Growing and Outgrowing

Lately, I have been experiencing old things as if for the first time. Checking in with myself to note whether they are just as delicious as I remember, or if the thrill of it all had gone. My first major instance of this was Christmas. My younger sisters stretching into last teens and early twenties no longer wake up early, excitedly to see what Santa brought them. For years, my joy had been in watching their wonder. Now that they have grown and there are no small children to awaken the Christmas magic in me, the holiday becomes a time of reflection and complete disconnection from the present moment. I thought, because of this, that I would start a new tradition of traveling on Christmas. To give myself new wonder and new magic, this time in an unfamiliar place soaking in the story of a friendly stranger. 

My decaying majesty continued to spread over smaller events too. Last night at the football game. In a brand new stadium with my very best friend, cheering on our alma mater, I wished I was home in bed. Mentally, I rolled my eyes at myself thinking at first that I was too old for this. "This" meaning my being out at 11pm on a night before work, filled with too much fried food and fermented fruit. Then, however, I thought "this" has nothing to do with age. I was surrounded by fans and alumni much older than my 33 years who still had the stamina and chutzpah to cheer our team to victory. Without loving my team any less, I made a note to self that I was no longer in the place in my life where I had to do so in the same ways that I always had. And that for me, now, if that meant turning off the game and going to bed early? That's what it means. 

I am not going to punish myself for being in a different space. I'm not going to misalign my self-care with apathy or neglect either. I am simply learning how to both honor myself, but also the truth of what I need in my moments. Even saying that is new and indicative of my being in a different space than before. 

There is another truth, too. This same feeling spread to relationships. The kind that I have outgrown and no longer fit the same way that they always had. Like a pair of converse. No matter how many times I've tried, converse tennis shoes are not comfortable to me. I've tried them at different times in my life. With different outfits. In different moods. Still, they never feel right. Now, it seems that some relationships evade comfort, despite my most sincere efforts to make them work. They just...don't. 

I found myself deleting the text thread and wondering if I was always left feeling so...ordinary. Like I could have been anyone. I didn't like that feeling. I didn't believe myself to be ordinary and especially not to him. Hadn't that been why I got so hurt over the whole Vegas thing? Because despite decades of friendship, here I was being treated no differently than a stranger. I sat back and told myself that Oscar Wilde quote was right. 

Never love anyone who treats you like you're ordinary
~Oscar Wilde 

It was the same feeling I had about my job. Not just this job, but every job I've ever owned. Don't you know I am not supposed to be here?  Yelling energetically trying to convince everyone around me when the only one who needed convincing was myself. So, then I sit back and I ask myself. If you're not ordinary then why are you allowing yourself to be treated like you are? And if you are supposed to be somewhere else, why aren't you?