This is totally not life-related, but in a reading for one of my classes that I teach, the phrase “horizons of expectations” appears. And I read it, and was completely taken aback.

It made me think… do I have horizons for my expectations? Horizons are boundaries, limits… but I suppose they could also be seen as a line of infinite possibilities. Horizons are what we see when we gaze out from where we are now. What happens if we move towards those horizons, and new ones open up? The thing with horizons is that they are ever-changing, depending on where you are. Move towards them, and… they move farther away.

But if I don’t move towards those horizons… if I limit my movements to the current view, the current horizon? Am I not giving myself the chance to achieve more? Have I built walls around my dreams?

And what could I do if I expanded those horizons… if I knocked down those walls?

As in, my head was spinning yesterday morning from my idiocy and just an all around off morning. Good grief. (I know, I sound like Charlie Brown, but … it’s the perfect phrase for this…).

My morning included messing up formatting (formatting!) on a proposal document, realizing at 10:30 am that my fly was down all morning, and having a sore arm from my shots the previous day.

And then this morning I remembered…as we are all remembering today.

The clear, cloudless sky and the day that things changed forever.

I remember it especially because it was a pivotal week in my life – for many reasons – and because I started the job later that fall that led me down the path I am on now.

The reason I got that job was linked to what happened 18 years ago today. I will never forget that – for my own personal reasons. I know no one else who lived through it will ever forget it either.

It stuns me that the students who are first-years this year were born either that year or the year after, and that they have no memories other than what they have been told and what they have seen through the years.

Time marches on. We get caught up in the pettiness of our everyday lives, annoyed at ourselves for screwing up formatting, or forgetting to zip our fly… and then we are brought up short, remembering how in an instant, life can change.

The formatting doesn’t matter.
The wardrobe dysfunction doesn’t matter.
Not in the grand scheme of things.

I needed that reminder – that I am a small (very, very small) cog in the wheels of the universe. That I have the power to put the positive, the good, the light into the world with every breath…

Time to make the choice for today. I choose light. I hope you do, as well.

Talk about an overused and trite analogy, but sometimes they are overused because, well, they’re true.

We had the loudest thunderstorm I think I have ever heard last night. It woke me up out of a sound sleep at 11:45, and I did not get back to sleep for an hour. I thought it hit right above my apartment. Fortunately, the power only blipped off and on and my computer and phone did not fry (whew). But goodness.

And it made me think about some of the realizations that I have had recently… the ones that have come out of the blue.

The voice I hear that says “you need to do this”. The realization that if I am not happy in a relationship, then maybe it’s not worth pursuing or keeping up the relationship. I spend so much time (as I said in yesterday’s post) dithering and seeking answers outside of me, and sometimes…sometimes the answers come so suddenly.

Is that because I have been seeking for so long? Or is it because the universe just gets fed up with my dithering and just wants me to get on with it?

Whatever it is… sometimes what I need in life is a wake up call.

Fall, winter – they’re supposed to be the settling-in seasons. The cozy ones, full of family and friends and traditions.

And I can’t help but think that my fall and winter are going to be seasons of change.

I have a habit – not a bad on, per se, but a habit nonetheless – of seeking answers from others… books, websites, other (presumably wiser) people. And this weekend, it occurred to me that perhaps I need to ask myself … and seek the answers within.

I’m struggling with whether and how to bring up what, for me, is a BIG issue in a relationship. And I have spent the last…month? I think? …primarily worrying about what the other person thinks, finding out their perspective, their concerns, their needs and wants.

And yet… in all of that… I have never stopped to ask myself what *I* want. I haven’t asked myself the same questions that I want to ask this other person.

Without that information, how on earth can I decide what I want out of this relationship? Basing my knowledge and my actions solely on the (anticipated) reactions and responses of another means that I have completely removed myself from consideration.

I do this when I work, too. I spend so much time seeking out the answer, the one piece of information that is the key to making my hypothesis work. I have spent more time in the literature looking for a study that someone MUST have done… only to find that no, no one has done it, and that means that I can do it!

Is it a matter of trusting myself? Or is it simply that I am in the habit of deferring to others and putting my needs, wants and interests on the sidelines?

I think it might be time to change that. Not that my thoughts, desires, and wants are more important than those of the other person, but that they are equally important, particularly if I want to be an equal partner in this (and any other) relationship. Or if I want to make a difference in my work.

So it’s time to be quiet, to look inside myself for the answers. To seek direction from my own soul, my own wants and needs.