Happy Sunday! Today’s quest takes us from Northern California’s Wine country a little further south to Monterey.
Just a few hours drive brings you to what I consider home after spending 6 years attending college and settling for some time after graduation. If you haven’t been to Monterey you must make the trip as its one of the most picturesque places in California. Today I’m dealing with a little bit of frustration and agitation as last night I had edited this post and had written a beautiful story about my life in Monterey and the many places I lived over the 6 years I spent there. To my dismay, this morning my post was gone and the original draft had been posted in it’s place. I felt defeated and upset that I had to redo something I spent so much time working on. It proves that nothing in this life is permanent and the landscape is always changing. Yet I get so focused in on the negative side and seldom focus on the positive that could end up coming from things out of my control. I’m always wondering what lesson am I supposed to learn from this? Not before, but now I’m questioning how I can look at things differently to gain perspective and change my outlook.
I spent the day with my girlfriend and her two sons whom I love very much. I was there for both of her births and I’m overjoyed that they call me Auntie and consider me family. I’m 31 without any kids of my own and knowing that I have such close relationships with my friends and their kids brings me a sense of joy. I conceded that now is not my time to be a mother and to have patience until I’m able to raise my kids along side those of my friends. During my visit my friend was confiding in me that she was having a hard time with her husband, nothing out of the normal and just things that couples go through. It made me stop and reflect on my own relationships and how I see myself when I am dealing with communication issues. I took a class at Cal State Monterey Bay called Cooperative Argumentation and tried to draw on what I learned to envision the argument and how it could possibly be resolved. Most arguments are a result of poor listening skills that everyone has. There are few who can boast that they are the master of listening because inherently we all suffer from not fully paying attention to the person we’re talking with. In my own relationship with my boyfriend I find myself zoning out and thinking about a myriad of things and when he’s finished I find I have no idea what he was just saying. It comes from not understanding much of the subject matter and also not truly respecting him enough to give him the attention he deserves. It’s not even intentional that I do this and I’m trying to be more attentive and tuned in while he’s speaking. I also find myself thinking about what I want to say before he’s finished his sentence. This is what most arguments result from because in the heat of the discussion rather than truly hearing our partner we’re thinking of the response that we want to get out and talk over them to make sure our point is made. So mush time is wasted on one or the other trying to win the discussion, to be right or to just railroad the conversation so no one else can get their point made. This is no way to communicate and only causes us to stress. I called my boyfriend on my drive home, passing the beaches and my old college campus on the way. It was a full moon and you could see the moonlight shining on the ocean as the waves crashed on the shore. I longed to live back near the beach and took solace that I only have to drive 40 minutes to see the beautiful sites of Monterey, but nothing beats actually living with the ocean as your backyard. I called my boyfriend and practiced my listening to see how focused I could stay while he was talking. Hearing someone is a beautiful thing because it allows you to learn about them and look at things from another point of view. While you might think your way is the best and the right way there is always another way to look at it. This morning waking up to a blog post gone wrong turned out to be a portal to open my mind to challenging myself with how I listen to those around me. I heard him last night and listened to his day and how hard he worked on his house and what he had planned to do tomorrow. We spoke about the kids (he has two daughters from a previous marriage) and how their weekend was and if the youngest still had a cough or not. It was nice to listen to the excitement about him installing a new stove and sink in the house he’s working on and it made me happy that I have him in my life. Someone to ground me as I fly around trying to discover who I am and what I want to do with this life of mine… This gift of discovery.
Our life takes us on many different paths and we meet many people along the way. People who we take with us through our life and who help us along the way. Thinking back to my girlfriend and her boys and communicating with her husband I think about happiness. Sure relationships are hard and everyone has struggles, but ultimately we all just want to be happy. We all want to find our place in this world and share it with others to create a community that supports us. I think back to Adam Baker and he and his wife sitting at the kitchen table discussing how they were going to sell all of their “crap” and travel the world. They spent a year selling their possessions and I’m sure they encountered their own troubles along the way, but they did it and they put in the work to accomplish a goal they both believed in. Isn’t that what it’s all about? Working together to create a life made up of shared experiences that make you happy? It’s not all about the job and the money… the health insurance and the car payments. If we could forget about money, if money were not an issue… How would we live our lives? What would we do differently? I’m almost there, almost to the point where I want to chuck it all and just live and be completely self sufficient, but I still have a lot to do. I have some more growing to do before I can move into this place in my life without any reservation or regret.
What path will you take today to discover new places and new ways of thinking?
