You know, when I was a little girl, I was lucky enough to have my Great Grandma and Great Grandpa, in addition to my grandparents around. My Great Grandma would always tell us stories.. some were based on things that happened to her as a little girl (we never really knew if they were true), some were fairytales, like Cinderella or Jack and the Beanstalk and some were just lessons about life in general. One of the stories that I remember most as a kid was about a train. She would sit down and put my on her lap and say "Rachel, your life is like a train. People are going to get on and get off at different stops. Sometimes, someone will be on the train the entire ride, from beginning to end. Sometimes people don't get on the train until half way to the end and sometimes people get off early that you thought were going to stay on for a while. But, no matter what, just enjoy the people that are on the train whenever they are there. No matter how long they stay." As a little kid, this made someone sense to me. I think she told me this story when I was in 1st grade. There was a girl, her name was Rebecca, and she was the class bully. She tried to become friends with me, and being the people pleaser that I have been in the past, I of course agreed. She told me that I had to go pull someone's hair if I wanted to be friends with her. Well, the person who she told me to harass was my best friend at the time, Samantha. I heard my mom's voice in my head and I knew, even at 6 years old, that it was not worth it to me to lose Samantha's friendship and be a "bad girl" just to become friends with this popular bully Rebecca. So, I told her "no." Rebecca proceeded to call me a "goody-two-shoes chicken" and yelled at me, "I DO NOT WANT TO BE YOUR FRIEND ANYMORE!" I guess I came home crying that day and my Great Grandma happened to be there. She told me this story about the train to make me feel better about this "friend" Rebecca only being on my train for one day.
As I have gotten older, I have reflected on this story, and how it stuck with me. If life is one long train ride, of course people are going to get on and off, people move way, people pass away, and sometimes, we just outgrow relationships or friendships. Some of the men that I have dated, I have been lucky enough to keep on my train as my friend and some... definitely not. I have had friends that have been on my train for years and years and some that just had a little blip of time. Some people make a huge impact on our lives in a short period of time and some people are around for a long time and make no impact on our lives (at least none that we see at the time). When people get on or off of our respective trains, it can be a painful experience, or what I like to call, "growing pains." Each time a person leaves us, emotionally or physically, we experience a loss. Whether it is a positive or negative loss, it is still a loss. Different people provide different things for us; For example, we have our one friend who likes RomComs, our one friend who will go to Disneyland with you, your one friend who loves sushi, or your one friend that will go see every musical that comes into town with you... or that one friend that is just there for everything. Regardless of what this particular person represents for you, if they decide to get off of your train, especially earlier than you had thought, it can cause some growing pains.
So, what do we do to help these pains? Well, when we are children we actually experience physical growing pains. www.kidshealth.org says, "Your 8-year-old son wakes up crying in the night complaining that his legs are throbbing. You rub them and soothe him as much as you can, but you're uncertain about whether to give him any medication or take him to the doctor. Sound familiar? Your son probably is experiencing growing pains, a normal occurrence in about 25% to 40% of children. They generally strike during two periods: in early childhood among 3- to 5-year-olds and, later, in 8- to 12-year-olds." So, we are most likely not going to take ourselves into our doctor and say, "Oh Dr. so-and so.. my friend... she just... we are growing apart..., can I have some anti-biotics?!" I cannot tell you how many people manifest their own growing pains into actual physical pains. It is a phenomenon called, psychosomatic symptoms. A psychosomatic symptom is when a person is experiencing real pain in their body, based on a mental/emotional issue. (You know this was going somewhere psychology, didn't you!?)
When someone leaves our train, and we are sad.. we can start to feel tired, lose our energy, etc. When someone gets on our train and it is a positive, unexpected experience... and we start to feel emotions of love and adoration.. we can start to feel euphoric.. and sometimes even a little manic. Our emotional health is directly correlated to our bodies. The mind/body connection is incredible. So... what was the point of this first blog? Well, first off, its to hopefully give you comfort.. that people are going to come and go, whether by choice or not. Sometimes we simply out grow people and ask them to leave our trains. Sometimes, someone gets taken from us without us wanting them to leave at all. We all experience pain, we all experience joy, and we all experience growing pains. Let's embrace the pain and turn it into something wonderful. Enjoy every single moment that we have with the people that are currently on our train, on our journey, with us... because we never know when/where their stop is.
