Graciousness

I have a hard time accepting compliments. This always becomes more apparent when I go home, where I invariably end up feeling a bit like a celebrity -- even if it's to no one but my grandparents, always ones to offer praise and adulation. People I know from Canfield have a certain conception of me -- overachieving, level-headed, practical, goal-oriented, studious, successful. And despite a few (fairly public) bumps along the way, I largely lived up to that during the years I lived there. Even when I come home now, six years after moving away, my spiel about what and where and how I'm doing lives up to that, too. I have lots to be thankful for and proud of.

So why do I have such a hard time being gracious when someone pays me a compliment? Whether it's superficial or more thoughtful, whether it's about my appearance or personality or actions or achievements, I feel uncomfortable and usually end up brushing it off, likely seeming rude and stuck up and incredibly ungrateful -- which is the exact opposite of how I feel. It's like the situations in which I can't give praise or am too afraid to embrace friendships because I feel awkward, so I end up putting people off and pushing them away.

Like so much else for me, it probably comes down to confidence. I don't have the confidence to tell myself positive things and believe them, so hearing them from other people -- especially friends, members of the communities I'm part of, people whom I value -- just makes me feel uncomfortable. Perhaps I'm worried that it's too good to be true, that I have to be guarded and cautious in accepting compliments because if I allow people's opinions of me to matter and take to heart what they say, I'm opening myself up to being hurt by those people, should they choose to do so. Which is true, sure; but it's pretty stupid.

Perhaps I'm also paranoid about becoming too wrapped up in praise -- so much that I react too extremely in the other direction. I feel, though, that there's a place for sincere praise as a way for God to build us up, through each other. And if that praise is given and received in earnest, it can be reflectant of him, not a something that makes us prideful or separates us from God.

I fear that if I don't learn to be better at being gracious about receiving these words, I'll run the risk of closing doors, of driving off people I care about because I can't accept their affection and offer it in return, of missing out on ways that God wants to speak to me.


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"And I'm halfway to you, but I'm taking a break where I walk with a limp and I sleep with the stakes, and I blow up my lungs with the air that I need, and my dreams I'm on my knees, and I'm washing your feet with my hair." -Page France

Balance

I moved this past weekend, into an apartment with two really great girls. They're nice and normal, they're my age, they do yoga and have friends and we ask how each other's days have been and we laugh and we drink wine. I carried all of my worldly possessions (and my cat) into this new place with with the help, love, patience, and support of some of my best friends. I'm exhausted, but I feel really great -- better than I've felt in a long time.

Until this week, when I gave the old apartment a thorough cleaning and carried the remainder of my stuff out of it, I felt like my life was fairly balanced, all things considered, that the decisions I was making were fairly healthy. Sure, it was kind of strange that I was still living in the apartment that I had moved into with a boyfriend of quite-a-few years, kind of strange that I stayed in the place after we split (even if I did rearrange the furniture). But I didn't think much of it -- perhaps didn't let myself think much of it, because I couldn't, because I had to stick it out through the end of the lease, because I had always dreamed of living "on my own" in the big City, in my own apartment, doing my own thing, being a grown-up.

But as I walked around the empty place today, checked the closets and cupboards and corners for anything left behind, found nothing of mine in any of those places, and closed the door behind me for the last time, I felt an unexpected sense of relief, a weight being lifted that I didn't even know was there. About eight months ago I felt like I was starting over, but in a sort of scary, sad, uncertain way. This week, I feel like I'm starting over yet again, but in a confident, exciting, bring-it-on way.

I've had so many moments in the past three-quarters of a year where I am just floored, totally awed by the fact that I get so many chances to fix my life, to start over, to try, yet again, to do things right. I can't get over it and I can't understand it, no matter how many times it happens -- this undeserved grace, these umpteenth chances. I'm facing another chance to start over right now, another chance to make the right decisions, to follow the right leads. It's incredible and exciting and awe-inspiring, and I get goosebumps thinking about it.

I think this move is a really healthy thing. In many senses, I feel like this is one of the few decisions I have made for myself, not for any other person, in the past. . .five years? I'm making this season of my life truly mine. I know that I needed these past few months to be on my own, to struggle and fight with myself, to live somewhat extravagantly and selfishly, to have the wind knocked out of my sails a bit. But now I feel that I am ready to seek balance, to make healthier decisions, to let into my life the people who are important to me, to recognize what is and is not good, helpful, beneficial.

A recurring feeling for me is that of being stuck between two binaries, jumping erratically from situation to situation, decision to decision, lifestyle to lifestyle. But I truly want to find the balance between those binaries, to embrace the gray area between the oppositional situations and decisions and lifestyles, to live act for the right reasons and have confidence in that. And I think I'm on my way.


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"If life's just a living room, I'm in the hall and I'm glad." - David Gray