Singular Scene

So Singular in Each Particular

Oh, to be a Duck

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Duck Swimming

I so wish I was one of those people who glide along through life looking for all the world like a picture of serenity, even if all the while their little legs are paddling like mad to stay afloat.

Sadly, I’m more of the kind of chick who’s legs are paddling like our little friend’s above, but who also squawks and flaps about rather a lot as well.

How’s the Serenity*?

Not so great.

My personality tends towards choleric, if you’re familiar with that sort of thing, a choleric person

… is a do-er. They have a lot of ambition, energy, and passion, and try to instil it in others. They can dominate people of other temperaments, especially phlegmatic types. Many great charismatic military and political figures were cholerics. They like to be leaders and in charge of everything.

Actually, from my perspective, a choleric person is all about the control.

And when the ability to keep all the plates spinning is compromised?

Flap, Quack. Flap.

Quack.

Which is not the end of the world until the quacking upsets the rest of the flock. Then I have to suck it up, smoothing over their ruffled feathers (and my own).

I wish too that my mantra wasn’t “No Regrets, No Excuses” – because making excuses feels like I could justify the quacking (or snarling, as it happens). But excuses end up making me look smaller than the bigger person I want to be.

So, I eat my dose of humble pie…

…and do my best to feel the serenity.

*Quote from the iconic Australian Movie “The Castle” – the movie has to be watched in full to be truly understood and appreciated, but at about the 15s mark of this Youtube Clip you’ll get the section of the movie from which the above is drawn.

Doin’ it wrong?

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She said “will it always feel like this?”

I said “No”

And it’s true, it won’t. Heartbreak heals and with it you grow, and change and become a different (maybe even better) version of yourself. And you in turn, and in time, can tell someone else who asks you the same question that the feeling will pass, that you’ll feel better and that the next chapter will surprise you.

The hard thing is, that I’ve watched, and been with her, walking through 2 years of challenges, some of them of the heart, some of the body and some of the spirit and the cumulative effect of all these things is causing her to ask the really big questions. Does God see? Does he even care?

I see her and I can see the big picture. As awful as all of the swirly things in her world are making her feel I know that in the future she’ll be coaching someone else that “God will work it out, soon you will see, everything will be alright”. But even while we were speaking and I was seeing all the areas of hurt and healing that have been going on, the changes for the better that have already come about I asked myself, “if I’m feeling ok, if there are no major areas in my world where I can see God pointing to character flaws and ‘issues’ and asking me to deal with them, if I’m happy and relaxed and walking an easy road at the moment, am I doing it right?”

I wonder sometimes, if I shouldn’t be more holy, if I shouldn’t read my bible and pray more, if I’m a good enough Christian, if I’m a work in progress am I actually progressing? and so I mentioned it to my friend, a pastor, and he said, “if you’re doing it wrong, keep doing it that way” it’s working.

And then I remembered.

I’ve got almost 10 years on my friend, and in those last 10 years I’ve had times when I’ve looking at my world and wondered what the hell was going on. In college, pieces of me got broken and remade, that was hard; in 2004 my world fell apart and everything I thought I knew got turned on its head, and in 2009 my whole worldview changed where God, church and life were concerned, my faith got tested and I faced the worst fear I’ve ever felt while I learned to trust that things would be ok. That sort of change doesn’t come without angst, and in it all I realised something important.

There’s no guarantee the path will stay smooth, and it’s easy to take things for granted while it is. So I’m taking every opportunity to love the fact that right now, life is good. But I’m not going to hold on too tightly – change will come, and when it does I’ll look back at this post and remember. This too shall pass, and when it does, everything will STILL be alright.

Heartbreak Warfare

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When I started this blog the whole focus, as is apparent in its name, was my singular status and my various attempts to remedy my singularity in favour of attaining a cooperative life at some point in the future… Well, here we are 6 years later and that future hasn’t happened.

It makes me wonder why this is so, and I wonder too what would change if my status did, and on top if these thoughts, as I sit here on the sidelines of a turmoil of someone else’s making, I also hesitantly breathe a sigh of relief that, as a single woman, I’m not at risk of quite the same pain. Because it’s the ones whom you love the most who have the greatest capacity to cause the very deepest hurt.

My visit home to NZ came with great joy, the thrill of being the surprise guest at my sister’s birthday party was worth all the effort of going; totally worth the sacrifice of both cash and available working hours just to see her face when I arrived. But the trip was also worth being there there to share the tears when events unfolded and we watched someone we love close the book on their relationship; walking away after 10 years. Walking through those waters would have been so much harder if done on foreign shores – and even though it’s not my little immediate family that’s being torn apart it is close and one I love very much and because of that I share a part in their heartbreak too.

We have such expectations of those closest to us, that we’ll do the right thing, that we’ll act honourably but we’re all human, we all act in our own self interest and regardless of circumstances that lead us to choose a path it is our character that determines what choices we make. I’ve seen bad choices this weekend, I’ve seen character flaws I really I hadn’t seen before and I’m just so disappointed. I didn’t want to be let down, I didn’t want to be surprised by love dying. I didn’t want to believe my kin were capable of choosing so poorly.

I want to turn back the clock, for them and for me – and I want to fix it. But the mess isn’t mine to clean up and I am powerless to put things back together. I can’t undo choices made and I can’t ameliorate the damage.

So I sit here, with my heart just a bit more broken than it was on Friday and I wonder, once again, if I’m not better off.

When you Read all the Way to the End of the Internet*

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You find yourself playing with all sorts of mind bending, time wasting, applications… this is one of google’s…

You can find the application here http://www.youtube.com/searchstories  Please make one for me and post a link in the comments, I’d love to see what other people come up with!!


* I had a couple of slow days of work last week and as I was not at the home office but at an agency waiting for the job to come in I kept busy by surfing the web… this was merely one of the time wasters I found!