Ted

So, let me start this off by saying Ted, is my "Eat, Pray, Love" for this point in my life. ....  And maybe that sounds like a weird thing to say, but let me explain.....

Up till now I have put off seeing this movie Ted, because I knew the summary was, "can a guy grow up past his childhood teddy bear and become a man?..." and .. I wasn't ready to confront that question. Movies really affect me and oddly enough I almost feel superstitious about them... like the ones I end up watching are trying to tell me something and having confessed that, I didn't want to watch this movie and have it warp me. I didn't want to watch it and it have some wimpy "feel good" ending that was out of touch with the harsh reality of life I am familiar with.. But on the other hand, I didn't want it to have some jaded "pessimistic" ending either...... Seriously.... I need .. I needed and I need something in the middle.... Yes, there is harsh reality in life, but there are feel good moments too.. and up to this point in my life, it has only been either one far end of the spectrum or the other, either too "happy go lucky" or just "horrible."... But there has been one moment in my life that wasn't extreme polar opposites and it was something that just snuck up on me and ..ever since  then I've been trying to find my balance again;  I fell in love. Not infatuation. Not obsession. Not a love affair, that "i love you" was unspoken and realized until too late..... No, I fell in real love... The kind of love,  you tell them every chance you get; the kind of love you show up just to surprise them; the kind of love you let them go; the kind of love where you don't have to explain yourself.... The kind of love that it doesn't matter what you could possibly say or do, you will still love that other person.
How does one recover some such wonder? There is no recovering. And afterwards I have been struggling between the old me, the girl used to only highs and lows, and becoming the woman that is confident and not teetering on the edge constantly. I have just felt like a pin ball bouncing back and forth from pessimism back to optimism.... and talking with a counselor, she told me I'm not the only one who goes through this. Lots of people think if life doesn't hand them exactly "this and this and this" well, then they bounce back to the opposite end of the spectrum... I
don't know..

So, I finally watched this movie. Ted. By myself. and it was exactly what I needed. a happy medium in-between.
Ted is a teddy bear given as a gift to a friendless little boy. The little boy makes a wish that they would be friends forever, and the bear comes to life and remains his best friend as he grows up into adulthood.
The whole movie is everyone trying to find that "somewhere in-between place."
The boy/man played by Mark Walberg is trying to find balance between still being a little kid and being the man who loves his girlfriend.
The girlfriend is trying to find what makes her happy despite everyone else's opinion of her life and at the same time figuring out what she isn't willing to live with.
And Ted, is trying to figure out where he belongs in the picture and even wonders if he belongs in the picture at all anymore.

 Every single one of them does the pin ball action.

The boy/man decides it's either Ted or his girlfriend...
The girlfriend decides it's either her or Ted,
 and Ted decides, it's either himself or the girlfriend...

All their similar decisions all add up to, choosing one over the other...

But that's so extreme. ....
Working through all the issues, the guy realizes he does love his girlfriend and wants to take responsibility and marry her,
Ted realizes he still needs to be in the guys life, but as a better supportive friend, and
the girlfriend realizes she loves the guy for who he is, and while she doesn't just want to be friends, she realizes the friendship her boyfriend has with Ted is a part of who the man she loves is, and she doesn't want that part of the man she loves to go away... if Ted went away, her boyfriend wouldn't be the same person she loved in the first place........  

So, they all find a realistic happy, but not perfect, medium that works for them
(notice I said works for them... not everyone else... they found the solution that works for them..)


And that is me, right now... I know what I want, and everything else is just a part of it that will work itself all into place as long as I do what's right for me, because when I do what's right for me, the people that matter around me will do what's right for themselves and it will all fall into place.... And it will just work in it's happy-medium/but-not-perfect sort of way...

I heard this thing once that at the time I didn't quite understand, but now makes perfect sense.

"We are all just one small adjustment away from who we are meant to be."

At the time, I didn't understand... but now I do.
When one path reaches a "dead-end" I used to think my whole life had to go down an entirely different road; I thought I would have to go either right or left... I had to go either up or down.... But in reality, it isn't about finding "up" or "down..." It's about me finding what works, finding hidden passages, making stairs that change to where I need them to go, forging dirt roads and repaving old turn arounds and just taking mindful steps to where is right for myself and letting everything else fall into place.. ...It's about finding a comfortable balance between up and down, not Exact middle either, just a grey place in-between the black and white of this world; it's finding that grey area that if I hit it just right, I will find that silver lining that will shine through when I need it to.
I know now that silver linings are like butterflies.... I don't always see them, and trying to pin them down only kills them. But when I let them be free, the ones that are meant to be come back to alight on my shoulder when I least expect it. Silver linings are like rainbows, they're pointless to chase, I just have to have faith that if I pay attention, they'll be there after the rain has stopped.