Stop re-reading the same stories

Fall is my favorite season and I tend to do some of the same things every time it comes around. I watch the same movies, read the same books, and unfortunately for three years now, I've run back to the same bad habits every time this seasons reintroduces itself. It is always new but I am not. Parts of me are new, as everyone changes with each new season, but I haven't always kicked the bad habits from each season when a new one begins.

I don't really understand what my brain thinks is okay about going back to the things that hurt me... maybe my brain doesn't recognize that it did, in fact, hurt me. Maybe I know it's not good but haven't found enough reason to stop it altogether. Maybe those stories need to be read over and over again before I realize that Noah deserved someone to love him better than Ally did, that Liz hit rock bottom and that's WHY she went to a shaman in India and ate her way around Italy, and the misfits in The Breakfast Club wouldn't have become friends in real life.

Sometimes it takes revisiting some things before we realize what the truths behind them are. I think at this point, what I'm dealing with will keep coming back until I recognize what it's doing to me. I think we all get complacent with ourselves and our habits, good and bad, and we get comfortable with what place in life we consider ourselves to be in. We have so many options, but we don't seem to notice when those choices are available to us. Sometimes it's not even that I'm re-reading the same book or chapter, sometimes I re-read the same damn page or sentence, over and over again. Or I watch the same 5 minutes of Noah and Allie making up rather than focusing on all the times she treated Noah poorly through the rest of the movie.

I get so focused on that specific aspect of the story and I hold onto it because it made me feel good in that moment, rather than focusing on the truth of the matter: that things have changed and I need to adapt. There are sequels and new chapters for a reason. There is more of the storyline to tell and you won't ever get to it if you keep holding onto what once was. The habit may not have been bad to begin with, you may have been well intentioned, but when the present proves it's time to move on, I think we do a bad job of listening. It takes time, of course, but when you start to get that gut feeling of, "Maybe this isn't good for me anymore, or maybe it never was", LISTEN.

I think... I know... we have to stop fulfilling the fantasy we once had. Have aspirations, have dreams, do exactly what you want to do... but do it in a way that keeps you on your toes, ready for the next step, the next chapter. Not in a way that makes you stand still. Put the book down, take The Notebook off of your Netflix list, and go to the damn store. Buy something new.

Love it already

- Tess