The Hardest Part, part 2.

I was listening to one of my favorite songs, the Hardest Part, by Coldplay, and reflecting on how it had been my anthem for a little over a year...until now.

The Hardest Part speaks to me about how hard letting another person go is. Saying goodbye as they leave your life that they filled so full of love and joy...even though you might try to fight to get them to stay in your life somehow. They were your silver lining on the cloud, and now they're gone, and you can't figure it out or what it's all about. It's the hardest part of life.

...And then again, maybe the reason I had been so upset over the last few years at college is that there was no breath of fresh air. No sweeping in of new people in the front door of my world. Only a few, here and there, but I would be so eager to welcome them I'd ruin it for both of us. They would come into my world and I would make them my whole world...even done tactfully so that I wouldn't overwhelm them like a clingy borderline person, somehow even if they were my whole world in spirit it would still be ruined.

And here I am. New city, new job, new life. I'm happy as I can never recall being. My life has new dignity that I never knew I needed from working for my pay, it has new excitement and adventure from being in a new place with new people. And learning new things about God! I didn't realize how much my faith life had been stagnating from being in a community that remained the same age while I got older!

There's just one thing that's...odd.

It feels like I've known these people before. Even as I've been writing about new aspects of my life, there's something that feels distinctly the same. Every person I meet reminds me strongly of someone else...sometimes I know who that person is, and sometimes it's only that I feel déjà vu when I see them.

It's an odd new cognitive dissonance. On the one hand I feel like everyone I meet is so unique and unlike anything I've ever experienced...a new universe to get to know! It's so exciting! Limitless potential to explore the life and experiences of another person...as soon as we know each other well enough, I guess. Then on the other hand, it feels like I already know everything about them. Is this a counselor thing? Is this my intuition gone wild?

Maybe I'm just imagining things.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream that the hardest part was over.

Rise or fall.

"Aragorn, Arathorn's son, Lord of the Dunedain, listen to me! A great doom awaits you, either to rise above the height of all your fathers since the days of Elendil, or to fall into darkness with all that is left of your kin."

I like going to counseling. It helps to talk to someone who is completely outside of your life to hear everything you can say about it and help you work through the issues that present/have presented themselves.

Soon, though, it appears as I will be done with my current counselor. We've both kind of recognized that I've reached my limit of things to bring to the table. I concluded our last session by telling him that I recognize that whatever happens to me now, I recognize that I will either adjust to it or not adjust to it...and that I always adjust.

That's a nice thought. It's good to be able to say with complete honesty that I always adjust to my problems after a while...sometimes it takes a long while but it always happens.

I think since I started counseling I've made some good adjustments. I am no longer as prone to expecting people to respond the way I believe they ought to my gestures of love and friendship. I've learned to strike a balance between how much I give to friendships and how much I let them go. I've learned to cut toxic people out of my life instead of letting them fester in my wounds.

I also accept that there is still hope. There are still really good people in this world, and I'm still meeting them. Sure, I've lost and let go of relationships that were beautiful, and found out that some people were not as wonderful as I once thought, but in the end that's OK. As long as I am being a good person and treating people how I wish they would treat me, there will be people attracted to that. The people who are just fair weather friends and are not willing to be my friend even when I'm not all that fun to be around will fade away. The lovers will remain.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream to rise above all of the problems of the old days.