it feels really good to cry
by myself
in my own home
without anyone walking in
asking what’s wrong
because it’s good to cry
without definition
Purging Thursday, Jan 10 2008
Growth and New York and Self-Portrait and Wisconsin 2:21 pm
It feels so good to purge your belongings. For me, it’s not just about more closet space, but it’s a cleansing ritual that begins with Chaos and ends with Order. With each item, I am deciding my Destiny. Am I the kind of woman who owns this? Who wears this? Who cares about this? After relocating twelve times in the past 4 years, it has become basic routine to cut down and cut back, then cut out. I was going to move to New York. I was going to be decidedly Poor and decidedly Happy. Now I am back in the trap of Midwest Materialism and I buy t-shirts instead of seeing Broadway plays. My mind strives for Simplicity but fails to find it in the midst of this constant disarray. I vow that with this change of locations will also come a change of Lifestyle. More Creation. Better Nutrition. Stronger Conviction.
Early Riser Thursday, Sep 27 2007
Growth and Self-Portrait 9:35 am
When did I become such an early riser? Seems like in my younger days you couldn’t force me to sleep before 3 am nor coerce me awake before noon. Now, though I rarely have a commitment to rise for, I am functioning hours and hours earlier than ever imagined. (And going to bed hours and hours earlier, I might mention.) Is this the definition of “growing up”?
I’ve always been ready for that next stage in my life long before it actually happened. Sophomore year of high school, when the rest of my older friends were going off to college, I was more ready to be there than half of them. I was sick of teen queens, worthless classes and an 8 to 4 that was governed by bells. I’d visit their universities, edit their latest writing assignments and wonder why I was being punished with two more years of an immature hell. Senior year of college, when my friends and acquaintances were still decorating in “college chic” – John Belushi posters, Corona lights and futons – my apartment was a shrine to Hobby Lobby, with real framed pictures and intricacies that were charming, not chintzy. I cooked real meals, avoided the Walk of Shame and graduated on time. And now, while just-out-of-college yuppies wake up with hang-overs every morning and are busy declaring what they think is their independence, I take walks downtown, attend community events and start book clubs.
I’m tired of feeling like I’m always one step ahead of my environment. I am forever outgrowing my life and will push ahead with zeal for the next adventure. This is probably why I can leave friends, cities and lifestyles behind at the drop of a hat. I’m moving too quickly and you need to keep up.
“I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving…We must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it, but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes
bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at an un-zeusly hour Tuesday, Aug 7 2007
Honesty and Self-Portrait 3:17 am
It’s two thirty in the rainy morning and I’m home because that’s where I feel like I should be. I’m achy and sniffley and I keep thinking about two things: my interview tomorrow and a song I heard while driving tonight. Sidestepping the details of the interview because, you know, que sera, sera, the lyrics are something I can’t get out of my head. It’s some random country song I’ve heard a million times, and the general premise is that the dude is about to die but then he doesn’t, so he is singing about living life as though every moment could be your last. Very “make it count.” Anyway, the line I continue to replay is “I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter.” This is especially sound advice for me because of the general disposability of my relationships as well as my lack of control over my rather sharp tongue.
The long and the short of it is that I’ve had to change my entire group of friends quite a few times in my life, usually because my boyfriend’s friends become my own and when we break up, I tend to lose them in the division of assets. (I do always keep my dignity, though, which is much more important, I feel.) Because I’ve had to make new friends on so many occasions, my mentality has become that if I lose my friends (by horrible error on my part, elimination due to character flaws on their part, or merely circumstance), I’ll simply make new ones. This leads to very little attachment and prevents me from forming deep, loyal relationships.
The speaking sweeter concept is one to which I am foreign. I tend to be hardened, blunt; conveying my truth whether warranted or not. Compliments effortlessly escape my lips but are easily lost in my quest for perfection and propensity for casual judgment. As a rule I am overly kind to those I am fond of in my life but show little compassion for those whom I have already dismissed. In addition, my personality can be dreadfully intense, and therefore I often speak sternly and zip right pass sweet.
The world would be better if I amended my ways. I mean, not so much the world at large, but MY world, which is the thing I am to concern myself with anyway. Perhaps with unfathomable love and pleasant remarks, I wouldn’t be frustrated, furrow-browed and fully awake in the middle of the night.
you talk dirty to a priest/it makes you human at least Friday, Jun 1 2007
Self-Portrait 7:14 pm
I don’t know how I got this way. So hard, so void of feeling, so nonchalant about everything. Hard-nosed, as they call it; I have a difficult time throwing any emotion into what’s happening around me. I don’t worry, though I should. I don’t cry, though I should. It’s somehow just easier to look away and write things off.
And right now, all I want is to drive. Better to have somewhere meaningful to go, but I’ve given up on that. Better to have someone meaningful to visit, but that seems so far out of reach that I dare not even consider it. Once the wine has worn off, I’ll leave, go nowhere, feel nothing and continue with my hatred of the world around me.
I don’t know how I got this way. But I’m here. Wearing black. Spewing truth and spite or saying nothing at all.
Jeremy’s Mind (and Mine) Saturday, May 19 2007
Self-Portrait and Writers 11:29 pm
Everyone else looks at this picture and is astonished by such a cluttered mind. I look at it and think, “That’s what’s going on in MY head.” A thousand thoughts and a million ways to express each brainstorm. An eternity of things I want to accomplish in this exact instant. This isn’t chaotic addiction. It’s simply the way a creative mind works.
You scribble note after post-it note, desperately trying to hold onto the inspiration. You conceive dream after impossible dream, frantic to find one other person who thinks you can achieve. You create haikus in the shower, only to lose them the second you dry off, and write speeches in your waking hours, only to forget them the moment you grasp a pen and paper.
The remedy is as simple as it is complicated, as obvious as it is obscure: one idea at a time. Knowing, of course, that you will never complete every thought nor follow through with every scheme. You can never catch up with your post-its, but you will be content to spend your life trying. It’s overwhelming, but it’s all you know.
Nietzsche said, “You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.” Don’t reject the commotion, the disarray, the turmoil. Embrace it.
Free Bird Thursday, Apr 26 2007
Self-Portrait 1:01 pm
“If it doesn’t work out, it’s just further proof that I can’t be tied down.” – Crash Carroll
My wholehearted agreement with this quote is a testament to the fact that I’m not afraid of life. Crash was talking about a girl, speaking nonchalantly about whether or not the relationship would work. He said that if it worked, fine, and if not, he would just nod and smile, knowing full well that he had been a free bird the whole time and didn’t object to another reminder.
I like to think I’m a free bird, like Crash. Not just in relationships, but in relation to life in general. I welcome success with the same heart that I welcome failure, and welcome change with a growth-oriented soul that I’ve possessed since I began in this world. I can’t be tied to a career goal, a location, a relationship…heck, not even a theme for this blog. My every day is completely different from the next and that’s what keeps me from drowning in myself. It’s not being noncommittal, I like to tell myself, nor is it being evasive. I call it adventurous.
That’s just me.
