Keeping tabs

The distance between me and my friends and family seems to be good for my relationships...weird right?

It seems that the closer you are to a situation or person the more you take it for granted.  In the past few weeks I have realized that I didn't just move away from home, I moved out of that bubble that distorts your perception.  Realizing just how much the people that I was lucky enough to have around me mean is a blessing. Their value has grown by leaps and bounds when I can't just drive to them for coffee.  "Distance makes the heart grow fonder" may not be such a antiquated phrase after all.

The silliest things make me think of the most random people back on the mainland!  Steve has taken to the Passion fruit tea with 2 pumps of sweetener (that's a Mariah drink), and is obsessed with finding a way to get his Angels baseball (Scott, Steve, Mariah and I went to a game together)! We found this little place called Pho 1 ( I think about B&E, Megan and Jill and I at Chinese new year) and there is a store called Simply Organized (that's Jules...the most organized person I know) that I pass every day on my walk home from work.  All these little reminders and a thousand others make me think of my loved ones, and people long gone from my life on a daily basis.

You may say that it's nostalgia and homesickness, but I truly feel that this is a way for me to process the true importance of people in my life.  I have talked to my Dad more in the last four weeks then I did in the six weeks prior to leaving! It's as if removing the nearness and availability of people has let me look at my relationships with a clearer lense.  Seeing which people and relationships are convenient and which are important and valuable.  I am ashamed to say that some people I thought of as convenient are really valuable, and some that I poured effort into were only convenient.

Finding that I have a real overwhelming desire to be everyone's newest and dearest friend was a little bit of a shock.  I always thought that I was thoughtful and deliberate in my friend group and that I was secure enough in myself to be discerning about what I needed in a support system...not so much, well, not as much as I thought.  The great part about this realization is that I know it now; and I can cultivate those relationships that have fundamentally changed me, in a good way, going forward.

That doesn't mean I'm going to suddenly drop people from my life, I care for all my peeps, but I'm going to redirect my energy so that the people I love know it.  People should know how important they are, by word and deed, because everyone should know their value, wether they are near or far.

...Nature girl

Nature Girl vs "getting life direction"

I think this is going to be "that entry" for me.  The one that really forms what I am trying to do with this blog and with my life right now.  I have been so blessed to be at a crossroads of sorts, surrounded by people who love and support me and I feel like I am one at of those slow motion scenes in cartoons.  I've been running like mad and come to the cliff and taken that first step off the edge unknowingly.  Now it's time to see if I am Wile E.Coyote, and will fall to my doom (hopefully not); or Roadrunner and I really can "fly".

I've made the decision to Arbonne to grow my family and do what I am passionate about instead of what will just get us by.  Knowing that the road will not be easy makes this decision even bigger and the commitment even more intense. I can see how people that we ask to join us look at us like we are nuts!  The thing is, the potential for benefit and reward is SO much bigger than the downside!

Here is something for the numbers people:

When people go to work, they get paid on the hours they are there. Simple right?  What if they went to work as usual but made a few calls on lunch hour and did a presentation on the weekend (two hours tops), and maybe they met someone who though it was great.  Maybe a student who doesn't have a job, but a lot of time in between classes and a whole weekend day free to do presentations. Now that person would have their regular job and this great opportunity.  But wait, now they get paid on sharing a great product and a commission from their teammate too! When they are at work, maybe the teammate is at a presentation rocking it out! Their earning potential just increased without even trying!

The Arbonne opportunity is not FOR everyone but it can fit everyone who wants it.  People can make it whatever they need, or whatever they want! I am jazzed for this new part of my life but I can't help being a little overwhelmed.  It's kind of like Christmas for me, It's beautiful and shiny, and there is so much going on, and it's exciting and you see so many people....Honestly, it's a little hard to focus.  I tend to do all of my "Christmas" (you know - shopping, wrapping, parties, visiting, baking etc.) in the last week before Christmas..that's how long it takes me to get acclimated.

I feel like it's my week before Christmas in Arbonne - I finally get it, the light went on, I understand it, and now I'm ready to really launch out into space; arms wide, wind whipping in my hair, and belly flop into the clouds!  I think Arbonne can take me as high as I want to go, and that's the only thing I haven't decided yet.

...Nature Girl