Sep 18, 2009

Mid-life 20's?

Starting new things is hard. I forgot about that. New school, new peers, new job, new co-workers. It's weird. It makes me realize how wonderful it is to have people who know and love me and who I can be totally free with.

Starting new also makes me remember how scared I am of a lot of things and how impatient I can be with adjustment periods. I recently finished reading The Time Traveler's Wife (which, by the way, was just ok). Clare and Henry are about to get married so Henry's just tried out a new drug to help him stay in the present for their wedding. It's overkill and he's high on life. He asks Clare to join him and she says, "no" to which Henry replies, "You are so good. I shouldn't be trying to corrupt you." And then Clare says to him:

"I'm not good. I'm afraid."

I don't know why, but that resonated so much with me.
I remember at my interview for social work school they asked us about a regret that we had and I remember having a hard time coming up with an answer. And then it dawned on me that I regret not having more regrets aka not taking enough risks when I was younger and trying too hard to be perfect. Now I'm older and having to learn that, and it's hard. How do you set yourself up to mess up (and provide yourself grace when you do) when you've spent most of your life running from that very thing? I'm not so sure, but I did see a quote on my classmate's water bottle the other day that says, "Do 1 thing every day that makes you nervous." So I guess that's a start.