As you may already know, I'm a big fan of asking questions that have no answers. No real true hard fact answers, which makes thinking about those questions and talking about those questions all the more fun... Fun being a relative term I suppose...
There are those questions of "Why did my Dad have to leave us so soon?' that will never ever be answered in this life. And that, to me, is alright. I don't question God's plan at that level. I mean I believe that everything and anything that happens was ultimately God's plan in the first place but there are levels where we can question our own actions and wonder if God really truly planned for us to act like a ridiculous fool, or if the outcome that occurred was just simply the plan He had for us. My guess is that the outcome of God's plan in taking my father so early is not one to question... after all, God gave me 28 wonderful fantastic and most likely the best years of my life as years in which my father was next to me. So I can't be selfish and expect the best times of my life to continue to bleed into every single day... can I? No.
But... I certainly can question the moments where I act, in my opinion, not in typical Leslie fashion. I can most certainly question "Why do I do that?" I guess the answer would be easier if 1.) I just simply said it was God's plan and shrug my shoulders and move on or 2.) completely understood myself enough to know exactly why I do and say things at the exact time in which I do and say them. And obviously since neither are true in my case... I need something in between to explain my behavior. Because contrary to possible thought, I do care about my behavior. And how others see me.
I have learned much about myself after my Dad passed away... I realized that life is so precious and possibly so incredibly short. I now find it absolutely necessary to tell people what I think about them, because what happens if tomorrow I wouldn't be able to? I'm not talking about being rude and saying I don't like your hair... I mean positive, real, raw, untainted by the 'thinking too much about the thought of making that thought sound perfect' that often can ruin many of our interactions in the first place! However, I fear I do taint situations now, more than ever before... simply by trying to be real. I thank people a lot... because I mean it. I am thanking you because you did or said something that made me smile or feel better and you should know that about what you did for me. If I meet someone who I find interesting... I tell them. Because if I don't wake up tomorrow, at least I will know that I told them how much I found them interesting. Is that so bad? I don't know...
Quick story... a true one. Summer of '07, Laura and I are in Cancun. We meet these guys from Phoenix who were all just awesome, almost too good to be true types. They took us out with them, treated us like Queens, and were extremely well spoken and cultured. We immediately realized that real mean still did exist and we shouldn't give up all hope. The guy I hit it off with was named Nick. We only hung out that one night but he was seriously someone I will remember for the rest of my life. Before we left we exchanged numbers and email addresses. When I got home, I sent him an email saying how much I appreciated everything he did for me and my sister that night. Only 6 months or so after we lost my Dad, he came around and restored my faith in many things. Funny how one person can really do that. I told him all this, but of course in my typical wordiness. After I clicked Send, I reread that email and was seriously embarrassed for myself. But he wrote back with a very nice thank you reply. Over Snowpocalypse 2010, I was snowed in and randomly searching people on Facebook. I searched for Nick. A page came up with his name... it was a memorial page. He had died in a plane crash less than a year after we met. I don't know if it really meant anything to him or not, but I'm sure as hell glad I made a fool out of myself to send that rather ridiculous email. Now I know I said all I could possibly have said to him while he was here to read it.
However, this type of behavior has probably caused me more stress than it should. Have we all become so foreign to the concept that we all still really do have feelings? That simply because our main form of communication anymore is via some sort of a screen, that it means we don't feel through that screen?
Sometimes I think we do... we become guilty almost for telling someone how we feel. Like we shouldn't have let that much of ourselves out so quickly... or at all. They will think differently of me now, they will treat me differently now... But is that so bad? Sometimes I wonder why I do things or say things to certain people. Almost to the point of me looking at myself from outside myself and being like 'Really Les? Because now you look ridiculous...' And I know sometimes I do look incredibly foolish... but other times, I think 'Do I really?' Or is it just that I'm willing to say something before I may never get the chance to again. Is that the reason why I am a reckless abandon sometimes? I don't know... Sometimes I do wish I would have just shut the hell up for a minute.
We all have those types of regret I think... and wishing you did NOT say something is just as easy to regret as saying NOTHING at all. However, if I said it then part of me meant it, right? I might not know what part of me meant it, but if it came from me then I would have to trust that somewhere inside I was supposed to do or say those things. Which I guess makes them very much actions that are in typical Leslie fashion after all. But why? I have no idea... probably never will. And I'm OK with that.
And so it goes...
