Emotional Pep Talk

Considering the last two posts have consisted of my inner self,

I thought I would lighten the mood and post a little pep talk.

If your life is anything like mine,

it's not perfect.

BUT I am continuously blessed in so many ways.

I might have to work four jobs and sell my plasma to pay all my bills,

but I have friends and family who love me,

two cats that make me smile,

a running car,

a city that has many free exploration opportunities,

and a bright future.

Come this May,

I am hoping to make the BIG move to California.

I am looking to go back to undergrad for a Psych degree and then onto grad school for Clinical Psychology.

I don't have any family out there and just one friend,

BUT

Life is all about taking chances, taking risks, and pushing forward.

and despite how much I am in love with my [now] home,

I know that in order to continue to grow,

this is a step I must take.

Life is grand and Life is beautiful.

It is full of unknowns, devastations, celebrations, tears, laughter, and joy.

A quote I have always held dear to my heart:


 "He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. We must of felt what it is to die, that we may appreciate the enjoyments of life. Live, then, and be happy, beloved children of my heart, and never forget, that until the day God will deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is contained in these two words, 'Wait and Hope.” - Alexandre Dumas

Past Karma

Written Circa October 2011


You should know you're a liar.
From the tip of the tongue you kissed me with
to the end of the fingers that caressed me.
You lied.

Told me it would all be alright if I just took another shot,
poured another drink
stole just one more kiss,

But you had no intention on following through.
We both knew we could never be lovers, but you
You promised we would always be friends.

It's the only reason I kissed you.
The only reason I let you undress me with your hands,
instead of just your eyes.
The only reason I opened up to you.

You told me we were friends.
Not lovers. No never. But always friends.

Well fuck you.

Because it's been months since I've kissed you
and months since you've called.
My words are met with dial tone and dead air.

I don't want your body.
I don't want to wrap my fingers around yours.

We said never lovers. But you promised,
always friends.

And FUCK YOU.

You apologized for his mistake.
You said you would take the pain if you could.
Said you didn't understand how he could walk away after all his beautiful promises to me.

You said, with our bodies warm, tingling, and intertwined. No, never lovers but always friends.

Well you should know I think you're a liar.
You should know that I hate what you did to me.
You should know that you hurt me worse than him.

You should know, Every night,
I wish...

If only lovers, and never friends.

Me Time

Precious, precious Me Time.

How I take thee for granted all too often.

My life is...busy.
I have four jobs and a relationship.
I still struggle to make ends meet and I'm pretty sure I'm currently behind on at least 3 bills.

So Me Time gets pushed aside. A LOT.


So night's like these, where I come home from one job, light my holiday scented candles,
turn on a steady flow of artists like: Florence + the machine, Elle Goulding, Mumford&Sons, Jessica Lee Mayfield, Adele, The Avett Brothers, etc.
are beautiful gifts of serenity.

As I said, my life is busy
and I struggle to pay all my bills.
Did I mention, I struggle to pay my bills?

That being the case,
I often feel stressed out.
Much more than I would like.
I mean, let's be honest,
by nature, I'm wound up pretty tight.
I can be a perfectionist, a control freak, an overachiever (the list goes on)
but I try to keep myself from stressing.
Stress is like a poison that seeps through your veins and into your attitude.
It affects the ones we care about most,
as we often take it out on our loved ones.

I'm a big believer/fan of loving on people,
so the last thing I want to to is to burden another person
by saying something harsh or uncalled for.

Moral of the Story?

When life leaves me stressing,

it's normally because I've been neglecting Me Time.

I wish I was one of those "always peaceful/centered" people

BUT I'm one of those "continuously remind myself to chill out" people.

And all in all,

I like who I am.

And I adore the people around me.

BUT

I can't always be around them.

I need my space, my thoughts, my journal, and my candles

to remind me of my center

my balance

my life.

Me Time is crucial to my survival.

And whenever I start to become annoyed by those around me,

I am aware that it is not the others that have the problem,

but myself,

and (most likely) my lack of Me Time.

So here's a cheer to Me Time.

EXACTLY what I needed this week.

Without knowing what I am and Why I am here,

Life is impossible

-Leo Tolstoy

P.S. Missing California and the Ocean today...

When you least expect it...

To be fair,  I haven't shared many wacky things in my life.

But my last Friday night was a nice reminder that MY life,

is  never boring. Ever.

Let's flash to Friday night.

The boy and I both finished our jobs fairly early.

He was first cut, and the night was slow.

I was handing out surveys instead of the usual serving.

After our [not so pleasant] Thursday night,

I was kind of hoping for a quiet night in.

BUT the boy wanted to go downtown,

so I caved,

as I usually do :)

So we arrive at Sneaky Pete's 

(yes, I am aware of what the name sounds like)

and basically, that's exactly what the bar is like.

Completely sketch.

But it has great dancing, which is what we're all about.

Our other friends were already there.

D-ruuunk.

"Great" I thought to myself.

"Time to catch up."

But I just wasn't quite feeling it.

And stuck to a few drinks over the hours we were there.

Flash to bar close,

I'm sober.

Everyone else is...not.

A friend of mine slips on a spilled drink and falls flat on her ass.

As I bend down to help her up,

I hear some random lady, whom none of us have ever even SEEN,

heckling my friend.

Calling her all sorts of vile words and telling her to "go home" and "you're done",

you know, plus a bazillion cuss words.

There's one thing to understand about me.

I'm loyal.

and I'm protective as HELL over my friends.

Feel free to insult me,

and I'll chalk it up to your unhappiness and insecurity.

BUT insult my friends, and it's another story.

However, I'm sober, and my logical mind knows not to pick a fight.

So instead, as I help my friend up, I turn my neck and face to see the random lady,

still hurling verbal insults at my friend and I say

"Listen, We've ALL been there, ok."

This.

is the moment everything changes.

The woman stands up,

starts screaming (yes, screaming) 

as she charges, 

FULL SPEED AHEAD

at me.

Shocked and confused,

I try to back up,

but she already has her hand around my neck, squeezing hard.

She pushes her weight forward,

causing me to fall beneath her,

and I can feel the back of my head

snap

against the wooden pillar.

Within .5 seconds, 

5 bouncers grabbed her and whipped her outside.

I stand up dazed as everyone looks on with concern.

My first reaction?

"Where's my wristlet?!"

ha.

I knew that the most important thing at the moment 

was NOT losing my ID and credit card.

Needless to say, we left immediately

and hopped in a taxi back to my apartment.

I still have an enormous lump on the back of my head

and a sore wrist/ankle/neck

but I am alive and well.

All I can think of is how angry that lady must be inside,

and of how damaged she must be to react so intensely 

to someone she's never met, who didn't say anything mean.

It's gonna make a great story for the grandkids someday

but in the mean time,

It caused me to reflect a bit.

First:

Trust your instincts

I didn't feel good about going out

and I should have stayed in, obviously.

Second:

Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it

I didn't provoke the woman, but whatever she reacted like I had.

We are all guilty of overreacting in our lives

(though I hope none of you charge people's throats on a daily basis[or ever])

We must learn how to provide grace and understanding

when those around us can not see their over reaction clearly.

And we must be conscious of ourselves

reminding our minds the difference between emotions and reality.

The only person in control of your emotions is YOU

and you are the only variable in life you can control.

Just yourself.

No one else.

So before you try to change others,

find a way to better yourself.

You may find that you are much happier and peaceful,

even with chaos around you.

Third:

Don't underestimate those around you. Be prepared for anything.

I would have never thought someone would react that way.

But what I forgot is that we are all unique.

We all have our own set of weaknesses

and our own set of buttons to be pressed.

You never know when you might press someone's button on accident.

As a wise man once said:

Love All, Trust Few.

True Colors

Welcome to me.
A ball full of good intentions and millions of unfinished projects.

I struggle with continuity. I struggle with discipline. I struggle with sticking with it.

I get bored easily. I get distracted easily. I get sidetracked every five minutes.

This blog is already a wonderful example. It started with a slew of entries and then nothing. For two months. Yup, sure sounds like me.

But I'm back at it. Currently inspired by the Christmas music playing on my computer. I know. It's not even Thanksgiving. I normally have a rule- no Christmas talk before Thanksgiving. Similar to my - no Thanksgiving talk before Halloween. I get frustrated with how quickly department stores push through holidays. Using family traditions to market and make money. But I'm succumbing to the guilty pleasure of Christmas music and just calling it holiday music. Because I CAN.

See, throughout my childhood, I dreaded holidays. Dreaded, despised, hated, loathed. Whichever word works to get the point across. It was inevitable that there was fighting, there was anger, and there was always some crying. Actually, more like a lot of crying. I am a child of divorce. I'm a child of a dysfunctional family (although these days, who isn't?!) Holidays were simply a reminder that my life was complicated, messy. My immediate family was chaotic and often treated me much as much older than the little girl I was. I am thankful for the way it made me grow up so quickly. Thankful for the way it taught me how to read emotions. Thankful for the ways it showed me how to pacify people. My communication skills most definitely got their start from spending time with my family. And for that, I am eternally grateful.

The holidays, however, remained a dreaded tradition. Until I moved away and began living my own life. And three years ago, right around this time, I declared that I was taking my holidays back. I was reclaiming these precious celebrations. I was tired of running from my past. It was time to define my future.

And that's exactly what I've been doing since then. Taking back my holidays. I've spent 4th of July alone, hosted an Orphan Thanksgiving, grabbed drinks with friends on Christmas Eve, and ate Lucky Charms for my Easter lunch. I've also started my own traditions- Macy's 8th floor, Adventure behind Minnehaha Falls, baking my own assortment of Christmas cookies, and many more.

I'm looking forward to sharing more holiday agenda items as they happen. I am so blessed and will be spending Thanksgiving in New York this year. I am eagerly (with a bit of nervousness) anticipating meeting my boyfriend's mother. The trip should be filled with plenty of new lessons and learning moments. I really am counting down the days!

Be Where You Are.

My entire life has revolved around school. Seriously. I was one of those crazy kids who couldn't wait to get on the bus for school and hated missing a single day, even in kindergarten. I was an annoyingly highstrung high schooler who wouldn't let myself do anything fun until my homework was completed- perfectly (my parents really lucked out on that one!). And I finished college as a worn down, burnt out, confused graduate in Urban Planning. Just one little thing, I had always been so obsessed about school, the grades, the papers, the tests, that I had forgotten to figure out exactly what it was I wanted to do with my life. I may have graduated with a stellar GPA, but I started to realize that I didn't want the life it had set me up for. I didn't want to pursue a career in the subject I had spent 4 years studying. Somewhere in those 4 years, I had forgotten that school is meant to be a means to an end, not the other way around.
So here I sit, with a Bachelor of Science in Urban Planning (a predominately male saturated field, mind you) and not a damn idea what to do with it. Instead, I'm working 4 jobs two of which involve changing dirty diapers and one which consists of being degraded while getting my customers another round of diet cokes and cheesy biscuits. I can't help thinking where I went wrong. Except.

 I don't feel that way.
 At all.

Sure, it would be great to not have to discipline other people's children or to not be spoken to like I am a stupid servant, but honestly, I enjoy my 3 days a week where I get to sleep in until 10am instead of waking up at 6am to put on a business suit and conquer the world. I am more than content to work, and work hard, at my 4 jobs and try to save a little of cash money while I prepare to go (yup, you guessed it) back to school.

This time, I'm hoping my perfectionism won't get the best of me and I will stay focused on the fact that school is temporary, but what I am preparing for is long term. The moral of the story, for all you that are wondering where this rambling is going (lest you forget that the title is Worth and Wisdom, with a little wackiness and laughter thrown in) is that you don't have to have a set plan. That you really don't answer to anyone besides yourself in terms of your happiness. And that if you wake up every morning with a smile on your face and joy in your heart, that is really half the battle.

Take it from a crazy, driven, perfectionist. People will always tell you what you should be doing with your time, how much money you should be making, and what you should be doing to prepare for your future. But they don't hold your answers. Only you do. And perhaps if I had stopped being concerned with "fulfilling my potential" by relentlessly chasing after my academic goals, I would have taken some time to realize that I didn't even like what I was learning. So don't forget to breathe, to know that you have your whole life to "achieve your potential", and take some time to see that your potential is really the way you handle your life each and every day you wake up. If you wake up happy, willing to help and love on others, than I think you have accomplished more than any doctorate recipient. It's a lesson that cost me $33 thousand dollars in student loans to learn. But considering that many people die without ever learning that lesson, I would say it was worth every single penny.

Ubuntu

"If I diminish you, I diminish myself"

In my culture and tradition the highest praise that can be given to someone is, "Yu, u nobuntu," an acknowledgment that he or she has this wonderful quality: ubuntu. it is a reference to their actions toward their fellow human beings, it has to do with how they regard people and how they see themselves within their intimate relationships, their familial relationships, and within the broader community.Ubuntu addresses a central tenet of African philosophy: the essence of what it is to be human.The definition of this concept has two parts. The first is that the person is friendly, hospitable, generous, gentle, caring, and compassionate. In other words, someone who will use their strengths on behalf of others- the weak and the poor and the ill- and not take advantage of anyone. This person treats others as he or she would be treated. And because of this they express the second part of the concept, which concerns openness, large-heartedness. They share their worth. In doing so my humanity is recognized and becomes inextricably bound to theirs.

People with ubuntu are approachable and welcoming; their attitude is kindly and well-disposed; they are not threatened by the goodness in others because their own self-esteem and self-worth is generated by knowing they belong to a greater whole. To recast the Cartesian proposition "I think, therefore I am,"ubuntu would phrase it, "I am human because I belong." Put another way, "A person is a person through other people," a concept perfectly captured by the phrase "me we." No one comes into the world fully formed. We would not know how to think or walk or speak or behave unless we learned it from our fellow human beings. We need other human beings in order to be human. The solitary, isolated human being is a contradiction in terms. 

Because we need one another, our natural tendency is to be cooperative and helpful. If this were not true we would have died out as a species long ago, consumed by our violence and hate. But we haven't. We have kept on despite the evil and the wars that have brought so much suffering and misery down the centuries. We have kept on because we strive for harmony and community, a community not only of the living but also one that honors our forebears. This link to the past gives us a sense of continuity, a sense that we have created, and create societies that are meant to be for the greater good and try to overcome anything that subverts our purpose. Our wars end; we seek to heal.

But anger, resentment, a lust for revenge, greed, even the aggressive competitiveness that rules so much of our contemporary world, corrodes and jeopardizes our harmony. Ubuntu points out that those who seek to destroy and dehumanize are ALSO VICTIMS- victims usually, of a pervading ethos, be it a political ideology, an economic system, or a distorted religious conviction. Consequently, they are as much dehumanized as those on whom they trample.

Never was this more obvious than during the apartheid years in South Africa. All humanity is interlinked. Thus, the humanity of the perpetrators of apartheid was inexorably bound to that of their victims. When they dehumanized another by inflicting suffering and harm, they dehumanized themselves. In fact I said at the time that the oppressor was dehumanized as much as, if not more than, those oppressed. How else could you interpret the words of the minister of police, Jimmy Kruger, on hearing the death of Black Consciousness leader, Steve Biko, in prison. Of his tortured and painful killing, Kruger said, it "leaves me cold." You have to ask what has happened to the humanity- the ubuntu- of someone who could speak so callously about the suffering and death of a fellow human being.

It was equally clear that recovering from this situation would require a magnanimousness on the part of the victims if there as to be a future. The end of apartheid, I knew, would put ubuntu to the test. Yet I never doubted its power of reconciliation. In fact I often recalled the words of a man called, Malusi Mpumlwana, an associate of Biko's, who, even while he was being tortured by the security police, looked at his torturers and realized that these were human beings too and that they needed him "to help them recover the humanity they [were] losing."

This is the essence of ubuntu, or "me we," and it is expressed so poignantly in the life and actions of Mahatma Gandhi. His ubuntu showed that the ONLY way we can ever be human is together. The only way we can ever be free is together. 

-Desmond M. Tutu
[Taken from the book Peace]  

: If only we could all read this, believe it, live it. What a glorious world it could be.