Things change

     Sometimes I get on my own nerves. Sometimes I get on other people's nerves. Sometimes I apparently tap-dance on the very last of all the nerves in the universe until it snaps. Who knew I knew how to tap-dance? *shrug*
     What it comes down to is this tiny little list I have written in my heart. I live by it, I have for most of my adult life, and for the majority of that time it was just my own personal standard of conduct. But in recent years I began to grow tired of the one-sidedness of that. Eventually I started to question why others should always be the recipients of my relationship standards, but not have to give anything in return. Next thing you know I'm getting ticked off at the few people in my life who are seemingly incapable of a two-way-street mentality. And now....well, now I'm just done. Heck....maybe someone has been tap-dancing on MY last nerve.
     The list is really very simple and small, and I hold it up to every relationship in my life. Be it a friendship, a loveship, a parentship---they all deserve the same standard of handling:

• When I've been wrong, I say I was wrong.
• When I've hurt someone, I say I'm sorry.
• When things are unsettled in a relationship, I try to fix them, asap. There's no point in walking about imagining yourself to be stoic as you suffer in silence.
• I listen. I may not agree, I may not like criticism, but I believe if your feeling it then I ought to be hearing it. It's an important opportunity to mend, heal, and grow, and I won't miss it.
• I give according to whats in my heart. I don't keep score, I don't do according to what's been done. If you have a place in my heart, then you will get the very best of me that's available to be given, always.

I've reached a point in my life where I now expect the same in return. I don't know if that is wrong or right, I'll be going to counseling soon and I'll let you know what the expert says about it. But that is where I am. I want to tattoo my list on my arm and ask people to sign a waiver agreeing to follow it before I let them share my life. I want to include a little PS that explains all about my tap-dancing skills, just so it's all out on the table before I open myself up. Obviously if your just pumping gas next to me and we're chatting about the weather for those few minutes, then your totally exempt. I'm not a complete loon.
        So all that to say this: things change. People change. Relationships change. For a zillion and eleven reasons. My reason....our reason, was cancer. It started out as this hole in our world. Now our whole world has changed. And I don't know what that says about me as a person. I don't know what that means for the future of my relationships. I do know there are very few people in my life who accept me as I am today the same as they accepted me as I was before all this change stuff started. But I am equally guilty of a lack of acceptance. I don't know what that means yet. I figure starting back at the beginning, with my list, is maybe a good first step for me.
    
Once again, not all butterflies in candyland 'round here, but what can a gal do except keep walking forward, and talking her head off trying to figure it all out?