Monday, April 6, 2009

When do we give up?

Is there some point in time, some magical known moment that you just know it's time to give up? To give in, to stop pursing your dreams, wants, needs. Is there a moment you actually, with total clarity, know it's time to give up?

I got a bug in my head to actually paint on Saturday, I went and got all the fixin's to get started and after about 1 hour I stopped and opened a bottle of wine. I do not like painting. I like the outcome but I hate...HATE the actual process.....especially alone. Ugh!! Then yesterday I had a kind of lazy day, I couldn't seem to get motivated to finish painting (truthfully I had barely started when I gave up - again!) and with so much homework looming on the horizon I just sort of checked out for the day and opted for a day being lazy and snoozing on and off. I feel sort of guilty today about a wasted day but it is what it is. Now I must make up for it ten fold today.

Because I had such a lazy day, I had time to think...which for me isn't usually a good thing but I started thinking about my parents and my grandparents and my relatives and I wondered if they have (had) lived the life they were aiming for? Did they accomplish their goals? Their dreams? Did they enjoy where they were at in their own life and what did they give up to get to where they were? What did they want from their lives? Did they ever sit around drinking with friends talking about their hopes and dreams? Their goals? Did they love the one they were with or did they wish they were with someone else? Were they happy? Are they happy?

It was just my mom's birthday and last year at this very time we were contemplating turning off her life support and here it is one year later and she's kicking it around still as fiesty as ever. It's funny how fast life changes in one year....365 days.....it's really not that much time. I can't help but wonder, what will I be doing in one year? Had some friends over on Saturday night and it was fun trying to solve the worlds problems while sipping apple martini's. I think the sound alone of a martini being made can change the world. I like to get other people's perspectives on life too. Sometimes it helps shift our own perspectives and align things we didn't even know were out of alignment.

I think about how many things I've given up, stopped, changed directions on or decided it just wasn't worth doing anymore. How many people I've lost contact with, how my relationships have changed and all the new friends and experiences I've gotten to add to my life. At this point in my life there are some things I know for sure. I know I am never going to rule the world, I won't ever be a size 10, I won't have babies, I won't have a little house with a white picket fence and mostly I'm okay with those decisions. When do you know it's time to give up on something? Are you not suppose to? Are you suppose to keep plugging away until you're so exhausted from trying that you just give up or do you realize it before then and just switch gears?

I found this picture of my grandparents I took when I was in high school. I remember this moment as if it were yesterday. They lived in Florida and I was down there for a week, a cheap vacation, and we were going out to dinner. It was 5:00.....5:00 and we were going to dinner. I remember thinking My God...who goes to dinner at 5:00? They stood outside their house and my grandfather put his arm around my grandmother, squeezed her close and said "I love you Annie". They stood there smiling waiting for me to snap their picture, a second in time forever captured. It's this wonderful moment in time that is etched in my head for some reason. I think because they were so happy at that moment. They were content, they seemed to be happy I was there, with each other, with their life and it all seemed good. I remember that moment so clearly. I wonder if they were living their life the way they wanted.

Do we get to choose our life or does our life choose us? I am almost done with school and my life has been so consumed by school and work and homework that I don't even know how to exist without all that extra stuff taking up my days. What will I do? What will I be? Do I get to decide that or does the Universe have some grand plan?

I guess only time will tell.

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