Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Growing Pains

Sometimes I think my life as a writer is a curse. I have many feelings, and the best way for me to get them out is to write them out. I should have been born in a time without the internet -- where I couldn't hurt anyone by airing my feelings out to the universe. Still, I find this urge to write compelling. Sometimes I wish I didn't.

My whole life I have thought of myself as a person who could pretty easily avoid conflict and drama by staying pretty even-keeled and low-key. Even my best friend says that one of the qualities that she likes most about me is my ability to be pretty easy-going. I've always prided myself in this. I wanted not necessarily to be liked by everyone, but at least tolerated. I wanted to sail under the radar so that no one ever had any problems with me.

I've realized lately that that ideal of me is no longer true. While I still want to avoid conflict, conflict is inevitable. While I still want to be tolerated by everyone, certain people still find things in me that are difficult to manage.

I've had three dramas in my life lately: one with my best friend, one with my manager, and one with this amazing guy that I was hoping to get to know more. While each situation was vastly different, they all had one commonality: I had an opportunity to screw up big-time. I screwed up with my best friend by hurting her feelings -- an act I'd love to take back if I could. But I can't. I screwed up with the amazing guy by writing something (again, here comes my curse) that most likely damaged our ability to ever be together. The odd-ball out here is with my manager. I had an opportunity to screw up, and I didn't take it. Instead, I had a change of heart, and saw incredible results. I was blessed by this simple action. Why did I not think of doing that with the two others, whose feelings I respect and whose hearts I appreciate so much more than my boss? I don't know.

As a believer in Christ, I am extremely fallible. I am extremely vulnerable to Satan's whims. He loves to come and kill, steal, and destroy. He succeeded in two of the three situations I mentioned above. But I'm not going to let him steal my joy. He will not kill my future. And he will not destroy my hope. That I am not giving up. No way.

To the people who have fallen victim to my fallibility: I'm sorry. I am so, so, so sorry.

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