Epic Fail Part Deux- Thoughts and Musings

After trying really hard to get to a point where I didn't have so many epic fails to talk about, I think I've gotten to a point in my life where failure is not so terrifying anymore, but still ever present.  Take this blog for example, which has been re-booted no less than three times. (Ahem, sorry for the dusty page, folks) but nonetheless, I'm back again, if only for myself.  I've been trying to figure out if feel I have something worthwhile to say again, without being a misery Mona, but then I  looked back at old posts, and realized that that's what some of you like about me. (Misery and company, yadda yadda yadda). So I thought, maybe it's okay that I still haven't worked out all my kinks,  and I still bitch and moan about life.  At least now I know why I'm kinky, (okay, that didn't come out the way I meant it to). I've accepted that I suffer from depression, I've accepted that it will never entirely go away, and I've accepted that I have to live my life anyway, the best way I can.  Which may mean posting one of these every month or every couple of years.  Cause, you know life.  Today was a good day, which put me in a mind to write for the first time in a while, because I had a thought.  Or rather I had someone else's thought.  "What would you do if you knew you could not fail?" Robert Schuller.  If you type that quote in you get an abundance of wise sayings from Old Bob, a fairly famous clergyman if his Brainy Quote webpage is anything to go by (just so's you know, that's where a lot of my quotes come from to give credit where credit is due. Don't steal...the NSA is watching.) But I had a different thought today, because inspirational quotes are also so often insipid.  What would you do if you knew you could not fail- that's stupid. Everybody knows at some point in your life you will fail. That's kinda how life works- it cocks a leg back and hits you right in the Thatcher's at least once and probably more than once (and if you don't know what Thatchers are, look it up, but for heaven's sake don't look at anything else there). And that's okay, because pain is how humans learn because we are stupid as fudge.  I said it, humans are stupid, (or at least many of the ones I know, and please believe I don't leave myself out of this equation. ) But the wonderful thing about humans is that we can learn, and we learn from mistakes. So failure is good (at least that's my current validation. ) So the question should really be, "What will you do when you fail?" That at least gives you permission to admit that failure is possible, that it will happen to you, and more importantly, it gives you permission to plan for what happens beyond failure.  Failure is scary, and it's supposed to be.  But scary things give us power when we overcome them.  There is power in overcoming  our little rat brain that says there are things in the dark (and there are). But how addicting is it when you overcome you fear and venture into the dark and discover the stars. I imagine that's what early humans were like, huddling in caves,  staring into fires, waiting anxiously till morning (I got all this from the movie the Croods by the way- looked like solid anthropology to me. ) And then one day  someone manned up (or Thatcher up), braved the darkness, slipped outside the cave, looked up...and discovered the universe.  Let today or someday soon, be the day you embrace fear and discover your hidden world.

Failure doesn't mean you are a failure; it just means you haven't succeeded yet.
Robert H. Schuller

Break On Through To The Other Side

Ok, so this week has been a kick in the teeth, but it's prompting me to write which is ..good? Or, let's be real- it's prompting me to rant, which as all of you know, I'm really good at and really enjoy. But this rant is a little different. I mean we all "enjoy" ups and downs in life.  But my personal issues, and maybe yours too, can really make something that is, in the grand scheme of things a little issue seem like the universe is trying to hand you a beat down.  I acknowledge that I have issues.  I've talked about them before, and laid out straight how close to the edge, the end of my rope, I've come.  And writing in this format has always been a form of therapy for me, aside from the actual therapy i've taken in the past (and will probably take again and need for the rest of my life. )  But recently nothing has been able to really help me settle my soul.  I've been moody at home, straight up giddy and dizzy at work,feeling unprofessional, manic, anxious and depressed, considered taking (prescribed) drugs, and bought some herbal remedies (soon to be delivered), taking a chance on anything that will help me feel the way I want to feel...happy.  But the thing is, I don't have a good track record of being happy, and like most people when I am happy, I do something to sabotage it.  It's a vicious cycle and one I don't know how to break.  I have good reason to be happy in my life right now- I have a good life,  a purpose and a love that I did nothing to deserve. I know it- but I can't always appreciate it, and that's hurtful- to me and the people involved in my life who want me to be happy and don't understand why I can't and they can't make it so.  Depression, anxiety, panic are real and as substantial to people who don't feel them, as ghosts. And how do you fight a ghost? Well, I'm starting with talking (who knew that was coming? :)  Talking here, and talking to everyone who cares enough to listen, because the first thing you need, that everyone needs is to be acknowledged. Then I'll work on understanding and changing, what is is that's happening to me. Because knowledge is power and knowing is half the battle (G.I. Joe!) And then I'll work on accepting that whatever I've been diagnosed with, my diagnosis is not me.  There are people out there who love ME, and really wish I would come home to myself.  So, I'll work to get there, for them and for me- because I can't wait to get to happy .. and stay there.

Backroads

Ok, so I'm gonna completely ignore the fact that I haven't written in this blog for a year and a half.  Things were happening, my life was changing, blah, blah, blah.  Things are still happening, and my life is still changing, so I've decided to get off my ass and get back to writing something, anything really at this point.  But where to start? In my car, as usual.  It's a great place to think, albeit I should be concentrating on driving,. But usually I don't and I have conversations in my head instead.  In this case it seemed apropos that I was driving and thinking about back roads- the secret ways we take to get where we're going everyday.  I live in a different place than I did a year ago, literally and figuratively, and getting where I need to go takes a lot longer,  literally and figuratively,but the rewards have definitely been worth it.  I have new people in my life, a new job (really the same old job from the last time I wrote, but with more responsibility) and a new happiness that I couldn't have seen coming when I started writing this blog as a Misery Molly way back in Japan.  I can't believe it's been so long since I've been home from there and can't believe I'm back here when I thought I'd never return. Back in the city of my birth, traveling roads I traveled as a kid, doing a (higher level) of a job I've done before. I read once in a book that Gypsies believe you should never walk backwards in your own footsteps- that it's unlucky to re-trace your steps, and undo the path you've started on.  I was determined not to go home again after living abroad, not to have a normal life that as I saw it was just a rut... but there's a certain necessity in circling back again- maybe not circling this time, so much as ascending in a spiral.  The place where I was emotionally awhile back isn't where I am now, even if my physical location is the same. And I'm more grateful for that than words can say.  And now I'm even back to this blog, a literal archive of those times, and it's so interesting how I can see myself getting better, and getting ready for what was coming.  It's weird that I thought no one would read this blog anymore if I wasn't a Sad Sally anymore...And I didn't want to be that anymore so I stopped writing.  I should have been thinking, if they stuck around the first time, they deserve to see the happy ending.  So, hopefully, from now on, that's what I'm gonna write.  About how I changed, am still changing, am still circling  and spiraling around and ascending. There's beauty in the path that brought me here, and though I might have wanted to take someone else's journey, it was  and is , right that I travel on my own, travel my own backroads  and be open to new travels with fair winds and open roads before me. If you're still out there, you're welcome, again, to join me on the journey. 
“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” – Henry Miller

Total Knock Out or DIY: Haterz Gonna Hate

My new thing is to not let other people get under my skin- to, if I have to "wash that man/woman/those people" right out of my hair - those people who like lice are determined to to get in there, burrow in and stay for the long haul, sucking out my precious nutrients. I've got to figure out a nice way, in effect, to be a b**ch. Maybe a shirt that  says I'm not as young or as nice as I look- to those who doubt my professional abilities or overestimate my naivete. This has always been a problem for me- I'm young, nice and usually have a position of responsibility. Here's the problem for others-those who are older, "not so nice" and have earned no responsibility, but feel they deserve mine and most importantly, any perks that come with them. There are people who apparently can tell just by looking at me that my life has been  a bed of roses, and so have decided by comment consent to be thorns in my side. I wish I were a person who didn't care, who could flip the world the bird and keep going. Because contrary to all sense, the world seems to admire people like that. It seems, in fact, sometimes to encourage that kind of bravado, machismo ( I don't know a feminine word for machismo-note to self; I must find that word and use it in conversation at least once.)And I want some of that swagger.It's not enough to tell myself that people don't know better, don't know my issues, don't know my sorrows (can you hear singing in the background? "Nobody knows the trouble I've seen.....) Ok, maybe I don't really have it that bad, or maybe, just maybe I've just been really working that hard.  Yeah-----I  think that's it. And a little recognition is so little to give when it means so much. I know I can't expect others to appreciate what I'm going through, but every once in a while, it would sure be nice if the world would give me a break. Or failing that, that I had enough Thatchers to take one for myself. Ok, so maybe I don't have enough spite to tell the world to bite the big one, but I can surely strike back at those who keep taking rabbit punches at me. There's one surefire way to do it- and it's guaranteed to make the haterz crazy. I'll keep doing what I'm doing- succeeding, one jab at a time, giving it all I've got and leaving it all in the ring. They can't stand that or anyone who doesn't have time for the bile. Life is too short to focus on the negativity, and I'm too far ahead to let someone pull me down. It seems like such a simple thing, but in the end that's truly all it takes to mark the winners from the losers- just check which direction they're looking in.  It's already been decided. I'm in it for the long haul. I just have to work to  believe that the fight is already won.

"Criticism is something we can avoid easily; 

by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing." 

Aristotle

Don't know about you, but that's not my style, so I'll have to keep on keepin' on. 
Hope you will too. 

I've come back from the nowhere land of not writing after a break, or rather a break down. After not blogging for a few weeks I quickly came to realize how much blogging has helped me to maintain my equilibrium despite some harrowing personal and work experiences. Without it my personal compass tends to spin even further from true north than normal and leave my head spinning. It's strange to realize that blogging is something of a ritual for me and when I don't do it, everything just seems off. Sometimes I struggle to produce something I consider "worthy", but the point should be that any time I reflect on life ,I'm doing something worthy and necessary for me. The idea of rituals has other echoes for me as well. While I am not an overtly religious person, I do hold some beliefs quite dear, but have struggled to figure out how to incorporate them more fully into my life-to realize them in a way that has a real, substancial emotional and spiritual impact for me. I think we all feel like sacredness is something that comes from outside us, something from "beyond"-which makes it something we can never hope to achieve. But doesn't every philosophy say somewhere that we are special-whether made in God's image, or just part of the Creation, or just fundamental pieces of the universe? Heck, even He-man cartoons taught us that "We have the power!" So, I've decided that maybe my rituals should be just that-mine. Designed by me, for me and surely packing a bigger punch when I stray from them. I've decided that my rituals should be simple-whether a whispered prayer during the drawing of a deep breath (something I've realized I do not do nearly often enough), or the smudging of my home with burning sage,( a cleansing ritual I've also done with remarkable success). The point is to do things everday with intention- with the intention of realizing my own power and my own connection to not only the world around me but the one within me, as well as my own power to control my fate. I want to become my own wisewoman, my own power worker, my own conduit to the powers that be and be a power myself. I can do that-I can make my own path, and while I am certain that I will get lost again, once I know that I am my own center, it will never be too hard to find home again.

Your sacred space is where you can find yourself again and again.

Joseph Campbell

Find more on personal power and try the ritual ideas at http://www.higherawareness.com/manifestingabundance/personal-rituals.html

It's Not You, It's Me or DIY: Death Become Her

Since I was a kid, I've been very conscious of death.  Conscious of a lot of things actually- body conscious, self conscious, etc, ad nauseum. But I really became aware of life the day I became aware of death.   It remember it clearly; I was maybe four or five, in kindergarten at least, crossing the street with my mom.  Picture me, a kid with braids and glasses, walking to school when suddenly...  I noticed the cars. So many cars, it seemed, all around me and I don't know why it had never occurred to me before that they could hit me and I could die.  Actually, I think I do know- before that I had never really thought of myself as a person, a separate organism.  I know it seems strange, -surely I knew I was alive- but honestly, I don't think I remember much before that age-don't know if I even remembered my own name really (developmentally lagging, that was me, I think). And you know what they say- "Cogito ergo sum." I think therefore I am.  I know I wasn't really present until that moment, and then suddenly I was, just in time for a car to blow by me.  And that's when I knew I was real, that I could be hurt.  It's a lesson that reverberates with me to this day.  So much of the time I try to be a good person (whatever that means), someone loving, someone intelligent.  I give myself to people, and I know you're not supposed to ask for anything in return...but sometimes I need something.  I need to be appreciated. I need to be touched.  I need to feel like I'm doing a god job living this, the one and only life I've been given. I hate that I walk around sometimes thinking that that moment, whatever I happen to be doing, will never come again because how many of us are living in our purpose in every moment? Ordinary life takes up so much time.  It's necessary, but sometimes it fills me with regret.  It makes me feel like less that I'm not living a super powered life every minute of every day. But I'm not a flame. I'm a candle, and you know what they say about burning a candle at both ends. I don't want this awareness of death to make me depressed (ironic, I know).  I just want it to give those moments when inspiration does overpower "real life" even more of an edge.  I want to dedicate myself to creating something, if not lasting- after all, writing and art don't always last past their creation or creator- but something, if not lasting, at least beautiful. I want to spend my time with people and things, in places,  that acknowledge me and make me happy and make me treasure life the bitter sweetness that underscores it.  I don't want to squander it.  So I've got to focus- on me and my one life and my story and creating something- leaving my legacy, whatever it may be, behind.   There are some people who would call that selfish- who don't want to be  part of my story. To them  I say, you're not wrong.  It's not you; it's me.  I am being selfish and I going to stay that way.  It's my life after all and I've only got one.  I've got to make it count.

The fear of death follows from the fear of life.  A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.  

Mark Twain

It amazes me how two people's thoughts on anything can be light years apart-even, maybe especially, on things they agree on. The process of how people come  to an agreement is like watching a Mandelbrot fractal being born-you start off with chaos and make...chaos-just in a beautiful form, because even once we agree, we can never really understand each other's thinking processes or motivations. How do people ever come together when our interior landscapes span mental continents? How do we explore each others mental terrain and decide this person is my friend, my lover, my enemy- or even "this person is just like me!"-when the truth is, you have no idea. We will never truly know what another person is thinking, or why they do what they do. The rules of society help us make our decisions-but they aren't absolute and they change constantly. What's popular, right, moral- all decided, it feels, on a whim. And I'm an outsider loking in, who can't figure out the rules of the game. Some people are experts at moving through life, despite it's unpredictability. I think it's akin to being a mathematical savant who's never studied algebra- you can intuit an answer and be right, but never use the same process twice to get to the final answer. Which means when I try the very same thing that worked for you or even worked for me the last two times, the third time-Kaboom! When talking to people I feel, always and forever, a stranger in a strange land. I have no idea how to navigate the pitfalls of interpersonal relationships and usually wish I could just say "Screw it!", and not obey those damn unspoken rules of society everyone else seems to know so well at all. But I want to be a part of something. And people who don't try don't get too far in any direction.  And...I have to admit I'm not strong enough to bear society's censure for long. I wish there were an easier way to overcome our mental chasms. But maybe that's the point. Chasms can be overcome when people cooperate-when we strive to understand each other. Sure,I usually don't get it-but I am striving. I think we all are. And maybe one day, we'll all get it. For right now though, what I want is for someone on the other side of my mental divide to lend a hand and throw me a rope. Any takers?

"Sometimes it is the person closest to us who must travel the furthest distance to be our friend."

Robert Brault

You Don't Know Me And Neither Do I

I had a strange day yesterday. My multiple personalities came out to play. It started when I woke up feeling hipsterish, so I got dressed in tunic and tights, the whole nine yards, despite the fact that I was going to be doing a bit of semi-professional speaking that day. Call me crazy, but I don't think people respond respectfully to other people when they look like they're about to head out to a rave, but I decided to go with it and to hell with the consequences. Besides, I ended up as an elephant that day and no one minded that at all. I went out to do a puppet show for a group of kids and instantly turned into Miss Perky-you just can`t be mean to a bunch of little kids when there`s a puppet on your hand and they`re all smiling at you going "Do it again!" It was a good start to the day. Then I went into my office and suddenly morphed into office lady, checking email, scheduling meetings, taking requests. Still dressed like a college hippie, but now a manager who just happened to have an elephant puppet on her desk. Surreal has been my byword for some time now-my life taking roads I never could have imagined-never knowing who I`ll have to be when I get up that day, and never knowing who I`ll bring back home with me that night. I sort of wish I could use that puppet everyday. I get the feeling all my conversations would be a lot more honest and fulfillin that way. I always thought one day I would figure out who I was, who I was meant to be. I didn`t realize how much impact other people`s perspectives would have on me or how I would worry about it all-about not meeting those expectations. I almost wish I were an actor-given a set of lines and a character description that spelled the whole thing out-where a character lived and how, where they were coming from, and all their motivations. Sometimes I even want to know the end of the story. But that's not how it works. Some stories may be exciting, some predictable-but when it's your own you still have to live it out to the very end, to live through the climax and make your own resolution.I haven't left the house yet today, so don't know what role I'll be starring in,but I hope it's a good one-I'll make it a good one. Maybe a recurring part that I can come back to again and again.

"Many of us go through life feeling as an actor might who does not like his part, and does not believe in the play."

Mignon McLaughlin-The Neurotics Notebook,1960

The Game of Life or DIY: I'll Take Life for A Thousand, Alex

I've written a lot about how life seems like a game, with rules that I've never quite understood. While friends and family are getting married, starting families,buying homes, and settling into their adult lives, I seem to still be.... not drifting, exactly- but not matching up to some societal norms. But, then who says that society knows what's normal? Normal has changed so much over the years-feminism givng rise to a backlash, macho guys becoming stay at home dads, equal marriage rights for all- why we almost had a female president! Things are not the way they used to be and normal it appears, is far more fluid than we give it credit for. So who's to say that my normal isn't exactly the right thing for me right now? I have been an educator, a care giver, a world traveler even, while still remaing the same small town girl ( and yes, I really do still think of myself as a girl.)-Sometimes I wonder if I will ever be a fully grown woman. I imgaine myself still worrying about acne and having crushes at age eighty, but perhaps having grown up enough not to worry who knows it. I have not yet been a wife or mother and who knows if that's to come? Maybe I'll delve back into the past and be a hippie in my next incarnation. You never know- and that's an important realization in the Game of Life. You never know what will happen next- whether the milestones you hit are taking you along the "right" path. You never know if you're winning---unless you can say this- I have been proud of what I've accomplished, eager to see what I'll do next, grateful for the people who have journeyed with me, and humbled by the realization of both my own inadequacies and my own power. This is what it means to be human, to be normal- to realize that the journey takes you as much as you take it. And no matter where it takes you, as long as you keep moving, you're winning. So it all comes down to this-you spin the wheel, take your turn, make your choices- and hopefully you enjoy where the game takes you.

Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game. 

Voltaire

Same To You, Buddy!

So, I was driving to work today, coincidentally enough, thinking about writing this blog, and I nearly sideswiped another car (which just goes to show how deeply I think about these blogs before I send them out to you in the world-so, respect.) Now, of course, the other driver cussed me out and deservedly so,  and I would have done the same.  But it occurred to me that that person was from then on going to have not only a terrible morning, but an erroneous idea of who I was. Unless you're the sweetest person on earth, you know that road rage makes you think the worst of humanity, and so do lots of other things- the person who cuts you off at the grocery line, who's rude to you at the corner sandwich shop- the list goes on and on.  But  these little snippets of a person's personality that we get (in my case, they didn't even get to see) are like, like the many layers of Martin Lawrence's fat suit in his movies (which one?- ALL of them). They're there, but they're  not all that's there, and you have to peel through the layers to get to the kernel and find out if there's anything there worthwhile (that's a lot of theres!).   I often feel like the people around me don't know the real me- that they know my circumstances, and think that they're all that defines me. I am someone's daughter, sister, friend- and I have certain behaviors for each of these  that  other people who don't see me in that light would find astonishing. I'm sure my mother would be surprised (at the least) if she knew some of the things I discussed with my friends, and my friends would be surprised if they  knew what it is I do exactly as a job (no one really thinks I'm  very responsible in any of my relationships), and I.. I just let people think what they think because their first impression isn't going to change.  A science fiction truism is that psychics don't  exist in great numbers because they couldn't deal with the multiple pyschoses people carry about in their heads... (another is that people in scifi novels almost always have a hate on for psychics and invariably end up killing them to protect their own [sometimes measly and sometimes grisly] secrets- not great options for building a race of super humans.)  At any rate, I felt bad for cutting someone off, and wished they could see into my head to know I was sorry, but knew they never would. So one more version of me (the idiot female driver one) is  out there in someone's head, but it's not the real me.  Being fully known is one of my greatest fears and greatest desires- I want to pull off my own fat suit (the real one too) and stand in front of the world, someday- but for now I'll hide behind my glasses and wait for someone who is psychic or just really really patient to find the best version of me, the absolutely amazing one, and pull me out of the shadows. Who knows, it could even be me.

Self is the only prison that can ever bind the soul.  

~Henry Van Dyke, The Prison and the Angel