http://arizonaheartspoetry.blogspot.com/

Monday, January 24, 2011

We are all the same

26 years ago, I was sitting at a friend’s house with a ‘new’ boyfriend, watching the bears win the Superbowl. I was new to the crowd, sitting back, observing the company I was in. Little did I know then, that 26 years later I would be sitting at that same friend’s house at another Bears party realizing that I’ve had the same circles of friends for over 25 years. That’s a long time. Not everyone gets the good fortune to stay in contact with friends from that far back, let alone see them often. I use circles in the plural form, because everyone has many levels of friends. The ones you see all the time, the ones you see a few times a year at parties, ones you see less than that, and then there are the siblings and family members of those friends. Circles within circles. As I was sitting around watching everyone and seeing how our kids have all grown, I realized we’ve all changed too. Over the years, every one of us has changed and the tables have all shifted.
There are always dynamics at play within circles of friends. The hot guy, the perky cheerleaders, the picture perfect pretty girls, the entrepreneurial guy with a load of cash that always had a lot of nice things and girls all over, the bad boys getting in fights all the time, the hard drinkers, the cocky dude, the couple that went out and got their first apartment before anyone else who had been together forever and seemed inseparable. All of these characters in this play called life.
A quarter century later I’m sitting around the table thinking about everything that has gone on with everyone in the room. We’ve all had life happen. The hot guys are graying with bags under their eyes, bigger foreheads, bigger bellies, the size zero picture perfect girls are a little wider than they used to be, as happens with having kids, some of those forever relationships are now less than happy existences and some have turned to bitter divorces, some keep on ticking, most of us are living within our means, some successfully, some not so much, the dangerous guys have settled down, quit drinking, became family men, the cocky dude might still be so, but we all know he’s had his turn. All of those people who seemed ‘untouchable’ are, for the most part, on the same level now. We’re all the same. Life has mellowed us all. Some of us appear to have aged better than others, but that’s only because some wear it on their faces, and some keep it under wraps in their hearts, but we’ve all changed. Life happens to us all. A little pearl of wisdom learned through living a few more decades that can be shared with generations, those people who you might feel are better than or more popular than you, they’re not. Time will take them down the same path that we all travel, and it will change them. For the most part, we are all the same.

Friday, January 14, 2011

From the Outside Looking In

From the outside looking in.
Everyone out there has a story, a reason, a set of circumstances that make them the individual that they are. Some people have had a lot of difficult times to navigate through, and are learning how to deal with them. To some, the difficult times have been recent and they’re just now learning to get past them, and to others, those times were ages ago and will haunt them, to some degree, the rest of their lives. We’ve all had trouble on some level or another. Some trouble is life altering, some trouble is a fleeting irritation that one can brush off and keep going. Everyone’s trouble is different, and how you perceive it from the outside looking in may not be the way it is at all.

Every trait in a person has it’s upside or downside. It’s how you focus on it that forms your opinion of that trait. Self confidence can be read as conceit or can be admirable. A person with a lot of knowledge or ideas can be seen as opinionated. If one is hard working and driven, one could see that as bossy, or self important. If one is happy go lucky, someone else might see immature, irresponsible. If one is responsible, one might think they are too serious, or lacking fun. Yet, if one is fun loving, one can see it as irresponsible. The flip side of moody is that a person feels deeply, loves deeply, and cares deeply. If someone loves with abandon, they can be seen as foolish, reckless, but some see it as giving their all to someone. Some see a person who would do anything for someone else as a weakness and some may use it to their advantage, meanwhile others seek out that very trait in a partner. Some people can’t see humor in sarcasm. Others don’t understand grief and pain because they haven’t experienced it on the deepest level yet. Just about everyone has lost someone dear to them, and loss hurts. The depth of the loss is in direct proportion to how and when they get past it.

Everyone has a different outlook on life, and it’s uniquely their own, it’s not one size fits all, and yours isn’t necessarily for me, nor mine for you. But that’s okay! We are an ever changing species, learning, experiencing, evolving, growing. If you judge someone based on things they’ve said, or their current disposition, you are shutting out every other piece of their personality. A person who has experienced a traumatic loss can be spiritually challenged on certain dates, or even for certain months. That doesn’t mean they are a miserable person, it means they’re doing the best that they can to ride it out, because they know it will pass eventually. One might see them as miserable, someone else might see it as an opportunity to give them love, and others may see nothing at all. It’s all a matter of perception. Your perception is as unique as a fingerprint, because only you are looking at the things and paying attention to the things you choose to see.

So, the conclusion here is everyone is different, and sees things differently. It doesn’t make them right or you wrong. It just means we can take a moment to stop, think, listen, try to put yourself in their place for a minute, but realize that you still can’t fully feel what they are feeling. Then apply your love to all the good you can find, and watch the less than desirables fade into the distance. Circumstances change, feelings come and go like the tide. Love is acceptance. A simple theory that isn’t always easy to follow, apply love and have faith.