"those moments"

Okay, here is the truth.  I am sitting in front of my laptop and have been for about an hour.  My screen is white, ready for a new composition, and my text cursor has been flashing at me the entire time. As the cursor waits for me to type, it's like it has its own heartbeat; flash, pause, flash, pause, flash, pause....I have gotten up many times to do various things.  I made myself dinner, washed my dishes and did some other stuff to avoid that screen.  But, when I sit back down, there it is.  The text cursor.  Waiting.  Just waiting.  Haunting me; flash, pause, flash, pause, flash, what are you waiting for?, flash, you know what you're going to type, flash, just do it, flash, what are you...chicken?, flash.

So, since I started the blog, I have received many different types of responses.  I am thankful for them.  They include various words of encouragement and comments, and so on. There is a similar theme that runs through most of those responses, and it goes something like this: "It looks like you have are having the time of your life!".  Well, yes, friends this is true.  The pictures don't lie and neither do my entries.  If I spent time making up lies and exaggerations about my experiences, that would just be silly (please conveniently forget the title of my second entry in March).  If I was reading another person's blog, I would be captivated by the stories and pictures.  I would enjoy being a part that person's adventure. But, there is something that you don't know.  There is dark and unspoken side to the life of a blogger. It is so dark, that it is rarely spoken of.  My fellow bloggers may have just broken out in a cold sweat, are shaking their heads while saying "Noooo!" under their breath, have started reading more intently, all while hoping I will not reveal that dark and unspoken secret.  But, I have to.  I must.  That secret is honest, raw emotions and (do I dare say it) feelings.

Honest, raw emotions and feelings make most people uncomfortable.  Even talking about them is a touchy subject  (Hence staring at the text cursor for an hour). Honest and raw emotions come from a place deep within.  A lot of people just try to cover them up, lie to themselves about them even existing, or are in complete ignorance to where they are residing within them.  There are various ways that those raw emotions portray themselves.  In fact, there are more ways than I can count and even more ways than I could pretend to have any knowledge of.  I just know that raw and honest emotion is hard, sometimes scary, and reveals the depths of  a person's heart. 

In deciding to start a blog I had to make a hard decision.  I had to choose what and how much of "me" I wanted to include in each post.  It's really easy to paint a glorious picture in a blog.  All I have to do is talk about the good, juicy, adventurous details.  It's pretty much that simple. That's what everyone want to hear about anyway, right?  But here is my conundrum.  Is that the real truth?  Just because I AM living in the most amazingly beautiful place, lovin' my job, and seeing sights that I thought I would only ever read about in a book, does that make me exempt from having everyday thoughts or discouragement?  Nope.  In fact (unfortunately) I think it magnifies them.  Being removed from the comforts and routine of my life back home has caused me to think about some of those deep and unspoken raw emotions.  Situations from my past have popped into my mind like a huge burp after eating tuna fish. (On a side note, tuna fish smells so nasty but we still eat it. And, it tastes good.  How is this possible?). 

I really am living every moment while I am here, but I still have "those moments".  I have those honest, emotional moments.  Processing stuff that's hard is uncomfortable and yucky (think tuna burp). There's really nothing easy about it.  And, even yuckier and more uncomfortable is vulnerably admitting that I have "those moments".  But here's the part that I dislike the most:  it's just life.  And, in this case, it's my life.  If I was to constantly live with honest and raw emotions that wouldn't be healthy (and totally annoying to others and myself), but keeping anything locked up inside isn't a way to live either.  Now, I don't write this to be a Debbie Downer.  No, not in the least.  I do my best to live this life that I have been given and try to not take it for granted.  I know that life is precious and don't want to waste it.  But in living it, moments of emotion, memory, dashed hope and unanswered dreams are a real thing and not to be ignored or down-played. While I am "enjoying this moment, for this moment is my life", I think about the life I thought I would be living right now.  It definitely isn't the life that I am living.  But isn't that the crux of most situations!?  Most situations never go exactly as planned!  I could bore you or make you uncomfortable with the details of some of the stuff I've been thinking, but that's not why I decided to write about it.  I decided to write about it because it's part of life and part of the moments that we (I) live. Whether we like those moments or not, they still happen and we (I) have to decide what to do with them. Everyday, in life, I have a choice to make. The real emotions of discouragement, hurt, raw feelings, betrayal, loss, and grief are valid and are different for all people.  For the deepest pains, processing those cannot be determined by a book or someone else's opinions of healing time. Every situation is different. I don't pretend to take lightly a person's deepest pain. And, I especially don't pretend to know what every person has experienced. But, at some point we all have a choice to deal with whatever has happened in our lives.  Most of the time it isn't easy, but it is true.

Being in Israel does not make me exempt from making daily choices about my thoughts.  As each moment comes, I have to decide how I am going to process my own life and how every thought and action will affect all of my tomorrows.  I know that it's normal to have a horrible day sometimes. But if I stay in that forever-state of horribleness, it could become a part of me and I would wonder how I ever ended up as such a grump!  Not only do I want to live my life to the fullest, I want to encourage others to live their lives, as well. And, if I was a grump all the time, the only way that I would be affecting others is by pushing them away.

So amongst all of the juicy, good, and adventurous detail, I am a normal girl, processing stuff that's tough.  Life is what we make it and what we choose it.  And, I choose to live, even in "those moments", because processing through them prepares me for the next "those moments".  'Cause as long as I'm living, they're gonna to happen.

As to not end on such a melancholy note, can't we all relate to this? Something so small can seem so big....even a sandwich:

I've watched this at least 20 times. I laugh every time.  



Even though it's hard to read, her shirt says," Enjoy Every Moment".

Awesome. :)