personal realization #8 - the dark day

last saturday was, in the words of luke daines from gilmore girls, a dark day.  i have put my life on hold for about 5 weeks while working towards a goal.  last saturday i checked on the status of obtaining that goal.  the result i received was absolutely demoralizing and discouraging to the point that i spent most of the day crying and i never cry.  i mean i NEVER cry...unless i'm watching a pedigree dog commercial or preview for a disney film about an orphan chimpanzee.  if in the unlikely event that a tear does spill from my eye, i am extremely quick to shut down the tear ducts immediately before there is more splash down.

after many hours of an absolutely dejected and discouraged mood i opted to call my joani.  she said all the right things but there was something about the fact that she was saying these things through a telephone instead of directly to my face that made my mood even worse.  she then recommended that i call big lug to talk about what my next options for this goal could be.  i waited a few hours to get the crying under control to call him.  around 8pm i dialed his phone number and thankfully for me, but unlucky for him, he answered the phone with a "hey" and i immediately started crying.  i love my brother very much.  even more so because he was so patient with me during this phone call where my voice kept breaking and the silence on my end was, at times, deafening.

he took all the information i gave him and analyzed it to produce options for the next step towards my achievement of this goal.  he looked at the issues plaguing me and causing copious amounts of tears from a third party perspective and then compassionately helped me realize that all hope was not loss, nor would it ever be completely lost.  this ultimate goal just might take more effort and help from others.  i could no longer rely on only myself to gain success.  that was news to me but made perfect sense.

my life has been a road of hard work and receiving the fruits of that hard work.  i was taught at the knee of my joani to work hard for something that is worth achieving.  up until now i would estimate the veracity of that formula in almost 100% of the things i have worked hard for.  the fact that it wasn't working with this next goal was an entirely foreign concept to me which is why i didn't know how to handle the perceived failure of my dark day.  

i guess it was inevitable that this moment would happen.  i'm not sure i would have chosen this particular goal for this personal realization to take place.  it was a tough realization to swallow to know that hard work doesn't always equal getting what i want.  instead, i'm choosing to focus on allowing my family and friends to extend extra love & support and to ask for help because i can't do this on my own.  that is a personal realization that i can get behind and will hopefully cause less crying in the future.