The Blog

Clarity can be so elusive. When it comes to our own lives and relationships, that is. However, we have perfect clarity when it comes to the lives of our friends, co-workers, family members, random strangers, and anyone with the surname Lohan, Spears, or Hilton.

I ponder this as I listen to a friend talk about her disaster of a relationship and the undeserving man that “has her heart.”

Please don’t think me insensitive or uncaring. I care tremendously about the happiness and welfare of my friend and her young children. Which is why I want to scream and shake her until she realizes that she deserves so much more than her philandering, loser boyfriend.

Yet, I know that despite the drama and pain that this man has caused her, she will not let him go until she is good and ready. I just pray that it will be before she has lost everything that she’s ever cared about. And the life that she and her children deserve.

Women communicate differently than men do. When we present a problem to our friends we are not looking for them to solve our problem. We just need to be heard. For someone to validate our concerns. Or to act as a sounding board as we work through our own dilemma. But, at some point, even a BFF begins to glaze over and fantasize about bopping you in the head with a pillow until you “get it.”

As I listen I am wondering how often my friends have felt the same while listening to me deliberate over a choice that seems so painfully obvious to them. For that I apologize to each and every one of them. And I thank them from the bottom of my heart for being there, suffering through my insanity and refraining from bopping me with a pillow, or something much harder.

So, I decided to make a list of obvious clarities that I have neglected to “get” in the past when it applied to me:

1. No, the boss from hell will never get fired, resign, convert to Human Beingism, or learn to treat you with respect of their own volition.
2. A relationship that causes you more pain than happiness has probably outlived its usefulness, if in fact it ever had any.
3. It is okay to say no. Even to family and friends.
4. Just because they make it in your size; it doesn’t mean you should wear it.
5. You will have far more regrets over the dreams that you didn’t chase than you will over any potential failures.
6. We are each responsible for our own happiness.

These are just a few of the truisms that I will try to keep in mind when I am desperately seeking clarity.

Posted by Samara in Lifestyle, Women's Issues |

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 12th, 2008 at 2:25 am and is filed under Lifestyle, Women's Issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.