My Journal 070

“YOU ARE AMAZING”

Someone said that to me last night. I asked what prompted it, but I got brushed off. That wasn’t important though, I sort of knew why she had said that and I think that she was just being kind to me. But it REALLY felt good to hear that.

Years ago I lived for recognition and praise. I loved football, track and boxing. I loved trying to be perfect, winning, and breaking the other guy’s heart. But between you and me, my biggest love was all the recognition I would get. I loved hearing cheers. I loved hearing my name on the PA system. I loved that girls would throw themselves at me. I loved that parents wanted me to be their kid. I loved that everyone wanted to be me.

For the past few weeks I have been putting down on paper some events from my past. I did this because I finally found someone that I think would believe me, and who wanted to know. But while revisiting these moments from my past, I sort of remembered who I was and how I have changed over the past 8 months. I’ve changed trying to be something I am not just to try to be something for someone else.

I remembered that success isn’t measured by other people. It’s measured by me. I remembered that being a good person means doing good when no one is looking. I remembered that being honest means doing honest things when no one can find out if you didn’t. And I remembered that doing what is right for others is far more rewarding than doing what is right for me.

But more than that, I remembered that you can measure people by how they handle the same concepts. If someone says one thing to me and another to someone else, then there is a reason. If someone can’t be honest with me then there is a reason. And most important, if someone can’t do what’s right for me then they truly don’t care about me for their own reasons.

I don’t care about the reasons. I only care about the actions. Life is really simple.

I’ve got a friend that has been trying to do right by me, and I ignored her. I may have lost that person forever because I believed in someone else.

Bad call? Only time will tell.

But for someone to try to understand where I am, what’s going on in my life, and to make a point to go out of their way just to say, “YOU ARE AMAZING”; well that means a lot to someone like me who believes that deep inside I am a waste of life sometimes.

I will try to reconnect with the friend I lost. I will definitely make my friend who wrote this one phrase know how much I needed that line, even though I don’t live for praise anymore. And if someone else can’t make me a priority every once in a while then they can have their own priorities, and I’ll make mine.

We are all constantly faced with choices in this life. Who you are inside will dictate to you what choice you need to make. The problem is some people still won’t make that choice. We can’t judge them because we don’t know their reasons. But we can make a choice to remember their choices, and gage our lives accordingly.

So . . . . thank you for telling me that I am amazing. You turned a beautiful light on in an otherwise dark moment.