Wednesday, December 14, 2011

12/14/11:: no more spider, no more leaf.


I've been aware of sadness, apathy, joy, the weather, my friends, my body. I've been aware of my job and tasks and sleep. I've played things out.


But to actually feel something. To cry. Be warm with anger. To miss someone. To worry.

These things are strange islands to me. Vacation spots that I pass by on my boat, but never stop at.

I have postcards to these emotions from my past. I look at them and tell myself I've been there.

It's been so long though that they seem just like stories.




Wednesday, October 19, 2011

10/19/11:: Alone in Station

I want, of course, many things. I don't need to list all of them because I am sure you can figure out for yourself most of them: good health, financial stability, etc etc.

What I want (not most of all, but on a high priority) right now is the company I keep to be on my level. And I don't mean that in a condescending way, though I know it really sounds like it. I just tend to surround myself with people that are in a totally different place in their lives. Not going to school, in school, starting their own business...

Fine.

But on some selfish surface level, I need someone like me. Who is doing what I'm doing. Who wants/likes/hates/affords/aspires toward/knows the things that I do.


Which shouldn't be so hard to find... because I'm pretty ordinary. And yet... I don't have that person in my life.


Saturday, September 24, 2011

9/24/11:: Sometimes

Every so often, I am forced to wake up... realize my room is trashed and clean it up. Realize I've been lazy... get productive. Realize I've been sloppy with my emotions... reign it in.

I've been making a lot happen. On paper, I must look pretty good.

But internally, there is much work to be done. Much to be re-packaged, re-organized, rearranged...

And not just for the sake of rearranging. But because it's important to know where you are [in the present moment], so you have an accurate view of where you are going [in the future]. The past is the past, and we can look at it from any angle, but the brutal honesty of NOW is the demon to be reckoned with.

Patience
Selflessness
Jealousy
Stress
Self-consciousness
Honesty


Projects.

Monday, August 22, 2011

8/22/11:: Your Unbearable Lightness

When some people feel love in a memory, they write songs about it, full of intricate, affected metaphors. Great chefs write recipes, ones with the flavors that arouse the same emotions or sensations. Dancers and athletes move their bodies, flex their muscles, and feel energy in places that before perhaps felt lifeless.

My energy, however, just spins. Feeling swirls around. Collects in the atmosphere. Fills entire rooms and goes spilling out into hallways, tumbling down stairs, and avalanching into the neighbor's yard.

There are moments that as they are happening, you know belong only to you. You know that you're the only one noticing that the sun is peeking in the window just right, or that the room is the perfect temperature for touching. I replay these in my head while I'm on the bus or while I'm walking from the coffee shop to my desk.

What do you think about? I wish I knew. I hope that doesn't make me selfish. I hope it doesn't sound stupid.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

7/24/11:: Sunday mornin' comin' down

Despite last night proving to be an major, yet accidental failure on my part (fell hard asleep by 9pm even though I HAD plans...), it enabled me to wake up bright and rested this morning as early as sunrise. I had one of those blissful Sunday feelings, where you stretch in bed and look at your hair sticking up in the mirror--and think, "I have so much time to enjoy my coffee today. It won't be noon for hours."

And after a while, while I waited for it to become a reasonable hour to text a friend, I started digging through some old files. Old video blogs that I never posted, old messages to myself back from when I started my fitness journey in January. It was really inspiring. At the end of one I wrote, "Dear future self, I bet you look awesome now... and feel awesome too. I hope you're enjoying it because your past self feels like crap and really doesn't feel like working out today. I'm going to go do it for you, though." Made me laugh. And made me realize, yeah... I do feel pretty good. And even though the past few months have felt like tires spinning, I have really accomplished a lot for myself on the inside AND outside.

I've been breaking down a lot of walls I had built up for myself when I was younger and in college. Doing lots of things that I thought, "oh, that's just not me," or "i just don't function that way." Saving money, letting guards down and learning to allow myself to be vulnerable, exploring the joys of selflessness, taking on the responsibility of being another person's inspiration-- not to mention my own personal wellness goals of working out, eating right, and just generally being healthier.

I've just recently become an official Independent Beachbody Coach-- it means I coach people for free, helping them to reach their own wellness goals.

Profits are based off of commission on products of course, but it's truly inconsequential. It's about holding myself accountable and meeting more people like myself who care passionately about making change.

"A year from now, you will wish you had started today."

Making things happen.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

7/21/2011:: Heat Wave

This heat is a bubble that is keeping my thoughts trapped in. Hard to breathe. Hard to think. Hard to move. Nothing escapes me except sweat. Exhaling cigarettes is displeasurable. Talking seems exhausting. The only thing that feels good is taking things in: wine, water, criticism. I'm soaking everything up like a sponge, and I'm swelling up like a god damn balloon, I swear.

What most people don't get about me is that I'm constantly trying to communicate something. Even when alone, I'm sending out flags and messages to the outside-- usually cryptic, though painfully planned and executed with precision. This might sound pretty standard, but it's much, much worse for me than anyone realizes. I don't say a word without some sort of angle. Also, it's important to know that I am very bad at geometry.

I feel like the spaces of happiness and productivity are very tiny overlapping "places" in a person's psyche. It's very possible one day to stumble into this space for a brief moment... clean your room like a madwoman with Billie Holiday on volume 27... and stumble out just as quickly, hit like a brick by your usual malaise. It's only when you're really tuned in are you able to balance on one foot in that space for a long period of time. The tiniest push from an outside force, and you could fall right out back into the abyss.

I'm tiptoeing around people right now, pushing off of walls and ideas to find the zone where everything feels balanced. The problem is, I keep trying to pull other people into that space with me because I've been feeling so lonely. One person in particular, if I was going to attempt to be honest about it. I'm finding, however, it's a place that only has room for one.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

7/12/11:: A meditation on prosophobia and dependency


Have you ever had to fight two opposing forces and push through to the center? (The dark center where you can't see the ground or feel the walls.) Both of my arms are stretched out in front and I'm reaching forward for something on which to stabilize, but everything is shifting and getting lost before I can grab on.


I meditate on my thoughts during the afternoons. I whisper mantras to myself in the morning when I sit alone in the park before work. You can endure this. It can all be endured.


Things were not so complicated just a short while ago. I had orientation to my surroundings– to the space between myself and other people. I've been a loner for a long time, and the only thing that puzzled me then was my general numbness and lack of emotion. Now I find feelings tucked away in every crevice. They creep up on me at the most unexpected moments, and I find myself overly sensitive to the opinions and actions of others. Say the word and I'll buy you dinner. I'll drop my plans. I'll rearrange my outlook. I'll make room for you and your needs because I don't seem to have any. Before you know it, my needs are one-in-the-same, indistinguishable from yours. I need to be needed. I need to have a clear space in their territory. I need things that are irrational, illogical, immeasurable, and most importantly… incapable of being stuffed into a tiny box on my calendar.



What a radical left turn.

I have melted and reformed as an entirely different animal. Lack of emotion replaced with hypersensitivity and dependency on the very same people that isolated me with their poor understanding of my condition.


Uncompromising waves and undercurrents and moodswings and fear.


Anxiety builds and goals get reprioritized and/or tossed to the wayside when you say the word.


Come closer. But get the fuck away from me.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

And one-by-one I drowned all of the people I had been.

Things are shifting all around me. People are making drastic moves, trying to catch my attention, but I find myself even less interested and distant than before. Move away. Start a fight. Make a vow. I can't even see you anymore. Talk about tunnel vision...

Sometimes I wonder if it's even possible for me to give any meaningful part of myself to another person anymore: lover or friend. Maybe the compliments and laughs and fucks and drinks are all that's left on the table. Even when I force myself open, I find very little is released, and usually it is only the surface wounds that I bother to lick clean. I always say that the right people will find the real me; they'll "change my mind" or crack me without my even being aware of it. I have started to ponder the possibility that everyone finds themselves approaching a closed door. Is that my problem? Or do I just continue to insist that they are just too stupid to try the knob? I'm not sure.

Little by little, I shut down entire layers of feeling, former habits, and relationships. It seems like every other day a former version of myself dies. Pretty soon I will only be in the present, and I'll be the girl made of mirrors and glass. Reflecting everything, including the sun. Look at me and you'll only see yourself, exactly what everyone really wants to see anyway.

This all sounds very bad I'm sure, but it's not.

It is what it is.

Monday, April 25, 2011

4/25/11:: Insanity

Where is the center? Find it if you can. Lock eyes with it. Own it.

The body: it is my most prized possession and my greatest conquest.


Sculpt the temple which houses your brain and heart, and their strength expounds exponentially upon itself.

Euphoria! -- I am a baby again.
Babies enter this world without fear despite being on their own.

Monday, March 21, 2011

3/21/11:: Velvet Curtains

In case any of you were worried, I am not dead... nor is this blog. We are merely preparing for a grand reveal, which is still a month away.

It involves a new body, new attitude, and maybe even a new l o c a t i o n.

A lot less white noise these days-- more ukuleles.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

3/2/11:: Just to see what is


This video/song pretty much embodies my entire [mental] life right now:


Wednesday, February 2, 2011

2/2/11:: I will survive this winter

via:

Cocorosie - Animals
Bon Iver - Flume
Rufus Wainwright - Sad With What I Have
Patrick Wolf - This Weather
The Radio Dept. - Pulling Our Weight
Red House Painters - Revelation Big Sur
Bright Eyes - Messenger Bird Song
Bon Iver - Blood Bank
The Smiths - I Know It's Over
Bright Eyes - A Song To Pass The Time


I don't usually reveal such private matters.

Sunday, January 2, 2011

1/2/11:: Oh... by the way...


Things I've been and will be doing:

  • Re-reading Walden by Thoreau (in its entirety this time)
  • **Completing P90x (in other words, getting in serious shape)
  • *Rounding off the 6 month marker (January 2011) on being Smoke Free
  • Getting to #300 with my 1001 Films To See Before I Die project
  • *Reaching 12k in my savings account


**Progress update on April 21, 2011

*Progress update on February 2, 2011