life has a haiku feel

It might be today.  I might be an aunt.  But the thing is, I just don't know!

So many surprises, so much newness.

Tap Dancing.

Ideas

You're having one right now.  It may not be a good one, it may not even be a realistic one.  But you have one.  In fact, you've probably had at least five ideas today.  And tomorrow you'll have seven more.  But by tomorrow you'll have forgotten the ones you had today.  You'll say they were silly, or impossible, or pointless.  Maybe you told them to somebody who thought they were frivolous.  Perhaps you didn't have enough confidence in them to even take a moment to seriously consider your ideas, letting them slip silently from your semi-concious mind into the trash, unnoticed.  Chances are, right now you can't even recall more than two of the ideas you've had all week.  Which is a shame, because at least two of those ideas were downright brilliant.

Who are you to judge your ideas before they come out into the world?  Who are you to stunt their growth like feeding coffee to a newborn child, dashing its dreams before it even realizes the potential it lost.  Who is anyone else to shut down the ideas that fuel your passion for life?   That's right.  No one should have that power.  Ideas deserve to live a life of their own, unencumbered by human cowardice.

Ideas are the driving force behind our lives.  They are the motor behind all genius, and the source of all potential.  They are the sparks in life that make living great.  Ideas provide the starting ground for movements, destruction, creation, and change.  Ideas are life.  They are what makes being human so unique and wonderful.    

So please, take a moment to remember your ideas.  Give them life, give them a chance.  Allow yourself to really consider your own ideas.  Take the time to ask someone else about theirs, and really listen.  Remember that everything big in the world that really made a difference started out as someone's meager idea. Never doubt the potential of your ideas.  Nothing is as easily dismissed.  But there is also nothing as powerful.

Ideas change the world.

What is yours?

For more on ideas, watch Influencers and read The Tipping Point.

lists and things

1. More and more in my life, I play therapist.  I enjoy parts of it, I don't enjoy others.  I'm not sure what this means.

2. Theory v. Application.  Choosing one or the other is going to mean a choice in my future and career.  Life decisions are simultaneously exciting and scary.  I used to hate them, and I'm learning to enjoy them.  After all, choices like this won't come along forever.  This is when I get to determine my life path.

3. I miss Hannah.

4. My hair needs to be cut, and it's going to happen tomorrow.

5.  Oatmeal cookies are some of my favorite things, and I'm making some tonight.  If they are yours too, let me know.  It just so happens that I might be willing to share.

Initial rant of the Precipice Year

EPIPHANY: I was wondering why I had the energy to split and stack a cord of redwood, go running at the track, make dinner, make cookies, be the family chauffer, and do my nails all after an icky feeling morning.  I just realized all of this happened immediately after taking Excedrin. *sigh*

Prepare for random, senseless venting.

Someday I will learn to embrace the roller-coaster that is life.  But for right now, I'm going to scream the whole freaking way down.

The way that people view me matters.  And it bothers me to no end when I feel that people's perception of me is an any way inaccurate.  There are few things I hate more than knowing someone has a compromised view of my morals, especially when I feel powerless to change their view.  Sometimes relationships in life morph themselves so that it's simply not worth the pain to set the record straight.  Times when setting the record straight would be only self serving.  And right now is one of those times.

I have a hard time letting go.  It's something I understand about myself.  I don't have a lot of close friends, but the people that are important to me I invest a lot in.  When things with people blow up in my face, I don't know how to fix it.  I try, and often I fail.  I spent so much time investing in preventing the demise of relationships, so I really don't know how to fix the ones that are falling apart.  I run.  And then I think about it...for what seems like forever.

I want to understand.  In all these circumstances, what I want more than anything is a safe conversation where I just get to know what went so very wrong.  I don't need a reconciliation.  Heck, a lot of times I think that we're better off heading our separate ways.  But I just can't stand the thought that sprawling the globe are people who are harboring awful feelings toward me.  Maybe I did do something wrong.  I probably did.  But I don't know what it was.  And if I don't know, I can't fix it.  And if I can't fix it, what happens if we run into one another at the grocery store?  I hate that this is what I'm afraid of.

A lot of people make resolutions on January 1st.  I'm making a resolution for my 20th year.  I am going to move on, and keep becoming.

BECOMING.  I love that word.  And it describes so beautifully my journey.  I'm learning how to become, and who I want to become.  I'm also figuring out how to just be.  Both parts take effort, and both are essential.  I can't afford to spend any more of my life worrying that someone, somewhere is upset with me.  I only have this one life, and I'm doing the very best I can.

If you don't believe me, I'm open for discussion.  Just don't expect me to guess it from your silence.

I'm not as angry as I sound, I promise.  It's just one of those moments, when everything feels like it's great and one little reminder seems to turn everything upside down.
Bedtime.

Over and out.

Pirate and Poppins out for Pizza

I've found that the people who end up meaning the most to me are the ones I don't expect to right away.  Take my old roomate, for example.  Her and I spent two whole school years living in the same apartment, first by chance, then by reluctant choice.  We were both crazy busy and didn't see much of one another or spend a whole lot of time together.  And yet...I remember the times I was able to help her out with a late night photo-shoot when someone bailed, or when she brought me a lollipop from work when I'd had a bad day.

I didn't ever really think about it, but I'm realizing now that I really miss her.  I thought she was a little crazy when I first met her.  Now I know she's crazy, but I also know she has more depth and sincerity than I ever could have imagined.  I've learned so much from her.

And today, she made my day:

://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1850779823024&set=p.1850779823024&type=1&theater

Motivation

"Every obstacle presents an opportunity to improve our condition."

Often, the biggest obstacle in accomplishing my dreams is my own laziness.

I'm working on Motivation.  There are things I want out of life, and things I want to be willing to work for.  Right now, my two main physical goals are to:

1. Memorize a Tai Chi morning routine.
2. Work up to running a 5k.

I've spent a long time making over-ambitious goals for myself.  So now I'm going to make attainable ones.  Once I reach these, then I'll move one step up.

Tai Chi

In a desperate attempt to find some form of exercise and grounding that I am actually motivated to do, I've started doing Tai Chi.  It's actually coming along quite nicely, and more of a workout than I thought it would be.  But, it turns out, most of the motivation to do it has to do with Angel, as Tai Chi seems to be his workout of choice.  

Doing Tai Chi is a lot more fun when I imagine that I'm doing it alongside this:

Flex.

Stretch.

Beckon.

Smolder.

Doesn't that make you want to do it, too?

Yeah, I thought so.

take a moment.

Did you know that being alive can be the most beautiful thing?  Were you aware that heartbreak and mistakes and excitement and headaches and being really tired and singing your heart out and not knowing anything ever and feeling everything is what makes everything worthwhile?  I don't think I did.  But I think I'm learning it.  There are moments where you feel all the excitement of being in the biggest city in the world with the contentment of cuddling on a couch on a warm rainy day.  Times when you are spastic and crazy with the excitement of seeing your favorite sports team in person while surrounded by all the people you love.  Days when all you seem to want is someone to love and hold you, but you know that living and loving the life you have now will only make love better when you finally decide to throw yourself on the line for it.

Did you know that the best part of life is that we can feel?  How simple, yet how glorious.  What an incredible life we live, what magnificent depths we are able to reach in the way we love and hate and fear and laugh.

What a blessing it is to be alive.

two years later

this day snook up on me.  i didn't forget.  but i think i did secretly imagine it would never come.

i remember everything.  and it's okay.

i have moved on.

and I love my life.

esoteric paradoxical inquisitions

I wonder why, in the moments and days that seems so lazy, so trapped, and so hard to muster the desire to get out of, it is so hard.  And yet, minutes-hours-days later, the same life and frustrations can seem full of possibilities and positive thoughts.  Why can't the self of right now go back and tell the self of yesterday that things are fine, and that it's okay to relax and be unproductive, or motivate the self of yesterday to get up and live life.

Why is it that in souls so wrought with emotion, poetry, and life, so little of it shows?  The most beautiful things in life are the actions and moments between real people sharing real feelings.  And the second is all of the beautiful things created by those who have no person to feel with, so they share their feelings with everyone through their art.  The second group effects more people.  But the first has an effect of much greater depth.  Which is better?  Can we learn to express ourselves in one way, when we are used to another?  Can we ever have both?

Why does a Google search on emotions lead to hundreds of links on how to "handle" and "control" one's emotions, but nothing on how to feel them?