Tag: love

Inspiration flattened

Do you ever get all excited about doing something, and so do some research on the subject to see what others are currently doing for it, and then become utterly downtrodden about it, because what you find is so good that you kind of don’t even want to bother going for it yourself?

Yeah… I might be experiencing that right now with photography… rather than inspiring me, the awesomely successful work of others just makes me feel like I’ll never be good enough, and so why even bother trying?

I know there’s more to it than that – especially, but not only, the fact that no one will bring to the table quite what I will bring, and I never will bring to the table what anyone else brings, because we are all different people… and that is a good thing – it grows rather boring rather quickly when everyone does the same exact thing…

I think I just need to feel the depressiveness of this right now, so that I can let it all go by morning. 😛

Yep… that’s it.

Here’s to inspiration and self-confidence – huzzah!

(lolz! [genuinely laughing at myself right now for the huzzah – I love when I be me]) 😛

Post-a-day 2019

Time to get up

The struggles of not being an early-morning person… Tomorrow, I don’t have to be in until around 10am…

If I go in at the regular time (i.e. leaving home right at 7am), I can accomplish a lot of my writing and photo stuff before classes.

If I go in for 10, I won’t have time to accomplish anything except teaching and tutoring and regular working stuff – I’m booked through the evening.

But I would get to sleep in…., which is awesome, especially since we’re hoping to do or first workout class tomorrow night.

…However, I might get stress-y about the potential of showing up late for some reason, if I wait for 10…

So, I’m guessing I will schedule myself for the regular wake-up and get ready times, but just take my time doing them, as I find necessary… if I show up half an hour later than usual, due to increased traffic on the roads, that’s okay – I’ll still have enough time at that point to do my personal work before I have a class.

Good plan.

Yep.

…

Yeah, I’m definitely planning to leave at the same time as usual. 😛

Haha… I’m quite glad I can laugh at myself with this; laughter is good medicine. 🙂

Post-a-day 2019

Girl Rising

Tonight, I finally watched a film recommended to me by a couple of high school senior girls, called “Girl Rising“.

Before it even was finished, I found myself rather wanting to find a way to get myself funded to go over somewhere where teachers are needed, and to teach children (girls especially) everything I possibly can.

And I am now somewhat worried that I might actually end up doing something radical… like just that… or even finding a way to find a girls boarding school here somewhere, to bring girls who otherwise can’t afford anything, let alone education, and that will be this school I have considered and discussed so much in recent years, the one I have though about founding…

That seems even more absurd than my just going somewhere… somehow…

P.S. I recommend the film.

Post-a-day 2019

Prayer?

Just before showering tonight, I found myself contemplating a message I received a year or two ago from an old coworker.

He was telling me that he was moving, and he requested that I pray for all to go well for him throughout the moving process and in the new place.

That’s not too odd on its own, right?

Well, we hadn’t been in touch for quite some time, first off.

Secondly, he continued on to say that I was the only person he knew that was into that kind of thing, and so that was why he was reaching out to me in particular.

So, totally understandable, then, that he would reach out to me for the prayers.

Thinking about it tonight, though, something hit me that had only kind of brushed my conscience before now: What could that be like, knowing only one person who prays, who has anything to do with prayer?

I can’t even imagine…

Among my friends I have people of various faiths and non-faiths, all to various degrees, let alone among my acquaintances.

Being from Texas – yes, it is Houston, but much of it still holds true here – I am accustomed to the majority of the people around me being Christians, and especially ones who have no qualms at all with talking about it whenever and wherever – Christianity is part of the vernacular.

And so, it is surprising to me that someone would know only one person who prays.

We are filled with Christians, to be sure, but Christians are by no means they only people who pray…

And imagine someone knowing just about none of those people…

It is just too unusual for me to imagine…

It was a totally different context, but people offered prayers constantly in Japan – it was something I loved about Japan, actually, crossing all the shrines and temples, and seeing and sharing prayers with all the people visiting them.

Prayer had a context, but it was commonplace and regular, even in a culture so drastically different from that of my own origin.

I eventually went to check the message, just to see what specifically he had said, and it was actually that I was the one whom he knew, who knew how to pray best…

Nonetheless, it has me wonder about the world and the people in it: Who among them knows no one or only one person who prays? (Or, at least, who prays comfortably?)

The thought is somewhat saddening to me, really, and has me almost ready to dive into prayer for all the people who feel alone and in need of some love on the prayer front…

Post-a-day 2019

Rolling with the hair

Going through the process of brushing my teeth tonight, I suddenly recalled the time my best friend, Christine, did a buzz cut design on my hair, but used the wrong size of head on the clippers.

You see, to make a long story short, she and I both set up / participated in a fundraiser for St. Baldrick’s Foundation, a pediatric cancer foundation, in which we raised money by putting a reverse bounty on our heads – when the bounty was paid/raised, we shaved our heads, a step toward solidarity with children who have cancer, and a financial donation to their care and eventual cure.

As our hair was growing back, Christine got this really cool buzzing of the word Beloved on her head.

About a handful of weeks later, for the Fourth of July, I brought over our clippers so that Christine could do a headband design in my hair.

In preparation, we prepared and I signed a contract, freeing Christine of blame for whatever was to come…

“What am I getting myself into here?”

“A bad idea,” responds Christine, happily, brushing back the wetted hair, so she doesn’t shave the wrong stuff.

I reminded her consistently about getting the head correct on the clippers…., and she, in her certainty that it was the correct size, used the same size she had had used on her own hair… five or so weeks ago…

Seeing as how my hair was now about an inch longer than hers had been when she had the word buzzed into it, the very first cut proved that she had selected the very wrong size.

Since this first cut was right on top of my head – front and center – we agreed to roll with it… while laughing our guts out, of course.

For the day/evening, she finished up the striped design, trimmed down the longer section of the stripes a bit, and then painted the super short sections red, white, and blue.

So, my hair was totally themed for the night, and got new colors a day or so later.

For the next few weeks, I mostly wore a fabric headband at work, but otherwise let my hair down, so to speak, and let the design and painting shine through.

It definitely improved over time, and eventually did almost exactly what I’d wanted it to do in the first place…, but just weeks after the fact, and nowhere near as well.

Nonetheless, it was a wonderful experience of trusting, making mistakes, loving friends anyway, and embracing what’s so… even if it means a messed up and painted hair-do for a few weeks. 😛

Post-a-day 2019

Let go and let God

My best friend asked me today about my relationship with God, for she knows I have been in a new-to-me spot of a bit of distance from God + a disconnect from religion, and that I have been somewhat flummoxed as to what to do about it all.

I thought about it, and discovered that, while nothing big has changed, – there is still this disconnect with religion and my place within it, as well as a distance from God – things have changed – I am not so worried about the religion concern, and I have actively accepted and, even, sought out God in the space around me on a regular basis.

Still nothing too big in the lines of church and religion, but I’ve had a big feeling of, when I consider how I haven’t figured out my place in it all and how I feel like something is wrong about that, I have a filling feeling of, ‘It’s okay,’ and something helps me release a deep breath inside of me.

Whenever this happens, I can tell that it is true… it is only a temporary situation, and it is okay right now, because now is not the time for me to worry about it all and figure it all out…

Instead, it keeps feeling like the time to love and to share my talents… and slowly but surely to let go and let God.

The eternal that is within us all, connects us all, is still there and always will be – I need not fret about what vocabulary to use to address it, when talking about it to others… I just need to let it be and to let myself be with it… you know?

Post-a-day 2019

Stuck in the middle with … George

And just when it is prime time to kick things into high gear, and speed into overtime, humanity hits…., and you end up exhausted and barely able to get yourself off the floor to go shower and get in a bed…

Sometimes, like in that movie where the girl passes out on her wedding day from it, menstruation just plain sucks at timing…

Or, perhaps, the world synched up with my body to force me into taking a bit of a break, into taking things slowly for a couple days, so I would chill out and refresh myself a bit…

Perhaps…

P.S. My childhood best friend and her girlfriends shared with me in middle school how they used the name George to reference menstruation – Have you seen George lately? (I think you might be leaking.), George said you had something for me? (Do you have a pad or tampon?), etc.

Post-a-day 2019

Give it a go?

I have recently begun listening to this podcast about alcoholism.  I haven’t really listened to podcasts for the past ten+ years, since I discovered that there would be far more podcasts that interested me than I actually could take the time to hear, and so just gave up on them, instead of being frustrated over having to pick which ones were the most important, being stressed out over feeling like I must listen to them as often as possible, and all that jazz.  However, someone sent me this podcast, and I accepted the proffered link, because of the various degrees of connection various members of my family have with addiction, and specifically alcohol addiction.  (Let’s just say that, while not everyone has it, we’ve had from the slightest to one of the worst cases of it just in my lifetime.)

It’s called “An Addict Named Mary”.  I was surprised to find that, while the podcast is just a girl – I say “girl”, but she is actually a woman in her upper thirties or so – recording with her phone or laptop in each episode, it is actually really interesting.  I don’t know if there are other podcasts done by recovering alcoholics, but I like this one.  She spends the time talking about the experience of addiction and what is involved in recovery and moving beyond the active addiction (i.e. still drinking alcohol) into a fully sober life, which she hadn’t experienced in decades… and it’s kind of fascinating.  I keep coming back to it and listening whenever there’s a new episode, partly because I find it beneficial for myself, as someone who is around people in active addiction, as well as people in recovery, but mostly because I like the girl.  She’s funny and goofy, and she’s totally honest about the b*** underneath at times – it almost feels as though I can see the light and depth in her eyes, the eternal joy becoming manifest at last within them, as she struggles willingly through it all, and aims to make a difference for others however they are ready to have her help.  I also get the occasional glimpse of the sad, outwardly fun, go-getter who desperately just wanted to be loved, little girl who used to hide in a sea of alcohol (and, occasionally, plenty of other drugs)…, and it’s beautiful to see the transformation.

I particularly liked the first two interviews she did (at least, I think they were the first two).  The first was with her sponsee, someone she is sponsoring in recovery, and it wasn’t exactly an interview, but more like just the two of them talking about things.  Specifically, the way they talk about their active addiction days is very eye-opening for me, especially as I saw how many people I know who say the same things these girls were expressing…, but who are not recovering alcoholics…. and it had me wonder about how much I’ve been living with blinders on regarding alcohol addiction/abuse.

The second was actually an interview.  And it was rough, but super good.  She interviewed a guy who admits to being an alcoholic, but who says also that he is not willing or ready to do anything to stop his drinking, despite the many and deep negative effects it has on his life (including, but not limited to his relationship with his young children).  Now this one was…. just wow.  For anyone dealing with a person who is in active addiction, I highly recommend listening to this episode.  For everyone else, I still highly recommend it, because I find it so important for people to see an honest expression of what is going on inside the head of someone who cannot give up an addiction.  We have them all around us in society, and the first step to helping them and our society as a whole is to understand and thereby love them.  I believe that all change, to be true, must come from love.  And this is a guide to the first step involved in loving the people who can not (currently) give up their active addictions.

As a whole, I recommend the podcast.  Like I mentioned, it is not very professional, but the sound quality is good enough to sit through it, and the information is definitely good enough to sit through it.  Give it a go, trust me.

As I understand it, there are multiple ways to subscribe and auto-download the episodes, however, I just check back regularly and listen via my web browser, because I’m old-school and don’t want to download anything else to my phone.  ðŸ˜›  At the beginning of just about every episode, if not all of them, she encourages feedback and contacting her through her e-mail address – anaddictnamedmary@gmail.com, to be sure.  I sent her an e-mail, asking about something a friend and I were wondering, based on something she’d mentioned briefly, but that we totally didn’t get, our not having the alcohol addiction and all.  She replied back, telling me that she’d do an episode on it!  That was just recently, so we’re both anxiously awaiting the episode.  ðŸ™‚

Here’s the first episode: The Beginning
Here’s the episode I mentioned of the first interview, with the sponsee: Getting Grounded with Ciara
Here’s the a-maz-ing one with the active alcoholic: Dr. Ew Kaleidoscope Dream Theater

And here’s the website to the podcast as a whole: An Addict Named Mary

Enjoy!

Post-a-day 2019

Tough stuff

Just a curious thought that came up tonight – one which I have had many times before, thought usually only passively or, at least, without much depth of consideration – while at dinner: How are people within our society to learn to have healthy and successful and mutually satisfying physical and sexual relationships, as well as healthy relationships with alcohol?

When do we do anything real to teach our growing children and young adults (and any adults, really) this information, to give them concretes and explicit and specific information?

When do we create with them healthy relationships to the topics in the first place?

In my cave people era books, they talk about how females each had a unique ceremony, with a carefully selected older make, to give her the full experience of adult sexual intimacy…. there were people designated in different seasons who were to be guides for the growing adults to learn about sexual intimacy by voluntarily going to any of these people for the honest help and insight an older and more experienced individual could give.

I know these can easily go against various religious traditions of today…, though that does not change the fact that these were ways of helping people to build healthy sexual habits and relationships.

While avoidance has its pros, it also very much has its cons, one of which is the educational side of learning to have positive relationships to and using sexual interaction.

Do note: I’m not aiming to stir up any nonsense here – I’m just sharing the idea that came up tonight, and that I found very interesting and worth considering further.

Anyway, I see it very similarly with alcohol in the USA – we just don’t ever teach our children to have healthy relationships with alcohol, and yet we spring it on them in full power when they’re supposedly several years past being a legal adult, offering at no point any useful and practical guidance on how to approach and to have a healthy relationship with alcohol.

It doesn’t surprise me that we have so many issues regarding it, especially for the younger adults and teens… we ignore it and tell them to avoid it entirely, throwing them to the hungry lions on their 21st birthdays.

You know what I mean?

Post-a-day 2019