that I will not ever like. The difference is the love I have for her will mean she will continued to be loved despite them and I will build a tolerance and acceptance for her regardless of those traits and behaviors which is something we never do for strangers. Accepting our children goes beyond just loving them for who they are, it much means loving them despite of who they aren't and the individual they become that's separate from us. I very much want that for Cydni and to pass it along so that she will do it for her children as well.

As a professional I single handily destroyed my necessary behavioral comforts and needs to satisfy my financial and egotistical ones. I left a job of five years where I knew many and many knew me for a job where I know no one and no one knows me. These decisions are never easy in that we have to met the needs that are nagging the most at us and that is why we make the decisions we make in these times but I think this recent decision has helped me learn a bit more about myself than I would have liked to know. Actually it really uncovered something I find quite ridiculous about myself. I like being the go to person even if I am stressed and tired. I like being the one that people rely on and go to for solutions and advice on fixing issues. I was very much in that position in my last company. I think that the element that led me to look elsewhere is the lack of that being the admitted case. I wasn't getting credit for the work I had been doing but I was getting the work non-stop and at an ever growing pace. There has to be a balance even in madness. Wanting that kind of position in a professional setting is madness because it means you can never vacate. It was very true for me too, I didn't take a real vacation the whole time I worked there. I did however enjoy the status of being me there. The new job doesn't present me with the same kind of clout. Now some would say that in a matter of time I would regain my status but its just not true. Every organization has its culture and what is inherent to one isn't always present in another. The last six months have been an exercise is becoming part of body of people that has no hierarchy. We shine together or not at all. I miss being a big fish in a little pond but I am beginning to find my niche in being just apart of the school in a big a ocean. It has meant the creation of time to work toward getting into to the career that will better serve me and society in a more productive manner.

To finish off this trinity of self there is me the individual. This year like other years has been a trial of ethics, friendship and self acceptance. I cannot say that I have reached self actualization per se but I can say that I get closer all the time. My bad choices provide an immense amount of turmoil and cause major setbacks but as the wounds heal I find a bit more of the pieces of myself that I thought was lost forever. I know what is good and needs to be done but the old fears of my soul keep me from those decisions at times and I find that even doing nothing is harmful to me. I have also experienced this year that in doing the right thing I can be hurt most deeply. I have often wondered why the wrong things feel so right and how it could be that you feel like a piece of yourself is ripped away once you have set those wrongs right. As a believer I am often riddled with questions of how it could be that I am missing the things that are promised no matter how faithful I am and how I long for them more when I try to create those things by my own hand. The everyday discovery that I am my own worst enemy presents a problem of how to change the core of you to become this better person so that you may have the better life. I know that the look of a person's happiness isn't the full picture of their life but I think that looking at that part of their picture only makes the pain of your missing picture part all the worse. So in my most selfish human impression I will say, All is want is what I want when I want it and only for as long as I want it.

I can't imagine what next year holds and that seems to be the trend as I get older. Funny, I find that I long for the years when that wasn't the case; there is something in knowing that next year holds x, y and z. At 34 and climbing knowing what the next year is going to be like isn't a luxury that I possess but not knowing is definitely a fear that I carry. I know that I want Cydni to be happy and to grow with as little ill affect of my haphazard parenting as possible, for my new job to remain so in order for me to finish school and move on to my chosen career and for me to close the gap in self actualization as fast and as painlessly as possible. And my underlining request for my life to mean something to as many as possible remains the constant of my existence.

Here's to looking forwarding instead of back and always being thankful for what I have instead of criticizing what I lack.

Have a Happy New Year!!