Axiom

So last week, I am sitting at my desk at work, quietly pounding away at whatever mundane task was in front of me at the moment, and I hear the ping that says I have a new email. I click from one monitor to the other and open it, it's from my HS best friend, well... I should say we have been best friends since high school, because we are still best friends today. Anyway, I open the email and all it say is :

Your mom just told me that I needed to find you a boyfriend

I am instantly pissed. I am mad because I have been consistently hearing from friends and friends of friends that my mother is talking about my life to them.  I'm mad because it seems like everyone wants to put everyone else in a fucking box...  I get defensive when people, (mainly my mother, but really anyone) try to shove me in some aphoristic box I do not fit it.  You know, like the kind where you're supposed to be partnered up, married off and be at least half way through producing heirs by the time you're 25 or some shit. I missed that deadline years ago, in fact, it's still hanging in my mother's closet in the form of a super expensive, super fucking beautiful, never been worn, Italian wedding dress. And most days, not only am I good with that, but I am pretty happy with where I am and the experiences I have had.  But some days, those societal boxes get to be a little crushing, ya know?

So while I sit at my desk with all the fuck yous and how dare yous swirling around in my head, this pops up in my bookface feed:

 Don't you hate when someone asks if you have a boyfriend, and you say "no," and they get all googly-eyed and say, "WHATT?? WHY NOT?!???" like it was the the most absurd thing they've ever heard. What is that even supposed to mean? Is this a compliment, or are they judging me for being single and stoked? I'm so confused by people sometimes. No, strike that. I'm so confused by people ALL the time. 

And my anger instantly melts into ferocious laughter.  After some banter back and forth on that thread, she responds with this:

I also wonder if they think good guys grow on trees or something, as if I've chosen not to find the perfect male specimen who apparently is available immediately. Or like I'm too lazy to drive down to the boyfriend store and pick up the latest and greatest. And the only way to be happy is to have a boyfriend, so obviously I'm psycho. 


At this point I am laughing at the humor in her posts, but also having a good laugh at myself.  Why do I let people get to me? I know that I am right where I need to be, and I know how important it is to stay true to myself, even if that means other people are uncomfortable. So I poke fun at the entire situation on my own bookface and shrug it off.  In the meantime, I am in the middle of composing Amalgamation which was proving harder and harder to write by the minute, it started out super free flowing, but as is the case with most of my posts, they generally take a few days to write, edit, and finally post, and those final edits were tough. Like that was the hardest post I have had to edit in a long, long, time.  It probably went through three different rewrites and in the end it seemed more discombobulated and dis-jointed then ever.  I finally just gave up and posted it, figuring the reasons would become clear to me at some point. 

And so, last night I read this article: Top 5 deathbed regrets  and low and behold, what's number one on the list?

I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

Truer words have never been spoken, me thinks.  Ya see, I try very hard to live my life with some amount of personal integrity (I am in no way saying that I am a saint, or that I never make bad decisions, for fucks sakes, people, I am human), really what this means to me is that I do not compromise on certain things- in my life that has meant a lot of different things.  It meant that even though I could have chosen the cheaper faster route out of college, I opted for way more time and effort (and debt) to study what I was truly passionate about (even though I have never and may never work in that 'field') It has meant that even though I could make more $ working for some corporation, with higher pay, perks, insurance, paid time off... all the 'luxuries' other people snap jobs up for, I have chosen to work multiple jobs for smaller, independent and or non-prof outfits doing things I truly believe in.  It has meant that I stopped the wedding train. After the engagement party. After the expensive Italian dress was purchased. After the reception hall was booked.

It means that yes, indeed I am sometimes lonely because I won't wrap myself up in a relationship for the sake of being in a relationship.  It means that I frequently take the scenic route, the road less traveled, the one that is NEVER on GPS.  And yes, some days, even I question the validity of my path.  But then I read an article like the one above, and my self assured-ness is restored.  What am I getting at? Well, I guess the point is (more for me than anyone else), that I think we can all occasionally use a reminder that despite the boxes and categories that society seems relentless in presenting, and even though it's tough sometimes, even though it can be lonely, confusing, and tiring; it can also be challenging, rewarding, refreshing, eye opening, and BRILLIANT! In the end, I KNOW that I am living a life that is truest to me, which, in my mind, is the ultimate pay off.

"To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment."
Ralph Waldo Emerson

I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. - See more at: http://www.karenstan.net/2013/11/11/nurse-reveals-top-5-regrets-people-make-deathbed/#sthash.LF9AyCTS.dpuf

I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. - See more at: http://www.karenstan.net/2013/11/11/nurse-reveals-top-5-regrets-people-make-deathbed/#sthash.LF9AyCTS.dpuf

                                                                           

Amalgamation

Surely, I cannot be the only one who reflects upon past experiences from time to time.  Like looking back and taking stalk in who I was as compared to who I am now... the things I have experienced, the ways in which I have handled myself, that kind of thing.  Of course, I have the benefit (or maybe detriment) of having logged my experiences on this blog, and in many, many, journals before this blog, I also have other odd methods of remembering... Like, I have every single text message I have received for something like the last 5 years.  I know, I am a weirdo, it's OK, I'll own it... So I have a written record of things, which is helpful since I may have the world's WORST detail oriented memory.  While it is sometimes uncomfortable, I have found that embracing the pieces of me from which the present amalgamation of myself is comprised, far outweighs that momentary discomfort . 

Anyway, this time every year seems to be evocative of that contemplative thing inside of me... maybe it has something to do with the weather change, the colder and darker it gets outside, the more I seem to go inside myself.  I often think, what was I doing this time last year? Two years ago? Three? Well, you get the point.  I have never been good with dates, but I can start with last year and go backward. Right, so- I have been nostalgic about the past recently... not necessarily like I am yearning for what might have been, more like... umm... like evaluating my part in things and wondering how I can do things differently going forward.

So, I open one of the local free weekly's today and flip to the horoscopes-

You've got too many keys on your ring. You've locked and unlocked so many hearts that at this point you're practically a janitor of the soul.  Although it fills you with a certain satisfaction to walk around jangling that giant loop of glittering keys, fondly recalling all the times you've used them and what you've used them for, please notice that your behavior is preventing any new keys from from being added to the collection.  It's time to throw a few away, that you no longer need or no longer dare use, to make room for a tantalizing handful more. If I haven't been obvious enough: stop clinging to the past so you can finally unlock the future.

Wowser.  I would love to laugh all of that off and say that has NOTHING to do with me, but really, it's pretty much spot on...  I read a book some years back that explained the Law of Attraction- the idea that everything is made up of energy, and that like energy attracts like energy.  I believe in the power of energy, I have seen it at work in my life... in the sense that what I ping out is what will come back to me... if I am in a positive place, things will flow in a positive direction, and if I am in a broody and negative space, negative energy will flow back to me. I am beginning to see where 'taking stalk in the past' is really just a way to muddy my own energy...because when it comes down to it, when I look at everything with a holistic mindset, it's ALL good. What I am realizing is that all of us are amalgamations of our former selves. It's time to step away from the mental microscope.

Like I said in last week's  Guerilla Warfare post, this  is all coming to light for me recently.  I suppose it's not surprising then, that  I have been waking up a little lighter each morning.  There are a lot of super-fucking-awesome-sauce lines in the water... projects I am excited about, ideas I am stoked to flesh out... It's an illuminated place to be amidst the autumn chill.  As such, it is high time I toss some of those old keys.  So many of them look alike and I am spending far too much time bumbling in the dark, attempting to fit old keys into new doors. Who knows... maybe I will even clean out my text messages...hahaha.

Guerilla Warfare

It's been quite a long stretch since I have committed a blog to type.  There has been A LOT of action in the battlefield that is my mind's eye, but I haven't taken the time to write any of it down or really even to talk about it in general. Up until this week, time seemed like a commodity I'd sell my soul for, which is pretty much what I have been doing.  For the last month or two I have run from one place to the next, sleeping little, eating shit, and freaking the fuck out about shit that doesn't matter at all in the scheme of things. And recently, it all came crashing to a crystal clear fucking halt. 

I know just enough about myself to be dangerous if I were to apply it with any sort of consistency. I hate that initial free fall back down to earth.  Fuck, it stings. Coming to rest in a scratched and bruised up heap, goddamn I am fucking tough on myself.  The thud is always louder than I anticipate and it generally serves the purpose of startling me back into consciousness where I am left to sort through the rubble that is my mind and body after a stint of the fuck-its.  And I always spend far more time beating myself up for the fuck-its then I do on basking in personal revelation or taking notice of a job well done.  And I have been wondering for a while... why is that? Why can I not take as much credit for progress as I do for failure? What the fuck is up with that? 

I spend so much time trying like hell to propel myself forward, that I frequently miss my own fucking milestones.  And then, at the first sign of a detour I rail on myself about everything I have yet to accomplish. And that is where I have been for the past few weeks. Actually, I started writing this blog entry a few weeks ago so- fuck, the past month or so. I've ridden the train of self destructive behavior, I've taken up residence in my head, I've run the gamut of anger, self pity, fear, and teetered on the edge of depressed, in short, I have spent FAR TOO MUCH fucking time in the dark corners of my introversion.

And then, this morning, I read this post by one of my favorite bloggers - The Bullshit of Being a Work in Progress.  Go ahead, read it, I'll wait...

The title doesn't lie, huh?!

"When life doesn’t go the way we envision or we find ourselves having screwed up (yet again), we ladle the I’m-a-work-in-progress bullshit on anyone who will listen.
And the sad thing is (well, for me at least) that we’ve convinced ourselves that there’s a goal. That there’s some elusive day akin to a good parking space at Whole Foods where we’ll wake up and realize that we’ve made it.  We’ve convinced ourselves that we’re perpetual works in progress and we forget...
Well, we forget that today’s the fucking day. Today’s the day we wake up surrounded by hedgehogs and hot girls on Harleys. It’s the day where we’ve done it — we’ve gotten there."

Goddamn, that chick has some fucking eloquence, eh?  Well, what a fan-fucking-tastical reminder! I am right fucking here, right fucking now, and I am good with it.  Instead of taking time and energy to beat myself up as a means to forward progression, or whatever other dumbass, newagey, oxymornical phrase my brain decides to attach to it, I'm gunna take a deep breath in and take credit for where I am RIGHT FUCKING now.  I'll just be over here, filing work in progress right alongside the Mr. Rogers terminal uniqueness rhetoric... it's a dumb fucking story I tell myself, it's self deprecation thinly veiled as motivation, it's the Guerrilla Warfare I wage on my own consciousness.  It's high time I recognize that this shift in consciousness I go on about- from guerrilla warrior to gorilla power, is happening NOW- it is what it is all in this moment.  And ya know what, I WILL celebrate that, abso-fucking-ultely!