Reading...

I've been doing a lot of reading lately.  I started reading The Song of the Lioness quartet by Tamora Pierce. nbsp; It's a novel that was written back in 1984.  I was just a kid then.  Anyhow, I'm really enjoying the series as I enjoyed the daughter of the lioness series.  I really like books that prompt me to think. This one did.

 

What it made me contemplate was my view of the world around me.  I face my biggest challenges in things I can't predict.  When I don't know what to expect I don't like it.  I get stressed out and anxious.  I endeavor to learn patience and to stop thinking I have to control everything to feel comfortable. After all, aren't we all living in an unpredictable world? None of us know what tomorrow will bring and yet, we keep on living.  Nothing stops because things are uncertain.  Maybe the key to life is never trying to predict the future and just letting it happen whatever it might be.

 

The character in the book I'm reading as part of her quest to become a knight was forced to face her greatest fears.  What she realized was that her greatest fear was being helpless.  I recognized this as being my greatest fear as well.  It's always about being helpless.  Not knowing what to expect and having to go into a situation that is uncertain is just a symptom of the fact that I'm always afraid of being helpless.

 

So often in the past few years have I lamented the fact that I am alone. In the last four years there have been many things that have happened to me that which I wished I'd had someone with me for support to help me through it.  In every event, I was alone with no one in sight.

 

As a friend I've always been there for my friends when I sensed they needed me but I never felt that this was ever reciprocated.  In moments when I most needed their support I found myself alone and scared.  Now, upon reflection I think I've realized that even if someone was there I wouldn't know how to deal with it. 

 

When Dzaidziu died I spent most of my time not crying because I felt like I couldn't.  I felt it wasn't the time or place and that too much needed to be done and too many people needed me not to. So I didn't.  I think this is what most of my life has been - doing what I felt I had to and not what I needed to.  My mother taught me to take it all good and bad with my mouth shut and just accept it.  I guess I learned well.

 

I can remember so many moments in my life where I gave up things I wanted because it seemed someone else needed them. I didn't fight for them, I gave them up willingly because I thought that was what one was supposed to do if they were a good human being.  Always putting myself last thinking eventually my time would come and that at some point being good  would earn me what I wanted eventually in it's own time.

 

But let's just say that has never happened. Instead I've stood by as an observer as all my friends have pursued what they wanted and have gotten it and here I am still too cowardly or good to go after what I want.  Well really, I don't even want anything tangible anymore, all those things have already passed by. 

 

I'm at the point where what I want is an ideal that has no shape or face. Something not achievable.  If I had to simplify it I'd say what I want from life is to love someone and have them love me back. Perhaps though that has already happened I just didn't notice.