What if the Hokey Pokey IS what it's all About???

I lost my best friend; or, the art of making decisions

Suraj and I solidified our break up last night by deciding to break contact until January at the soonest. I hate that it has to come to this. I hate that my heart and head have been all over the place, but never seem to be in the same place at the same time.

Suraj has taught me so much. During our last conversation he mentioned something that will be on my mind for quite some time now: sometimes you have to stop thinking of things in terms of, "part of me thinks this, part of me thinks that," and just put your whole heart and energy into making a DECISION.

I have always valued the ability to see millions of different sides of every situation. It's a fun intellectual exercise, and certainly has it's time and place. But what if I'm applying this quality to areas of my life that require one to just say, yes, there is side x, y, and z, but now I am just going to bite the bullet and put my cards into one side?

Perhaps I have overapplied this concept of giving all sides equal consideration...with Suraj I thought indecision was a decision, but perhaps indecision simply signified my inability to really...make a decision, rather than signifying something about him or our relationship.

At any rate, the decision has been made. I will be thinking about this a lot in the coming weeks. It applies to my job hunt as well as relationships. Yes, I could be happy doing 213 different things, but i'm realizing it's coming time to really put all my energy and passion into one.

But damnit, PART OF ME (and yes, i know saying that proves my above point about being unable to commit to an idea or outlook) wonders: why now? Why can't i just be flexible and let the future happen in baby steps? So many people I've met in my travels have urged me to calm down about the future - i'm only 24, after all. So many people I've chatted with in cafes and bars have said to just let the future "happen."

Why am I here? What is the value of this European travel experience? I was talking with my friend Sara from Belize last night (she lives in Holland) and she reminded me that for every person that will look at me and say, "you are wasting your time in Europe," someone else will say, "You are so smart for taking the time now to do this." The thing is, neither of them is right or wrong; I just need to recognize that at the end of the day, the only person whose opinion really matters on all this is ME.

But MY opinion is that other people have valuable opinions as well! Good God, someone turn my brain off. I think this topic really does translate well into my experience of being WITH myself in Brugges; I think if I can take one thing away from my europe experience it will be the importance of just OWNING what i'm doing, who i am, and not being so affected by what I perceive others might think - it's fine to listen and consider alternate viewpoints, but at the end of the day i need to take a stance.

A quick semantic point: when I say "what others think," it's not referring just to what they think about ME, it's a bit deeper than that - I wonder how they think about life and how they value things like travel and self-discovery versus ambition and practical things, and I try to learn from them...the lesson is not to refrain from this process, but to take time after these considerations to figure out what I believe.

I'm grateful to suraj for helping feed into this process, as well as Kate for initially prompting me into thinking about what I want, my aunt Carol Lynn and Mom for encouraging me to figure out what I really want, as well as the countless others who have helped along this process.

As for my relationship, it hurts so much to see it end. I don't understand how I can willingly turn away from such sure happiness and growth. But the fact that I can signifies that I have a lot of learning and growing up to do, and a lot of figuring out about what makes me tick.

I always thought I was really far along in this process and that any more thinking would be OVER thinking, but there is still more to learn.

I'm sad now, but i know things will get better. I know Suraj deserves better, and I will always be so grateful to him for all the things he's helped me learn about myself, and all the experiences we had which, of course, had value in and of themselves and can only truly be known by us. A huge PART of me wants to board the plane home now, but he would only deserve my company a) if he wanted it, and b) when i can think of it as the whole me and not just a part (or, rather, acknowledge that even if there are parts of me that aren't 100% into it, in the practical sense i have decided to make a decision and put 100% of my energy and heart into it). | posted by Cheryl, 11/09/2005 04:46:00 AM