In keeping with the soppiness of this post, now for some gentle creams and lavenders...
2011 has run away with me in a tangle of half-formed new year’s resolutions, attempts to keep upbeat when work tries to drain your soul and hopeful moments of connecting with people and furtively following your dreams. Even if said dreams, as my considerably more life-experienced (tee hee) other half likes to point out, are still half-baked and in serious need of a sit-down planning session…
And in between this mess (and one or two incredible hangovers), blogging has fallen by the wayside. A pity, since I missed opportunities to blog about all those marvellous stalwarts: trying to discover the coolest New Year’s parties, the agony of making resolutions, the realisation and subsequent resignation to the fact that you’ll never stick to your resolutions, the zen surrounding January and new beginnings, Nomsa Dube’s mindblowingly facepalming comments about lightning, the drama of trying new things and the sheer bloodiness of making peace with flabby arms. I might still write about the flabby-arm drama… A topic in progress, as it were, since Muay Thai is in full swing for this year again. Batwings, begone! I hope…
Anyway… I actually have come up with a bit of a plan for the year ahead. I’d call it a resolution, but that presupposes the possibility of failure to keep at it… and I really, really want to keep this one. It’s pretty soppy though, so if you’re not particularly chocolate box-inclined, stop reading now and go here instead.
A really laid-back, gorgeous and, above all, touching wedding this weekend planted the seed. Watching the groom emotionally working his way through a speech that had most of the crowd in tears caused a bit of introspection and discussion. In a nutshell, it’s this: loving friends and family. And not just in a way that satisfies your own need to be loved and to give and to be considered important by the people in your life – in a way that makes them understand just how absolutely awesome they are – as human beings. So what if they’re “just” your parents – they’re also pretty damn funny, way more resourceful than you’ve ever been, whizzes at DIY and really, really good at throwing dinner parties/ company bashes/ pity parties/ a Frisbee. Or she’s not “just” a friend who listens to you when you’re mopey and want to spill – she’s also a creative genius with words who sometimes cries while listening to music and has a penchant to pick up strays. (Guys, not animals!)
Why are these pretty umbrellas like true friends? A cupcake for the best answer...
It’s all about making people understand just how important they are: not just to you, but in their own right. You don’t just appreciate them because they’re there for you and make you feel good – you appreciate them because they’re awesome.
If it’s all sounding a bit airy-fairy at the moment, it’s because it still needs some work in terms of execution… Some thought as to how I want to make the people in my life really understand how rocking they are. Hand-written letters? Making them cups of tea when they need one? More regular chats on the phone? Just being there? We’ll see… But this one, I aim to keep.
So, in the spirit of being soppy, I’d like to end off with this quote from Anaïs Nin, that I’ve dragged along with me ever since high school… And that’s become a bit more relevant to me now. (Barf bags to the left of the fridge.)
“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.”
And I guess the whole point is to make your friends/family feel that to lose them means to literally lose a world. So it’s pretty damn important to keep them safe and loved…
Tags: Anais Nin, loving friends and family, New Year's resolutions, Nomsa Dube, romantic weddings
Maybe what you’ve stumbled on here is to do with being unselfish I think. It’s something I’ve been pondering lately as well. Sometimes we need to visit these other “worlds” to get out of your own heads a bit and see the hidden (sometimes well-hidden) value in others. It sounds all zen ‘n stuff but it is actually healthy to be a little less self-focussed and a little more receptive to other people sometimes. We should see our place in the world as neither at the bottom of the heap nor at the top, but somewhere in the comfortable middle.
*melt!*
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