Monday, January 27, 2014

Zen and the art of cutting

Memories are funny things. And good intentions are supposed to be good things. And the universe, sometimes, has a pretty weird sense of humour. Such is life.

So a friend of mine is getting married on my wedding day. Well, my ex-wedding day. But still. It matters. To me. I think. I'm not sure if it should... but it does... sorta. I think? *sigh* This is my brain at the moment. Sorry.

ANYway... so I offered to help her with some things and I landed up cutting paper butterflies. Yay butterflies! 2013 was the year of the butterfly for me personally (for many reasons) but I haven't yet turned into a butterfly. I have my moments but the butterfly is still really important to me and I am working really hard on blossoming into one (so to speak).

So... I start losing myself in cutting up the tiny paper butterflies and my mind wanders to weddings and love and romance and I try to steer my head back into the here and now ... and then Alanis Morisette comes on the playlist. Oh come on, universe. Really?!

Nothing takes me back to the icky times in my life than old Alanis. My ex-husband and I used to do mix tapes (oh 90's i miss you) for each other when we were dating  and one of the songs I put on a tape for him was "Head over Feet."

You treat me like I'm a princess. I'm not used to liking that.....
You've already won me over in spite of me. And don't be alarmed if I fall head over feet....
I've never felt this healthy before. I've never wanted something rational

That was my "declaration of love." That was me, in all of my vulnerability, saying "I love you - Please love me back." That was me being certain... being so very careful with my heart and then being so very sure that this was "it" and handing it over. And I was wrong. (As an aside, that was also me having very low standards. Ha. #regret )

It's so very easy getting angry at "the other" in a relationship. He did many things wrong. But I did too. I made mistakes. I was wrong. And that's a bitter (and jagged!) little pill to swallow sometimes.

I made a mistake then. I'm not sure if the mistake was to trust him or to let myself fall in love so ridiculously that I lost all sense of myself. Would anyone have been able to stop that? Was the whole relationship a mistake or did I learn something from it? Some days... I'm not sure if much has changed.

I had all of this is swirling around in my head as I carried on delicately cutting up tiny paper butteflies. All the ups and downs were going on in my head... from regret to pain to sweet nostalgia... but none of it actually changed my reality. I am here because of all that happened in my past. All those experiences (bad and good) are part of me and who I am today.

So enough of regret. And enough of punishing myself for being me, when I really didnt know any better.

Sometimes I worry that my feelings will overwhelm me so I try not to get into the sads. But I'm still ok. I felt all the feels... and life went on.

Life is weird. Good intentions are still good. And memories are still funny things.
But life goes on regardless of your mistakes.

Mistakes happen and the only thing you can do is learn from them and enjoy the weird, lovely, funny experiences along the way.
I need to be a little kinder to myself.
And remind myself that it's ok to be human.... with a butterfly heart. :)

~anib


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