A New Perspective

Sometimes a change in scenery is all it takes to change your mind. 

Do you ever find that when you step out of your daily routine, out of your comfort zone, or when you are in new surroundings, your thinking also changes?  I think many times the comfort of our daily schedules and rituals can also keep our brains on an endless loop - like a record that plays the same song over and over.  You desperately need the needle to skip or jump a little to get to the next song and getting away from everything that is familiar is sometimes the only way to get that push.

There are certain things I think about more often than I'd like to admit (and def won't be admitting what they are here!), and I tend to come to the same conclusions about these matters of the heart time after time.  Sometimes it is so so hard to get outside your own head and realize that your thoughts are NOT reality.  You create 'reality' with your thinking, and if you can change your thinking, then you will change your reality!  Easier said than done though right?

For some reason, right before I left for vacation last week, I was hit with a killer wave of nostalgia.  I honestly don't know what brought it on, but there were certain little reminders here and there (down to the cookies they served us on the flight!) that kept bringing me back to a certain time in my life and it was making me really sad.  There were also other big life decisions I had been ruminating on for weeks that I just couldn't seem to make any headway with.

Now, I'm not going to say that everything changed in a week or that I now have the next 10 years of my life planned out, but I started to see that there are definitely other versions of 'reality' that are just as possible as the ones I play out in my head. 

One of the things that helped me gain some new perspective was being amongst so many different, new people, from across the country - from Las Vegas to NY and everywhere in between - from so many different walks of life.  They all had stories that were so different from mine.  This is one of the reasons I love travel - either locally or abroad.  I think meeting different people is key to my development as a human.  Time and again it shows me that my way isn't the only way, and opens me to different points of view.  There are a million different ways to live and its so interesting to see how each person chooses their path.

Another thing that really struck me happened as I was signing the reunion memory book.  Someone had started a page of quotes and one of the scribbled lines read "Just let it go".  Ahh!  Even though I'd been humming that song for months (thanks babysitting charges), I never actually followed the imperative.  But for some reason, while in Missouri, I decided to just let a few things go.  With so many memories tied up in Baltimore, it was like I physically could not let some things go here - they felt anchored to this place and could only be freed somewhere new.

I also believe spending time with my sister and her family helped.  My day-to-day life involves me, Party of One, and while this is ok (for now), it's nice to be surrounded by people I love and who love me and feel that connection.  Sure I have friends, but not having family or a significant other around to share in every day living can make me feel really alone at times, and keeps my brain on that single, endless track.

And lastly, I absolutely believe in the healing power of nature, and the importance of connecting with that source as much as possible. 

Anyway, I feel like some things have changed for me in those neurons firing inside my head and I know it had to do with a change in my environment.  I hadn't taken a single vacation day all year to this point and it was definitely something I needed.  I truly enjoy my job these days, but I just needed some time away from the familiar to rewire the ol brain, and it worked.  I even wrote out a physical 'To-Do' list, something I haven't done in months, and already started crossing things off.  Here's to new realities...

 

Source, via Pinterest

I realize this post probably meant nothing to anyone but me and I'm sorry for being so vague!  Thanks for letting me clear my head and reading anyway :)



Does travel ever change your perspective?

What else do you do to change your thinking when you are really stuck on something?

There's Always a Rainbow

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When it rains it pours right?!  This post is about the Weekend Where Everything That Could Go Wrong Did, so if you're not in the mood to read about my series of disasters, just skip this one and I'll post something happier later in the week :)

 

Where to begin here.  I'm actually feeling much better today after having a day to calm down and gain some perspective.  The problems I experienced seem kind of trivial in the big scheme of things now (my personal health and safety remains intact) and I even learned a few things (there's always a lesson right?).

 

Saturday morning started out with me getting stuck inside a jacket while heading into work.  Yep, straight up trapped!  I stood in a parking garage downtown at 8 in the morning and tugged and pulled with all my might but could not unstick the $*%&* broken zipper on my jacket.  I tried tugging the entire piece of apparel over my head to remove it, but my head wouldn't fit through the neck hole! Haha George Costanza rears his large bulbous head again.  I stood there evaluating the situation and then just decided to rip the jacket in two.  So with all of my might I grabbed the coat on either side of the zipper and with pure brute force ripped the zipper right off the jacket!  BAM! FREEDOM!  Jacket: 0  Jill: 1  I was down a rain jacket but I could care less at this point - I was free!  This incident didn't really phase me, but I wonder now if it was foreboding the rest of the weekend to come...

 

Saturday evening was when I experienced two separate personal affronts.  One was work related and one came about through the cesspool that is online dating.  I'm not going to go into detail about the first, but I'll just say I volunteered to help someone out at the last minute and they completely took advantage of my kindness.  I didn't stand up for myself at all in that situation (something the Universe has tried to teach me over and over again, especially at my last job) and was not in the best mood when I received a rude/inappropriate message via the online dating portal.  What is it about being hidden behind the veil of a computer screen that gives some people free reign to say things (I hope) they would never say in person?!  I didn't learn my lesson on the first occasion but by this point, I'd had it.  I actually wrote something back to this person along the lines of "You are a classless human being and a poor excuse for a man."  And then promptly blocked him.  I actually felt rude myself when I sent it at first, so you can see how hard it is for me to actually stand up for myself!  This is something I'm trying very very hard to work on.  But then I realized I did the right thing by telling this person that they couldn't speak to me, or any woman for that matter, this way.  Someone needed to.  Why not me? 

 

I didn't get home until after 1AM that night (longest day everrrrr) and woke up Sunday morning exhausted and ruminating on the future of humanity after my run-ins with people who seemed to care only for themselves.  Why when given the opportunity do people choose to do the wrong thing?  Why when faced with a kind person, do certain people see that as an opportunity to prey on their kindness?  These thoughts were getting me down, as my super sensitive mind always wants to know 'why' and feels things so deeply.  But I realized I didn't have any answers for these questions, because I can't control other people.  The only way to feel better was to let it go and focus on the positive people and things in my life...and then my phone died.

 

What's the count for the weekend so far?  Oh yes, we're up to headache #4.  I marched into the Apple store close to closing time Sunday night hoping against hope they could fix this very expensive piece of machinery.  After much trying, they gave me the bad news.  The phone was dead with no chance of revival.  My only option was to replace the phone - AT FULL COST.  #*&^*(#&$ WTF!  Of course the phone was out of warranty and I was still under contract.  The nice little Apple Genius lady told me the price to replace my old model iPhone and I kind of lost it.  It's no secret that my funds this year are very limited.  My current salary is less than half of what I was making at my old job (yes for real, just let that sink in for a moment) so I live paycheck to paycheck.  When unexpected expenses like this come up, I can't pay them save for the fact of dipping into my savings.  Thankfully I have some because otherwise, I wouldn't make rent some months!  So there I stood with tears in my eyes and this poor girl didn't know what to do!  She was like I'm really sorry there's nothing else we can do.  I was SO embarrassed and kept apologizing for getting emotional - I just told her I had a really rough weekend and this kind of capped it off.  Who cries in the Apple store over a broken phone?!  This girl apparently.  Looking back a day later, it sounds ridiculous and it wasn't even the phone that got me upset.  I think it was the accumulation of negative experiences over the weekend, combined with the fact that when she asked me if I had anyone else that could help me out by giving me an old phone or something, I said 'No, I don't have anyone else'.  I just felt so alone.  A feeling I have been feeling for some time :( 

 

So where am I going with this whole disaster of a weekend story you might ask?  A few years ago when things like this would happen, I would think to myself that I probably did something to deserve this bad luck (crazy right?), but after the series of events that has happened to me in the past few years, I can see the personal growth that has occurred because I didn't react this way in this situation.  Well, maybe I did for a few minutes, but then I just realized, it was bad luck.  Sometimes things just happen that you can't control and you don't deserve.  The faster you move on, the faster things turn around. 

 

It started raining tonight and is supposed to rain 4-6 inches over the next two days here in Baltimore.  How appropriate that a physical rainstorm is actually accompanying my figurative rainstorm.  But I just know that on the other side of this storm there WILL be a rainbow.  There always is. 

 

 





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How was your weekend?!  I hope that it was a million times better than mine :)