Growing and Learning

It's 8am, and I am sitting at my desk drinking hot chocolate and eating pomegranate seeds after walking through hail (yes, hail in Brooklyn in November) and freezing awful wind tunnels just to ride the stuffed elevator up to the ninth floor, and listen to Peter, my consumer with MR, give away all the main plot points to "Due Date", the movie he saw this weekend. My office, with the exception of one or two of my co-workers, is completely empty for the day.

A lot has happened in the past few weeks, and I've learned a lot - mostly about myself. I guess picking up and moving as I did enables you to do a lot of self reflection, as it were. After the hellish roller coaster ride that was this summer, it makes sense. It's nice to be feeling a little more settled in. I still have a lot of things to sort through and boxes to unpack (and let's not talk about the storage unit back home I have yet to tackle), but it's coming along, slowly but surely. It's both challenging and fulfilling, sorting through all the crap you've obtained over the years. It's refreshing to move into a new place and unpack things the way you want - a fresh start, both physically and mentally. I like it.

I've learned that helping people can have bad repercussions, and you have to be really careful. Careful about who you trust, and who you lean on; who you open yourself up to, and who you let in.

I've learned it's important to know what you want, and stay strong in that. Expectations can never be too high, and lowering them for something or someone shouldn't be an option.

I've learned that I need to remain true to myself, and I need to be more secure in my decisions and my actions. I lost sight of that for a while, and I'm slowly gaining it back. What I don't think people understand is that when you're knocked down so much and so far, sometimes it's takes a little bit of time to get yourself back up. Some people bounce back quickly - I take a little more time. But I'm getting there.

I have also learned that confidentiality needs to be adhered to more often, and this statement applies mainly to me. I've always considered myself to be a good listener, and a good friend. In the past couple of months, I think I let that slip a bit. While I remained truthful and honest, I think I lost sight of how important it is to sometimes just keep your mouth shut, even if you have good intentions. I owe apologies and promises that I have seen my mistakes and since grown past them. I have some great people in my life. I don't plan on losing them anytime soon.

I think I've grown up a lot in the past few months. I'm not thrilled at the way I did it, but I'm coming out better on the other end. I'm getting somewhere, and that makes me optimistic for things to come. I've started looking into graduate programs, and job opportunities I can grab onto through my organization - I applied to teach ballet to 5 year olds with autism and DS, which would just be amazing. I'm excited.