I had an idea of what I wanted my next post to be about tonight....But I told some people out loud and it sounded kinda dumb so I decided not to do it...
Then I realized that I am not always a very good speaker. I can almost always better relay my messages through text than through spoken word...
First off, I would like to say thank you to my friends Aaron Creech and Dean Sewell for sponsoring such a wonderful event tonight, it was much more cozier and low key than in years past, and even though I did not go to the city wide party and the after party, I feel like I was part of something special! Hopefully we raised alot of money for AID Upstate and the wonderful work they do for the HIV positive population who really need the help.
I also found out that alot of the people that have been reading this blog are people I didn’t even know were paying me any attention! What wonderful news!!!
After I mingled with the crowd, had a few heart to heart talks with some great lifelong friends, I decided to post the topic anyway. The fundraiser I went to tonight got its start in communities all over the country, small dinners with groups of friends to raise money to help people living with HIV and for research of the disease and to help find a cure. It has grown enormously over the years and helps finance the help that thousands of people receive each year!
Somewhere down the road, someone, or a few some ones, came up with this fundraising idea as a solution to a need for assistance to a very scary and usually taboo issue. People stopped asking the question “Is this a problem”? And then answering “yes”! They, instead, asked, “How do we fix this problem”? And people started to actually think about what could be done, and a solution was found. It may not be the perfect solution, but it worked and is continuing to work and could very well be the push that many people need to survive until things get better.
Isn’t that what more of us need to do? I have a friend that is going through a divorce, she cheated on her husband while he was fighting in Iraq, her entire family has abandoned her, her 16 year old daughter has literally tried to kill her and is facing jail time for it. Her new boyfriend has been accused of abusing her younger children, her life has spiraled out of control, and she constantly asks me a question and before I get to answer, she gives me her own answer (“Did I handle this wrong”? “Yes!””Did I make mistakes”? “Yes”!). She never wants to discuss what lead her to this point and she never wants to discuss possible ways out of the situation. I love her and we have been close friends for almost twenty years but the best thing I can do for her as a friend, for now, is listen to her, tell her I am here for her and wait for her to realize that she will never move forward until she analyzes what triggered the situation and what she needs to do to fix it. Yes and No answers are for people following someone else’s lead. Are you a Yes or No kind of person, or are you a person that knows the wherefore and what’s of your life…Think about that.
One thing I have had to realize about myself over the past few years is that I have always been a follower; I had someone to lead me and guide me in every direction. They held my hand and told me where to go, where to live, what to eat and who to like. I never once felt like I was miserable, I never felt that I was missing out on anything. These people didn’t force me to do anything. I forced them to lead me; I was not being held responsible, in my eyes, for anything that came of it, so I allowed myself to be driven by someone else.
Eventually the other driver runs out of gas folks…All of the people that I followed, moved on without me. They got married (or got the closest legal thing to marriage) had families (be it children, pets or both) and slowed down to a normal, consistent pace, and a comfortable happy life. Where was I, you ask? I was back at the car waiting for a tow truck. I waited and waited and waited.
Then I started asking those questions. “Am I alone? YES”! “Did they really move on and leave me here alone? YES”! For a little while I kept asking myself the same questions. I was getting fatter, poorer, more dependant and feeling less and less alive every day. I had gained so much weight that I was on blood pressure and diabetes meds and dying each and every day! Then something amazing happened. My mother asked me to go with her to a meeting at Weight Watchers and I did. I started to reevaluate my life. I started to make real decisions based on my limitations and my imagination working together to set real goals for health, mental and financial health. I started reaching out to family and friends that new things I was too afraid to know about my body and how it works. I started to learn new things everyday about my health, and I started to motivate others too! I started earning my own way and began to work on the credit I had destroyed. I began to see real results, feel real happiness and began to understand that motivation was a positive word, not a negative word used by people to describe what I lacked. I see that there are people that want to see me succeed and that they really care about me. I make my own decisions and am only influenced by the nature of my own goals concerning money. I notice more and more now, that everything I want for my life is attainable with a little bit of work and I am seeing the light at the end of this dark, dark time in my life…
Tonight I was reminded that my stories are not as specific to me as I thought they were. They are similar to a lot of people’s stories, and we all have been, at one time or another, in a similar situation. Our reactions and choices are what may have set those situations apart.
Let’s try and start evaluating the why’s and the what’s in our lives instead of confirming that which we already know, especially when it comes to the harder aspects of our identity. Let’s try and speak to others more often about our goals and what makes us smile and less about what other people think we should do. Let’s try to drive ourselves. The lyrics to one of my favorite songs are…
“ Lately I, am beginning to find that when I drive myself, my life is found. Whatever tomorrow brings I’ll be there, with open arms and open eyes”.
I think if we start asking the right questions, we just might get the right answers!
Love to all!!!!
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