Today, I have been pondering two things: Sparkle and Consequences

When you have a really great time, your regular life appears dull/tired/dreary/empty. There is a feeling of loss. Not only is this wonderful thing no longer available, what use to be good in your life is lacking in comparison. You notice the things lacking and even the good things in life just don’t seem to matter as much. There is a readjustment to “normal” where the memories of the wonderful time fade so the time you are in can become good again. It almost makes it seem like it is better to not search out those wonderful times because the price you pay — having what you have to live with being not enough — is more that you want to pay.

This pondering comes from having a fabulous time this weekend. I was living on the edge and found I could do it without needing to deal with emergencies (as in being sent to the emergency room). I was flying high. I gave myself an entire day of recovery. Traveled home on one day, took the next day off just for me. I am finding that while I don’t really want to go back to that wonderful time, I don’t really like the time I am in either. In writing all this out, I also realized that this description covers a lot of things, love, drugs, weekends away, gatherings of friends. These wonderful things add the sparkle to life but they will go away. And then not only are you missing the sparkle, what you have looks so much less than before. It is sad that to avoid the dullness, you have to not have the sparkle.

The other thing I am pondering is consequences. In the past when I have broken up with someone, I have given myself a time period of “screw the consequences” do whatever I want just because I want to and let the consequences take care of themselves. Life hurts enough as it is so I don’t care what happens to me. This is actually rather safe for me to do because I can’t seem to get myself into real trouble. I just don’t like things that actually would lead to serious problems. A beautiful example of how this has worked for me in the past is when I came back to the States in ’90. I had broken up with my fiance in Belgium and gotten a job working at a department store. I gave myself six months of “screw the consequences.” Four months later, I quit the department store job at $5.17/hour to work at the Tattered Cover Book Store for $4.75/hour for Christmas help, basically two months. There was nothing smart about this decision, I just wanted to do it. I feel it is one of the best decisions I have ever made. I loved the experience I had at the Tattered Cover. I still have all my training paperwork and if I ever start a business of my own, I will pattern it after that one.

This time around, things in my life are such that I haven’t felt I could afford to “screw the consequences.” I am working on dealing with the consequences from a lot of my past and how I deal with things. It is something I feel I really need to be here for and can’t just let loose and come what may. I can do some letting go but not wholesale, mostly it is to follow others. I have noticed some things come up that have really stalled me out. I am interested but am working out all the permutations of the consequences, trying to decide if I should follow up on it or not. I have ended up being very hesitant about taking up some options presented to me and feel I have lost out on these options. Whether they weren’t really options that would have worked, or I hesitated and didn’t act fast enough or interested enough that the options past me by, I can’t say. Some other things where I didn’t need to be enthusiastic, just willing, have come through nicely. Other things have fizzled but that is ok, I wasn’t invested.

It seems like these two things are somewhat related but I am not sure how. I might even be going in two different directions with these. Gee, look at me. I am being philosophical. Somehow, I figure this isn’t something people would expect from me. It isn’t all stories.