Day Twenty One

Posted on Posted in pontifications, seven weeksTagged , , , , , , Leave a comment

hhdl

Packing today for our trip to Nashville. Super pumped for it, so get ready for some major boners the next few days over traveling with my love, seeing Jack White perform, shiny new vinyl records, exploring Nashville, enjoying delicious vegan food and more. Not today though. Today I want to pontificate a little about beliefs.

For the first time on this blog/exercise in avoiding therapy, whatever you want to call it, I will talk about religion and my beliefs. I was raised catholic, which of course means that I have since become alienated from the church and have no real interest in organized religion. When raised in the catholic faith you either get confirmed and move on once you’ve satisfied the parent(s) or you stick it out showing up late to mass and putting money in the basket every week for the rest of your life. That being said, I have always been interested in studying various religions, belief-systems, theologies and philosophies.

Overall, I can’t chose just one system that works for me. I pick and choose what helps me to explain the existence of space, time, us, the universe and life. I believe in karma, nothing is without consequences, you reap what you sow and you better sow some love or you will end up drowning in hate. I believe in the power of love and compassion. We can all be better people, we just need to work at it. We can all be happy, we need to work at that too. I wear my mala beads everyday because they are a talisman that remind me of what weights I carry, what I have to let go of and what I have to live for. I believe in the power of meditation and enlightening your mind to better understand your strengths and limitations. Enlightenment is truly something to work towards. We all need to help each other, and look out for other people.

I believe that I need to remind myself of the importance of compassion everyday and remember to practice it. We are all works in progress, perfection is unattainable and that is all part of the journey of life.

 

 

There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples; my philosphy is kindness.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama

 

 

Life is beauty through and through
Life is sunny, life is cool
Life is even easy too
But if my word is to be true
Life is something to behold
But if the truth is to be told
Let us not leave out any part
Do not fear, it’s safe to say it here
You will not be called a weakling nor a fraud
For feeling the pain of the whole wide world
You want to help but can’t help the feeling you cannot
And it’s killing you while you’re just trying to smile from your heart
So go on, say it, on the same knees you’re praying
Yes, life is hard

Come celebrate
Life is hard
Come celebrate Life is hard
Our life is all we are

Celebrate it in the sun, promenade it with everyone
Elevate it in a song
And I’ll be there to play it, don’t get me wrong
When I feel like dying and being gone
When life is hard
There’s just one thing, let’s not forget
Yes! life is it!
Life is it, life is it, it’s where it’s at
It’s getting skinny, getting fat
It’s falling deep into a love,
It’s getting crushed just like a bug
Life there’s no love, it’s getting beat into the ground
It’s getting lost and getting found,
To growing up and getting round
It’s feeling silence, feeling sound
It’s feeling lonely, feeling full
It’s feeling oh so beautiful!
Yes!

Come celebrate
Life is hard
Come celebrate
Life is hard
Our life is all we are

Life is Hard

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros

Day Twenty

Posted on Posted in pontifications, seven weeksTagged , , , Leave a comment

sb

Whoa! Made it to the big 2-0. Sooo…..yeah.

I actually had a fairly meaningful conversation with a coworker today about life and accomplishments. Mostly he talked, but I enjoyed listening. He spoke of regrets. Spending so many years of his life spoiling the wrong people, living for the wrong people. All he wants is his youth back, and all those years back, so he could have them now with his current wife. He loves her, he worships her, he wishes he could give her more, spoil her more, treat her to a better life now that he has her. He said he looks back at his almost 51 years and regrets that he hasn’t accomplished more – not so much for his own selfish reasons – but so he could have more of everything to share with his wife.

That is how I feel about my husband. I love him, I worship him, he deserves so much in and from life, he deserves to be spoiled. And I don’t mean materially. He deserves trips, time to do what he wants to do, to study what he wants to learn, he deserves the best of everything. I want so much to build a life worth living, that is meaningful and positive, a life that contributes towards a better world. I want to be successful so my husband and I can spend time living our lives together. Take trips, go to dinners and concerts and movies, adopt teenagers and help them through college and navigate life, treat friends and family to these luxuries, basically – just live. I mean everyone works to put food on the table, to pay the bills, to provide. But is that living? Or surviving?

Either way, it was the first time I have had a conversation like that with anyone other then my husband – and maybe my mom. Never have I discussed this with friends or family or anyone really. That kind of haunts me a little to think of it now. But at the same time – it was the first time I felt “outside” validation in wanting. It felt good.

In light of today’s discussion and ensuing afternoon of thought; I feel like I need to start working on a personal mission statement.

That sounds totally creepy and Joel Osteen-y. I hate that guy.

Okay, I digress. If I attempt to lay it all out in one sentence it would read as follows.

I want to build a successful business(es) in which I can hire friends and family that want the jobs, help support those that want to create their own, and foster an environment around me at all times that is centered on creating a more compassionate world through open-minded education, travel, giving of time and money, exploring and loving.

Kind of a run-on isn’t it? I need to work on that – but I think I just wrote out, for the first time, a mission statement for my life.

 

Random Thought of the Day: There is a group of theoretical physicists that suppose the birth of the universe could have occured after a four-dimensional star collapsed into a black hole and ejected debris. There is another group that believes our universe actually is existing inside of a black hole. And here I sit trying to figure out how f#%&ed up I am before I turn thirty. Certainly puts a different spin on things.

Day Nineteen

Posted on Posted in meander, seven weeksTagged , , , , , , Leave a comment

bloodmn

I think I have a cold. It is the first day of illness this year. Blech!

Last night was the first of four blood moon eclipses we will be able to see over the next eighteen months. We didn’t see it, however, because it was snowing. That’s right; today Detroit woke up to 3 inches of snow – on f#%&ing April 15th – and that means we set the record for the snowiest winter season ever. We are number one! FML. Why is that a point of pride for people? Just because we didn’t break the record before last night’s snow – doesn’t mean no one would have believed us that this winter sucked a$$. Can’t we just remember that it sucked for a lot of people the world over? Never.

I swear, waking up on tax day (which really means nothing to me since I did ours like two months ago), seeing three inches of snow, the temperature outside being 42° less than 24 hours ago and feeling like slow moving crap all day at work, you’d think I would fall apart in my fragile mental state. Right? Well I didn’t. It doesn’t really work like that. Today was a pretty good day despite all the cold and a strengthening cold.

I’ve been adding items to my bucket list. I hate that phrase – it makes me think of that horrible Tim Allen movie. Isn’t that who stars in it? I mean, I never saw it but ya know. That’s what pops in my head. I’ll start calling it my life list. Things to look forward to living for.

Day Eighteen

Posted on Posted in seven weeksTagged , , , , Leave a comment

lilyofthevalley

This is the first day I have not wanted to write my daily first. There have been days of reluctance, laziness and embarrassment (on the account of less than exciting firsts to report). But today, I am just not up for it.

The past few days I have had a sense of foreboding. It’s familiar – it happens several times a year. It feels like I am on the edge of my seat, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waiting for something to happen. I never quite know if it is going to be good or bad, to dread it or look forward to it. Does that make sense? I am super excited for the upcoming trip to Nashville. I have spring fever like I’m a high schooler.

Day Seventeen

Posted on Posted in confessions, places, pontifications, seven weeksTagged , , Leave a comment

apartment

This was a crazy weekend. I feel like so many of my weeks blur together and I’m not really sure what day it is. Today felt like a Sunday – and it was. It was a beautiful day here. Sunny, slightly breezy, a bit of cloud cover to keep the temperature moderate and a first taste of that famous humidity that plagues so many summer days in Michigan. For maybe a week or more I have been picturing very clearly a future home for my husband and I. Just a very specific section of a living room. I don’t know if it’s in Portland or Paris or London or Tokyo or even somewhere in the Maldives. I just know that it feels like home. I am happy and comfortable picturing it and I want to be there.

This is the first time in my memorable past (aka maybe ten-fifteen years) that I have so vividly pictured a future for myself that it feels like I am there. Like it is tactile, already my reality and I have lived it. There’s a fuzzy feeling of contentment that feels right. Maybe it was just a dream that I am remembering. Maybe my subconscious is sapping this vision from a movie or show or an immersive description in a book. But it doesn’t feel like that. It feels original, and all my own. It feels so good to be able to claim a vision of my future life. It just feels great to want a future at all.

Suicide has such an awful stigma attached to it. Unfortunately that stigma makes it hard for me to even write that I have contemplated suicide as much as I have these past few years. The first reaction of some family and friends (the grand total is eight btw) that I have spoken to is anger. A “how dare you” attitude that only compounds how shitty and nervous I feel about talking to anyone (let alone a friend who claims to love me) about these thoughts and feelings. Another reaction is disbelief – “really? you? you always have it together though. you’re so strong.” Like this is something I would lie about. If you know me enough to think me strong and together – then know me enough to believe what I am saying to you right now. One of the hardest parts when telling family and friends is you can practically feel the crazy brand being burned into your forehead. Never again do they seem to ask “how are you?” and really mean it. The questions are always direct; “how is your mom doing? how is your husband? how is your work going?” A truly, deep-down heartfelt “how are you?”  seems to be off the menu. You know what I mean right? Someone asks you something they might know the answer to but they just really want you to honestly talk to them – and whatever you say they will hear it and love you the same at the end of your answer as they did eight months ago before you branded your forehead with i’m a f#%&ing crazy mess.

I am a f#%&ing crazy mess – a fistful of it. But I also have a really clear picture of a home I want to create and exist in. I want that future and that is a really f#%&ing great first for today.

Day Sixteen

Posted on Posted in seven weeksLeave a comment

nd412

Sixteen – I always thought this was my lucky number. Birthdate and all that. I decided today that 3 and 7 are my new lucky numbers. Anyway. On to my firsts.

I played basketball with my husband. For the first time. You don’t understand – this is a big deal. I am not one to embarrass myself by engaging in any activity that embarrasses me by showcasing my ineptitudes.

I openly spoke my mind about a few hot button family issues; for the first time.

I also drank Jack Daniels and enjoyed it for the first time.

Not a particularly enlightening day in some respects. I don’t know that I am a kinder, smarter or more successful person for having experienced these firsts – but I certainly am learning to take myself and life a little less seriously, speak my mind more openly and try things again that I had written off years ago. And if those things don’t add up to making my journey towards a kinder, smarter and more successful me in my 30th year then I don’t know that there’s any hope for me anyway.

Besides; I swear it felt really good after the crap day I had yesterday. Sometimes playing a sport you suck at, drinking a drink you normally would just barely choke down and getting a little sun on your face in the process can make for a great Saturday. A great any day.

I think it was actually a pretty great day of firsts after all.

Day Fifteen

Posted on Posted in confessions, seven weeksLeave a comment

cherry

Today’s first – it was a bad day. Bad days have happened often these past two years but today was the first since I started this crazy excuse for a blog. It is the first time I have tried to figure out what a bad day means for me and if I can see it coming. It was a day with too much time spent in my own head. Too much time wasted ruminating on past failures and future fears. I know that days like this will come and go for the rest if my life – I just want some respite between them. More time to recover, to come back to the real world and see and hear and breath. I don’t know how else to describe it other then like being lost. Today I was lost and on my own.

Climbing out of depression is like a gradual lightening. You don’t really notice it at first, the brighter light ahead in the trees. But soon there is a distinct glow just before you. It’s there, and before you know it you are surrounded by the light and not entirely sure why you were lingering in the dark for so long. You enjoy the light, revel in it, share it with loved ones and excitedly make plans for your future. You acknowledge the possiblity of a successful and contented future. You get out more, sleep better, you can focus your mind with ease and are more comfortable accepting your fewer but growing strengths along with your still myriad weaknesses. The trouble comes when you’ve been lost a few times, for a little too long – you start to fear the light because you realize how quickly it can end – how quickly you can find yourself back in the shadows of your own mind.

The darkness we create for ourselves is the most frightening, we know what we are most afraid of, our past regrets, our secrets, our thoughts we are too ashamed to share. We are our own best tormentors. The point of all of this open introspection is to have fewer bad days. To understand and try to deter them. Also to be realistic and accept them as they come – but to be prepared to recover quickly and move on in the surrounding light. Today was a bad day, but I have hope that tomorrow will be better.

Day Fourteen

Posted on Posted in confessions, pontifications, seven weeksLeave a comment

macarons

Tonight marks my first fortnight of blogging, of this experiment in finding my voice (which sounds so f#%&ing cheesy), of trying to figure out exactly what and whom I am and want to be. Today I did a lot of thinking. Thinking about why I say yes to people, to events, to work commitments when I want to say no. Why do I do this? Am I a “yes man”? I don’t want to be in the traditional corporate dog sense – yet I do like to help people around me, I like to please people. Today I chose to once again help a family member for a few hours instead of researching potential money making career paths to get our future move rolling along. I want to help when I can, but I need to focus on my future, my happiness, my today and tomorrow. Today I also tentatively agreed to complete two websites for a family member and one of their friends. I don’t want to be a web designer. I don’t want to cold call people that I don’t know to complete a task for which I have no particular love or passion. I know this and I still said yes.

Wtf? Why is no such a hard thing to say sometimes?

But saying yes is equally difficult. Saying yes to our dreams, to moving where we want, to eating food that makes us feel good mentally & physically, to setting out against the status quo. I’ve spent so much time and energy defending my decisions to go to the school I went to, to quit the cushy corporate job that was dragging me down, to never have kids of my own, to go vegan – and yes that means for life people. All this because my decisions have not been the most common, clear-cut definition of a happy and successful life. Yet I am still not saying yes to some of my most important and cherished dreams. And not to go all self-help on you – but I truly believe that I am the only one standing in the way of my own happiness. I seriously found myself searching the internet for “how to move to Paris” earlier. As I perused the blogs and sites describing other people’s experiences and tips – I had to laugh at my own ridiculousness. Really – I actually just searched for how to move to Paris – how the f#%& do you think you move to Paris you idiot – you sell what you can, donate the rest, pack a couple of bags and buy a plane ticket.

Today’s first is practicing saying yes when I mean yes, and no when I mean no. It’s so simple. It’s harder then it sounds.

Day Thirteen

Posted on Posted in confessions, pontifications, seven weeksLeave a comment

clouds blog

Ah, lucky thirteen. I wonder what my lucky number is. There is probably some form of astrology, zodiac or something out there that would tell me. This year I am making it 30 because – well you know. Maybe just 3 in general could be my number.

Okay, so my first today is starting Game of Thrones. We tried watching it before but I do not really remember the first episode – so I’m counting it as a first watch. It was good – promising, but no True Detective. Then again True Detective had eight episodes, not sixty. I feel like I’m jumping on the bandwagon kind of late – but if it actually deserves the praise and ratings then it will be worth it.

I’ve always felt a slight annoyance in enjoying popular shows, movies, bands and books. Don’t get me wrong; I love the rush of thousands of fans singing their favorite lyrics in unison at a concert, the camaraderie of fans attending midnight shows to watch their favorite characters on the big screen and the excited chatter of a few friends discussing the latest installment of a great book series. It just feels like we spend a lot of time talking about how many episodes of such-and-such we’ve seen and not enough asking how we are doing. Shouldn’t we be talking about life? Shouldn’t we be asking how we are really doing, what and where we want to be and supporting each other through the ups and downs that come along with the journey? I do have those friends – the ones who will do anything when asked, will always pick up the phone and will always, always say I am totally right – even when I’m not. And I am lucky that I do – I just feel like so many relationships become shallower with time instead of deeper.

Maybe that’s just life. I don’t want every conversation to be a brooding, existential and introspective one – but maybe the daily minutiae is best left alone? I don’t know – I hate to sound bitchy. I just feel like as we get older, as we grow, see more of the world and understand our dreams and desires more – shouldn’t we be able to express and share more with friends? Not less? Wow, I just should-ed all over the place. It’s a dangerous word – I should use it less.

Day Twelve

Posted on Posted in lists, seven weeksLeave a comment

tarot

Today our niece turned four. Time is slipping by so quickly.

We really need to focus on our future and living how we want to live. One of my favorite mantras lately is the opening lines to Primal Scream’s Loaded. It just loops through my head sometimes. Today’s first is starting my bucket list. It begins with locations around the world that I want to live at some point in my life. Anywhere in Japan, London, Paris, an island somewhere, New Zealand. Taking trips and taking family on trips around the world. Taking our nieces to Disney World for their first time, taking them everywhere and showing them everything. I want to learn about so much. I want to learn languages, how to read the tarot, archery, any mma or tae know do.

I have so much living to do it’s kind of intimidating; but that’s the best part. Now I just need to start.

“Just what is it that you want to do?

We wanna be free

We wanna be free to do what we wanna do

And we wanna get loaded

And we wanna have a good time

That’s what we’re gonna do”