On Yosemite and friendship

It's official, I can now say I have been camping in Yosemite. I have been promoted from the casual tourist or day-tripper; I have called Yosemite home...if only for two nights. I think you learn a lot about yourself when you're camping, when you've stripped yourself down to the essentials (well...close, anyway) you understand how your react in a challenge, taking yourself out of the comfort zone of an easy chair and a high definition television reveals a lot about how you handle certain things that you simply cannot change. For instance, I have learned that whle I'm away in the mountains and trying to be one with nature, I don't like people around me. It's true, evidently nothing is more annoying the faint ambient noise of Fergie soaring through the fresh mountain breeze. It actually pisses me off. I've also realized (perhaps not for the first time) that if something doesn't go the way I want it to, I can be a little hard to get a long with. Some of you may be letting out a discerning chuckle....shut up. Why is it so easy to get wrapped up in gap between our expectation and reality? It wasn't until we stopped and ate lunch in a meadow--that must have spanded half a mile--that I realized the unabashed joy of being in pure nature. Of course, it wasn't until then that I finally felt the solitude I was searching for.

I was talking with Melanie the other day about the problems with aggressive frienship. I don't mean making friends and gun point, I mean taking control of the friendship in a social headlock and keeping control for ourselves. It is easy for extroverted, the hyperactive and the mythical "type-a" personality. (can anyone please describe a type B personality?) But really how is it fair to the other person in this relationships. So often the aggressor feels that the other person just isn't trying to put energy into a friendship when in fact they've just become to acquaintd to being taken along for the ride. Perhaps they even want to take more control--plan more stuff to do, make suggestions, start conversations--but just don't know how to get a word in edge-wise....we can be a little intimidating. I talk about balance a lot, it is what I always strive for. But how is constantly maintaining control of a frienships or relationship being balanced at all?

I think the hardest thing I've ever had to face is the idea of letting go.