Energy

Having a conversation with my BF, KT.

I've been talking to her about spending energy and making the choice where we spend it. Whether on family, career, guys, hobbies. We invest our emotional energy into what we desire to happen in our lives. Five years ago I invested my emotional energy into being able to go out and party, to have girlfriends, to get out and enjoy life, to travel in what capacity I could. And it happened. Boy, did it happen. And I enjoyed five of the best years of my life. I did what I wanted to do, I enjoyed the hell out of it, and I have reaped the benefits of investing my energy with incredible girlfriends.

Now I want to invest my emotional energy in something new. I'm not sure how to balance what I already have with what I want. But I realize what my desire is and I want it, and I want to invest my emotional energy in it to make it happen. I want to start a business with Brando. I want to have that something personal to invest our time into. Something that we can work on together in the long run. Something that will support us, and allow us to be together.

"Once you find your real passions in life you're not going to want to go out with your friends every other night and go party... It's all about being content, and being okay with your feelings. Allowing yourself to heal." -KT

I talked to her about making a choice and a decision then being patient for that decision and doing the right thing to make that choice and decision happen the best way you know how, then somehow we got on the analogy of marathons. How you have to make the choice to run a marathon, then start the training for it, and then once you get there you still have to pace yourself to make it across the finish line. What a perfect analogy for life, really. In life you have to have the desire and make the choice to do what you can do to make that desire happen, you have to train for whatever the desire is, then once you get there you still have to pace yourself to cross the finish line.

KT just told me when we went hiking together with Shawners last year, when he was having a super tough time continuing on, it was hot, and we'd chosen to hike way too long of a hike for an eight year old, and he was breaking down, I told him, "When things gets hard, that's when you have to work the hardest, and if you push through it, you feel awesome and rewarded at the end." I love that she remembered I said that because I certainly didn't remember I said that, and I love that she told me she remembered that. She mentioned she wondered if he thought of that as he was running his marathon last week, and ran each week throughout the year, and how he finally felt that reward at the end of running through the finish line, not even having to stop to get his medal and how that was the best part for him. Maybe he did think of that subconsciously. Brando hears things all the time and subconsciously acts on them as a result. I tend to be more conscious about the things I hear and act upon, but I wonder if he subconsciously thought of that.

"Those people are going to love and support you throughout the times that are really hard and the changes you make, especially the changes you make to better yourself." -KT

One of the realizations I had just now while talking to KT, as well as a combination of doing a survey Teagan had on her blog about how anxious and avoiding we are with the most important people in our lives (mother, father, husband, best friend), was I have been avoiding telling my friends my decision that I no longer have the energy to go out and do the things I used to do with them because I want to put that energy elsewhere because I'm afraid they won't be there for me. All along I've been thinking in black and white terms, that I will have to give up my friends in order to have this new desire in my life.

"You gave me a wake up call, when I was dating Jasen and it was an epiphany for me. It was when I was spending every single day with him and not putting any of my energy towards family and friends. One thing you said completely changed my outlook. I was like wow this girl is my best friend and one of the most important things in my life besides my family. It makes me realize how important friends are. A friend told me when you are older and have your career you will be able to count the true friends that you have on the palm of your hand, and that is so true. And people need to be more okay with." -KT

After talking to KT I realize it's not black and white. It doesn't have to be that way. While I'm realizing I can't be and don't want to be super woman and do it all, I want to make choices to have certain things in my life and invest the energy towards those things. At the same time, the friends that are truly my friends will completely support me in those decisions and be there for me all along and there is no reason to waste all the energy I've already invested into their lives and they into mine. For my part, I have to be honest with them, and with myself, that if I am honest with them and they choose not to be there that I am okay with that, and have to take that chance so that the friends who are truly my friends have the opportunity to continue to be there alongside of me as they want to be, whether I have energy to go out with them or not.

"By the way you've done an excellent job evaluating - sometimes you have to evaluate things in black and white. I've been texting you more because I realize you've needed that time to evaluate. Because only you know what's best for you. Your real friends are going to support you throughout your decisions, when you need to take on the opinion of yourself. Sometimes their opinion isn't needed so that you can take on your own. Doesn't mean you have to completely rib the opinions of others out of your life completely, and not take the advice of others. But there are times that you need to just take the advice of you and yourself . The rewards you get from that are more rewarding than anything else and the epiphanies you get from that self-evaluation are more important than any other advice you can get from any else, not that the opinions from others aren't important on what to do, but it's easier to get opinions from others than do the self-evaluation and find and follow your own opinion." -KT

One of the most rewarding conversations I have ever had with KT was just now when I told her I prayed for Brando before I knew him. That was a hard conversation for me to have with her, because she does not believe in God. But I do. I told her I've been thinking a lot about prayer lately and that I pray to God because I believe he is the only One. One of the Bible verses I grew up with was, "God will give you the desires of your heart." and time and time again I come back to that in prayer. I told her one of the important things about prayer that I've been realizing is that it clarifies our desires so when they confront us we recognize them and can make the choice to accept them and do what we need to do to have them in our lives. After I had Justinbustin, I prayed that God would give him a father before he was old enough to remember, because I couldn't handle him growing up without a father and then having some guy come into his life and be like, oh, hey, by the way, this is your Dad. I couldn't handle that and so I prayed that God would give Justinbustin a father before he was old enough to remember. And when Brando came along, I realized it. I realized he was the right one. He respected his mother, his mother respected his father, his mother called herself grandmother to Justinbustin before Brando and I had even been dating a week. I realized he was the one and I did what I had to do to make it happen. I told her I wasn't in love with him when I married him. I wasn't in love with him until almost two years later. Now I am head over heels butterfly in my stomach takes my breath away in love with him. But that's TEN YEARS LATER. The day I married him I looked at myself in the mirror and said, "R o s e, what are you doing?" I realized I wasn't in love with him, but I also realized he was the right man for me and I made the choice to marry him for that reason. My word, I could not have imagined the benefits that came from that decision.

After all I've said in this post, I realize I need to spend some time in prayer right now for the desires of my heart. I desire to have that something personal where we invest our time into together, to build a company with Brando where we can work together to support our family, where family time is priority, yet we have the gumption and the determination to realize that in order to have family time as priority we have to work together and no amount of arguing and clawing at each other's throats will get us there. Only communication, realization, learning, soaking in wise counsel, and working towards that goal together.