“I long ago abandoned the notion of a life without storms, or a world without dry and killing seasons. Life is too complicated, too constantly changing, to be anything but what it is...There will always be propelling and disturbing elements... It is, at the end of the day, the individual moments of restlessness, of bleakness, of strong persuasions and maddened enthusiasms that inform one's life, change the nature and direction of one's work, and give meaning and color to one's friendships and love.”
-Kay Red Jamison (An Unquiet Mind)
So today I went on my bi-weekly “Goodwill Hunting” CD and book search. I did not find anything I couldn’t live without this weekend, and am trying hard to save money. But that is neither here nor there. I came to the following conclusions/ affirmations while at goodwill this evening:
People have absolutely no manners. (See prior postings. This is an epidemic.) I watched an adult man drop his 48oz soda all over the floor, pick up his cup, set it right side up, and walk off.
A lot of people steal from GOODWILL!! I asked one of the cashiers once why they had such a problem with theft (after at least five of the CD cases I browsed had missing CD’s). They said it was because Goodwill won’t press charges since it is a second hand non-profit store, whose proceeds all go back to the community anyways. This makes no sense to me. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that some people with very dire circumstances steal to get by, but seriously, there is nothing at Goodwill that is life sustaining.
Per⋅cep⋅tive
adjective: having or showing keenness of insight, understanding, or intuition.
So we lay glowing in the grass
to watch the sun swap with the moon
to trade our future for our past
the present tense was all we knew
Horoscope for Saturday, August 27, 2011:
You’re a good judge of character.
Because I'm selfish enough to want to get better,
But I'm backwards enough not to take any steps to get there.
And when you realize it's a pattern and not a phase,
It's what you've become and it's what you will stay
When in doubt, just take the next small step.
I’m working on my ability to dismiss doubt. I know it's because I'm naturally a fair and just person and I feel like I always have to hear, understand and consider both sides and or outcomes before I come to a decision. I feel like I need to give it time and think through the "What ifs?" Although I know I'm brilliant, I hesitate because I sometimes wonder if there's something out there I haven't thought of, a possibility I haven't yet considered. And then I get all caught up in those thoughts and before I know it, time has passed.
The quiet can scrape
all the calm from your bones,
but maybe it should.
Maybe we need to be hollowed
to get up and grow,
and stop fucking around,
to kick off our braces and start straightening out.
Let's sift through the static
to find a simpler sound...
simpler sound than the shit that's clouding our heads now.
I’ve decided it’s time to start tiptoeing along that tightrope. I have so many things I want to do, and I honestly don’t know what I’m waiting for! If I learned anything from last year, and losing my fallopian tube and all the other nonsensical drama, it’s that everything happens for a reason. I am lucky enough to be young, healthy and intelligent. I may not have much but I need to take advantage of what I do have right now.
“When was the last time you dreamed? I'm talking about dreaming and achieving something that you really want in your life. I bet when you were younger you dreamed all the time, but something happened and it didn't turn out. That's probably when you slowly gave up on dreaming. Or maybe you're one of those people who achieved your dreams and didn't bother to create new ones. Or you're in the large pool of people who never really dreamed at all. Don't worry. That's common. Often people get busy in their daily lives and forget to dream. Or they're afraid to dream because it brings up lots of emotions that put them at risk for being hurt or disappointed. It's comfortable to live without emotional risk, but that's not where the fun is in life. Having dreams engages you in your life, makes it more exciting, and connects you to yourself and what's important to you.”
– Lauren Zander
A part of me embraces and relishes my freedom and independence, another part of me recoils at it. I love sleeping whenever and leaving mugs on my nightstand. I hate cooking for myself, grocery shopping, and setting aside a day for laundry. I like sorting my piles when I feel like it, buying coffee and cheap jewelry with my last few dollars and organizing my shit the way I so desire. I hate setting up appointments, seeing doctors, managing a schedule, trying to budget. I like being able to go wherever I want, sitting in the middle of my bed in underwear, staying up as late as I want and crashing. I have officially been independent for eight years now*. I want to take my independence in another direction and own things, build things, run things.
(*Although I consider myself to be independent, I have more family support than I deserve or care to admit.)
First on my list to build: a tree house.
“The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be.”
— Marcel Pagnol
No comments:
Post a Comment