What's not meant to be

I had a wonderful visit with my host family in Kansas this weekend. The weather there in the summer is not exactly ideal (35C with near 100% humidity, feels like the rain forest I imagine, not that I'd ever been to one) so spending time inside the cool air conditioned house is everyone's best bet. Thanks to the 150+ cable channels an DVR, I got to catch up on the Tour de France (Lance is in 3rd place with only 8 seconds behind, although there's some fierce competition between him and one of his teammates, who's currently in 2nd place, so the next 2 weeks will be quite interesting), got to have some feasts including some of the tastiest cocktails ever, got addicted to some new TV shows (Mental and Raising the Bar) and got to work out in a state-of-the-art home-gym with the softest treadmill I have ever stepped foot on. I was also able to catch up with my step-brothers, who are no so little anymore; I have so many memories of them being 15 and 13 when I was living with them :)

After a long, meaningful conversation with my brother - for the first time in about a year - I felt really happy, in a strange way. He was so honest. Sometimes I feel like the closest friends can't be honest with me, and the same way, I can't be honest with them. We don't want to hurt each others feelings, sometimes we want to say what the other person wants to hear, to make them feel better, to try to "be a good friend", whatever that means. I guess, lately I have been feeling somewhat disconnected from my friends, maybe for this reason. My brother's naive honesty was a reality check. Not being judgemental, but just expressing an opinion without the bias of expectations and wanting to please. It put some things in a new light for me.

Then today, back in lab, I was chatting with a coworker. He has this same kind of honesty that I so respect in him. While others tiptoe around things, he just puts it right out there. When I complain, he tells me that it's a waste of a short life. He always reminds me that things are really not as bad as I sometimes see them. Today, I said to him that I didn't know what I wanted most of the time but that sometimes, when I finally know what I want, I can't have it. To this he just said: if you want it, fight for it, and if you can't have it no matter what, then it's not meant to be! It's pretty simple. In the name is simplicity, I am not going to dwell on this, just going to leave it as it is. It's not meant to be.