News and Life

Alright... A real entry today.

First the news. According to an article in the Jerusalem Post, it has now been confirmed that Hamas over-exaggerated the number of deaths, as well as the percentage of civilian deaths. That also happened with Hezbolla in the Lebanon war, so it's not super surprising. The only surprise is that the world didn't catch the error. Well great. In other news, Netanyahu, with the second most votes in the election, has been given the power to try to form a coalition. He hopes to include Livni and Barak, but they plan to refuse. I guess we'll see what happens. I really am not sure what happens if a coalition gov. fails to form.

There has also been a good deal of change and fluidity in my personal life. Nothing major has happened and I don't really feel right talking about it in such a public forum. Basically, a friend and I have feelings for each other, but both think now is not the right time in our lives to enter a new relationship. The problem was that we hadn't spoken about it at all, and the unsaid words were causing tension in our close and supportive friendship. Losing the friendship was the last thing we wanted and we ended up finally talking about everything. In our conversation, we didn't really talk about anything unexpected or new. I kind of figured how it would go and agree with the decision we made (which was to stay platonic friends). The really wonderful stuff happened after the conversation.

I always find that when I make a really powerful and important decision, my mood when I wake up the next morning will tell me if I made the right choice or not. If I wake up feeling miserable, I know I chose incorrectly. If I wake up invigorated and excited about life, I have made the right choice. This morning, I woke up feeling relieved and contemplative (in a good way). I was sure we'd made the right decision and I was relieved that all the unsaid words would no longer be causing strain on our friendship. I felt like my mind had been so tied up the past few weeks obsessing about what was going on between us and what he has been thinking. When I woke up, I felt like I could finally think again. This whole journey is about figuring out my life and processing my past year, and I feel like I'm on the right track more so now than ever. I wrote a really long entry in my journal about Kiersten and my grandmother, both of whom passed away in the past year. I'm not going to write the whole thing here, but if I do write a book about my experiences this year, I plan to include the entry in full. Part of my excitement today was that I felt like working on a book about my journey. I've mentioned it to a lot of friends and readers and they've supported it enthusiastically. I don't really care if it gets published, but it's something I'd like to do in my lifetime and there's no time like the present. Besides it would be nice to have a written testimonial of my year that's all in one place.

But I've gone tangentially just now, albeit an important and valid tangent. What I wanted to write about was what I thought about this morning and all the things I realized. I've tended to live my life overly focused on the future. From the time I was young, I've spent so much time dreaming about what my life would be like and planning for the years to come, that I never spent enough time living in the present. When Kiersten died, I felt like I had to make every moment important and all I wanted was to get as far away as possible and just live, putting my future on hold. And it was good that I did so; I needed to do that. But I've met a lot of people on my trip who really live in the present, almost too much so. There's the mentality "I could get hit by a car tomorrow, so I should live each day like it's my last." And that's very true. But even more likely, I won't get hit by a car tomorrow, so I need to live each day fully, but aware that I'll wake up tomorrow with the consequences of my actions on my shoulders.

I think what I need now is balance. I think sometimes people get trapped in the present or the future or the past, and that's where the problem is. I used to be trapped in my future, and I had to face that I wasn't happy in the now. And many of the people I've met are trapped in the present; still traveling aimlessly and hoping meaning will come and find them. The key is to be able to move fluidly to move between past, present, and future as is necessary. Sometimes, I may need to dip into the past, to process the lost I've felt or relish in a comforting memory. And I don't intend to keep my future on hold for forever; doing my college apps and thinking about possible majors has helped me focus my energy on future plans. This whole trip has, in part, been about learning to live in the present, and I need to work to keep that ability. I feel like beginning to embark on a potentially lifelong quest to find balance between the three. At least now, I feel like I have more of a sense of what I'm trying to accomplish.