April 2008
The Good, The Bad, and The Moldy
The birds and budding flora have shyly begun to announce spring’s return, and I have to admit, it has been a long-awaited and wonderful sight to my eyes. Springtime retrieves that misplaced energy we humans lose and beckons the dead world back into existence. It also gives us the motivation to clean up our cluttered lives and to organize all of the things we’ve accumulated over time. Wow, the things we hold onto–even food!
Looking into the refrigerator yesterday, I noticed I needed to throw out a few things–the salad mix looked like a bunch of Flubbers had crawled into the container and suffocated, while the carton of strawberries grew a surplus of fuzzy gray hair. Exactly why I could never bring myself to throw the bad out baffled me. Did I just not want to deal with it? Was I really that lazy?
All of the food in the refrigerator was fresh at one point, but over time, things changed. Of course, we don’t buy food with the intention of watching it spoil. But as we know with life, good intentions don’t always lead to decent actions. I had the option of taking out the bad pieces of food before the nastiness spread, but instead, I ignored the obvious signs. Sadly what could have been easily picked out and removed eventually ended up ruining everything. Why didn’t I take action to prevent it from happening?
We all know waiting around for rotten food to transform into fresh food is a waste of time. If we buy something already tainted, it’s not going to get any better. Yet, why do we keep it? Why do we spend so much on the bad and so little on the good?
Sometimes I think we convince ourselves that time won‘t change anything we don‘t want it to change–we think we have power. We lie to ourselves rather than dealing with the moldy truth before it spreads out of control. But we believe we’re in firm command over life when, in reality, the food is still going to rot–albeit sooner rather than later if there’s no action being taken to change that fact. It’s all about our actions in life.
So why do the bad things have a longer shelf life in our lives? Is it because we’ve convinced ourselves they will change for the better? I mean, if they‘re horrible for us, why do we keep them? Why do we constantly seek ways to preserve the bad when the good things that will actually nourish us are passing away in our lives? Are we that blind?
I believe at times we hold onto false hopes because we don’t want to see the situations the way they really are. So we blindly create a perfect world where nothing spoils or ever goes stale, and we overlook reality when we should be throwing the bad out of our refrigerators. If we don’t watch ourselves, that one bad speck of mold can alter all of the good. And we can’t say we didn’t have a chance for the good in life, because if it sat in the refrigerator and wasted away, we were the ones who chose not to do anything about it. Excuses don’t justify the fruitless decisions we make.
Spring is the perfect time to clean out our lives and give ourselves a sense of renewal. There are times we really need to get rid of the things that are no longer wholesome in our lives because there’s no sense in consuming something that’s not going to nourish us in the long run. If it is way beyond its expiration date, throw it out! There’s no such thing as wasting waste. It’s far better to nurture our minds and bodies with healthier foods and relationships. Trust me–you’ll feel much better over the course of time, and you’ll find what they say is true: the best things in life are mold-free.
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Pictures
Pictures are worth a thousand words–honestly, depending on how nice the picture is, probably more. Photos are the only reminders of the past that truly capture moments in time–from the gleam of innocence in a child’s eyes to the delicate nervousness of an eager bride. Unlike people, a photo can express so much without ever saying anything at all.
If you’ve ever photographed a wedding for someone, you know there’s nothing more stressful than having the sole burden of getting the ’perfect picture’ for arguably one of the most important events in someone’s entire life. The weight of the world is temporarily in your hands…and in front of your face.
Yesterday, while photographing a wedding reception, seeing the happy couple holding each other on the dance floor gave me a harsh reminder of my singleness–it made me miss having someone. (Being human, there are just moments in time a person feels lonely.) But that’s the way it has been for a while–me, taking pictures of other people’s happy moments and having no ’perfect picture’ of my own. But seeing them also made me realize the reasons I don’t have a special someone in my life–I’ve learned that people can blind you. And sometimes after their dazzling flash wears off, you find you never really captured anything at all.
In life you never really know someone until you take the time to develop the relationship and see them fully exposed with all faults and imperfections. Even then, we see what we wish to at times. After you’ve seen the actual person, you’ll find there’s always something else entirely behind it all. No matter how well you think you know someone, you never see them in their entirety–people hide themselves from the camera.
Sure, you can say you see the big picture, but if you notice: the closer you get to it, the blurrier it appears. Too many things make up one life, and it’s impossible to see everything. So we show others the photos we look good in–what we want them to see. However, little bits and pieces seep out over time, and our inner selves slowly emerge. But how many people these days actually show us what’s beneath the photoshopped faces and two-dimensional surface without a front? How many people these days are genuine people, and how many are no more than lifeless figures in still photographs in constant search for something to make them feel alive?
We, as humans, spend a lot of time dwelling on things that will never come into view. We wonder what’s off to the side or what’s behind? What if? We make wishes. We make excuses. But I’ve learned sometimes it’s nice to see situations the way they are and see people for who they are. Some photos, like people, will never fully develop. And some people, unlike photos, are only worth one word…
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The Truth Hurts
The truth hurts? That’s an understatement. More like, ‘The truth is like being hit by a tractor-trailer speeding at one-hundred-and-ninety miles an hour, being slammed into a brick wall and thrown through head-first, and finally landing on a pile of spikes that rips out your heart.’ That’s the truth.
I guess I should have taken the hint when I ran into the first barrier–a huge tree in the road that blocked all traffic. But I persisted. Even though it took me an extra 40 minutes to get there because of the roadblock, I went to Virginia to see Derek. I just wanted to know the truth–I needed to hear the words from his mouth while looking into his eyes. I needed to know if he cared or not, because the question was wearing me down.
As we talked over dinner, I laid it all out on the table (though not literally)–I poured my heart out because I knew I didn’t have anything else to lose. Before he said anything to me, I knew it deep inside. But I denied the truth to myself because I didn’t want to face it. I knew the moment I knew the truth, it would be over and I wouldn’t have him anymore. It would really be final–he‘d really be gone.
During the absence of phone calls–the nights I kept the phone in my room in hopes he’d call–the silence that rang more than the phone by my bed said more than anything he ever did. Yet I still didn’t hear the truth, because I didn’t want to–I lied to myself.
Derek said he cared for me, but he was scared of opening up to anyone. He told me about his past relationships and how they have scarred him from opening his heart up to anyone. I knew exactly what he was telling me, because I had been there. But at the same time, I felt as if I was listening to a child explain how they fell down and never learned how to get back up again. Yet, here he was–hiding from his feelings like a little boy rather than being the man I admired who braved his heart.
Before we parted ways, we held hands for a moment and sat in silence. I wanted to keep him with me–I wanted so much. But as soon as he let go, I knew that was it–I had to let go, too. I would never be that person he’d choose to love. I would never wake up in bed beside him again and smile because he was with me. I know I’ll probably never see him again, and to be honest, it hurts beyond words. I shared something with him that I hadn’t felt in a long time. I let him into my heart, and I let him have it. I’ll miss him.
As I watched him leave, the tears fled my eyes and poured like the rain. I wish I could say it was easy, but it wasn’t. If he was a total bastard, it would have made it simpler to let go. But I know you can’t have a future with someone who still lives in the past, and you can’t make someone care for you. Knowing that doesn’t exactly make it easier, though.
As I drove through the night with the rain pouring across the windshield, the stream of tears from my eyes fell harder. I knew I got what I was searching for–I got the truth. That night, I lost him. But, I guess you can’t lose what you never really had…
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Hibernation
Bees hummed a bustling tune as they flew past my ears and hurried away as fast as they came. I watched them dart down the path until their tiny bodies faded behind the curls of transparent flames burning the air on the pavement. The bees were well on their way to somewhere–I just wasn’t sure where.
The budding avocado mountains that surrounded me chanted lyrics from the birds as nature played an accompaniment of choruses–from the muffled splash of the water on the riverbank to the delicate rattle of wind chimes somewhere in the distance. I sat outside, my elbows resting above my knees. And with my hands cupped beneath my chin, I stared off into remoteness and observed life around me. Everything stirred with such vigor and renewal, and as much as I wanted to feel it and be a part of it, I just couldn’t.
The seasons have changed so fast, and that dormant part of me has taken a while to rouse. But I guess when you wake up from hibernation, it’s normal to feel a little disoriented and lost, because sometimes winter takes its toll on us. We’ve all had those moments where we want to crawl into the fetal position to get away from the world and all of its problems. We get so frozen that, even when the sunlight comes, it doesn’t warm us. We become immune to feeling for a time, because after feeling so much, we don’t want to do it anymore. After an endless winter, we’re not really sure if we’re going to emerge to sunlight or to a bright glare from the white snow. Regardless, it takes time to wake-up and thaw. The important thing is that we realize the need to.
You learn a lot about yourself when you go through winter alone–you find out how strong and resistant to cold you really are. But it’s better to bear it alone than to be with someone who doesn’t appreciate or respect you. And as hard as it is to let someone go, you have to let people live their own lives and make their own mistakes before the coldness affects you. You can’t let someone keep you in winter with them because they are too blind to see spring in front of them. If they don’t stop to smell the roses and escape hibernation, there’s nothing you can do to help the transition. People won’t listen; they have to brave it on their own. Eventually they’ll see the season’s change–though probably too late. Time waits for no one, and if they’re not making an effort, neither should you.
But the thing about a changing season is: it creates beginnings out of endings. There’s always going to be adjustment and adaptation in our lives, but the important part of it all is to see when change is needed and to make that choice to live a better life–despite how bad it hurts to start anew. Spring is definitely a time for growth–but only if we plant ourselves where we can flourish. A new beginning is sometimes what we need.
I strolled down the sidewalk–kicking stones and whistling like a child again–and when I looked around at the beautiful world, I breathed in the fresh spring air. As I dug my hands deep into my pockets, I sighed a sigh of release. I knew I was well on my way to somewhere…and for the first time since winter, I felt warm.
