"At some point, you have to make a decision. Boundaries don't keep other people out. They fence you in. Life is messy. That's how we're made. So, you can waste your lives drawing lines. Or you can live your life crossing them." - Meredith Grey, Grey's Anatomy.
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Boundaries. I've been thinking about them a lot recently. It occurred to me just how many lines and boundaries we give ourselves, even during one simple day. For example, no matter how tired I am, I never, ever wake up later than 12 noon. It doesn't matter if I went to bed at 10am, it doesn't happen. Over the last few days however, for some reason I've been growing steadily more and more tired, and today I awoke after a night of not really sleeping at 12:07. Not over by a lot, but I still crossed that line of what I deem to be acceptable, and was thus rather disgusted at myself. How common is the phrase, "There was a line, and it's been crossed."? It was said every other mealtime at University this year. (Usually in response to some vulgar statement or another said at the dinner table). We as humans do it all the time. Make boundaries. They're to put things into boxes to make them neater for us to understand. Defence mechanisms. We do it for all sorts. Timings, work ethics, fitness, finance, relationships.
But as Dr. Grey says, we can carry on drawing them, or we can live our lives crossing them. How do we know how to maintain the balance? How do we know which lines are a lot better being there rather than being scuffed out? The simple answer is we don't. For those situations, we have to use our own judgement. People are so afraid of negative change...adverse effects that there are lines that are never crossed, regardless of whether the grass is, quite plainly, greener on the other side. It might just be a trick of the light, after all. Alright, so me waking up seven minutes after my absolute 110% cut off time didn't really effect me other than the fact I had to get my own lunch, but some things are a lot more important.
How do we choose?
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It seems as though the guitar I bought was, for want of a better word, useless. Therefore I'm going to keep my electric and merely sell my semi-acoustic to anyone who'll have it. That's the problem with being impatient, as I rather was with that. Ah well. I didn't do any Pilates today, I didn't have any motivation for it. Still, I did some yesterday, so as long as I do some tomorrow, I'm keeping in with my 'once every other day' regime. I'm sick and tired of looking in the mirror and grimacing. Alright, so I'm very, very thankful for my metabolism...but it's not a question of size. For me, it's the embarrassment that I can't even touch my toes. It's the embarrassment that my sixty-nine year old grandmother is a hell of a lot fitter and more energy-filled than I am. I've no need to lose weight...I just want to get fitter, and it's going to happen if I have to cry blood to achieve it.
I was going to write up a weblog yesterday, but I felt rather peevish and out of sorts after my father left. There was, as always, a little bit of a hoohah between the two of us over dinner. I just agree with everything he says now. I can't win, even when I said yes, Buzz Aldred was the first man on the moon and it wasn't Neil Armstrong (I kid you not), he sneered and talked down at me. "Here y'ar then...if you think you know so much about--" It tires me out. Then Nana stuck up for me and all I could do was look down at my plate and not let the tears fall. I don't ask for it...but it seems like I cause some sort of rift by just being there. It hurts. I love my grandparents more than...well...not to be sentimental and cliche...but I love them more than anything and to see them angry or hurt....it hurts me in ways I'm not even going to attempt to describe.
Life sucks, but I know that at any given point tomorrow I'm going to smile. I'll make someone else smile tomorrow, and although that may not seem like a lot, it's enough to keep me going for now.
