Thieves

Well- it's over.
Last day of work on Monday. Goodbye Osnovna Šola Antona Tomaža Linharta...

On Wednesday I finished my final 'meeting' with my project team, and then rode away honestly singing the song 'Freedom' as I hustled toward my next meeting (coffee with the old men that sit in front of my (former) castle). And I really really do feel utterly free.

This has been a really wild experience for me: Living in a place that I love, being surrounded by people that I have come to love, being fed with food that loves me... and yet constantly struggling with a set of interactions that has really taken a toll on me during the last year.

Now, I am going to get back to that, but in typical-Nicole-style, I'd like to relate this to something I love, using a large metaphor that, most-likely, only I will understand.
Shawn Hunter's Graduation Speech. Now this isn't me getting overly-emotional about graduating (that was high school Nicole. Ask my mom about the many days when I would put on my cap and gown as a 17-year-old and just sob in front of the mirror). People graduate and move away and change- and I am now a huge fan of that. I now understand how critical it is to experience new things and people (and that it doesn't necessarily require you to break off old ties and connections, especially if they continue to form who you are)...

This blog post is about the content of what Shawn says as he's reflecting over a period of time in his life.
I could've done better.

I could've done better.

This was a hard year. I continuously struggled with some conflicts that just would not come to an end- even when I thought they had I was floored by the reality that the misunderstandings between us were so huge they just were not going to dissipate. So I gave up. But not in love. But not in grace. Not in anything else I would be proud of.

I'm not really pleased. And though I am still doing a little happy dance about this relationship being over, I am also asking myself where I could have done better, aside from how I was treated. How could I have been more gracious? It's utterly transparent that I could have loved more.

Don't get me wrong- I'm certainly not placing the blame solely on myself... nor am I regretting the experience that I had, but merely acknowledging that I have fallen super short of grace.

I could've done better.

And there is a song that captures what I am trying to say- it's called Thieves by Quiet Corral and it's my listen-to-on-repeat-song of the week:

we were born to be the thieves we are
so nothing’s safe

leave you crying but you should be thankful
we left you with your wife with your life
with your little ones
we might have taken you for all your worth
but it could have been worse 

As a natural optimist, I always see the glass half (more like 3/4) full. But I also hope for the best from everyone so strongly that I get these unfair expectations where I expect near perfection. I don't think that it's bad to hope for perfection, but maybe I do need to hope for perfection while also realizing that by nature we are thieves.