I hear the winds of March tapping on my window. They’re filled with questions about life’s uncertainties. I’m learning to accept that seasons change, that time continues to run, at times like a speeding hare, but always steady as a tortoise. The storms of life will not be ignored.

This past weekend, not a lot happened, but everything happened. I had counted on it to be two days of drowning myself in books and spending some good quality time with me, myself, and I. What ended up happening was just a bunch of things that forced me to wonder if I am really placing value in myself, or if I’m allowing others to diminish that value.

Embracing my inner Boho

I really shouldn’t have even bothered pretending I wouldn’t buy anything when I went “window shopping” on Saturday morning. As I entered one of my favorite little stores, I came across a beautiful display of flower headbands. Boho-chic has always been my secret obsession when it comes to style. And yes, maybe even the Bohemian lifestyle, although maybe not so much the free love and sex part, but more so the artsy, I love what I love and don’t give a damn what you think part.

Now, I’ve always wanted to experiment with flowers in my hair, but I never had the nerve to do it, just because I was afraid it might look weird on me. Then I realized I just didn’t care anymore. I wanted to try it, and so I bought one.

Part of me has tried to repress my eccentricities in order to be what others want me to be. In order to be someone who others will like. I’ve always tried to follow conventions, to be that good girl who tries to please other people. Big time people pleaser. And I never questioned authority or went through any kind of teenage rebellion. I did what I was told, believed what my parents taught me to believe.

However, in recent years, I’ve been questioning myself and my choices. I’ve been feeling like a gnarled, old tree with its roots stuck unmovably in the ground. I look up at the sky and see the clouds, free-formed and flowing wherever the wind takes them, and I wonder what that would be like.

That is not to say I don’t believe in the core values I was taught. If anything, I think I’ve just questioned if that is what I truly believe and reaffirmed that it is. But when it comes to my style and my choices, I think it’s time to stop caring what other people think or how they’ll judge me if I don’t go along with them but do what’s best for me instead.

Accepting seasons of change

I’ve been eager for a vacation. For a while now, my friend and I had plans to visit our other friend in Hawaii in April. Well, after discovering that the timing of this trip wouldn’t be ideal, and that it would be costly and not worth it for just a few days, we decided to put together a different plan. My friend proposed a trip to Seattle instead. She had been wanting to go in the summer for her birthday, but going in April would reduce expenses by quite a bit. Then after getting my hopes up, she decided to go in with her boyfriend in the summer after all. Of course, she still invited me to go along with them, but really, who wants to be a third wheel?

And so, just like that, all April vacation plans were cancelled.

I spent all of Sunday afternoon feeling sad and bitter, allowing other people to dictate my emotions.

I’m not really accusing my friend of anything. After all, I probably would rather spend a vacation with my significant other too, if I had one. It’s just that season in life when friends will choose their romantic interests over their friends, and that’s something I have to accept.

I realized though that I wasted a perfectly good Sunday allowing someone else to affect my happiness. As great as my friends are, reality is that they will disappoint me sometimes. But I can’t be living for them. I can’t be scheduling my life and my emotions around them. They should not be the center of my life.

I can’t wait for them to do things that I want to do. I can’t allow anyone else to affect my happiness except me. I can’t wait around for that special someone to come into my life before I make plans or gain the experiences I want.

I’m done waiting and wishing and yearning. I’ll still take a vacation, but on my own terms. I’m going where I want, when I want. Not where people want me to go at their convenience. And if I have to go alone, so be it.

Rejecting Poison

A little later that same afternoon, my parents called up my uncle, who asked why this guy he tried setting me up with couldn’t contact me through Facebook anymore. Of course, it was because I blocked him. He had made a few critical comments that I didn’t appreciate regarding food that I made. Maybe he didn’t know they were inappropriate, since there is something of a cultural block between us. (Pun not intended). But I made the decision because I’d pretty much had enough of my family trying to set us up, and I was only trying to protect myself from rudeness, whether intentional or not.

I’m not even sure why I was so upset over this. I guess I just don’t like when anyone tries to manipulate me into being friends with someone I don’t like, especially with a guy I’m not attracted to. It’s one thing to be friends, but it was obvious that’s not all he wanted. Let’s just say, he probably looked at my face and saw a green card on the horizon. I don’t know if that was his motive, but forgive me for being wary, when he mentioned it several times in his communications to me. Honestly, maybe if we had met outside of family, I would have liked him more. But the fact is, I didn’t appreciate how he was trying to worm his way into my family without establishing a friendship with me first. Again, maybe it’s a culture thing. Then AGAIN, maybe it’s that I’m tired of feeling guilty for not being able to like someone I like while being coerced into liking someone I don’t like, if that makes any sense.

In any case, this, combined with the whole no vacation fiasco led to my decision to deactivate my Facebook account. Of course at first, it was for all the wrong reasons. I did it because I was not liking people at the moment, and I didn’t want to see their romantic couple pictures, exotic vacation getaways, or hear about how becoming a mommy changes EVERYTHING they ever thought they knew.

Then after I felt a little better, I realized I was being rather petty. But I decided it was still wise to stay away from Facebook for the moment. I was having an unhealthy relationship with it, using it to post my anxieties or to compare myself with others. I was sharing way too much of myself in my statuses, kind of like what I’m doing now, but it’s somehow different when I do it with people I know versus the unrecognizable faces of the Internet world. People I know will judge me and think I’m a psychopath. But you guys….will also think I’m a psychopath, yet it won’t change the way you think about me because to you, I’ve been a psychopath from the beginning of whatever you’ve read.

ANYWAY, there’s a truth that it’s not good to post too much of oneself, to reveal too much. I need to protect myself from people. I need to not allow them to hurt me. And for now, I think the best way to do that is to stay away from the temptation of allowing the number of likes I receive to tamper with my emotional highs and lows, to get away from all those pictures that are causing me to compare myself to others, to stop the addiction of social media overtaking my life, and instead, allow myself to live life away from my phone, to live in the moment rather than constantly wondering what other people are doing at that same moment.

I need to stop the addiction of making people like me, of craving the attention of certain individuals who don’t reciprocate, of trying to earn affections of people who couldn’t care less or exposing my vulnerabilities to them when they aren’t willing to do the same (this more so with guys).

I need to stop living with the sole purpose of pleasing others, when it’s causing me heartbreak and pain.

Right now, I’d really rather be with people I don’t know (you) than with my friends and family (who I’m quite thankful don’t read my blog).