i gotta keep practicing....

i was just emailing a friend and heard myself talk as i typed her.
i was tellin' myself something i needed to hear.

i can be exuberant and incredibly loving,
and while that may sound like a good thing,
sometimes it's a bit over the top for people.

it's been a lifetime of struggling with that.
i don't want to change it.
but then again.....sometimes i do.
cause it's hard to gauge.
and sometimes people just aren't wanting it.
or don't know how to react to it.
and then it sparks a lot of inner doubt and all that stuff.

i've been doin' quite a dance with all that lately.
it's like a loose cannon inside me.
sometimes a big ol' cannon ball of over-the-top enthusiasm will explode.
and then i see what happened, and that maybe it wasn't exactly what people were expecting
and i try to throw a table cloth over the cannon. pretend it never happened.

huh?
what cannon?

grin.

it can cause quite the conflict inside me.

i recently had an idea of something i want to gift someone i've never met.
and well.....um......i spose it could be considered over the top.

and so when i realized that, i hesitated.
maybe i shouldn't do it.
even tho it's completely loving and from the heart.
maybe i just shouldn't.
maybe i should just be safe and skip it.

and then as i was emailing my friend and telling her about it,
it occurred to me that i needed to follow thru with giving the gift.
even if it might be perceived different than i intend.
who can tell?
but.....i found myself typing out that i didn't want to stifle my spirit.
that i wanted to give the gift even more now just to kinda tell myself
that it's okay to be loving and to give from the heart.

how could that not be okay?
well.
it's not okay cause i get my feelings hurt or feel like i don't belong
or feel just plain ol' icky funky. and then i get down on myself.

but maybe it's more important to me right now to make a statement
to myself than to be safe.

i think it is.

and so i will try.

i wanna get to where i can let those cannon balls of love fly
with all they got and hold with kindness any reactions they may bring.
kindness towards others, of course.
but oh my gosh, kindness towards me is the challenge.
i'm thinking i just gotta practice.