Saturday, August 2, 2014

A Return To Normal

   I want to let everyone in on a part of my past that I don’t talk about often. I haven’t always been the person I am today, and it’s been a long road to becoming someone I can be proud to be. So let’s start.
   When I was eighteen, I had no direction. I was easy going, but I think it was only because I had a quick drink or a bite of food that wasn’t so good for me every time life threw a curve ball at me. When I was 21, I wanted to leave that part of my life behind me, though. I wanted to meet life head-on and never use something as a crutch again. I left any type of addiction or crutch behind, and as a result, I had to part with some friends who didn’t understand the new me. My faith in God became stronger daily. I had always believed in God, but I had never started living for Him until this point.
   Throughout the first three and a half years of living my new life, I focused on being better as a person. I still didn’t have much direction, and I honestly didn’t know what I was going to do with my life, but I wasn’t worried. I learned to let the little things roll off and put the big things out of my mind until I had a way to fix them. It worked great for a long time, and I was happy. Something has changed lately, however. I’m not returning to a lifestyle where I use food or drinks as a way to cope. Instead, I’m having a “hard time coping” period. It’s gotten harder to not care about the bad things and people in my life. For example, the closing date for my home has been moved back, thanks to some technical issues. I’ve had to delay furniture from being delivered, as well as put my whole life on hold for another week and a half, and honestly, it’s all very senseless. To say the least, I’ve been aggravated. Then there have been many other things that have gone on this week that are private, but I can tell you now . . . they’re not good. Most people would say that I need some relief in the form of a meal, a pill, or a drink. I want to return to how I was just one year ago, though. There was a time when a week and a half wouldn’t have been a big deal, and I could have simply severed ties with the less than good people in my life without thinking twice. I want that again. I’m better now. I’m not perfect, but I generally stand for what’s right and try to live the way I should. That doesn’t mean I have to care about things that are beyond my control or care about people who are a lost cause, though. I can’t control people, sales, or world events. No matter how much I think my house should already be mine, or wish that I could sell a million books, or maybe even just wish that people were a little better, I can’t control that. All I can control is me, so that’s all I’m going to concentrate on for a while. I guess I figure that I might need to close my eyes to the bad for a while and learn not to care anymore because what else can I do?
   That’s the main thing I wanted to let everyone know. I come from a place of weakness, as most of us do, but I’ve become better. As a matter of fact, I’m getting better every day. That’s what I’m going to choose to focus on moving forward. That way, every disappointment or person who doesn’t fit in my life will be nothing more than a passing shadow to me. I trust that the good people and things will find me along the way, but if they don’t, I think it’s okay to find peace with simply doing you for a while. That’s what I’m telling you guys. I’m going to do me for a while, and I think I’m going to be better as a result. Maybe if we all concentrated on being better ourselves and shutting out anyone or anything that was less than what we needed, the world would be a lot better place. It would force us to be better, and when we finally choose to raise our heads, we might just see a group of individuals who are focused, happy, and generally good.

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