It is the end of the day. It is the end of the year. It is the end of another decade. And I am at the end of my deadline to get an article in. As ideas swarm around my head like tadpoles in a pond doing their best to survive and not be gobbled up by a predator I feel a little overwhelmed. I could not help but reflect on the year past. I have never been one to dwell in the past. I also have never been one to have too many expectations for the future. However, somehow I lost that control. I started 2009 full of doubt. In 2008 I went through a relationship whirlwind that was at ten with both the good and the bad. And there was more bad than good in that one. Couple that with some unexpected financial hurdles it was a challenge to put on airs that everything was okay. I had to accept my role in all. In doing so it forced me to think more selfishly. I learned that if I was not doing what I needed to do for me first, I was no good to anyone. It was not a new idea. I have heard many sayings similar to that in many different ways. Putting these simple ideas into practice was very difficult. The largest challenge was to be okay with being okay. I had to do a little preparation to reach that point though. If anyone has been through the imploding of a relationship, whether it is roommate or romantic, you realize not only do you go through an emotional emptying you may go through a physical emptying as well. I came home one day and did not know whether to laugh or cry at the emptying of my house, as if movers had come in my absence and left me with a bed, a kitchen table, and a few barely usable chairs. Oh yeah, I had an easy chair to sit in, so that I could watch TV. The echo in the empty house was devastatingly depressing. So I did what any good American should do, I went shopping. Can you believe at almost forty years of age I bought my first new piece of furniture at a bona fide furniture store?
me2u – NYE ’09
I had no idea one of my biggest challenges in ’09 would be to train people that being okay is indeed okay. When someone would ask me how I was doing, when I replied, their response was always some disapproving “just okay?” As if being okay was bad. Okay for me meant that nothing bad was going on which in a sense was great. It has taken me many years to be able to teach myself to maintain a median level of contentment. Teaching myself to extend the enjoyment of the good highs, and putting the lows into perspective helped me find balance in life. So with my newfound okay, I found that I was able to be more comfortable with myself. In doing so I was also able to lessen my dealings with emotionally sucking negative people. I thought ’09 was going to be spent in a lot of solitude. How immensely incorrect I was. By freeing up my mind, body and soul from negativity I was available to be filled with okay-ness and wonderfully positive people in my life. I did not realize how much of a downer I had become. Changing that to being okay on the glass half full side attracted others that were on the up side as well. It is a whole lot easier to be good when you are surrounded by goodness.
Now looking ahead to a new millennium decade I am excited about the positive possibilities. I very much enjoyed investing in me during ’09. I have very much enjoyed the positive, friendly relationships that have flourished. It has also been rewarding to reconnect with people that I have known for a while but had not really been in contact with. It was amazing to me to actually realize that some of the bad just ain’t so bad when you have enough good and okay to counterbalance that. I can only imagine what good may come in Twenty-Ten if I keep looking towards okay. I like okay, it has been good to me. Thanks to all of you that have helped me to get there. I appreciate you. ~Melik / me2upro.com
