spring...?

this weather is confusing the heck out of me. instead of reveling in the flowering quince by our front porch (from whence my blog banner picture comes) or gloating about fresh-air laundry out on the line for the first time this season, or going coatless to church, i have this vague sense of waiting... like it's not really spring yet, so let's not embrace all the physical evidence that says it is. i mean, seriously, it's only february! the almanac says we're going to have a big snow at the end of this month (or so i heard - i don't read the almanac) so if that happens, will we just put our spring-like feelings on the shelf? it's like knowing you're moving away so you don't want to invest in any personal relationships. why risk the pain of impending winter by rejoicing in the present spring? i'm subconsciously guarding my heart against weather pain.

that sounds ridiculous, even to me.

it's so beautiful outside!! i love it!! i'll take the heartache if we end up in a blizzard soon...

the cats are enjoying the weather also.

this was walter bishop's first foray out of the house since we've had him. he was intensely mesmerized by every single noise...

notice his fuzzy fur - it's always sticking out on all sides. cracks me up. i wonder if it's a kitten thing or just how his fur is...
and... lick-pounce.
maeby was quite the sedate matron in the midst of walter bishop's frenetic romping... she's the older, more mature cat now, y'know.

all that romping wore the little feller out...

this heart guarding thing - as silly as it is to practice where the weather is concerned, it's got me thinking about people. (brace yourself for a series of long, self-reflective paragraphs...)

today i've been mulling over something. there's a specific personality type that really rubs me the wrong way. it's diametrically opposite of mine, so it's easy for me to view it as 'wrong' since i'm so 'right', but i'm gradually coming to understand that it's not wrong, it's just totally different from mine. i'm starting to form some thoughts about how i should be interacting with this kind of person in a healthy way.

this particular kind of person i'm referring to likes to be friends with a lot of people and interact with them all on a certain level that i want to call 'shallow', but i don't think it's that easy to name. from my perspective it seems shallow, but that's because from my personal perspective, i like to be friends with just a few people and go deep and intense with them, and have all their focus trained on me and i'll give them all of my attention and we'll both understand each other and be friends. that's what 'right' looks like to me.

the problem is, that's only 'right' for other people who are like me. and because of the diversity and uniqueness of us all, there are a LOT of people out there not like me at all. but turns out they're not all wrong. what?!

it's true.

i'm finally, at the ripe old age of 33, facing the fact that i'm not the perfect standard of humanity.

one of the problems that keeps rearing its ugly head in this scenario of people is when i'm friends with someone who's not like me, and when they're not willing to give what i'm expecting them to give, then i turn into this ultra sensitive person who gets easily offended by them and is watching them in social situations to see if they just don't like me or if they treat everyone as cavalierly as i feel they've treated me... and it turns into a bit of a situation. i'm realizing that no one likes people who are easily wounded or who look at them with reproachful eyes. no one likes walking on eggshells around people who they've hurt for reasons they don't entirely understand.

i had slowly figured this out with one friendship in particular and come to a healthy place of balance in my expectations and in the reality of our friendship, but now i have 3 separate friendships in which i recognize similar patterns.

here's what it looks like in list form: (i love lists.)

step 1: somewhere along the way, we agree that we enjoy each other's company & we become friends

step 2: i give and hope to receive overtures of quality time/meaningful interaction with said friend

step 3: they don't live up to my standards of what that should look like. they somehow act in such a way that i feel shows that they don't care about me, according to my standards of what it means for friends to care about each other

step 4: i feel hurt & start interacting with them in a way that communicates they hurt me and i passively aggressively let them know in no uncertain terms but still pursue quality time/meaningful interaction in hopes that they'll redeem themselves

step 5: they do in fact redeem themselves and we're still friends

or...

step 5: they withdraw from my weirdness

step 6: i wonder why

when list it out so clearly, i marvel that i have any friends at all! :-)

i've vaguely thought about these things before, and come to the conclusion that the people with whom i have these 'conflicts' just don't understand me and if they tried a little, they would see how easy it is to be what i want them to be and we could be friends again. or at least if they showed a tiny little bit of wanting to understand, a drop in the bucket of caring why i respond the way i do, then i could live with that, too...

but actually, what i'm now realizing is that even by recognizing the pattern and coming to some possibly true conclusions, i'm missing the truest conclusion:

that it's not up to them, it's up to me.

i'm responsible for my own healthy/unhealthy reactions. i'm in charge of how much i expect of someone or how i respond when i feel hurt.

what has helped the most in that first relationship i mentioned is that i started limiting how open i am. as a general rule, i tend to lay everything out there, whether the person asks for it or not. i'm an open book, to a fault. and it just might be a fault. because with that openness, i then assume the other person will respond with equal openness & friendly devotion. and when they don't... refer to above pattern.

so where it's dumb to guard my heart against spring, it might be smart to start guarding my heart just a little bit in friendships. but here's the tricky part:

remaining available, not withdrawing into a hurt shell, but not offering all of me, all the time, with the unreasonable expectations that are associated with that offering.

this may not make a whole lot of sense to you, but it's revelatory to me. and if you've stuck with me this far without following a single bit of this train of thought... well, here's your reward for persevering:

this is my first attempt at a stuffed robot. nick decided his name should be robo the hobo. he wanted me to sew a 5 o'clock shadow on his face but i just couldn't do it. asher had his first birthday (he's one year old today!!) so i made him a robot to help him along in his second year of life. since asher's only word is 'ba!', it's possible that this will be 'ba! the robot' instead of robo the hobo, but maybe i'll make one for nick someday. with a hobo beard.