Tag: fear

Dance, if you wanna

One of the most upsetting things in our society right now for me – one of the day-to-day things that really bugs me and kind of breaks my heart – is how much gender is used as a restrictor by so much of society.

I mentioned how I thought my nephew really would love learning and doing ballet and other dances, and I was met with a passive laugh and a certain, somewhat snarky comment to say that it never would happen, but what a cute idea. I was gobsmacked. The person didn’t even think I was saying it because I meant it. She actually thought I was just saying it passively, as opposed to my sharing something I genuinely believed and had hopes could happen.

Granted, my sister has very much played the gender toys game for her kids – pink and purses and baby-dolls are for girls, and blues and trucks and superheroes are for boys. However, dance is something amazing for any and all people to do, especially athletes. My sister is an athlete, and she can understand that benefit of dance especially. I think she might be willing to consider the idea of dance for my nephew, if it were presented appropriately and he showed interest in it openly.

Even that, though, has its own degree of upset and disappointment for me: that it has to be presented appropriately. I don’t just mean showing that dance is awesome, but showing that dance is so awesome that it is okay for both genders. Because I know, that likely would be part of it for her.

If I ever have children, no matter the gender of each and every, they all will do karate and dance and volleyball and all the fun, beautiful, beneficial stuff out there that we can find and/or create for them to do. Gender will have no value in the matter. It merely will determine which bathroom they use while at the activity.

Post-a-day 2021

^ Wrote that wrong at first again, but caught myself before submitting! Happy 2021, folks!

Happy New Year: A Completion of 2020

I am proud of myself for trusting myself this year. I am proud of myself for keeping true to and using my heart in so much of what I have done, both big and small, and also all in between.

I am grateful that I did both of those this year, and I am especially grateful that, often without my realizing it, they were my kakizome at play in my daily life, slowly transforming me further into an expression of my true self.

Arigatougozaimasu ありがとうごさいます😊

I am a bit nervous regarding what is next, and I think it is because I am reaching a sort of crossroads. Something very true to myself is at a nearby turn, but it is scary to go a new path for me. It is usually thrilling and wonderful and amazing, and I am usually grateful to have done it after the fact, but it is scary nonetheless. So, I am scared. And I am stepping forward nonetheless – terrified and confident, full of self-trust/self-confidence and heart (jishin to kokoro 自信と心 [my kakizome]) – creating what is next for me and my life. 🙂 🙏🐪

I wish you all a happy, lovely, love-filled and love-expressed new year. Akemashite omedetou! 明けましておめでとう！！

Post-a-day 2020

Working it out…?

I am going to test out my old gym this coming week, and see how it goes, how I like it all. I am nervous both that I will like it and that I will not like it. If I like it, I still will have to figure out whether I want to find a way to make it work to go there again, despite the super high price now. If I don’t like it, I will have to get myself sorted in entirely doing workouts at home for the future. While I trust that I can do that, I do not want to do that. That’s a lot of alone time for something I prefer to have as a social situation.

So, we shall see… fingers crossed that, no matter the experience this next week, I am complete about how it goes and about how to move forward with and from the experience.

And now, I must sleep, as my alarm will be going off at five, because sign-ups open 24 hours before the start of the class… and they have very limited capacities…, and I need to attend the 5:15am class. Ugh. So, I’m getting up at five not even for a workout, but to sign up for a workout. Totally ridiculous, I agree. 😛

Post-a-day 2020

Yikes

Okay, I think I have finally learned my lesson on something: Trust myself.

I know enough and have done enough to handle what I am doing in photography. I am much more reliable than any automatic camera settings. Yes, it is convenient not to have to change settings constantly with changing light and angles. But having photos with the right subject in focus is significantly more important to me than having what looks like decent lighting it with a blurred subject. And the latter is what I keep getting every time I doubt myself and say that it will be safer to let the camera use its intelligent automatic setting.

So, I will trust myself to manage all photo settings from here onward. I trust myself. Not the automatic settings.

Thank you, World for this opportunity to remedy the photos that did not represent me and what I truly can create with photography. I am terrified and grateful, both in a wonderfully good way. Thank you.

Post-a-day 2020

Sometimes, life becomes very predictable. And some things never seem to change.

And sometimes, you end up on a Zoom call happy hour unexpectedly with a group of guys who are at various levels of their happy hour (which has clearly not just begun). And sometimes you may or may not unintentionally flash the camera, because you just took a shower and were getting ready for bed when you clicked on the unexpected link without really thinking about what joining a Zoom call meant…, and you are extremely grateful for the people’s being drunk, because such a quick flash goes utterly unnoticed with so much alcohol between brains and eyes.

Phew!

Or, perhaps that’s just something that happens for me. 😂

Apparently there are situations in which I prefer drunk people to sober people.🤣🤦🏼‍♂️🤣

Post-a-day 2020

But, what about…?

Must we always feel that sense of doubt after doing something atypical yet important? We consider it in depth, and determine that action is appropriate and necessary. We determine carefully what action is best. We prepare ourselves, and we take that action, checking two and three times that everything is accurate and in place and appropriate and most likely to be effective in the intended and desired ways.

And then we are giddy with anticipation at the accomplishment.

And then we begin to question…, Did I really consider everything? Did I really check it over enough and say the right things, do the right things?

I think that sense of questioning and doubt comes not from a doubt of one’s own competency, but from one’s desire truly to make a positive impact through and by one’s actions. In other words, we doubt and question our decisions and actions directly afterwards, because we care, because we want to do what truly makes a difference.

Though knowing that doesn’t exactly remove the doubt and questioning, I suppose it makes them a bit easier to bear and accept and, thereby, release.

😉

Post-a-day 2020

Advent

Today marked the beginning of my Advent and Advent calendar for this year, complete with presents and my mom falling face forward up the stairs to my room. Trust me, despite the fright in the moment of that final piece happening, it was all extremely delightful and quite festively fun (even the fall, while my mom was lying there, laughing on top of the pile of presents she had been carrying).

You see, firstly, I didn’t know my mom was coming over, and my phone signal was still off. So, when I heard a knock behind me, I genuinely thought it was a raccoon or possum doing some construction work in the attic (or the likes). But then, my bedroom door was opening – by the way, the door to my room is down a flight of halfback stairs, because my room is a converted attic – and I started to freak. out…..

“Hello?” I asked in both annoyance and trepidation. It was my mom. And yes, I had locked the door, as I always do – my fear was that I hadn’t locked it, and I was now about to be attacked. I heard her voice, relaxed, reminded her that I was tutoring, and I went back up the stairs. Just as I was finishing telling the student to log off and back on again to see about resetting her computer’s connection and sound, I looked back down the stairs to see my mother falling forward as she turned the corner to head up the second half of the stairs. She has similar stairs in her house, but there is no step on the turn at the midpoint. Hers are just half and half. Mine are four, then one on the half turn, then another ten in the last part. The light in my stairwell is minimal in the first place, and the baskets of presents she was carrying certainly didn’t give her much help in seeing that single turn step. But they did help her land more safely, fortunately. I rushed down carefully and, basically, lifted her up off the ground on my own, as she had almost no leverage to get herself back up, her arms still wrapped around the presents now beneath her chest.

Even as I lifted her up, we were both laughing. She had determined already that all was well and whole within her body still, and so we could not hold back. It was ridiculous and hilarious to the both of us.

Anyway, the whole unexpected arrival of my mother was due to a request I made of her weeks ago. Would she print out my Advent calendar for me to use this year? I had made one for my cousin years ago, and loved it. I wanted to use it again this year, but I didn’t want to risk seeing the days ahead of time by printing it all out for myself. I had wanted them to be a surprise as much as possible, but I wanted to be able to write down my responses, instead of just look at it on my phone, as I did last year. (Each day has a question/prompt of sorts to which I am requested to respond, you see.) So, here we are on the first day of December, which lines up with how I had created the calendar initially, as a 25-day Advent calendar. My mom has gone above and beyond, as is regularly her style when it comes to fun, creativity-related things – the exact reason I had asked her to do this for me in the first place – and come up with presents for each day, wrapped in Charlie Brown Christmas wrapping paper – the Advent calendar I made is based on A Charlie Brown Christmas – to go with each day’s paper prompt.

Today, I got a box of tea, from which I can have a cup every morning when I open the day’s card and present – again, the original calendars we made are referenced, as they were tea Advent calendars, with a different tea for each day – as well as a Christmas lights necklace and green and red jingle bell bracelets to give me extra festivity this month. Then, my mom proceeded to open up the box of tea and make us each some tea. She actually hung out with me in my room while we snuggled up to our cups in the cold morning air, and just hung out together. Oddly enough, those were two of the things on my list for the first day’s prompt, checked off unexpectedly just about as quickly as I had gotten them written down.

Then she went off to work, and I snuggled in my bed another few hours before going to work myself.

All-in-all, it was a beautiful start to my Advent and my Advent calendar for this year. I am extremely grateful, and feel a strong sense of love and care for me today (for which I also feel extremely grateful). Yesterday was an odd sort of reminder for Advent’s ideas for me, just perfectly timed. And I have a feeling that there is much value to be found for me in and through Advent this year. I look forward to it all with cautious and grateful optimism.

Grazie, World and God. Here we are. 🙂

Post-a-day 2020

Home (base) is where the heart rests

I think it is kind of funny at times how life can seem so utterly insignificant, un-lived, boring, mundane at times, despite amazing adventures we have at other times in that same life. If we adventured far and wide all the time, would we not grow tired of such repetition in life, as we do worthy he repetitive everydays we cross during our stationary, non-big-adventure periods? But did the great adventurers of yonder and yore not take time to rest and relax and consider life in a very different and very calm way after a grand adventure. Did they not prepare themselves on all levels with great rest and reliability of surroundings and daily expectations, before heading out on their next grand adventure?

Even if they didn’t, I think it is important that I do. There’s a reason we use the term “home base” so often in life. A home base is a valuable place to have: it is a place to process; a place to feel accepted, no matter what; a place to feel loved; a place to feel home; a place that is always reliable and there for us; a place where we are always welcome. Returning to home base for some rest and restitution is a beautiful, valuable move.

I guess that is why I have done it so many times now. Hello, Houston and Texas. Thank you for being my home base all these years. Even though I start to feel insignificant with life when here at times, I know it isn’t about you two – it is about the wonderful challenges that life is offering to me while I am here with you. It is by working through those challenges that I prepare myself for my next grand adventure, wherever that may be on this amazing globe. Thank you for being here for me, no matter what, and for always welcoming me home, no matter how much you or I have changed.

❤ Houston, ❤ Texas

Post-a-day 2020

Turning insignificant into loved

I started working at a clothing store as a part-time job recently. And kind of ‘just because I wanted to do it’. I had never worked in retail before this, and I had often felt that I might be well-suited to being paid to organize and fold stuff (something I already do when I go into stores as a customer, anyway, but, of course, not for pay). So, I am giving it a go.

Walking to the store today to work, I had geared up for the pouring rain: Waterproof boots, a long raincoat, backpack waterproof cover, and an umbrella. The only thing not covered directly by waterproof material was my sweatpants – odd how that is singular yet not…. a single item of clothing, yet referenced as a plural for its two legs… yet we do not reference a shirt as plural for its two arms/sleeves…

Anyway, so, I am being very careful as I walk on the sidewalk. It is placed directly beside the road, with no buffer – genius, I know (meaning What idiotic brain fart planned this sidewalk?). Whenever I come up to a spot where there is a puddle in the road, I quickly run a large arc away from it, before joining back with the sidewalk, doing my best to avoid any possibility of being splashed by passing cars.

Just after I cross the train tracks, when there is nowhere to arc , and I am just running in a straight line to pass a puddle, a single car comes speeding up from behind me. There are no other cars around, and the car easily can move into the left lane and avoid hitting the massive puddle on the right lane… and the bright yellow individual who cannot be considered invisible right now.

The car does not move over. I notice just in time to jump forward and pull up my legs as best I can in front of me.

Almost my entire left pant leg, and some of my right, is suddenly soaked, completely through to my skin. My leg is actually dripping wet on the left.

I curse in an outraged yell, as I continue on my way, somehow embarrassed.

After setting everything down in the back at work, I change into my regular shoes, and head out to check in, eyes already beginning to burn. The moment she asks me how I’m doing – the standard check-in – I starts to cry. I cannot help myself.

I’m okay, but I’m not okay right now, I manage to say a couple times. I explain briefly what happened and that my pants are currently soaked through, and that, as I am now seeing with clarity, I am not only physically uncomfortable, but I am living in the experience of having been unworthy of being noticed. Insignificant out on the street, thus completely missed by the driver. That was my experience, no matter what logic told me, and I was still processing that experience and all the emotions that went with it.

She got it completely. Do I want to go change? she offers. I don’t have anything to change into, I reply, still in active tears.

“Okay, do you want to go pick out some pants?” I hesitate, considering how it doesn’t work for me to go buy something for myself right now.

“I’ll get you some pants,” she clarifies at my hesitation to respond. “Go pick something out from the sales rack, and come check back in with me, and I’ll get them for you. And then you can go change.”

And so I did. And she did. And I changed into dry, fancy, brand new pants. And the world was suddenly a lot easier to take in when I was no longer soaking wet and mentally preparing how to survive the next five hours as such, and somehow be in a good mood and help people and walk around with ease.

I checked back in with her once I was changed, expressed clear and direct gratitude for handling the situation so well – so immediately and so effectively – and for creating a space for me to clear things up for myself by removing the strong physical discomfort aspect of the situation. (Think how we are miserable and can’t function properly when we are super hungry, and then our brains suddenly work again after we’ve gotten the needed nutrition. Better yet, think about how a bull or horse will buck and buck like crazy, even after the cowboy is off its back, until that miserably tight burr strap is loosed off its hindquarters.) It has been a no-brainer for her, and she was glad to have been able to help clear it all up for me. After all – and she didn’t say this, but we both know it – I can serve the store and its customers best when I am at my best… and wet and miserable is certainly not my best. So, it was beneficial to the store for me to have the new pants, more so than just the cost of the pants, but for the cost of all the customers with whom I would come in contact the rest of the day.

I don’t know if she bought them herself, or if there is a budget for the store to be used for such odd, here-and-there occasions. And I’m okay with it either way. I am nonetheless grateful that this person considered such a solution, whatever the details of it, and made it happen. And immediately. It made a world of a difference for me, and I was and still am extremely grateful.

Plus, I actually really like the pants. They were comfy to wear, and they are a really pretty color. Thank you, K. You turned a terrible experience into a lovely and loving one. And I am grateful.

Post-a-day 2020