Tenerife: a poem

Looming mountains
Sandy beaches
Rocky beaches
Blue day skies
Blue, starry night skies
Skulking cats
Sweet, melting ice cream
Visiting Church
Lazy movements 
Exploring
Hunting bus stops
Attempting Spanish
Incredible scenery 
Sandy body
Sangria
Whirring fan
Isolation
Sleeping naked
Morning dawn calls
Inexpressible grief
Silent tears
Books
Paranoia
Strong black coffee
Sunglasses 
Body blister sores
Pain
Foreign clinic
Self conscious 
New eyes

I haven't written poetry since school so don't judge this attempt. I don't think I can write in prose about my recent holiday yet but I wanted to express something of it. This hopefully gives you an idea.

Hurt - a learning curve

So the general theme of the last few posts I have written have been about me dealing with the shifting of seasons, change, loneliness, and feeling sad. It's been kind of weird to deal with those emotions in a relatively public way through this blog and through speaking with people, but I've felt like speaking and being open has helped overall.

I'm an extremely external processor - I generally need to talk things through to work out what I'm thinking. Part of my issue recently has been that the normal people I would do that with haven't been as available. This has been good and challenging. Good in that I've been able to develop friendships with some new people, challenging in that I've struggled to communicate with those whose actions have impacted me.

Something I've been thinking about for a while now following some conversations is how when you are hurt you are more likely to hurt others. You see I wrote those posts from my own stand point, articulating my own emotions, thinking about how hurt and sad I was. I didn't think through how my words could possibly hurt others. It wasn't even on my radar. Like I genuinely was so obsessed with my own feelings that I just splurged them all out without thinking of those who would read/hear them. 

In doing this, I hurt people. People who love me and who have been totally brilliant at loving me and being my friends. You see my intention never was to aim my posts at people and say "you're doing a crap job", it was much more to say "lots of things are going on and I feel rubbish". But that's the thing, I know my head, other people don't. 

Out of my hurt I didn't think through my actions. I hurt people.

Friends of mine took some of my words to heart that they weren't doing enough to be good friends to me. Yes I could dismiss this and say "you misunderstood, that wasn't what I was saying". But I think there are lessons to learn here. 

When I was in that place of being all sad and feeling sorry for myself, I was only thinking about myself. I was selfish and distracted from loving others. Yes I was dealing with my own emotions and that is important. But it came at a price. You see I think it is crucial to understand yourself and know where you are at as much as possible, but I also think we are called to love God and love people. 

It has made me realise some of the perils of using a blog to process emotion - in conversation you can explain exactly what you are thinking and how you mean something, in written form that isn't completely possible - there is room for interpretation, which means sometimes people can be hurt by my words. 

But most of all it's made me realise how being hurt isn't an excuse to be self indulgent. In my hurt I'm still called to love people well and be someone that brings life and truth - not someone who makes people doubt themselves. 

Learning curve.