Cloudy Mirror

As you can see, it’s been a while since I last posted. I’ve missed blogging too, because I really do love to write and the subject matter of this Cloudy Mirror Blog is always on my mind. The excuse that I’ve been making for myself is that I just haven’t had time to do it. Then one day, while doing some tedious and not-really-necessary-task, I realized that I’ve been spending a lot of my time doing things that I really don’t enjoy. Why is that? Do I really have my priorities straight?

It’s a tad bit distressing to be asking myself this now, because I seem to remember not too long ago, that I sat down and made a list of priorities for myself where I decided what was important to me and what wasn’t. Where did I go wrong? How did I stray so far from my “Big Plan” to do things that I enjoy and to make efforts to do things just for me? What happened to make me forget the direction in which I was headed?

Well, the answer is that life happened. I got caught up in the standard day-to-day activities of my life and I began to forget about myself again. It’s so easy to do. I just always seem to have a million things going on, and for some reason, I seem to prioritize the things that I want to do for myself (paying attention to my health, reading, writing, exploring new hobbies etc.) after everything else, so I don’t really ever get to them.

First of all, because of constantly advancing technology, not only can we get more things done in a short period of time these days, but we feel that we have to jam-pack our schedules or we’re just wasting time. Our employers expect more and more productivity out of us because technology to make our jobs “easier” is being developed all the time. And simply because we are able to instantly contact people via e-mail or instant messengers, we feel guilty if we can’t find time to type a quick note and hit send. Think about it: 20 years ago, how long would it have taken us to make a transfer at the bank, buy a new winter coat, and buy groceries for dinner? Those tasks could easily have taken up half a day. Now we can do it all in minutes online. And because we can do so much so fast now, we feel that we must.

Also I have this problem, as many people do, where if certain people in my life ask or need me to do something for them, I have a very hard time telling them no… even if I don’t really want to do it. Thankfully, this group of people, for me, is relatively small but the things I end up doing for them still seem to take up a lot of time. Of course, it’s my job as a mother to do these things for my child, who is too young to do most things on her own, so I’m not complaining about that. It’s the other people to whom I give my time. Why are their wants and needs more important than mine? How can I begin to learn to say no? Continue Reading »

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Affection is like a drug. We crave it. We actively seek it out. Sometimes, once we’ve had a taste, we might do almost anything to get just a little bit more. It can give us an emotional high to which we desperately cling because the mere thought of being without it is so painfully dreadful. The addictive quality of affection has the power to change our behavior and our personalities to the point that we are no longer acting as our true selves.

It’s completely natural to want affection from our family and from romantic partners. To feel loved can be an exhilarating feeling and it can provide us with a sense of comfort in our lives. To be denied affection from those we care about can be devastating. Especially if we have been without affection for a period of time, a simple hug, caress or a few kind words can be enough to set our hearts aflutter and ignite our desire for more.

The scary thing is that, especially in romantic situations, it’s entirely possible to love the attention and affection that someone gives us, without really loving the person who is giving it to us. Now, in the earliest stages of a romantic relationship, it isn’t always easy to distinguish what we’re really attached to in the other person. At that point, it’s usually such a whirlwind of emotions and we’re often so giddy and happy that we don’t really care to analyze why we’re into this other person. We may even ignore things about the other person that might really bother us if we were thinking more clearly. Just the fact that the interest seems mutual and that we’re getting affection is often enough to keep us flying emotionally high… for a while, at least.

At some point, the tediousness of constantly acting as someone other than our true selves can wear us down, though we may never recognize that as being the real problem. We just start to recognize that what used to make us happy in a relationship just doesn’t seem to be enough anymore.

In a romantic situation, we may think that the novelty of the new relationship has simply worn off. We might not realize that, in casting aside bothersome qualities about the other person, we have been denying ourselves of the qualities that we really want in a romantic partner. For instance, if our partner is constantly pointing out things that are wrong with us, or things that we should improve about ourselves, we may be inclined think of it as “constructive criticism”. Instead of admitting to ourselves that this other person might have unreasonable expectations of us, we choose to ignore that he/she is doing anything other than trying to help us… because if we don’t ignore it, we might have to come down off of this happy cloud that we’re on and we may have to give up that affection and that “pretty picture” to which we’ve become so attached. It’s might also be equally or more disheartening to think about the fact that the other person may be guilty of ignoring characteristics in us too, because they desire to keep affection that we give as well. Continue Reading »

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