revelations, resolutions, & revolutions

In the final hours of 2010, I am doing what the majority of people are doing...looking back at the year that has gone by and wondering what the year ahead holds. This is the time that we allow ourselves to remember the good, the bad, and the ugly of this year and let it go. In mere hours, a clean slate will allow us to take chances, make mistakes, and repeat the same things we swear we'd never do again...again in 2011. This year during my pondering, life decided to throw an interesting revelation at me. I'm repeating the same year every few years, making the same decisions that lead me down the same roads. Perhaps it is age and experience that has finally made me realize that I was living the same year only with different scenery and characters.

Most would assume my New Year's resolution would be to stop living the same life and making the same choices which lead to nowhere. However, I am resolviing to no longer allow gray area relationships in my life in 2011. I want to be apart of relationships that I can define. No more wishy washy answers to straight forward questions. I deserve that and in 2011, I will not let my heart settle for less than it deserves or desires for that matter. I am not allowed to be gray either, which I have been quite prone to do in the past as well. This is maybe why I allow it from others because I am just as bad about it. This resolution will certainly change my life and have an effect on the decisions I make, which will hopefully not be the same ones I always make.

So, it occured to me that a simple resolution will not even put a dent in this vicious cycle that has been my life over the past 5 years or so. In order to shake things up completely, one must sometimes start a revolution inside themselves. This means doing a complete 180 in my way of thinking and learning to see everything from a different angle. My current view isn't really getting me anywhere lately or in the past. Only I have the power to make my life what I want it to be, so why have I been giving other factors the power to make my decisions? I have given up too easily for things I really wanted and most of the time, it was because I was afraid. There's no room for fear now as I find myself at the end of my twenties with not too much to show for it [with the exception of some pretty amazing people that are apart of my life.] 2011 is the year of my revolution. Is there a revolution inside of you that is dying to get out, too? I say don't be afraid to let it. We cannot predict what will happen in the upcoming year, but as the Beatles said in their song Revolution, "Don't you know? It's all gonna be alright..."

- ldw


currently reading:

gray.

Gray is my favorite color...to see in my closet. In my life, I have discovered that the color gray does not suit me at all. It seems I have settled for shades of gray too often when I know that I deserve more. It is completely my fault that I didn't step up and paint my relationships with black or white. But, sometimes you just have to get yourself a new palette to paint with. Anyone who has ever tried to add black or white back into gray knows that it doesn't matter how much of either you add, gray is still gray. It's quite a stubborn color if you're trying to change it. In life, can we get out of a gray area without making a mess? Or do we have to start from scratch to escape it?

I will not settle for gray. Not anymore. So many of my relationships have been there that I can't even remember the last one that was black or white for me. For a girl who wears her heart on her sleeve, gray just doesn't work with that outfit. So, give me black or give me white...if not either of those, then I'll go without. Andre Gide said, "The color of truth is gray." Only when we decide that gray isn't an area we want to be in do we pursue the truth of our situation. The truth may not be what we want to hear, but it's better than living in a fantasy where the happy ending never comes. Unfortunately, I have found that leaving the gray behind usually means leaving everything that came with it. There can be no in between. It does mean throwing away the old canvas and starting from scratch. Otherwise, we would find ourselves right back in that situation again, trying to paint over the old canvas. You can't paint something new over an old canvas without it being a mess...you can paint the same picture, but who wants to repeat old mistakes? So, I'm getting a new canvas with a brand new set of paints...minus gray, of course.




.