Mood: Clarity
Music: Stand Up - Hindi Zahra
Date: Thursday, February, 18th, 2010
My friend asked me on Monday night what I'm giving up for lent, and as we discussed the topic, I let him know that I don't believe in self-torture to prove a point about my commitment to God or how good of a Christian I am.
I really don't, because while I believe in Monotheism - I think it is safe to say my beliefs are more in line with Panentheism. I don't care for labels, I think often times they end up being more of a burden than an explanation.
However, in the early hours of Tuesday morning I came up with an answer for his question: for lent...I am giving up my regrets. Let me preface this admission with an explanation: my regrets are not limited to things I've done, but also extend to things I did not do.
Normally, I do not get personal on this blog, I used to have another blog that in the realm of the interwebs...was barely a blip on the radar averaging a couple hundred hits a day. But imagine my life out there, for public consumption and well-viewed by men I loved, men I hated, stalkers and persons who were trying to garner information to use against me. After awhile, I became tired of being a target and no longer enjoyed the blogging process, or even interacting with readers.
On this blog (Persephone), I have some holdovers from that experience:
1. I don't interact with readers in the comments section, if you want to hear from me you need to e-mail me directly or interact with me on twitter/facebook. In fact, I believe I've made one comment on this blog, and that was to welcome a reader from my old blog.
2. I don't get personal on this blog.
My old blog had photos, lengthy descriptions of my outings, my break ups, my drama. It was all out there for public consumption. I learned that lesson the hard way...and that is on my list of regrets.
However, this is not why I'm telling you this story. Someone said to me the other day that they love my blogging style, because I engage the reader in my emotions or feelings about what I'm writing about - and it made me realise something: it doesn't matter that I leave out the personal or identifying details that caused me grief on my last blog. It's not about the photos, or hearing about my sucky day. It's about the emotional journey, because in some way - other people identify with the things I'm going through or have been through. The themes are universal: love, loss, regret, pain, gratitude, hopefulness, joy, romance...life.
Also on the list of my regrets are two other things: hurting bystanders that have appeared in the venn diagram of life and not having deep relationships with my relatives.
This blog is meant as my diary, to remind me how I felt about certain things and people at certain points in life because nothing clouds a memory like distance and time. Distance from the event and persons and time removed from the actual event. And with this diary, comes the choice to make it private, or to share it with you. I share it because I feel that the benefits of helping at least one person who reads my words, outweighs any "overexposure" moment I have after hitting "publish" on an entry.
In the venn diagram of life, sometimes your life intersects briefly with the life of another person. Recently I've taken to writing letters to past lovers to vent how I feel or felt about them. It brings me a level of closure I need, and helps me to record things before they get too clouded by distance and time.
I am a spoiled and selfish person when I am ready. And yes, I admit that I have my moments of intensity and passion that cross the line of sanity and appropriate behaviour. Put me in a situation with someone I love and unresolved feelings, and I will get crazy. I make no apologies for being myself, but I apologise to the third parties that have had to experience it. That's a letter I've yet to write and may never write because I'm sure none of these people want to read it...or maybe I need to hold on to it a little longer to write that letter effectively.However, let it be known that the hardest letter I will ever write, is not to the men I've loved and lost but to the bystanders that were hurt while I was busy love loving and losing those men.
Nonetheless...life is too short to hold on that regret...so I release it into the Universe.
Which brings me to the third regret I will discuss here: my lack of deep connections with my relatives. My Uncle died last week, for that and other reasons I won't mention here, I've been in an emotional slump. With every death in my family, I continue to grasp how short life truly is. I continue to understand that with every death, I lose apart of my family identity because I never inherited the general family knowledge nor the pieces of the puzzle that explain to me why my mother's side of the family are the way they are. With every death I see cousins, aunts and uncles that are strangers to me because I would pass them on the street without even noticing the family resemblance. With every death, I continue to lose the Indian heritage in me because I know little of how they got here, and our connection with other people in India who still have our ancestral name.
And it makes me sad that with each death, I see the facts plain as day and continue to do nothing about it.
For lent I'm giving up regrets but not just the regret itself, I'm giving up the control the regrets have over me - for while individually they might not exercise much control, collectively they are debilitating. Regrets are like the crowded pot, and I intend to free up as much space in the pot as I possibly can.
Love,
Ally.
Photo Credit: The (handwritten and poorly illustrated but deceptively accurate) Venn Diagram of Life; Tuesday, February, 16th, 2010
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