I will remain present, and I will listen to my true guide, and I will follow through with what the fibers of my being already understand to be my truest path.
This is my intention in the coming days; may I succeed in it beautifully, thereby helping the world around me to be a loving and beautiful place.
God, guide me, please, and keep me safe, that I be happy, healthy, holy… Amen.
Here’s to safe travels these next few days(!): Cheers! 😉
Post-a-day 2020
We research in my family.
When we are interested in something, we start learning about it, and we tend to do lots of research on it.
Presently, I am preparing to use a used Prius for a while.
Someone was very upset and expressed concerns of my sanity and logic in doing this.
So, to satisfy my initial belief that it was a reasonable idea, and not just plain crazy, I started looking up important things about Priuses, in order to learn more about them… whatever might be important to know, you know?
In sharing a small bit of what I’m learning with my cousin, she replies, “You will now be well versed on the Prius. I’m imagining you building a PowerPoint presentation”.
And, while I chucked inwardly at the intended joke, I also totally saw the seriousness of her statement, and had to agree: I could so see myself doing that.
In fact, I kind of did for physics class in high school at one point… we researched various hybrid cars and their overall effects on the planet…. let’s just say that, fortunately, things have improved in the hybrid world since then…
Anyway… I think I already have enough information to give a really good ten-minute presentation on using used Priuses…
Total nerd, right?
And I love being it. 😉
Post-a-day 2020
I want it all to work out beautifully, but along the lines of my intentions… we shall see what life has in store, however.
Likely, I will discover something much better and rather different than I had ever expected, and for many, many reasons.
After all, is that not how much of life tends to work in the first place?
Anyway…
I’ve been struggling the past ten days, give or take a few on either side.
Getting myself to exercise, even to get out of the house and be specifically outdoors has been tough.
Part of me wonders if something is off in my hormones and diet, but most of me believes that I simply have gotten myself into a mental slough…
This whole “What’s Next” thing has really been getting to me, and I feel like I need a bit of a break from being where I am and have been, both mentally and physically.
The things I have been doing have ended or are ending, and I want a quick vacation to reset, and then to come back and take on all the new stuff full-force(!).
I got a small taste of what it feels I most need last Friday…, and it was amazing, but it also reinforced my draw to taking that real retreat from this daily circumstance in which I presently find myself (and have found myself for a very long while).
I was supposed to do a somewhat quick road trip with my mom, and go visit my brother in Wisconsin, because my mom has wanted to take a road trip with me in her new car for the past three years (though, I only just this year learned of this intention of hers).
Every time I’ve asked to arrange everything with my brother and her, she tells me her schedule won’t allow it.
Okay…
So, I aimed for a shorter trip to visit my cousin in Oklahoma.
It was to be during the workweek, so that I could still work remotely, and we wouldn’t interrupt my cousin’s weekend time with her husband, who had to be at work during the workweek.
But then, suddenly, days before we are about to go, my mom declares that she can’t take of time during the week like that – it must be a weekend…., even though she had already agreed, before I had even reached out to my cousin about visiting.
And then, we were going to go to Galveston for an overnight stay…, but my mom, yet again, decided she actually couldn’t take off when she said she could from work, so we would have to do it on a weekend… when everyone else is there…, which neither of us was interested in doing.
And now, two and a half road trips having been canceled, I’m about ready to burst… I already had my summer plans of spending six weeks in Italy and England (to work on my thesis and visit my best friend and her soon-to-be baby) canceled…, I don’t know how much more of being stuck here I can take.
If it goes much longer, we risk my getting a job elsewhere and just moving away, clear as day…
I was doing so well, back when I had things I was looking forward to doing…, and now, I’m what feels like such an oppressive state, I feel it harder to breathe, and I can’t even seem to get myself to exercise… which only adds to my misery, making me feel like I have a huge fat-girl complex, and all I seem to want to do is eat cookie dough and cry and sleep all day to avoid the world…
And it isn’t all day that I feel this way, but it is the underlying tone to almost every moment, and so is always with me.
I know that I’ll be okay at some point, but I’m really not okay right now, and it has kept regressing, little by little, lately… that’s why I couldn’t stand people asking how I was doing weeks ago… I wasn’t okay, but I didn’t want to talk about it with them.
And I still don’t.
But I’m still not okay.
However, I am finally starting to see clearly what all is in the way for me, and I know I can and will start clearing and cleaning it all up in the very near future.
For now, though, I am simply acknowledging it and letting it be.
I am pissed off and I want a retreat from all of this, and I keep being promised one, and then having it pulled away from me.
And it all comes down to money… if I had more of it, this wouldn’t be an issue right now.
But I won’t get into that.
Ugh…
Post-a-day 2020
I was passively thinking tonight about margaritas and how much I love them, when I had a sudden memory resurgence.
It started with how my mom and I would be together, eating directly out of the bucket of frozen margarita mix that seemingly lived in our freezer throughout my childhood.
It became a totally normal thing for me to pull the bucket out in any given day, and snag a few bitefuls of the delicious, icy mix…
Basically, then, margarita mix was like my version of ice cream while growing up… it was my regular freezer-housed delight.
Granted, I loved ice cream.
However, the margarita mix was more of a regular deal, because, even though I would have only a few bites at time, I would have it on many more occasions than I would have ice cream.
You know… I don’t know for sure that there wasn’t any alcohol in that mixture… I say this, only because I can’t see how it wouldn’t freeze solid f it didn’t have at least some alcohol in it… right??
Plus, I can’t seem to shake the feeling that I was somewhat sneaking the icy bitefuls… suggesting I knew I wasn’t really supposed to be having it…, but maybe it was just because it was a dessert-like treat at not-dessert-time… hmm…
I am definitely checking with my mom on this in the morning.
Speaking of underage drinking – well, you get it – we can mention my first experience of drunkenness… I was somewhere around the age range of 4-7 years.
We were at a restaurant, and the person next to me had a margarita.
In my family, we were basically always allowed to taste anything, so I was granted a taste of the margarita.
And I loved what I tasted.
It so happened that the family member on the other side of me also had a margarita… from her, too, I tasted the margarita… and then I continued to ‘taste’ the margaritas on both sides of me throughout dinner, knowing full well that I wasn’t really supposed to be doing it, yet doing it anyway, and just being very cautious not to be noticed.
Later, in the bathroom with my sisters, I was standing on the counter, kind of dancing around… definitely a bit loopy, though I say so myself…
In short, I very likely was intoxicated.
I remember my sisters laughing at how I was being silly, but no one seemed to think anything of it… I certainly didn’t at the time… it wasn’t until years later that I looked back and couldn’t see anything reasonable but the absurd likelihood of my having been at least a little bit drunk.
Face palm for sure, right?
Haha
But don’t worry: I didn’t turn into a drunk.
As a matter of fact, I hardly ever drink alcohol at all… and it is for lack of wanting it – I don’t even care about alcohol 99% of the time, it seems.
What I do love, of course, is margaritas.
I got lime juice yesterday at the grocer, just so I can make some healthy margaritas here at home… and we can’t have alcohol here, which doesn’t bother me, so I’ll be able to see if I can make something delicious to drink without that edge of flavor the tequila usually gives it.
(Note: I actually only seem to like alcohol for the edge it gives to something else, and not for the beverage itself… the only exception is champagne, which I find to be a lovely beverage.)
Anyway… we’ll see what Mom says tomorrow… haha
Post-a-day 2020
Perusing the various social aspects of my phone as I get in my final required steps before I am allowed to go to bed for the night, I have noticed a sense of slight oddness…, but I have been unable to identify what is odd, nor really be sure that something is, indeed, odd… I’m just tired, and under the after-effects of a large margarita (from six hours ago, mind you) and lots of tamales and tacos to fill my belly and tire me out.
I had consciously decided to gorge on them in celebration of Cinco de Mayo – truly more of a Texas day of celebration of Mexican culture than a Mexican celebration of boosted morale in the midst of a takeover by France… – and to be delighted with the whole experience… and I have been – today has been great.
But, sitting here on my bed, there is something tickling at the back of my tired mind and body…
I wiggle and trench my shoulders a bit, and it suddenly hits me, as I declare happily, “That’s what’s weird! I don’t have a shirt on!”
As usual when I am really tired, I messed up the order of things in getting ready for bed, and forgot the one that involves putting on a shirt. 😂
So, I popped over to clothes, selected a soft t-shirt, and pulled it on happily.
Aaahhh… that feels good… satisfying.
At last, the oddness is gone, and I feel whole in my bedtime preparations. 😂
Silly, silly… 😂
Post-a-day 2020
My siblings thought it was an acceptable idea to have me watch the original ”Scream” film when it came out. I was five. My mom was furious. But I survived. I even have a sort of affinity for the film, despite the many nightmares it produced throughout my childhood. 😂
Then, “I know what you did last summer” was another they shared with me, only a year later… yikes. Again, though, I survived.
The sequel was freaky but fun for me, because it was possibly the first sequel to release during my lifetime for something that I knew.
At some point, before age nine, they showed me “Jaws”. “Jaws” is actually one of my favorite films – I even read the book recently! – despite the nightmares… and general fear of the ocean… that still exists today… 😂
Frankly, seeing “The Sixth Sense” at my mom’s strong recommendation when I was eight was significantly more traumatizing than any of the others, and I, to this day, have bad dreams and spooky nights because of it…, but that’s for different reasons. “Scream” isn’t very practical or realistic for everyday life.
“Deep Blue Sea” and “Lake Placid”, at age eight, were probably the films that put me over the edge in terms of being comfortable swimming alone in any body of water… I just couldn’t do it – even in the pool at my brothers’ dad’s house, I was somehow convinced that, after I had started to swim away from the wall, someone had opened up a secret panel behind me, and released a shark into the water…., and so I would rush to the other side and wrench myself out of the water as fast as possible, breathing hard… always to find no shark, of course… fortunately, of course…
One of my brothers – one not involved in having me watch the scary movies – had mentioned to me, after his having seen “The Ring” in theatres, that the film was terribly funny due to the fakeness of so much of it… he was the only one laughing during the film, but he was laughing hard at times, he said.
The thought of a scary film’s being funny was new to me, and I considered that I might want to see this film…, but not badly enough to seek it out – I had already written away scary films from my life by that point.
One night, however, years later, I was drawn by a film that came on television, not knowing what film it was. I had an odd feeling that it was “The Ring”, however, and I turned out to be correct in that judgment. Keeping my brother’s idea of humor in mind, I stuck with the film. Frankly, I also found the film quite stupid in many ways, as my brother had suggested and described years beforehand. I was still haunted in dreams by certain aspects of the film, but I recovered much more easily than with any other scary film I had ever seen, and I attributed it to the mentality of laughing at the graphics and illogic of certain visual scenarios within the film – thereby distancing myself from the story itself.
I still stay firmly away from scary films, though, and horror films are a solid no for me, with no question of even discussing them and their subject matter…
I’m almost certain that almost all of my nighttime and dark-alley fears have come from films…, so, perhaps life could have been a lot easier not having the scary films in it…, but perhaps it is just those fears that have me be so prepared for just about anything in life…?
Anyway, the point is that I very much dislike and avoid scary movies (now that I have say and am not a little kid), but I was exposed to several as a young child, yet I survived.
So, if you are watching a film, and discover in the middle that it might be a bit too gory or freaky for a child in the room, don’t worry too much… you’ll probably traumatize them much more with other things in life than with that movie… I don’t encourage the scary films – not at all – but I recommend not panicking too badly, if they end up seeing something you think might be a bit much for them… they’ll survive. 😂
I am currently rereading Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, as I tend to do about once every year or so.
[If you haven’t read it and you care to, be forewarned that plot ‘spoilers’ ensue.]
Tonight, listening to the audiobook – yes, I count it as reading, though I could argue against it in a way – while I rearranged and tidied my room, mostly folding laundry (one of my biggest struggles in daily life so far, laundry is), I was struck particularly in the section of Mr. Darcy’s proclamation of love and request of Elizabeth’s hand in marriage.
The whole reason things work out in the end is because, in going against all standards of propriety, Eliza speaks openly and honestly of her opinion of Mr. Darcy.
Sure, it is an opinion formed by false and inaccurate information, but these errors could never have been remedied had she not mentioned them so vehemently in their few minutes of true candor with one another – a few minutes which were quite irregular in society at the time.
And then, I thought, a few minutes which are quite irregular in society here, now…
How might things be so drastically different, if we were open and honest with one another as they were in that brief interview?
Would more problems be caused, or would more be solved?
Perhaps, at first, more problems would arise than we would feel we could handle…, but then, with practice, I think we would learn how to live differently, communicate differently, such that an unbelievably high number of problems would be resolved by the new way of interacting with one another with true yet kind candor.
It isn’t that everyone would be running around, insulting everyone else all the time… merely that, when asked, we would speak honestly of our opinions and our thoughts on matters.
Knowing that people would be honest, perhaps some questions would not be asked…, but, knowing that honesty would be given, perhaps more questions would be asked, the asker knowing that no offense need be taken from the answer – it would not be contrived, but merely honest.
It reminds me, too, of how, in the Bis(s) zum book series (a beloved German read of mine), the one group of individuals suddenly obtain the ability (?) to hear one another’s thoughts collectively, always – they cannot avoid sharing a thought, nor avoid hearing a thought of another in the group.
One’s pain is, in a way, experienced by all, and the same with joy and anger and any other experience, as they all hear one another’s thoughts, almost as though the thoughts are their own.
They all care for one another and support one another, and the exposure of the deepest and darkest and most embarrassing of thoughts of any one member, at some point or other, must be accepted by the others, if they are to remain together in life – so long as they live, they will know the thoughts of one another, all of the thoughts.
And they, despite learning these dark and embarrassing thoughts of one another, and of unwillingly exposing their own, eventually draw even closer to one another, their bonds made even deeper by the shared thoughts…
And I find that lovely.
How might the world be different, if we learned to share like this with our loved ones in life… and to love one another knowing these thoughts of one another…?
If we dropped our pride and our prejudice, and listened to the innermost thoughts and fears and wishes and concerns of those around us, and shared our own in return, would we suddenly be able to love more deeply than we had ever imagined possible, live more profoundly than ever we dreamed?
Anyway…, some food for thought, I guess you could say.
(Though I kind of just want some actual food right now…)
Post-a-day 2020
Today was an interesting day for me.
I accomplished so many things – so many check boxes were fulfilled – yet felt so utterly unfulfilled for the day.
I had an amazing little re-bonding experience with the Vespa, as we first rushed to an open bank to handle an online discrepancy before it closed thirty minutes later, and then, when heading home, first took a small detour loop to see one of my childhood favorite spots, and then continued along a road just to see what came next, where it went…
By the time I was out of the main city congestion and buildings blocking the view 45 minutes later, it was clear that the forecast only hours ago was utterly incorrect: the sky was a dark, dark blue, with clouds and rain approaching from what I guessed was the North (I wasn’t entirely sure where I was st this point – the road had just kept on going, and wiggling around all the while).
The pace of the storm was slow, but the rain was definite.
This will hurt, I thought to myself, considering how it would be to be caught in this storm.
I needed to get home as quickly as possible.
So, when I found myself somehow crossing under a convenient highway, I turned off my ever-going road, and headed onto the highway, back to town.
Now, this was our first trip in a month-ish, you see, as I haven’t been going anywhere but to pick up things, which means I use the car every time (and that’s already rare enough as it is).
So, we had a slight struggle to start in the first place, but got it worked out.
With little surprise, after almost an hour of riding – albeit easy riding – and then getting in the highway, the Vespa decided that it needed an immediately rest to re-energize.
I pulled to the shoulder, strategically placing us underneath a set of overpasses, in case we had to wait a long while, and the rain arrived while we were still waiting for the Vespa to regroup.
After a few minutes, though, with a bit of encouragement and coaxing from me, the Vespa was ready to go again, to get us the short remaining distance home.
So, we arrived home safely, took a victory photo together to celebrate our exploratory outing, and then I rushed inside just as the rain began to pour.
As we all say in German, “Perfect timing.”*
Then, I checked off a bunch of boxes, including cooking and eating real food and a real meal, making another gorgeous mala, continuing one book and beginning a yearly-ish reread of another, making and having golden milk, and doing some more henna… while the floor shook from lightning, and the deluge continued off and on outside.
But, the biggest thing I realized, is that I miss having someone care about my life… I felt a clear desire to be heard, and recalled how helpful a journal always has been at such times… a journal is not only always there to listen, it accepts me exactly as I am, and helps me to work through any issue, and celebrate any victory, and allows me to cry all I need, without ever growing impatient with me… a journal is, in many ways, even better than having a person to ask how my day has gone, what I did today, and how I feel about it all…
Yes, I wish someone would hold me close, pet my hair, and murmur sweet nothings to me, as I share about my day as much or as little as I desire…, but journaling and then snuggling up with stuffed animals somehow seems to get me by every time, so I’ll rely on them again tonight… and hope that I will have the real life person option quite soon, surprisingly soon…
So, yeah… thanks for being my journal tonight – the one who always has room for me, and always is ready to hear anything and everything I have to share…
P.S. Do you ever feel like the person you are becoming, while it is true to yourself, does not quite fit with the life you have been leading, pursuing…?
….
*Yes, we use the English phrase, the English words, even though we are otherwise using German to speak… is that not ticklingly delightful?
Post-a-day 2020
Okay, yay – this is exactly what I have wanted and needed these past several weeks.
I wanted a more definitive feel for the situation, and I now have it.
Sure, I totally cried really hard for a while, but it was what I was wanting… truly.
Now, I’m clear that it isn’t happening and that it isn’t meant to be (for now, anyway, but that’s good enough for me to be at ease about it).
I said what I felt I needed to say to let it go, and I am starting to be filled with this feeling of breathing deeply, and as though I hadn’t experienced such breathing for ages, somehow.
Ha.
It really is nice to breathe…
And, though it is an extreme disappointment that things are not working out as I had hoped, even wished, I have full faith in the World, in the Universe, in God… there is absolutely something better on the horizon.
This was an opportunity for me to learn, and I definitely have learned much from it… definitely.
(And I do not mean just a bunch of surface-level nonsense, but true and deep insight into myself and who and how I want to be and when and how I can be at my best, and what that means in terms of the people who are around me [on many levels] and the relationships and interactions we all have with one another.)
Yes, this has been quite valuable.
And I am so grateful to be able to let go now of the stress I was building within me because of it all…
Yes, it is lovely to begin to breathe freely again.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Post-a-day 2020
You know, I swear, alcohol makes me stupid.
I was fine…. fine…, but then l, give me one single, not very strong margarita, and I suddenly lose all powers of sanity.
I had been doing very well focusing mentally on unflattering photos of this guy, and combining them with the fact that he doesn’t check in on me anymore, and it was becoming easier and easier to let go of the idea of him… rather, to let go of him, and just to have fun with the idea he had inspired within me…, because the idea is still there, but I have somewhat run away with it, knowing that it is likely to be only an idea…, so I have been having fun with the idea, since I can’t have fun with him.
Anyway, he finally wasn’t taking up 90% of my conscious thoughts anymore… perhaps it was down to about 30%, and they didn’t affect me near so much as they had before.
I thought I was actually letting go of him, and that I was okay with it.
Then, with some alcohol in my system, what do I do?
Suddenly start thinking about him, wondering how he is doing, knowing I have been working actively to stay out of it, yet fully aware that I still want to know…, and so I send him a message to check in…, because I really do want to know.
And then, later on, after, of course, no reply – as was expected – my thoughts are stuck around him all over again… and I find myself miserable and on the point of tears because of how much I really wanted this whole thing to work out for us.
That, and I really just want a long hug from someone who loves me…or maybe just to be held and petted for a few hours… much like how my friend’s cat snuggles with me whenever I am over there, no shame in wanting to be intertwined with me, while lying on top of me, and demanding rubbing, too…
Yeah…
Anyway, to sum up, alcohol made me feel stupid tonight, but it also made me realize that I was more avoiding my emotions than actually handling them… I’m not sure at present how to proceed, but I’ll just let myself sit in this for now, and see how tomorrow feels when I get there.
Post-a-day 2020
hannah ananas 