Color Outside the Lines

Here I am, sitting on a couch, right smack in the middle of the time in my life where I am still trying to figure everything out.

You know, back in elementary and middle school when you looked up at the high school seniors and thought to yourself wow, these people really have their whole lives figured out.

Yeah, well I am way past the high school senior part of my life and I'm still trying to figure stuff out.

And guess what, I can guarantee that there are individuals way older than me who still feel the same way.

I don't think its ever something you grow out of, which is weird to think about. 

I grew up learning right from wrong; learning which decisions ought to be made and which decisions should be tossed to the side, as if there is only one right answer to the question on the test.

But I think life can sometimes be more of a select all that apply question {shout out to nursing school}.

These questions have more than one right answer; I mean, in the end, if you don't answer the questions with all the right answer all that apply correct answers, you get it wrong; but that isn't my point.

My point is that life is full of answers; some are right and some are wrong, and while there are many options that are wrong, there are also many options that can be right.

And this is one of the weirdest parts of growing up for me.

Is coming to that realization that I may choose one right answer and my sister may choose another right answer; my right answer may work out great for me and her right answer may work out great for her, but if I was to try on her right answer, I would be in a heap of messes.

For instance, I am a nurse and my sister is an aspiring occupational therapist.

My right answer was nursing school.

Her right answer is occupational therapy school.

Try to switch up our right answers and you would get a girl deathly scared of needles and a passionate-less masters degree.

Right answers, but wrong people.

Choosing my own right answers is nothing less than an adventure for sure.

Sometimes it feels like people take their own right answers and try to apply them to others too harshly or overpoweringly. 

Like me trying to push nursing school on my sister, in aggreance with our previous example above.

Yeah, it's smart to listen to what others have to say. Advice from wiser and different experiences can help you in may ways. 

But just because they did something one way or felt about something a certain way, does not mean that should dictate what you do or how you feel.

Out of all the humans on this earth, you know yourself better than anyone else; you know all your secrets, you know your current situation, you know the things you don't tell anyone and the things you try to not think about. 

There are outsiders that will look at you and tell you what you should and shouldn't do; who will think to themselves that if you don't do something a specific way, that your decision was wrong.

You have to stop listening to those people or you are going to always be confused about yourself.

I am not saying that there are no wrongs or rights; I am just saying that there is not always explicitly one right way to do something.

I can choose to drive to Charlotte, or I can fly to Charlotte; both ways are right ways, however, note that one way may be more expensive than the other.

The people I tell my most inward thoughts are those with whom I feel comfortable, with whom I feel accepted.

Who do you tell everything to with no hesitation? 

I know at least one person just popped into your head.

There are at least two people who pop into my head when I asked myself that question.

My favorite characteristics about these people are many; they listen to me without interjecting their biases; they take my morals and values into account when thinking up advice for whatever scenario with which I hit them; their conversations with me are comforting. 

There truly isn't one thing that I couldn't tell them; even my deepest and darkest secrets that lies beneath all the crud in my soul, they would take it in and nothing between us would change. 

Their life experiences have allowed them to come to the realization that both you and I are human.

We have the stink and we have the beautiful; and in the end, they continue to love me because of the beautiful and in spite of the stinky.

In recognizing these special souls, it makes me sad to realize the opposite. 

People are good at hiding themselves based on others' biases.

People are good at hiding themselves if they think their whole self won't be accepted.

This dampens what any relationship can be.

To be afraid to show your whole self because there are some parts of you that may not be beautiful to them.

And coming to this realization, I realize that I never want someone to feel this way about me.

I never want to have a friendship in which you are scared to come to me and tell me something because you are worried I may judge you, that I may look down on you or that what you have done may make me change how I feel for you.

This brings me into the discussion of defining love.

Love means so many thing in this culture; some things I believe to be true of love and others are just plain false. 

To be loved is to be accepted for all the good and all the bad; love encourages positive change; love doesn't make you scared or worried or anxious, it brings you peace; love is understanding; love is actively listening and walking through the problem hand in hand; love can include disagreements, but these disagreements should never make you feel less of a person, because if it does, it is not love; love is discipline; love is humility; love is being apologetic when you were in the wrong and being forgiving even in the midst of no apology.

Love is something complex but oh so very simple.

And it is through love that one is accepted as a whole and feels comfortable to give themselves wholly and completely.

*

You're you, and with that, you have the power to make your decisions.

Other people can tell you what to do; others can judge what you are doing. And by doing this, these are the people that get pushed away.  

Its an interesting and sometimes stressful adventure, this adult life of making decisions.

My dad always says, I can give you whatever advice you want, but in the end, it is your decision.

Knowing that is so freeing, but sometimes so scary.  

Should I really be entrusted with my own life?

Is it really okay to color outside the lines?

To drink tea when everyone else is drinking coffee?

To passionately fall in love with the decisions you make, and to forgive yourself when you do make the dumb ones?