"keep your eye on the big picture"

part of the microscopic print on my senior year book page; with that, some words of encouragement from family, along with a bible verse. it was something my dad had always said. over the years its meaning has changed. no wait. scratch that. it's more like i learn something new, or see something in a different light that becomes a small piece of the bigger picture that i'm making out to be my life.

i spent my entire weekend living in hypothetical situations that had caused me to have an extreme mental overload and three sleepless nights. yet, here i sit, able to breathe again because of a conversation that needed to be had. it's not the refreshing breath of fresh air that i've felt before or may have hoped for, but a breath nonetheless.

i don't like to say that i've had such a shitty and hard past, because let's all be real--someone in the world has it way worse. but i will say that i've definitely been through some shit, and i know more shit is to come. c'est la vie, right? i will say that i do know what it's like to feel truly down, like wind-knocked-outta-you-on-the-flat-of-your-back-looking-up kind of down. i know what it feels like to be a prisoner of your own mind; to have your thoughts run around in vicious circles; to question what you've done, what you are doing, and what you haven't done but are thinking about doing. i've felt loss, in many forms. i've felt guilt, regret, helpless, hopeless---sometimes all just about one thing. i know what it's like to feel lost, and the need to "find yourself." and i also know the habit of shutting out and cutting off the people around you to do that. i can't say it's exactly the best thing to do, but who am i to talk, i definitely learned the hard way. with that, i can say yes, eventually it is only you that can do the things you truly need  for yourself, but it's for sure that no one should have to go through it alone--like i said, learned the hard way. probably the most scary of them all, is i know what it's like to not only lose faith, but lose my faith, in anything for that matter. it's no secret that i've come back from all of this some how, some way. i am sitting here writing about it after all.

in the beginning, i always thought that having a "big picture" was this general layout of what i envisioned my life to be like. married? yep. kids? just one or two, please. career? something badass, but definitely my own boss. wealthy? sure, why not...but really just enough to be stable would be perfect. however, over the years i've learned that the big picture is very much like art. if you stand too close, or scrutinize too long, it's very likely to lose focus. that's what happened this weekend for me. i was so set on what i didn't want to happen or what i was truly afraid of happening, that i failed to see the bigger picture...only this time, it wasn't my own.

all those really shitty things i mentioned earlier i saw happen to someone else tonight, and almost all at once at that. not only did it tear me up, but it also hurt to know that what i saw was a slightly different version of myself from just a mere couple years ago. the thought had never occurred to me that part of forming your own bigger picture may require needing to see someone else's. tonight i learned a new meaning for the word patience and still am learning what it means to be patient; what it's like to really share yourself with someone. tonight i learned that taking a step back can actually mean taking a step forward simultaneously; and that one step back, for the sake of someone else, can potentially lead to really good things even if they aren't exactly where you'd like them to be that moment.

life is supposed to have problems, mistakes, ups, downs, and can even seem to repeat itself. but with this i learned that having so many things come down on you at once, it is impossible to try to solve them all at once, even though it's what we want to happen more than anything. i had forgotten the value of letting the pieces fall where they may, and how it can really form who you need to become, whether it's for the time being in that moment or for the long run (even if it is someone else's picture). besides, who says you can't move them around later?

tonight i felt like i was trying to help myself from two years ago. within an instant i understood what it meant to have to exercise the option of having to "put something on the shelf," let alone put feelings on a shelf (which i've never had to really do). it seems as if it always runs the risk of having things drastically change on someone's end of the situation.

i went back and read a short post i wrote some time ago.

work in progress

i knew i needed to be happy again, but at the time i just didn't know how. i never realized that the smallest of steps, regardless of how insignificant it seemed, could end up leading to the big step that would eventually be needed. i knew devoting 1% of a day to moving my life in a direction i wanted it to go was the kind of baby step i had to take.

but now, i feel like i have something new to learn, and even just doing 1% of it is going to be such an adjustment and a struggle---and that's after i figure out what's the best way to go about it. with the way i feel about the situation at hand, all my heart ever wants to be is to be there for that person; and i know that while i can be there, the rest has to come from them. but how do you figure out how to distance yourself without ever really being too far or out of reach? and how do you do this without completely compromising the way you feel, all the while still trying to work towards your own big picture of how you would like things to be? how do you know when it's okay to say how you feel or when you should bite your tongue because it isn't okay to say how you really feel? how do you know when something little is really too much? it's hard to feel out of your element. it's even harder when you have to take yourself out of it.

through all these 'how' questions, all i know is i'm willing to try this balancing act. this is for sure. i just need to figure out the first step on how so i can get started. i suppose for now, prayer is my best bet.



"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks the door will be opened."
        -Matthew 7:7-8