What I Learned | Winter 2019
After skipping last quarter's post, I've returned and am joining Emily Freeman in sharing the lessons I learned this season. It certainly has been an interesting winter. I took some time away from social media and the hustle of the internet and spent it all with myself, listening and learning about who I really am. I've taken a few big chances - something that scares me - and have made some decisions about what I want my life to look like in five years. This has been a season of settling in and learning about the girl I've been hiding for so long.
Here's what I learned this winter.
You feel the hardest when you're in love.
I'm talking about that fresh, newly-found love, here. The one that makes your heart leap when the phone rings. Or makes you change your clothes half a dozen times before going out. This love had me feeling extra sensitive, almost like the rest of the world had a haze over it and he was all I could see clearly. It heightened my senses to the max. His jokes seemed funnier than anything I'd ever laughed at before. The mundane tasks of the day, so much more joyous. On the other side, the tears fell harder. The nights alone felt lonelier. The days, darker. His was a love that awakened the stone heart in me and opened my eyes to so many things about myself, and if that was the only purpose for our paths crossing, then at least I can say that I loved hard.
If I make blueberry muffins, I need to triple the recipe.
Twice this winter, I've made homemade cinnamon streusel blueberry muffins to use up leftover blueberries in my fridge. Twice, they've been inhaled in a matter of moments. There seems to be a beacon that goes off whenever I'm baking, but these were definitely a favorite marked by all. My brother, alone, ate four of them in one sitting. I have now noted on the recipe card that the recipe can only be tripled. :)
I can let go of the things I used to believe about myself.
So, I do this terrible thing of believing every negative word that anyone has ever said about me. All the nasty, hateful things that have come out of the mouths of people who are angry about life has dictated the way I've seen myself for years. All the way back to my childhood, I remember a classmate talking about the scab I had on my chin from a playground accident. She said that real girls don't play like boys on the playground, therefore casting me out of the "girls" club forever. For over thirty years, I've held this belief that I was not like everyone else. I was different, and different was strange, and strange was wrong. Later in life, this belief was only perpetuated by the way I had been treated by horrible men. My self-worth dropped and I saw myself as a liability, as unlovable. I spent years in therapy and never made much progress on my self-esteem, but three weeks into a conversation with someone who has been in my shoes, and my view shifted. I now know that I can let go of the things I used to believe about myself and start looking for more of the good.
It is worth traveling for an unforgettable view.
I have a bucket list that keeps growing. It's a list of all the places I want to visit in my lifetime. It's a problem, really, because I have never been someone who does a lot of traveling. Recently, I read a quote that said it was always worth traveling for an unforgettable view. This was from one of those career adventurists - a guy whose Instagram is full of images taken from mountain tops, capturing the expansive world below. I was thinking about these words and realizing that when I have traveled, it's the view that has always stuck with me. No matter where I've gone - the beach, the mountains, the desert - it's always those firey sunrises and star-filled sunsets that are burned into my memory. I made a pact with myself that I'd stretch out and do more traveling this year. Even if it's local. Even if I never get to see Mt. Everest or stand on a white sandy beach in Tahiti, I will get out and explore more of this amazing planet I live on. Now taking applications for a travel buddy.
If I don't like something, I can change it.
Let me repeat that for the folks in the back. If I don't like something, I can change it. This was partially inspired by the rise of so many newly-sworn in female representatives after this last mid-term election. These women didn't like the way the government has been running (and treating women) and so they decided to run for office. This season, I took this idea and looked inward and realized that if there is something in my life that I don't like, I can change it. It might not be an instantaneous shift, but we are all a work in progress, right? Here's to making positive improvements.
Sometimes the hardest person to ask forgiveness of is yourself.
This statement needs no elaboration except to say, forgiveness is hard.
I know myself better now than I did at the beginning of the season.
This winter, I did a lot of soul-searching. I spent a lot of nights alone, listening to music and to my heart, working through my "issues" and basically, just learning more about who I am. For so long, I've let others dictate how I feel about myself. I've let the past guide me in the present. I've been running on autopilot instead of living up to my true potential. I can honestly say that I know myself better now than I ever have before. There is still a lot of ground to cover, but I like this new friend that I've made.
