Phone Date with a Friend

Soooo...I had a phone date with a friend. I simply wanted to talk about what we did over the New Year's break, what we ate for dinner, my new hair style, themes in a movie we've happen to have seen, favorite Tony! Toni! Tone! songs even hehe. But there was this urge that decided the shallow, yet relevant flags I love to wave (because they're so lite and airy and colorful :-) had to be placed on their pole and the deeper flags, which are a tad more cumbersome, needed to show their rare, yet fascinating colors: Relationships, intentions, goals....oh my! (By the way, when IS IT okay to start revealing such sensitive information?) So my friend started talking.....aaannnddd I started feeling my anxiety build up. I began to feel let down, embarrassed even. I started to get the sense that my friend and I had somewhat different views/ideas on relationships and intentions...oh my....oh no! (Individual goals were pretty subjective)  And the more I tried to relay my views on relationships, the more tangled, complicated and distorted my views became, until finally..."I'm just jaded" were the only words I had left. I'm 27 years old....there's no way I could be jaded already...right? I've read relationship books, witnessed broken and great relationships...I've even been in a couple relationships myself....yet, it turns out the older I get, it seems the more complicated life gets, including relationships. Weeeelllll...essentially, here is what my friend had to say about that: it doesn't have to be complicated, know God and let him guide your footsteps. Whhhhaaaattt? Ugh, come on. The idea was very simply put....I've heard the idea before....and I KNOW I've utilized this concept in my life....haven't I?

That statement and our convo lingered when I hung up the phone. I started thinking about challenging moments in my life.  During these moments, I had no choice but to acknowledge I was absolutely clueless on how I would conquer these particular challenges and I needed help...from someone much more powerful than me...Now, I won't get into my personal religious upbringing and beliefs, but I can say I consider myself Christian. And I can attest that anytime I've ever acknowledged being utterly powerless and unknowing....and prayed for help....challenging situations literally worked themselves out. Then, I had an interesting thought: I've never really acknowledged being completely powerless when it came to relationships! For some reason, I've been trying to figure it out on my own! Relationship books, convos with girlfriends, extracting lessons learned from past relationships, analyzing my childhood ...I've literally taken all of these aspects and tried to create the perfect formula to having a successful relationship:

5XY + assertiveness - 2XY * 83.88 - compatibilty (2%X - Z)  

8%genuineness * r (45/zxy) + chemistry

Geez, no wonder my over analytically brain feels like it's going to explode haha I had to laugh at myself for separating relationships from other aspects of life. I mean, why put relationships in a separate corner that had to be handled more intricately than other life issues? Life is complicated because people are complex and complicated....it's just in our nature. There's no way to fully understand another person's thoughts or predict someone's actions. Trying to decipher relationships is like trying to decipher people... And I'm not saying that taking lessons from books and past relationships is a bad thing, but I think they should be used as....hmmm, let's see...."relationship reinforcement tools." Keep these tools in your back pocket and pull them out when you need them, but they shouldn't be your map....I'm going to go on a limb here and say treat relationships as any other challenging situation, ACKNOWLEDGE YOU CAN'T FIGURE IT OUT ON YOU OWN. Let someone more powerful show you the way....let God be your map. Something I already knew...I just needed to look at it from a different angle. Thanks friend :-)

**Peace,Love,&Happiness**

Now, enjoy my favorite Tony! Toni! Tone! video :-D.....

And...a completely unrelated performance by Ellie Goulding that made me download her album one night...I like her music :-D