sunshine, i'd really like to tell you are my sunshine

"save yo' drama for yo' mama."
or so the saying goes.

i haven't had anything to say in a while, and i've concluded that this is probably because i've been content. i read over a few of my blog entries over the past two years, and i realized how much time i've spent whining about my life. i still maintain that a lot of my last two years of college encompassed the hardest things i've ever had to do. but reading over those entries reminded me of how profoundly frustrated i was, and how happy i am to finally be on the other side.

perhaps i've grown up a lot, or i've learned to disconnect myself from circumstances beyond my control. or maybe, though i hope it isn't true, i'm just apathetic. a lot of what i've written about over the past few years has embodied my frustration with my inability to affect others' decisions, and especially my inability to change how they look at me. as a kid, i always listened to dr. laura, and now i'm beginning to see some truth to what she says; you can't control other people, just yourself. i pounded the ground for nearly a year because, no matter how hard i tried, i could not make my relationships work. for one reason or another, he was unhappy or disinterested. i'd bend over backwards to make him happy, but it didn't work. slowly, my self-worth dwindled to only being how good i was from another person's point of view. in most aspects of my life, hard work produces results, and i couldn't understand why this wouldn't work the same way. so i complained, all the while attempting to simply. be. okay.

perhaps i needed a year to realize that i don't believe that i'm made for anyone. it's not a result of cynicism, nor is this indicative of my feminist ideals. it's a combination of knowing that i'm made for One and One alone, and also realizing that two people are only as made for each other as they truly, deeply want to be. none of those failures represent anything about my worth, nor about how happy or unhappy i should be, and i'm only sorry that i complained so much about things i couldn't control in the first place. change is never easy, and i suppose it's simply been the painful process of tearing these ideas away from myself, ideas that had become so embedded that it felt like i was digging out parts of my very flesh to let them go.

never in my life have i been so content to be myself and with my friends and still so comfortable with letting things go. there's been so much grasping and grappling in the past, and it's a relief, a huge, deep, complete sigh i feel in my soul when i outwardly shrug. i don't look forward to any white gown or romantic fantasy because, whether or not it's even in my future is unimportant and not at all what i'm looking forward to. i look forward to nothing, because this concept of completion was never mine in the first place. i am complete, wanting nothing, and i acknowledged this the moment i knelt at the cross. every day, every breath, every step, every moment is a gift in the most generous form, not something to which i could ever entitle myself. i think that if i look to my future as a gift rather than an expectation, i will yield more gratefulness and compassion, and will be, in the most profound sense, complete and satisfied.