"You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet."

- Franz Kafka

This is a beautiful quote. I feel it in my soul, my blood. However, my brain says act. My brain says think. My brain tells me to repeat repeat repeat all the negative things floating around in there. It's hard to tell it to be quiet, to be still, because it feels so good to feel bad. I'm addicted to the self flagellation.

Lost and found.

"Eccentricity is not, as dull people would have us believe, a form of madness. It is often a kind of innocent pride, and the man of genius and the aristocrat are frequently regarded as eccentrics because genius and aristocrat are entirely unafraid of and uninfluenced by the opinions and vagaries of the crowd."


- Edith Sitwell


Now that I'm approaching thirty, I've been sitting back and really taking stock of my life. Where am I? Who am I? What do I love/hate/need? What do I want to do with my life? All these questions become 3am conversations with myself, keeping my up and exhausting me until they've drained my brain like an old kitchen sponge.


The answer to all of the above is that I don't know. Where am I? I guess that depends on who you ask. To most people, making under 30k a year isn't anywhere palpable at all. Who am I? God (if I believed in one) only knows. Today, I'm a student. Tomorrow, a gym rat. It's fluid. What do I love/hate/need? Ever-changing. And I have absolutely no idea what I want to do with my life besides write.


To my excitement, though, I've realized none of that is directly related to what other people think of me. Do I care what my next door neighbor thinks of my blasting Florence and the Machine's cover of Halo at 9am? Nope. It makes me happy. Do I care that the head of the PTA is upset with me for not volunteering? No. In that regard, I've found myself.

Not ready.

"If we were not all so interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it."

- Arthur Schopenhauer 

I run this weird borderline between being totally obsessed with myself and totally disgusted with myself most days.

It's an oddly irreverent feeling.

I often internalize and think, then there are other times that words exit my mouth before I've had a chance to ponder them at all.

I've felt old lately. Muted. Like a faded watercolor painting. I wonder if this is what getting older feels like, putting away childish things and assuming more mature responsibilities. I worry that I'm going to die like this, never fully touching anything, never rolling it over in my hands and feeling the textures and patterns and life.

I thought I knew what I wanted. I thought I had it all together. Child - check. Family - check. Pets - check. School - check. 

Turns out I don't even know myself well enough to know how unhappy I've become with the status quo, with the normalcy that life often inflicts upon us while it's telling us that this is the way it should be.

I'm not ready for this to be my life. Staying in Friday nights. Not driving to another state in the middle of the night because people just don't do that. Not writing at 5 in the morning because I can't sleep.

I'm not ready for this mediocrity.

"To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget."


-Arundhati Roy


Simple words to say, yet difficult to live by. Although I'm Buddhist, I find my practice minimized to yoga/meditation for a quick 5 minutes in the morning. Being mindful? Living in the moment? Forget it. I'm so stuck in the past, the present and the future at the same time that I feel like three separate people.

Fear.

"Fear is a manipulative emotion that can trick us into living a boring life."

- Donald Miller

On a daily basis, I'm faced with fear. I'm a naturally anxious person, though I hide it well under a facade of "I don't give a fuck." Cool as a cucumber, my mom would say. I remember joking with one of my best friends about how ordinary people can go outside to the mailbox at 10 o'clock at night and enjoy the cool breeze, the crunch of the grass under their feet.... while I wait for the serial killer to jump out from behind the bush and slit my throat.

Sounds crazy, but it's true.


I'm the product of my environment. My mother is a natural worrier. For instance, when I moved into my very first apartment by myself, the first thing she did was make me check all the windows so I didn't get raped. I mean it. Raped. I'm a young, 20-something and the first thought she seeps into my new place is the possibility of sexual assault.

No wonder I'm a wack-job.


But, while I agree that fear is the reason most people live such boring lives, it's also pushed me in some interesting directions. Fear is the reason I write. Fear is the reason I do roller derby. Fear is what makes me a great parent. Fear can be a motivator just as surely as it can be an anchor holding you back. It's all in how you look at it.

Thoughfulness.

"The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right place but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment."

- Dorothy Nevill

All my life, I have been the "say it like it is" woman. I joke, mostly in an uncomfortable way, about how I have no filter between my brain and my mouth. Things just come out - good things and bad things - with usually no immediate regard for the feelings of the person that I'm talking with.

I used to think that was a good thing, that I was the person least likely to lie. It's recently become more apparent, as I begin to approach 30, that perhaps I need to adjust the way that I choose to express myself.


I always think that I want people to be bluntly honest with me, to tell me what I need to hear and not what they think I need to hear. Yet, when something hurtful comes out of their mouths, I bristle. My feelings get hurt (although I would never admit to that or show any weakness in the moment). I want to be coddled a bit.


Perhaps other people want the same thing. Sometimes I feel like an emotional robot, painting by the numbers. I follow the flow chart of behavior - if A than B, followed by C or D as the situation dictates. It's often hard for me to wrap my brain around actual human emotion. I never had the chance to feel those things as a child due to my childhood experiences and sometimes I feel like I'm never going to keep up.


This has been one hell of a year for personal revelations.

 

Change.

"I must learn to love the fool in me... the one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and breaks promises, laughs and cries."


- Theodore Isaac Rubin


After having a very in-depth, raw and honest conversation with a new friend last night (who had spend hours reading one of my previous blogs - terrifying though), it occurred to me that the amazingness other people see in me is something I may never be able to see in myself.


It's easy to look at someone, especially someone new, and see their potential. Their light. Their beauty, intelligence, artfulness, etc. I fall in love with each new person in my life quickly and continue to be in awe of them for months.


But I can't fathom someone feeling that about me. I would point out every flaw to you if I felt there was enough room on this page.


I need to embrace my qualities that make me ME, end of story. I put myself out there, day after day, sometimes being genuine and sometimes faking it until I make it, with absolutely no respect for the unique human being I am.


That's gotta change.