There she goes again!

Thanks for all the encouragement from my last post ladies, ya'll are awesome! And I agree Sandi, Lydia has no right to be there, GO RAFE!!

So I came across this little tidbit by way of 3fc, by way of Dawnyal, by way of Renee Gets Fit, and I found it to be especially fitting considering the multitude of "only if" posts I written since starting this blog.

"Nobody has things just as he would like them. The thing to do is to make a success with what material I have. It is a sheer waste of time and soul-power to imagine what I would do if things were different. They are not different." - Frank Crane

It's no secret that my life's not everything I'd ever hoped or dreamed it would be, (oh who's kidding, it's not even close!) but, the truth is, it's my life, with which to do the best I can with what I have and what I know. Not particularly inspiring or exciting, or much to anxiously await, but it is what it is, and I guess I need to be okay with that. I've spent so much time sitting on my hands waiting for something better to come along, that magic whatever that somehow makes perfect sense of the way I've been living, proving that it really was only a matter of time before I could get on with the life I was always meant to live. Yet where has all that waiting gotten me? Yep, you got it, stuck right smack in the middle of this little resentful hell of my very own making. Why is it, I wonder, that I assume I should be privy to anything better than what I already have. I mean, I deeply appreciate the fact that my life could easily be so much worse, and that it is for so many others. Maybe if a terminal illness or disability were affecting me or my immediate family personally, or if we were homeless, or one of us was hopelessly addicted to some illicit drug, maybe then I would be justified in this relentless longing for something better. Maybe then I would have the right to want for more. But as it stands now, we have a roof over our heads, we can pay the bills and even have a little left over sometimes, I have this ridiculously cushy ass job which allows me an enormous amount of freedom to spend with Em and come and go as I please, while significantly contributing to the family income. We are not sick nor are we enveloped in any real hardship, and we are lucky enough to live in a country where basic freedom and civil rights aren't even a question and require no struggle or sacrifice to obtain. We are, quite simply, a typically dysfunctional family who is so caught up in just getting by that we forgot to really try to live life somewhere along the way. I say we, but I really mean me, because I'm the one who accepted mediocrity rather than striving for more. I'm the one who decidedly settled into an unfulfilling life rather than take the road less traveled out of fear and simple apathy. So why should I have the right to expect more when I've never once put forth the effort to obtain it? Yes, I know, I put forth the effort for my health, mobility, and truthfully my dignity and vanity, and for some unknown reason a switch was flipped in my noggin, and I was able to miraculously achieve success in an area that I never before thought possible. But that's different somehow, or at least I make the excuse that it is. So yes, I've put forth the effort to change my life significantly, yet somewhere along the way I came to the disheartening conclusion that being skinny actually doesn't solve all of life's problems. Gasp! Oh, say it ain't so! Sorry, but it's true. That one elusive goal that I've spent my whole entire life yearning, crying, begging and pleading for really ain't all it's cracked up to be after all (for me anyway). I'm still the same socially awkward, shy, insecure and indecisive shell of a woman desperately trying to find my place in a world where I really never have and probably never will feel comfortable and accepted. Yet, even that is no one's fault but my own, which, in itself, is a hard pill to swallow, but absolutely true. Everything that I am, I alone have brought about all by myself. So maybe I just need to start following my own advice, the very thing that I've been diligently trying to drive into Em's head every time I see her holding out for something better, or complaining about what she has. Learn to be happy with what you have and try to make the best of it. But then, wouldn't that just be settling for something less than best or what may be so rightly deserved? Perhaps there are degrees of settling, some more acceptable than others. Perhaps they reside in the various shades of gray that linger somewhere between my unyielding worlds of black and white. Or perhaps I just think too damn much now that I no longer use food to self-medicate, and I need to stop over-analyzing every goddamned thought or emotion that pops into my cynical, self-deprecating head. Or maybe I just need to pour another cup of coffee and try to relax because maybe I'm not supposed to figure all of this shit out. Maybe I just need to learn how to be. Nothing more, nothing less.