My Middle Ground...

It’s been a while since I’ve updated my blog.  Work has been hard, but that isn’t what I want to focus on.  This week more than any other I’ve been thinking about what I need to do to shift my focus from temporary happiness to everlasting. 

I was talking with a friend yesterday about something said at church and how it made me feel like I was less of a person.  You know what he said - why do you care!?  Not going to lie, his frankness is sometimes just as frustrating to me as the initial problem I was "presenting" for discussion.  So, I asked myself that after dropping him off, why did I care?  Turns out the answer was a simple one, I don't want to look like I am a mean person.  Might sound silly to some, but it is a genuine fear of mine.  I don't ever want to give someone the impression that what they think or feel does not matter in the grand scheme of things because everyone matters.  I know how that feels, I know how it is when you are screaming your head off and no one really cares.  I don't want to think of others feeling that way because of me or my actions. 

I’ve been there, that moment when you feel like everything is going your way – you can’t believe you could be that happy!  I’ve also been there when it comes crashing down around you and you want to sleep away the hurt, anger and frustration.  Between those two phases is the middle ground – I like to think of it as the “I’m okay” ground.  This between phases is what I am trying to find right now, a place where I am content even though things aren’t perfect, a place where I’m okay.  For a long time I thought that the being okay meant that I was giving up on things ever getting better.  I realize now that it was the time in my life where I learned about hope and about becoming more humble.  I hoped for things to get better and they usually would, but it wasn’t in the timeline I outlined for myself.  No one likes to learn humility the hard way - except me.  Apparently, I'm going for the gold medal! 

 

As many of us see throughout life, lessons learned often need to be relearned…  That is where I see myself now, in the relearning my middle ground and that’s okay by me because that means that things will get better.