Checking In

It's amazing what can happen in a month.

Isn't it? I mean, we sort of just go along at a decent clip and don't stop to realize just how much stuff we do in the course of a single day. How do we remember anything? How do we recall that amazing dinner we had, or that awesome play we went to, or how our favorite person sounds over the phone? Sometimes I am simply staggered by how amazing our brains truly are, for cataloging all of these things that make up our individual experience.

Anyhow, the month of February was... a long, exhausting, emotional blur. I am not going to get into it much; too many things that happened don't belong on the internet for everyone I don't know to see. But a lot of it was really bad, and a lot of it was pretty good, and now I'm just trying to recalibrate and take stock of how to move forward.

Isn't that what it's all about, anyway? Moving forward? I always struggle with that. I'm always looking over my shoulder at what has happened, or looking ahead to what might happen, and never looking right in front of me at what is happening, and so I have this tendency to stumble. I mean, right now I'm putting one foot in front of the other and doing it reasonably well; I have a plan for the next few months and I know, generally, what my life is going to look like for the vast majority of 2012. But I feel so small, sometimes. I feel so... isolated from the rest of the world of people doing the exact same thing. Putting one foot in front of the other. Trying not to trip.

I don't want to feel this small. I want to feel so big that I could embrace every single creature in the universe and still have room for more. I want to feel like I deserve that. That I deserve to love everyone and everything, and have them love me, too.

The holistic wellness counselor I've been working with since August suggested I start a regular meditation practice (there are a lot of things I'd like to do regularly, like exercise... -_-), which I've kept up with for the last five days in the mornings before work. I find that checking in with myself in the mornings definitely helps to lift my mood, but by the time lunch rolls around I'm back to feeling tiny. And there are ways in which feeling small feels great (Niagara Falls comes to mind...), but lately the feeling small has not felt so great. I am just hoping that the meditation helps. I just hope that I can keep the practice going long enough to make it a habit.

I'm also reading Eat Pray Love, a bit late, I suppose. I am simultaneously in love with the book and wanting to throw it across the room because, yes, I understand what you're saying, but I will never have such an experience, simply because I'll never be able to afford it. Which depresses me even as the message she's trying to get across lifts me up. It's really weird.

Most things are really weird right now.

Still, I am healthy, loved, and have the opportunity to create beautiful things every day. Plus, someone else is paying for me to go back to school (again!). However I may feel (and I am allowed to feel however I'm going to feel), the external forces in my life are good forces.

It will have to do for now.

A Life Less Ordinary

I've been listening to Carbon Leaf's "A Life Less Ordinary" on repeat lately. I hear this song and even though it's talking about a relationship, I hear a call to live my life how I want to live my life, not how society or my friends or my parents expect me to. Of course, that raises the question, how do I want to live my life? What do I want out of this little blip of an experience? And how in the world will I ever figure this out in time to make it meaningful?

(I feel like assigning meaning to anything is sort of pointless, since eventually my body will be happily feeding some trees in the gloriousness of the life cycle of this planet. But there's something really human about wanting the things we do to endure beyond our short little lives, so, I won't apologize for feeling this way.)

This is going to come off sounding whiny to some people, I know, but I will make the disclaimer here that I am not unhappy right now. Lost as fuck, yes. Unhappy, definitely not. I feel a million times freer than I did a month ago, and have found a few coping mechanisms that had once been my friends hiding in my bedroom closet. I've since dusted them off and am using them with abandon.

I don't have a clue what I want to do with myself. That's really the crux of the issue these days; it's not that I don't have a job, or that I'm tired of New York City, or that I hate the idea of leaving my friends behind even if it becomes necessary. I can deal with not having a job (I think I've spent more time in the city without a job than with one, actually), I can deal with walking through the streets and not knowing or even recognizing a single person I see, I can call or email friends if I have to leave (those of you who are already far away, please don't give away the terrible secret that I actually suck at this). What I can't deal with, or at least am having a hard time dealing with, is that the path before me is completely unclear. There's no end-goal in sight. I'm a planner - maybe not a good one, but I like to have a plan, and right now the only plan I have is to make a new plan.

In the past weeks, while trolling through craigslist and Monster and idealist.org to find an office job that any monkey could perform (just to pay my bills, which keep showing up despite the hexes I sent in the mail to my credit card companies. ... just kidding), I have compiled a list of all of the things I enjoy, and could see myself making something of a "career" out of. In no particular order, I've thought of being a professional seamstress, a librarian, a farmer, an editor, a book designer, a yoga instructor, a baker, a chef, a masseuse, a bee keeper, a sailor, a jeweler, a fire performer, or a professional drifter. I've visited schools, emailed friends, called people I know in the business, and have cast nets out looking for at least a hint of where I should head next, but I haven't found any answers yet.

I know I want to live simply. What does that mean? In my mind, it means making enough money to feed, clothe, and house myself (and occasionally travel), but not enough to give in to the spending culture we live in. It means I should probably get my driver's license before my foot forgets how to work a gas pedal, but I don't want to own a car. It means I need to get a bike, ride it every day for fun, and have a basket for when I need to go shopping. It means I must make yoga an integral part of my day, no excuses. It means that I cook simple meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It means that I have time for textile arts or whatever other hobby happens to have my attention at the time. And it means that I am open and honest with the people in my life, no matter who they are, where they live, or how I feel about them. It means having faith rather than being afraid.

Is this a life less ordinary? I feel like I won't do well doing what "normal" people do. This whole work, work, work, so I can earn, earn, earn, and spend, spend, spend, and maybe leave a little money for my children when I die thing just doesn't appeal. I used to think that having a family - you know, husband, children, pets, white picket fence and all that - was what I wanted, but I'm starting to realize a lot of things about myself that don't fit in this picture. So, if I don't want normal, if trying to be "normal" and work "normal" and live "normal" hasn't worked... what do I do?

This is where that faith over fear thing comes in. I think I'm working myself up to the faith part, because I still have too many "what ifs" running around in my brain. That part of me that likes for things to be perfectly coordinated and planned balks at the idea of living as a sailor on a boat somewhere, with no guarantee of work or housing when I'm shore-bound. It hates the idea of uprooting my life to go someplace completely new for a job that might not last longer than a few months. But this is a wind I have to bend to, I guess.

One of my favorite quotes is "Be patient with all that is unresolved in your heart. Love the questions." I often find it extremely difficult to love the questions, or be patient. But I am trying, desperately, to do so right now. I was in this place four years ago, wondering what I was going to do with my life. I landed on teaching, and ended up hating it. I know that if I rush this, I'll be asking myself a lot of the same questions again in four years. And while I know that the journey is important, I would really love to find something that sustains me emotionally, spiritually, and physically... no more wondering.

On the hunt now...