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Saturday, November 01, 2008

Laying down Layers


So something happened since the last time that I was at OSU. Everyone got really young. REALLY young. I have not really been here in two or three years. But WOW! All the students got SUPER young. Scary. I know its not that I am a wee bit older. Its not that I have a good 10 years on them. No, clearly the people that they are letting into college are much younger then they were back in my day. But they are using the same O-Chem models that they used for me so that’s something at least.

An odd thing happened to me on the drive down here today. Something that might even be worth the effort of writing about. I realized today that I have had a bit of a shift in my fundamental thinking. For the last five years, I have been fairly destructive. What I mean is that I saw who I was, I was not really happy with that, and I started to peel away little pieces of myself. I felt like I had to pick them off much like a scab. I had to get rid of this false self that I had built around myself. I built it up for the first 23 years of my life and this place offered an opportunity to rip down those little pieces of my false self.

It was not destructive in a negative way that destroyed who I am at core. It allowed me to find out a lot of things about myself that I needed to know. It broke down things that I had just grown up with and did not know why I thought that way.

I hated much of the way that I grew up, I hated being pushed to live life in a set way. Perhaps its just a normal rebellion that all people go through in undergrad. None the less, it was a profound. I pictured myself as an onion. Pealing away a little bit at a time trying to find out who I was at a core.

The thing that happened to me on my drive today is that I reached a point of clarity. I decided that perhaps I have been destructive enough. Perhaps I have finished what I needed to in the super critical phase of my life. Perhaps I am ready to start to build around myself. Not to rebuild a false self, but to surround myself with layers of community that will be with me, help me be who I am as a person.

I really want a puppy. I NEED a puppy. That will be the first layer. Something to add to my personal little world community. Perhaps a fish, but no, I really think it needs to be a puppy.

But the idea is that I am OK with the idea of being very intentional about the people around me. It bends into also this dream I have to live a life that is open to being influenced by those around me. I want to be able to have people around me that will help shape me more and more in a better way. I want to live life open enough to those around me so that I can influence them in healthy ways, but they can also influence me. It has to be give and take. But there will be layers, some people will clearly be some people who will have a profound impact on me. Others will be a peripheral influence. Its dynamic, it can shift and change, the layers are not set. They change as people change and move and change locations. But there is beauty in it.

What does this all mean? I don’t really know. Its just a feeling at the current. Something small delicate, but there is power in the idea and it wakes me up at night because of the truth that is in it. I hope and dream continually for what the next step is. I can almost see the path opening in front of me. I guess I just keep moving. One step at a time, make the best choices that I can when they come up. Then see where it all leads me. I have faith that it will take me somewhere amazing.

M@

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