Someone Like You

With a house full of company Saturday night Adele’s Someone Like You came on several times. Of course all of us women sang it at the top of our lungs while playing board games with our friends. A point was brought up. Almost every woman can in some way relate to these lyrics…

I hosted a Meetup for a group that I am a part of a couple of weeks ago completely based around Gary Chapman’s The Five Love Languages. Including myself, only three women showed up, so there we were a group of women one in the mid 20’s, one in the mid 30’s, and one in the mid 50’s with one thing in common. Or so we thought. We were all separated and learning how to cope with our failed marriages.

But by the end of the night we had realized that we had so much more in common. Not only were we learning how to cope with our failed marriages, but our stories were all so very similar. I was able to relate to a woman in her mid 50’s who was at a completely different stage in life in ways that I never thought possible. Why: Because we both felt exactly the same. We are both going through exactly the same thing. Learning how to move on with our lives, how to date again, what’s normal, how we should feel, all sorts of crazy struggles. We are learning how to be us again.

With every relationship, breakup, experience, friendship, loss, celebration that comes our way, we are all learning from it. We are beautifully ever changing beings that are all going through the same exact thing disguised as different situations.

What have I gathered from it? That I’m glad I’m so open with people. It allows me the opportunity to be there for people who may not think that it’s okay to talk to someone. They may be in the same exact spot I was a few months ago, holding everything in and hiding behind a social calendar that could wear out Martha Stewart.

When people see that I’m not perfect, and that I hurt to? It allows people to open up in ways that they otherwise wouldn’t have. And with that I realize that is the true reason that I am so easy to talk to. Because I am open and honest about where I am in life, and it makes others feel that they can be open and honest about where they are in life as well.

The decisions that change your life

Let’s be honest. We make hundreds of decisions every day.

Do I want to get out of bed when the alarm goes off?

Do I need to wash my hair today?

What do I want for breakfast?

What socks do I want to wear?

How should I do my hair today?

Do I need a jacket?

Do I give Gracie some wet food with her breakfast?

I’m just rambling off meaningless decisions that I face every day before I even walk out the door. At this point I have maybe been up an hour.

So we make hundreds of these tiny decisions every day. Decisions are a part of life. These are the easy decisions. My definition of an easy decision: minimal choices resulting in minimal consequences.

So what about the hard decisions? What tactics do you use to make those gut wrenching, life changing decisions that nobody ever actually wants to make? Do you stick with those decisions once they are made? Do you falter in your decision? Do you always go with your gut reaction? Do you create a list of positives and negatives and go with whichever list is more favorable? How often do you regret those decisions?

I have shared a lot with a few lately and I’m going to be completely honest… I think it’s hilarious how people take my decision making. I am very much a gut feeling decision maker. I’m not the brain-storming list maker. Yes… I do know that this is against my OCD tendencies but you know what? I only have a short amount of time on this earth and I’m not going to spend it agonizing over decisions (no matter how crazy they seem) or regretting ones that I have made.

I find a path and I start to head down it. If I get half way down and can’t work my way through it with a machete, then it’s time to create a new path for myself.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that my way is the only way. Hell, I’m not saying that my way is the right way. I am saying however that they are my decisions to be made. I very much love the people with whom I have gained their concerned. Don’t think that I’m not. I just wanted to rant a little bit about the musings of people completely non-understanding of the “erratic” or “fast” decisions I have made with my life.

I am happy, and I love my life. Can you honestly say the same?