Skip to main content

This City Life: Comparison is the Enemy

Sarah is a delightful friend who lives too far away from me (or maybe it's the other way around). Her husband and I were on the same work team for a few years, and before long, this proximity grew into a full-fledged friendship. Her candor, kindness, and quick wit have been blessings in my life time and time again. I read her blog not only for her adorable children (twins Soren and Marlow have just turned 2), but also for her creative organizational skills, her thoughtful approach to living simply and her humour.

With the arrival of Baby #3 just around the corner, Sarah asked a few of her friends to contribute content for the next few weeks of likely chaos…I’m honoured to share some thoughts with all of you and all of her friends…

These thoughts on comparison have been ruminating through my heart and my mind for weeks now. There’s more to say (there’s always more to say), but let’s start here, on Sarah’s blog, okay?

And to those of you who are here because you followed Sarah's link - welcome! Poke around, ask me questions, browse on through... 

But if I can, I will admit that I did not I anticipate my late twenties would look like this. And I will also admit, I fear that in another ten years, sadness will take root, and the occasional loneliness I currently know will become something more sinister.
There is also another deep fear.
I fear being left behind by the friends I love, the women who help hold me together whose lives now hold a spouse, and maybe kids. It has already happened with some friendships, and when I see the edges of even a peripheral friendship start to fray, I find myself breathing faster, panicked.




Comments

  1. Anonymous9:07 AM

    Lots to think about, thanks for sharing! I'm looking forward to spending some time with you in the coming week :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Simone Weil: On "Forms of the Implicit Love of God"

Simone Weil time again! One of the essays in Waiting for God  is entitled "Forms of the Implicit Love of God." Her main argument is that before a soul has "direct contact" with God, there are three types of love that are implicitly  the love of God, though they seem to have a different explicit  object. That is, in loving X, you are really loving Y. (in this case, Y = God). As for the X of the equation, she lists: Love of neighbor  Love of the beauty of the world  Love of religious practices  and a special sidebar to Friendship “Each has the virtue of a sacrament,” she writes. Each of these loves is something to be respected, honoured, and understood both symbolically and concretely. On each page of this essay, I found myself underlining profound, challenging, and thought-provoking words. There's so much to consider that I've gone back several times, mulling it over and wondering how my life would look if I truly believed even half of these thi...

I Like to Keep My Issues Drawn

It's Sunday night and I am multi-tasking. Paid some bills, catching up on free musical downloads from the past month, thinking about the mix-tape I need to make and planning my last assignment for writing class. Shortly, I will abandon the laptop to write my first draft by hand. But until then, I am thinking about music. This song played for me earlier this afternoon, as I attempted to nap. I woke up somewhere between 5 and 5:30 this morning, then lay in bed until 8 o'clock flipping sides and thinking about every part of my life that exists. It wasn't stressful, but it wasn't quite restful either...This past month, I have spent a lot of time rebuffing lies and refusing to believe that the inside of my heart and mind can never change. I feel like Florence + The Machine 's song "Shake it Out" captures many of these feelings & thoughts. (addendum: is the line "I like to keep my issues strong or drawn ?" Lyrics sites have it as "stro...

The ROM, The Earth & Procreation

Disclaimer: This post is intended to generate discussion and a sharing of many opinions. It is NOT intended to judge or condemn anyone's life choices. I had an unexpected moment at the ROM last month. C and I were listening to a presentation for kids on wildlife conservation (or rather, I was listening, and C was eagerly anticipating what live animal would come out next), when a statement caught my attention and still hasn't let go. For most of history, the earth could provide enough resources for the earth's human population. But today, our population is growing rapidly, increasing by 250 000 people every day... Forty years from now, it will require 2 Earths to provide sustainably for our survival as a human species. But we only have 1 Earth. 250 000 people. Every day. That is roughly twice the size of my hometown. In one day. So I did a little math. (First, I rounded down to 200 000, just in case the figures were inflated or failed to account for some sort o...