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Oprah talks a lot about having “A-Ha” moments. Well, I recently had one.
My spiritual gift is exhortation. Simply put, exhortation is the ability to help others reach their full potential by means of encouraging, challenging, comforting and guiding. I’m great at it. So good, in fact, that I often neglect the process of reaching my own potential in order to help others reach theirs.
In any relationship I put myself in the position of cheerleader. It is so easy for me to pick out the great qualities that someone else has. However, since my temperament is that of choleric, I become very agitated when I have to spend a lot of time convincing you of how great you are. You should already know that! In other words, I’ll encourage you but not in a nice way – get the picture? I’m very fond of the concept of tough love.
It shouldn’t come as any surprise that I have a difficult time being my own cheerleader. Don’t get it twisted – I do not suffer from low self-esteem, negative self-image or any of that stuff. Trust me when I tell you: I LOVE ME. I just get so caught up with other people’s stuff that I put my stuff on the back burner.
For the past two plus years I have been involved with a musician. I can tell ya’ll that I truly love him. However, because of our current situation I can’t tell him but I trust that the information won’t leave this blog. He has aspirations of leaving his full time gig and working in the music/entertainment industry on a full time basis. He performs and teaches music and I have told him repeatedly that there is no reason in the world why he couldn’t go forward with his dream. He’s a little insecure and probably scared because this would be a life altering decision for him but I know he can do it. He is so talented and the first time that I heard him play the guitar I was amazed. You can see the passion on his face when he’s playing that damn thing – it’s like he’s making love to it. Do you sense a twinge of jealousy in my voice? I used to be bothered about coming in second to a guitar but I’ve learned to accept it.
In any case, during the past two years I handled his advertising and the mailing list, I was at every gig and I even performed with him on occasion. I am a music lover so all of this was fun to me and I thought that my involvement would make our relationship stronger. I enjoyed all the time that we spent together doing something that we both loved.
There was one problem.
We both love music but it is NOT my passion. He could not live without music. It’s not a hobby for him and it was for me. I was using music to strengthen our relationship and (for lack of a better term) he was using me to strengthen the music. Does that make sense?
So when our relationship came crashing down around my ears I was left with nothing to do. No more gigs, no more singing, no more nothing … I tried to remember what I did with myself before we started dating. Before I made myself a part of his dream, what the hell was my dream?
Well, the status of our relationship is still up in the air. We go out every now and then and we talk everyday but it’s nothing like it used to be. I cannot throw myself back into his life. I’m keeping my distance for the most part for fear of losing myself again.
I’ve been feeling so unsettled for the past month or so. Not knowing what to do with myself. Initially, I thought this feeling was because I was in relationship limbo. So I asked myself a few questions: What do you want from him? Nothing. Do you want to get married, or something? Hell no. What more can he possibly give you? Nothing.
Then it dawned on me … I thought that I was feeling so unsettled because of something that I wasn’t getting from him. As it turns out, I was feeling unsettled because of something that I wasn’t giving MYSELF. How many times have I told people that no one else is responsible for your happiness – that you have to look to yourself for fulfillment and happiness? Repeatedly. Now I had to tell myself that same thing.
I am a writer dammit! That’s what my dream was. When we met I was finishing the final edits on my novel and was preparing to release the final publication. During the two years that we dated I had not written one thing of substance, except an article featuring him in a music magazine, a few poems maybe, some CD reviews and entries in this blog (which I only started in June).
So the lights have finally come on and it’s awfully bright in here.
When I wrote my first novel, Raymond’s Daughters, I adopted the routine of getting up early in the morning to write before I got the kids up for school and myself ready for work. This morning was the first morning that I got up and went back to that routine. It felt good. I wrote for an hour and I was reluctant to stop at 6:00 a.m. I wanted to keep going. That’s a good sign.
So, I’m not going to make some proclamation that I’ll continue this routine but I will make the effort. I want to make the effort.
And that’s a step in the right direction.
What is meant to be will be
