Acceptance

For a moment this was going to be called – Acceptance, a bitter little pill. But then I thought about the weightlessness, the ability to smile at a song lyric or a fleeting thought, the general well-being acceptance can bring. And I thought maybe I needed to relabel it Tranquileze…. Or something (I made that up, go ahead drug companies, you can have it…).  The truth is, acceptance can be both of those things, bitter and peaceful.

When I started this post, I wasn’t sure if I was going to write about smell – I have been noticing my sense of smell a lot lately, from the bad aftershave of my coworker that leaves my mouth tasting like cheap perfume right down to the off-plastic smell of airplane seat. Smells are everywhere invading my Tranquility. They are not all nice.

But since I just allowed myself a little diatribe on that, I’ll return to acceptance.  There are so many things that can be difficult to accept and acceptance is still something I’m working.  And I also am working on not confusing acceptance with settling – because I never want to lose my faith in myself or my will to struggle or fight for my goals.  So, it’s a bit of a tightrope. I think the first place I’ve started to learn acceptance is in the realm of the people around me.

Self acceptance is difficult, but also it can be difficult to accept others in all their glory, warts and disappointments as well as the fun and supportive times, weaknesses as well as strengths. As human beings we tend to focus on flaws and failures, i don’t know why because it certainly isn’t productive but we do. At some point in my life I realized though, that I could do that and live my life alone or I could learn to focus on the strengths of the people in my life and accept their love as is instead of as some idealized notion of what I think their love should look like and it has served me well.

Because despite the fact that I am a giant pain in the ass, i have some pretty good friends.

But the most difficult thing, I find, is acceptance when a friend has moved past or away from you, has grown or evolved in a different direction and no longer sees you as an easy fit in their life. I am very much friends for a lifetime person. I have a harder time with the friends “for a season” or “for a reason” and the natural passing of some relationships, in particular close ones, always throws me for a loop.

i’m hoping I’m not facing that situation right now, but surprisingly, the prospect of it isn’t throwing me. It leaves me with a sense of melancholy, but I also have this sense that my life is moving forward to and I know that there are the lifetime people in it. and that there will probably be more seasonal friends, but that those friends have a lot to offer and I should enjoy the moments I have with them.

I think what I’m learning is that zen concept of being in the moment without worrying about what will stay and what will go. I guess they would take it one step further and say that only impermanence is consistent, but i’m not sure if I fully buy into that. I’m not entirely certain how I reconcile that with faith – in God, in love, in the universe, in creativity, in physics – whatever it is you have faith in.  But since this is very stream of consciousness, it’s possible I can reconcile that in a later post.

For the moment, I’ll just say, I really appreciate you, my seasonal friends. You too are great.