“It's about how you're like a lighthouse, always searching far into the distance. But the thing you're looking for is usually close to you and always has been. That's why you have to look within yourself to find answers instead of searching beyond.”  ~Susane Colasanti, Waiting For You

I have had this quote saved in my draft folder for quite a few months.  I love this quote, but I struggle to really write about it because in some ways it is true, and in some ways, it isn't.

I guess I will start with the ways that it is true.  For me, it is a question of are we always who we are meant to be deep down?  Maybe we are born enlightened and life takes it away year by year until we reach a turning point when we start getting our wisdom back.  Do we unravel ourselves only to put ourselves back together?  My life seems like that sometimes.  When I reflect upon much of how I have lived , it seems I am spending my adult life trying to make sense of it.  I think I understand, and yet I don't.  

It made me think of one of my therapeutic break throughs: I was so busy trying to seem perfect so that no one would notice and point out my flaws.  Back in high school and college, this was very true of how I acted and felt.  As long as the facade was good, it was good.  Even when it wasn't.  Even when it was so far from it.

But now, it is.  Now my life is SO good.  It makes me feel sad for the 20 year old me who thought she had it all together.  I am by no means completely together, far from it in fact.  I am closer though.  I don't even think that my infertility is 100% to blame for the mistakes and poor decisions in my life.  I know it is a large part, but I also know that I always had a choice, and sometimes I would chose wrong just because I could.  It felt like a free pass to hurt others like I was hurting.  Because life, in fact, isn't fair.  My life has always been a struggle between what I should do and what I want to do.  Maybe everyone's is.  I had operated one way for so many years that it is now a conscious choice to be kind, to listen, to be a good friend.  I hope that over time it becomes second nature, like it was at one point.  Maybe my new motto should be, "if you can't be nice, be quiet."  

I guess we are all works in progress, and how lucky we are that we get a whole life to transform.  I know it will take me a long time to get back to that girl who believed that all was fine, but I am getting there.