I will soon be wrapping up my break....countdown to classes=1 week. I'm taking some things back to Florence tomorrow and then heading to Charlotte, NC for a quick vacation over the weekend. It will be the last hooray of this Christmas break. I guess I'm ready to be back at school and in a routine, but not ready for classes quite yet.
It was a wonderful break with lots of relaxing down-time, time to see friends and family, and time to reflect on the past year. I love the time of New Years where although nothing monumental changes, I can feel a change in the air around me. I am not one for New Years resolutions at all because I feel if you want to change something about yourself, do it when you want/need to, not just because there is now a new number on the calendar. Something I've noticed over the break is rustling in me to change something about myself.
I want to strive to be more aware of those around me, AND a better listener.
The first part of this thought stems from something that happened at one of my family Christmases. My grandmother got a new, beautiful, white coat from my grandad for Christmas. They were both very proud of it, and Gram couldn't wait to show it off. She wore it on the 26th when we went to Madison for Christmas. Of course, when we got there we took of our coats and put them in a room, but everyone had a chance to see them. We we got back in the car to leave, the first thing Pop asked Gram was, "What did they think of your coat?" Gram simply said no one had said anything about it. For some reason this made me sad because she had been SO proud of her new gift.
This made me start thinking, how often do I let things just slide by my eyes or ears. It was a beautiful coat, worthy of being complimented whether someone knew if it was new or not. I think our unawareness often comes from being too wrapped up in our own lives to notices things in others'. I want to be aware to notice people's feelings too. There is a lot we can tell just by people's faces or their voices.
This leads to the other part of my thought...being a better listener. This one is actually funny because I pride myself on being the world's BEST listener. I come from a family of talkers, and I have some of the loudest/most talkative friends in the world. I was always okay with being the quiet one so I did a lot of listening. Recently, though, I've realized some of my listening isn't listening at all. I act like I am, but I'm actually daydreaming and not listening at all. Which leads to....the simple head nod and "uh huh." Oops.
I want to do better on my listening because noticing this about myself makes me think that there are probably some important people in my life who don't listen to me as much as I would like. There were several times over the break where this was clearly happening, so I bottled up. I'm not going to carry on a conversation with someone who isn't really contributing. But...there was also one conversation where a lot of focus was placed on listening. A conversation with my best friend that lasted until 4:00 in the morning where we took turns sharing our life from the past year with each other and offering advice when needed. It was so very refreshing. Someone honestly listening to me, and me to them. I want more conversations like this one in my life, and I'm going to be the one to make them happen.
As I heard in church this past weekend, the top 9 most common New Years resolutions are focused on what people can do for/change about ME.
These are the things I want to do for others in my life...awareness and listening. It may be hard, but I'm going to work hard.
xoxo, Maria
