It's My Party (But I Can't Be Shy If I Want To)

I was not kidding about that party. In less than two hundred views, I'm throwing one. (I assume most of the people reading this are my friends on Facebook, more likely my family, so you should know what I mean. Oh, except in the past week, there have been 21 views in Russia! Go Russia!)

I was never great at taking risks. I don't know if it's the fear of falling flat on my face, or the feeling that after, life will never be the same. Like Frodo, after his great journey, I can't imagine going back to regular life (not that I assume that my great journey will come to an end, at least in the same way his did. After all, his was a journey of particular necessity. After you're done destroying the one ring, what else is there to keep you in Mordor?). Who would want to? Though, I guess after a long road trip, all I want to do is go to sleep in my bed. But that's different, right?

How do you know which risks are worth taking, and which you should pass by? Should you take all risks, regardless of the perceived consequences? I'm not the type of person to leap without a plan. I can't just say, hey, let's get together Friday and see what happens. I like to know what's going to happen, how things are going to pan out. It goes along with my fear of the unknown. Sure, everyone is afraid of the unknown. It's how you handle that fear that shows your strength. And I'd like to be strong.

I'd like to be like my sister, outgoing, and, really, who cares what anybody thinks, because this is me, and you're just going to have to deal with it. I admire that, to a point. I'd like to be that open and forthcoming. (See, my problem is that I always follow that kind of thing up with--) But I can't. Because what if I am open and forthcoming, as she is, and I am rejected, as she is.

So while I'd like to say, I'll just go for it, when it comes time to go, I can't. Even when I try to make myself, it comes out sloppy. (Unless I really don't care. Ain't that nothin'?)

How do you push past the things holding you back and be the person you want to be? Everyone is worthy of improvement, whoever they are. So how do you get to that improvement through such difficult obstacles? I recently watched a lecture from a girl who had bacterial meningitis and lost her legs below the knee. She used her obstacles (her lack of legs) to push past them and be who she wanted to be. Following that, I should use my shyness to overcome my shyness. It sounds pretty impossible.

This post seems to have become about strengths and weaknesses. How to use your weakness to become strong. When smokers quit smoking, they do that. They acknowledge the weakness they have for cigarettes. Maybe they want to be above that weakness, so they use it, and their desire to be more than a smoker, to do something that seems impossible. You know, if you want to do something badly enough, there's nothing that can stop you.

All I have to do is want it badly enough. Or maybe, we always have the strength to do the impossible (through Christ) we just don't believe we have it. That's how people push past insurmountable obstacles and achieve.

 

Funny, I wrote this a while ago (months, maybe that's how long a while is), but I seem to have written it again in this post.

 

 

                                            Sometimes what we want

                                            And what we fear

                                            Are inseparable. 

                                            The strength that connects them, 

                                            The depth of feelings perpetuating them,

                                            Engulfs us until we are all

                                            Masses of longing

                                            And of fear. 

                                            It is while we are on the precipice of this great chasm

                                            That we are fully in control.  

                                            It is in this moment we have the choice:

                                            Step back

                                            Or leap into the unknown.