And I have no excuses. Okay, I have excuses. I always have excuses but none of them are the truth. The truth is I haven't wanted to blog because there hasn't been much about this year I've wanted to record. Going back to school has been more good than bad but it's been the kind of growing experience that's not always easy to write about, at least not for me.
I'm writing this tonight because I do have things that need to be put down somewhere. I don't know if anyone reads this but I can pretend that someone does and someone will see this and maybe hold me accountable for everything I'm about to say.
I'll be 29 in two weeks. One year away from 30 and my life is horribly similar to how I started the decade. I'm single, I live at home, I'm in school and while working towards a goal I still don't really know what I want to be when I grow up. I've had a career and places of my own and many of the experiences one is "supposed to have" in their twenties but right now I don't and I don't know when I'm going to get my life back. This life I'm leading right now isn't mine. I don't feel like me and I don't feel like I'm living each day the way I would. I gave up without realizing I had until I looked around and had nothing.
So it's time to get things. It's that scene in the movie where our intrepid hero steps back, takes stock and decides what must be done.
What Must Be Done:
- Stop making excuses. For everything.
- Get a better job. It doesn't matter if a real job and a real school schedule mean no life because I don't have a life right now.
- Get a life anyway. I like socializing, I like being a part of the world. I hate most of the TV I watch and as much as I love the internet it wouldn't hurt to love it less.
- Really think about what my bliss is.
- Follow it.
- Figure out the exact cause of my perpetual single-ness and work on it. There's being Happy Single which I was for a long time and Not Happy Single which I am right now.
- Build towards long term goals instead of short term dreams. I did a lot of cool things in my 20s but only for a little while. I had the job of dream for 2 years and enjoyed maybe 6 months of it. I lived in NYC but only for 8 months. I had apartments of my own but moved back in with the family twice.
- Get more serious about money. Which would require actually having money to be serious about (and when I say I have no money I really mean it. I have no savings account and a checking account that is rarely above $50 these days.).
- Have dreams and aspirations again. Find something and work towards it. Don't be afraid of this.
- ACTUALLY DO ALL THIS.
I'm so sick of myself and so sick of that feeling. This is me putting my foot down.
8.14.2009
1.27.2009
Top Chef
In a follow up to this I was accepted into culinary school yesterday. I still don't presume it will be easy and I know that many in this field have a good 10-12 years on me. But I know if I don't do it I'll feel even worse.
I hope to never have to cook a meal like this.
Following your bliss is one of many overused phrases that I've just started to look past the cliche to see the truth in.
It seems to me sometimes that the points I make here are such simple ones that they almost don't need writing about but after complicating everything for years simple is the hardest thing for me to be and my journey towards a purer appreciation of the universe is an important one.
I hope to never have to cook a meal like this.
Following your bliss is one of many overused phrases that I've just started to look past the cliche to see the truth in.
It seems to me sometimes that the points I make here are such simple ones that they almost don't need writing about but after complicating everything for years simple is the hardest thing for me to be and my journey towards a purer appreciation of the universe is an important one.
1.21.2009
You Have To Admit It's Getting Better
Sometimes inspiration comes in the strangest places. Like a friend's IM status. At the height of my wallowing the other day I logged on to check my email and out of the corner of my eye saw:
So simple and yet probably the hardest thing for me to do. I like control down to controlling how I respond to the world and how it responds back to me. And then when I set myself up for failure and heartbreak I'm left with the truths that have been in front of me the whole time.
I told a friend the other week that no one will ever love you back the exact same way you love them and I don't think I completely realized that until I said it. It's true for everything though and I think for 28 years I lived thinking that the universe would respond to me exactly how I responded to it even if my own responses were often time disingenuous and born out of distrust and fear.
So that's where I am right now at 1:06PM on January 21. Trying to make my world easy. And listening to Fleet Foxes who might just be the best band ever.
Aldous Huxley (read Brave New World if you haven't) and Wildmind have even more to say on love and much better then I could.
I think I write about love so much because it's the part of my life that I understand the least and have had the least success with. I can be a student, a teacher, a boss, an employee but being a daughter, sister, friend and girlfriend have been things I've always struggled to feel like I'm good at.
It's easy to suffer when you make the world hard. Make your world easy and you will suffer less.
So simple and yet probably the hardest thing for me to do. I like control down to controlling how I respond to the world and how it responds back to me. And then when I set myself up for failure and heartbreak I'm left with the truths that have been in front of me the whole time.
I told a friend the other week that no one will ever love you back the exact same way you love them and I don't think I completely realized that until I said it. It's true for everything though and I think for 28 years I lived thinking that the universe would respond to me exactly how I responded to it even if my own responses were often time disingenuous and born out of distrust and fear.
So that's where I am right now at 1:06PM on January 21. Trying to make my world easy. And listening to Fleet Foxes who might just be the best band ever.
Aldous Huxley (read Brave New World if you haven't) and Wildmind have even more to say on love and much better then I could.
“We can only love what we know, and we can never know completely what we do not love.
I think I write about love so much because it's the part of my life that I understand the least and have had the least success with. I can be a student, a teacher, a boss, an employee but being a daughter, sister, friend and girlfriend have been things I've always struggled to feel like I'm good at.
1.05.2009
With All Your Lies You're Still Very Lovable
Dear Everyone I've Ever Been In Love With,
As January progresses at an already too fast pace I see Christmas blessedly fade from the minds of retailers and marketing firms. My happiness is short lived with the realization that we as humans can not be without a holiday for long and Valentine's Day is rushing towards us to fill that void the only way it knows how with chocolates, hearts and the reawakening of that great divide between those that love love in all its commercial forms and those that don't.
I know it's still more then a month away and I'm probably jumping the gun a bit but I don't feel too unfairly pessimistic in saying that I'll be spending this Valentine's Day alone. If you go by the law of averages then the odds of me having someone to celebrate that day with are small. I'm OK with that though because I find the idea of having do the whole big Valentine's Day shebang completely annoying and unnecessary. It's the other 364 days of the year that are not enjoyably spent as single.
I guess it's a small mark of how emotionally mature I've become that I no longer think of any of you with bitterness or anger. Since it's still close to New Year's (a holiday of new beginnings), Christmas ( a holiday of peace and love) and it's so expected to say bad things about V-Day that I feel like I have to say something good about it I've decided to make this an Open Letter of Thanks.
I'm not together with any of you anymore and there are many of you that I'll probably never speak to again but none of you will ever really leave my soul. You all have your own special place, some more deeply ingrained into who and what I am then others. There's some emotional scarring and some pillow cases that will never quite feel dry thanks to the tears shed on them but there's a good memory for all of it.
So Thank You. All of you.
Thank you for the:
- new things you introduced me to. The bands I never would have listened to if I wasn't trying to impress you and ended up loving. The books I read because they explained you and found my own self explained in. The foods I tried and the places I went to that were all doors opened by your loving and persuasive hands.
- old things that you added new meaning to. The song I loved before you but now will always make me think of you. The cheesy action movie I can't help but love because we saw it on our first date. The cologne that ten years later on a complete stranger will waft towards me and make me remember you.
- the joy and the pain. I learned how jealous I can be, how and when to be forgiving, when it's good to be angry and necessary to be sad. I learned just what it meant to have your soul ripped into pieces and I hated you so much for it but it made me more real and so I have to thank you. I also learned my capacity for love and that singular beauty in feeling my whole world filled by just a word or glance or touch from you.
- letting me go. None of you were right for me but I would have held on because that's who I was. And now because of all of you I know how to let go. I know how to do right by me and realize that some hurts are good hurts that help us both in the end.
All My Sincerest Love,
Me
As January progresses at an already too fast pace I see Christmas blessedly fade from the minds of retailers and marketing firms. My happiness is short lived with the realization that we as humans can not be without a holiday for long and Valentine's Day is rushing towards us to fill that void the only way it knows how with chocolates, hearts and the reawakening of that great divide between those that love love in all its commercial forms and those that don't.
I know it's still more then a month away and I'm probably jumping the gun a bit but I don't feel too unfairly pessimistic in saying that I'll be spending this Valentine's Day alone. If you go by the law of averages then the odds of me having someone to celebrate that day with are small. I'm OK with that though because I find the idea of having do the whole big Valentine's Day shebang completely annoying and unnecessary. It's the other 364 days of the year that are not enjoyably spent as single.
I guess it's a small mark of how emotionally mature I've become that I no longer think of any of you with bitterness or anger. Since it's still close to New Year's (a holiday of new beginnings), Christmas ( a holiday of peace and love) and it's so expected to say bad things about V-Day that I feel like I have to say something good about it I've decided to make this an Open Letter of Thanks.
I'm not together with any of you anymore and there are many of you that I'll probably never speak to again but none of you will ever really leave my soul. You all have your own special place, some more deeply ingrained into who and what I am then others. There's some emotional scarring and some pillow cases that will never quite feel dry thanks to the tears shed on them but there's a good memory for all of it.
So Thank You. All of you.
Thank you for the:
- new things you introduced me to. The bands I never would have listened to if I wasn't trying to impress you and ended up loving. The books I read because they explained you and found my own self explained in. The foods I tried and the places I went to that were all doors opened by your loving and persuasive hands.
- old things that you added new meaning to. The song I loved before you but now will always make me think of you. The cheesy action movie I can't help but love because we saw it on our first date. The cologne that ten years later on a complete stranger will waft towards me and make me remember you.
- the joy and the pain. I learned how jealous I can be, how and when to be forgiving, when it's good to be angry and necessary to be sad. I learned just what it meant to have your soul ripped into pieces and I hated you so much for it but it made me more real and so I have to thank you. I also learned my capacity for love and that singular beauty in feeling my whole world filled by just a word or glance or touch from you.
- letting me go. None of you were right for me but I would have held on because that's who I was. And now because of all of you I know how to let go. I know how to do right by me and realize that some hurts are good hurts that help us both in the end.
All My Sincerest Love,
Me
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