A Year Reflection - Megan Marchese
The Journey?
“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” This quote from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off epitomizes the way I’m looking at the last year. Life was going by at an alarming rate, but I was always so focused on the many destinations, that I wasn’t paying much attention to the journey. Constantly thinking about what was next on the calendar of “things” we had going on, I wasn’t stopping and looking around, I was living in my head. When the shutdown started, there were many months of fear and anxiety to contend with. And there is still lingering fear and anxiety, with fatigue added into the mix, but the fear has taught me a few things, along with the general snail’s pace that is now my everyday life. This stillness has opened my eyes to things I hadn’t thought of or seen. Here are a few things I have learned in the last year:
Lessons Learned!
I have learned that I do not have to wash, dry, and straighten my hair every single day in order to leave the house feeling “put together”. (My inner frizzy haired hippie is most grateful for this lesson)
I have learned that sweatpants are perfectly acceptable errand running attire. Even if they are twelve years old, and as they get softer and softer from over a decades’ worth of washings, they become decidedly less black and closer to grey in color.
I have learned that I will have good days that end in -y, and bad days that end in -y, and that there does not have to be a reason behind what will make a day good or bad. It simply is, and I have learned the trick is to set aside judgment, and as best you can, accept yourself as you are, day by day, moment by moment.
I have learned that though Yoda has great wisdom to offer, “Do or do not, there is no try.”, was a big miss on his part. Keep trying. Keep practicing. Sometimes we learn more from our failures than we do our successes. And how can you know if you can do or do not, unless you try?
I have learned that sometimes nothing you say will matter. People will believe the things they want to believe, with or without evidence to support said belief. I suppose that’s why it’s a belief. Focus on the conversations you can have that will allow you to grow as a person, not make you feel like banging your head against the closest solid surface.
Because Matthew Broderick seems to be taking on the roll of my guru for these reflections, this year also brought to mind a line from Mel Brooks’ The Producers. Please don’t judge, but I do prefer the 2005 version to the 1967 original. In part due to my adoration of Nathan Lane, but mostly due to the fact that John Barrowman is in it, and even though he’s a singing Nazi, he’s still fabulous. One of the main characters, Leo Bloom, has spent his life going through the motions day by day, never really taking any time to think about what he’s doing, or even why he’s doing it. He finally gets the chance to do something he’s passionate about and he cries, “Stop the world, I want to get on!” He makes the decision to be an active participant in his life, to be a conscious part of the world around him. Now, the illegal activities and shenanigans of Leo Bloom and Max Bialistock that follow are not examples I am going to follow going forth, but the sentiment of being an active participant, not letting the world move along without embracing my life and living it with awareness, that is where I am going to put my focus going forth. All with a great deal of attention, and a few less split ends.
