Your past is a very funny thing. It can have such an amazing impact on your life, you either had control over it or not, it jumps up and surprises you at the most unpredictable moments and it stirs emotions you can't help but experience. What's so amusing about it, like a puppet dancing in the back of your mind, is how it continues to interrupt your life, even when you don't want it to or don't think you need it to. But if you have any faith in the universe, a deity or some sort of higher power, everything has a purpose - so the past jumping up at unpredictable times is supposed to be for some purpose...right?
Your past is just that - something that happened to you long ago (or sometimes not so long ago) that shapes who you are. You can't hide from your past - countless movies, quotes by people far more intelligent than I, and allegories have told us that from the very beginning, yet most of us continue to believe we can hide from what we've done, where we came from. While not always the goal, a lot of have just fine, average pasts, most people think there's at least something in our past we need to hide from. Is it the emotional pull of a love that slipped through your fingers in a memory that flashes across your mind, stirring those places deep inside you that you thought had gone dormant? Is it the scar from a slap across your face you took - a slap that stung so bad you finally understood the nervous system that your biology teacher had been trying to ram down your throat since middle school? Is it the the time you denied your moral compass and enjoyed a blissful moment of sheer power and what we would call 'evil'? Is it the lack of remorse for defying social norms and living on the dark side for a sweet taste of the addicting nature of power? There's always something to hide from.
Is hiding the best thing to do though? Even though the dark parts of our past might be hard to feel, hard to relive and sometimes bring emotions back that you wanted buried away...they're there for a reason. They're there to make us remember that at the core, we are human, here to feel and most importantly, to experience life. You ask what the meaning of life is? I think it's experience. Bad, good, in between. Whatever, just experience. No labels, no fear of how you'll fear tomorrow. Experience. Because at the end of the day, if you ever lose the ability to feel - and trust me, that's a very easy reality to slip into - it's those memories of what it's like to feel that give you hope. The feeling of his hand sliding down your extended fist, down your arm to your elbow on that cold night, just on the cusp of adulthood, when for the first time you had someone look you in the eyes and absolutely, without denial, invest in you. The feeling of comfort when you fell asleep to a voice on the other end of the phone that was all you needed to feel at peace - all either of you needed to feel. The moment when you knew someone you love has an undeniable darkness inside of them that you can't avoid, but realize you can still love them. The snap you have when a chord, a single voice breaks through the monotony of your existence and for just a second...you feel something. It's small, nothing more than a twinge for most, but for you, it's everything because it's something.
That's what the past does that's so beautiful and funny, like a lost friend that calls you at the exact moment you need them. It's there for you, remind you of where you've come and how far you've come. It's there to bring peace to your mind if that's what you are in need of. So when you want to escape your past - ask yourself why. When it's there to remind you of why you're alive and how far you've come, embrace it. Experience it.
Live, Laugh and Above All, Love.
Monday, November 26, 2012
Monday, August 27, 2012
Need
I've had an education in need. All my life I've felt the love I have for people, I know how deeply I care for them, I understand what they mean to me, I know how much they are on my mind. What I didn't realize is how little I show it or say it outside my family - in an obvious way. So many friends lament to me about people in their life who are distant, someone far away emotionally and I never imagined myself in that group...but how wrong I was. I'm an action lover. I show my love through actions. I show my love through doing for those I love. But I don't say it, I don't express it, I can't be vulnerable like that. Why does being vulnerable scare us so much when it's often the only way to get what we want?
Vulnerability comes from the willingness to accept that something is out of your control. To trust someone enough to render yourself into someone's hands. To give your emotional security, your feelings, to someone and trust them to keep them safe. It's a scary thought - giving over control like that. For driven people, driven women I think especially, surrendering control like that seems impossible - or stupid. I've always felt it was stupid. Why give that control over to someone? Why trust someone with that when I could keep it under control? Why risk? Is there really only reward when you risk?
I was talking with a very dear friend today and expressed this to her - my feeling that I don't express how much people mean to me. She smiled and I knew that I hadn't done justice to our friendship. I hadn't told her how much she impacts my life. How important she is. Why hadn't I been able to fall completely in front of her when she's always been there? Because I was under the illusion that I was able to do it. I thought I was letting people in...until I started actually trying with someone who called me on my illusion. Someone who had an inkling that my editing went much deeper than I thought it had. Someone that saw through my mask. And it's scary. It's scary how thick my walls are. I know I have walls - everyone does. But I always thought mine could be chipped away once I felt comfortable with someone. What I didn't know was I was only letting the tiniest of holes through the wall when I thought I had taken them down. I thought it was normal to hold back, not to show your darkest. How I can write thousands of words expressing the emotions I have inside, represent them in my characters, but I can't articulate three words out loud to someone I care about. I can't say "I Need You." Physically choke on the words as I try to let them out. Feel my throat constrict as I try to say "I Can't Lose You." I always thought if I felt it, others knew...but I don't let them see it because my walls were up when I thought they were down. My bridge had been closed despite them waiting patiently...so patiently at the gates. By not saying it though, I'm not connecting like I could be. Because when I let someone in this past weekend, trusted someone with even the tiniest of me...I connected. I felt a trust I never knew I was even missing. I did it with two people I care very much for and who I know love me as well - and both kept me safe. Both let me in. Both were patient with me as I tried, even if it was only a little, to succeed at this new endeavor.
When I stopped actually letting people in I can't even pin-point. Now that I know I haven't been doing it, I'm trying to trace back to what changed in me. I think I used to, as a kid. Maybe we all did, before we learned not to trust. But maybe for me I trusted longer than just childhood - I don't know. What made me stop without realizing I'd stopped? I look back and I realize there was a time in my life where I connected more, but then it just slowly dissipates. I don't know what it was and I don't know why. It doesn't really matter. Maybe it eroded over time. Maybe the people who didn't hold my little fragment of trust I gave them, the tiniest piece that wasn't even a whole piece, maybe the people who betrayed that caused me to stop giving even that. Those people who made me think that what I have been giving, what I thought was a part of me, was just the safe parts - the parts I knew people could look past and still love me. It's the dark, the deep that scares even me that I've held back. It's the love I have for people that I'm scared will scare them that I've refrained from releasing. It's the depth to which they matter in my life that I'm afraid I'll be vulnerable if they know and want to leave. It's like showing my Achilles' heel. Those people who betrayed those pieces, left them to spoil or turned them into weapons against me are not my enemies - I don't hate them...they made me who I am. I'm thankful for that - because I'm a work-in-progress that I enjoy. They let me discover this at a time in my life when I needed to discover it. Maybe it was faith that let me discover it now. Who knows, but this was my path. But whatever made me stop...it changed the way I saw the world. It made me think the depth I had shown to the outside world was out in the middle of the ocean, when really it was nothing more than just beyond the shore. Now I have to learn to wade into the water and even though I'll dodge some sharks, maybe I'll end up at the uncharted, beautiful island no one has ever seen before. A place I can call home.
That's where the reward lies - in that moment when your friends are there. When they don't disappoint you like so many have before. When they catch you when you fall and they connect with you and hopefully love you like you love them. When they go from caring about you to loving you. It's that moment, that's the reward. But you have to risk it all - you have to show the dark in you, you have to show you're weak at times...you have to show to let them see there something to connect to. You have to show them you need them - that they're not just an accessory in your life. No one can connect to something that's not there. In return, you have to understand the gravity of the gift your friend, lover, family member, your other half gives you when they fall, when they trust you to be there to save them. When they give you a piece of their wall. You can't let that slip through, you cannot falter when that happens - you have to hold strong because if you don't, you won't connect with them and you can make their walls even stronger if you fail. Failure when you have to be the protector is not an option. Besides simply taking a friendship seriously, you won't get the other side of the reward if you fail. You won't get the CONNECTION - the back and forth. It's the responsibility of getting the reward and it's the path to receiving it. For me, that's the easiest part - the one being there. But learning to be the one who needs. That's where you find the scariest, but also the most rewarding part.
Vulnerability comes from the willingness to accept that something is out of your control. To trust someone enough to render yourself into someone's hands. To give your emotional security, your feelings, to someone and trust them to keep them safe. It's a scary thought - giving over control like that. For driven people, driven women I think especially, surrendering control like that seems impossible - or stupid. I've always felt it was stupid. Why give that control over to someone? Why trust someone with that when I could keep it under control? Why risk? Is there really only reward when you risk?
I was talking with a very dear friend today and expressed this to her - my feeling that I don't express how much people mean to me. She smiled and I knew that I hadn't done justice to our friendship. I hadn't told her how much she impacts my life. How important she is. Why hadn't I been able to fall completely in front of her when she's always been there? Because I was under the illusion that I was able to do it. I thought I was letting people in...until I started actually trying with someone who called me on my illusion. Someone who had an inkling that my editing went much deeper than I thought it had. Someone that saw through my mask. And it's scary. It's scary how thick my walls are. I know I have walls - everyone does. But I always thought mine could be chipped away once I felt comfortable with someone. What I didn't know was I was only letting the tiniest of holes through the wall when I thought I had taken them down. I thought it was normal to hold back, not to show your darkest. How I can write thousands of words expressing the emotions I have inside, represent them in my characters, but I can't articulate three words out loud to someone I care about. I can't say "I Need You." Physically choke on the words as I try to let them out. Feel my throat constrict as I try to say "I Can't Lose You." I always thought if I felt it, others knew...but I don't let them see it because my walls were up when I thought they were down. My bridge had been closed despite them waiting patiently...so patiently at the gates. By not saying it though, I'm not connecting like I could be. Because when I let someone in this past weekend, trusted someone with even the tiniest of me...I connected. I felt a trust I never knew I was even missing. I did it with two people I care very much for and who I know love me as well - and both kept me safe. Both let me in. Both were patient with me as I tried, even if it was only a little, to succeed at this new endeavor.
When I stopped actually letting people in I can't even pin-point. Now that I know I haven't been doing it, I'm trying to trace back to what changed in me. I think I used to, as a kid. Maybe we all did, before we learned not to trust. But maybe for me I trusted longer than just childhood - I don't know. What made me stop without realizing I'd stopped? I look back and I realize there was a time in my life where I connected more, but then it just slowly dissipates. I don't know what it was and I don't know why. It doesn't really matter. Maybe it eroded over time. Maybe the people who didn't hold my little fragment of trust I gave them, the tiniest piece that wasn't even a whole piece, maybe the people who betrayed that caused me to stop giving even that. Those people who made me think that what I have been giving, what I thought was a part of me, was just the safe parts - the parts I knew people could look past and still love me. It's the dark, the deep that scares even me that I've held back. It's the love I have for people that I'm scared will scare them that I've refrained from releasing. It's the depth to which they matter in my life that I'm afraid I'll be vulnerable if they know and want to leave. It's like showing my Achilles' heel. Those people who betrayed those pieces, left them to spoil or turned them into weapons against me are not my enemies - I don't hate them...they made me who I am. I'm thankful for that - because I'm a work-in-progress that I enjoy. They let me discover this at a time in my life when I needed to discover it. Maybe it was faith that let me discover it now. Who knows, but this was my path. But whatever made me stop...it changed the way I saw the world. It made me think the depth I had shown to the outside world was out in the middle of the ocean, when really it was nothing more than just beyond the shore. Now I have to learn to wade into the water and even though I'll dodge some sharks, maybe I'll end up at the uncharted, beautiful island no one has ever seen before. A place I can call home.
That's where the reward lies - in that moment when your friends are there. When they don't disappoint you like so many have before. When they catch you when you fall and they connect with you and hopefully love you like you love them. When they go from caring about you to loving you. It's that moment, that's the reward. But you have to risk it all - you have to show the dark in you, you have to show you're weak at times...you have to show to let them see there something to connect to. You have to show them you need them - that they're not just an accessory in your life. No one can connect to something that's not there. In return, you have to understand the gravity of the gift your friend, lover, family member, your other half gives you when they fall, when they trust you to be there to save them. When they give you a piece of their wall. You can't let that slip through, you cannot falter when that happens - you have to hold strong because if you don't, you won't connect with them and you can make their walls even stronger if you fail. Failure when you have to be the protector is not an option. Besides simply taking a friendship seriously, you won't get the other side of the reward if you fail. You won't get the CONNECTION - the back and forth. It's the responsibility of getting the reward and it's the path to receiving it. For me, that's the easiest part - the one being there. But learning to be the one who needs. That's where you find the scariest, but also the most rewarding part.
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
TV Truths - Take 2
More TV Truths from How I Met Your Mother as they apply to MY LIFE. I did seasons 1-4 in an earlier post and these are the truths that I've found from recent seasons.
- Suit Up as often as possible.
- A ruined house to anyone else can be everything to you.
- While DIBS may be a rule...if the person is more like the person who didn't call Dibs....let them have them.
- Deciding to define your relationship is something so many people try to avoid, yet fail miserably at.
- Sometimes it takes realizing you can never have kids to understand that you wanted them in the first place.
- If you find yourself wanting to be with someone all the time because they make you better - look at that person in a romantic light and see what happens.
- British chicks rarely have deep personalities on TV shows - it's like writers think the accent gives them an automatic story line.
- You can move away, but when everything is perfect, you'll somehow find your way back home.
- I will have a box of bets with my husband about my friends' lives. It's going to happen. But mine will have a lock on it.
- "We should open a bar" are the greatest 5 words any man can utter.
- A man who can dance and is bold enough to grab you and dance with you in front of everyone can change everything.
- Don't judge a person on your first interaction - they could be hiding a whole other world inside.
- If someone continues to pop into your head - don't ignore that.
- Never stop dreaming that The One will happen.
- The rest of the world doesn't care as much as you do about the fact that you're pregnant.
- Giving up norms in your home can be the best way to make a new life.
- Everyone should have a Storm Trooper statue in their apartment.
- There is a Bro Code. And girls can be included in it. Don't break the Bro Code.
- You need a non-blood family. Finding friends who become annoying, intrusive and overly involved in your life is something everyone should have.
- Don't underestimate LOVE. Just because you're not in love with someone or their not in love with you doesn't mean they don't love you.
- The parents who raised you don't always have the greatest influence on your life.
- This is more of a hope: When you start to give up on achieving what you desire most...it may be just moments before it happens.
Monday, April 30, 2012
You & I
Why is it so hard to be ourselves around people we want most to give our hearts to? Almost everyone experiences the nerves that accompany being in the presence of one you're attracted to. If you're not one of those people - I envy you with a passion. And the rest of the world envies you as well. People like that seem so fearless, or perhaps they just don't care. Either way, it's a skill I have yet to obtain - being completely normal around someone who makes my heart beat faster. It's one of many failures of the human existence - fearing that which we desire most. Rather than being able to attack, to be ready to take on the next adventure...we analyze, we lie in wait and we only take a step when we're sure. Averting eye contact with those we want to make it with, holding back from someone we want to embrace. It's such a natural resistance, but it's so counter productive. Why can't we mentally overcome this with self talk? Why is it that some can talk themselves into literally jumping off a cliff...but can't sit beside a person they desire without becoming a bumbling fool? Why can I have no fears about interviewing the President of the United States, but shut down when someone I'm attracted to enters the room? Why do we fear this so very much?
The reason, I believe for most people based on conversations, is a sense of internal loss and a true blow to your whole self. If the object of your desire doesn't desire you back...it's a reflection on who you are. Someone didn't want you. That's the killer. So many I talk with are in agony, in pain in their very core because they dream of this person, want to be in their arms and yet are too scared to take the leap. But even with that knowledge, the rejection and the fear, I personally know that not everyone is right for everyone...so rejection means you just haven't found the right person - but why isn't that awareness enough? How do I still drink myself into a complete stupor or become completely stoic to prevent the real me from coming out? It's just a person, as real and as human as I...but they seem so much more than that. As the arm chair psychologist I am, people seem to open up to me, which I love, and it allows me to see the agony in their turmoil. I understand it. I see the tears in their eyes when I ask the hard questions and it almost always results in them being sure the other person cannot possibly reciprocate their feelings. I know that's a problem for me. It's a problem for many. How could this person you hold in such high esteem feel the same about you? I believe even a fully secure person can still succumb to this fault because it's more than just being secure with who you are - it's trusting that someone else could see that too.
In books I so rarely read about the fear of someone you desire - perhaps because I read things outside the teen fiction sections, but still...shouldn't it be out there more in novels? I'm guilty of it as a writer - long glances turn into a rushed kiss, a night of passion or a long embrace on a cold night...I'm guilty of omitting the thing I hate the most about myself. In some of my character relationships it does come out, but mostly to prove a point about that character - her weakness and indecision. If we know this is the reflection timidness towards desirables gives, why am I unable to prevent myself from giving that appearance? Why do we fear what we want?
No amount of advice, self talk or awareness will help this problem. All you can do is mindlessly take a leap. Jump when you are inclined. Take a risk. Jump...and maybe one of these days you'll be caught.
Live. Laugh and Above All....Love.
The reason, I believe for most people based on conversations, is a sense of internal loss and a true blow to your whole self. If the object of your desire doesn't desire you back...it's a reflection on who you are. Someone didn't want you. That's the killer. So many I talk with are in agony, in pain in their very core because they dream of this person, want to be in their arms and yet are too scared to take the leap. But even with that knowledge, the rejection and the fear, I personally know that not everyone is right for everyone...so rejection means you just haven't found the right person - but why isn't that awareness enough? How do I still drink myself into a complete stupor or become completely stoic to prevent the real me from coming out? It's just a person, as real and as human as I...but they seem so much more than that. As the arm chair psychologist I am, people seem to open up to me, which I love, and it allows me to see the agony in their turmoil. I understand it. I see the tears in their eyes when I ask the hard questions and it almost always results in them being sure the other person cannot possibly reciprocate their feelings. I know that's a problem for me. It's a problem for many. How could this person you hold in such high esteem feel the same about you? I believe even a fully secure person can still succumb to this fault because it's more than just being secure with who you are - it's trusting that someone else could see that too.
In books I so rarely read about the fear of someone you desire - perhaps because I read things outside the teen fiction sections, but still...shouldn't it be out there more in novels? I'm guilty of it as a writer - long glances turn into a rushed kiss, a night of passion or a long embrace on a cold night...I'm guilty of omitting the thing I hate the most about myself. In some of my character relationships it does come out, but mostly to prove a point about that character - her weakness and indecision. If we know this is the reflection timidness towards desirables gives, why am I unable to prevent myself from giving that appearance? Why do we fear what we want?
No amount of advice, self talk or awareness will help this problem. All you can do is mindlessly take a leap. Jump when you are inclined. Take a risk. Jump...and maybe one of these days you'll be caught.
Live. Laugh and Above All....Love.
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Love
As a writer, I feel like part of my job is to record experiences. It's not always easy to do, to admit things and share them with the world. But being a writer means I have an ability to record, and just as a doctor has the ability to save a life - I have the ability to record emotions. Not that I am particularly gifted at this, but I think I can do at least a decent job at the task. So, I'm recording something that's hard for me to talk about for a variety of reasons - most of which are far too personal to share online. Even this is personal, but it's just a feeling, one many experience, but maybe not to the extent I do. Who knows. It's a comparison no one can ever really make. I'm rambling.
Feeling things has been an up and down battle for me. I've been through times when I thought my chest literally had a hole in it and I've had times when I felt nothing for months on end. I've had times of such utter ecstasy and I've had moments of uncontrollable sadness. The worst was the time when I stopped feeling. For a few months in my life...I felt nothing. Pages were blank. I was bland. My friends saw me smile - it was all just so no one would ask me how I was...because I didn't feel anything. Not feeling, being at a 5 constantly is unbearable. I'll take my highs and lows any day.
That leads me to feeling love. I'm an intensely loving person. I don't know yet if it's a gift or a curse - my extreme desire and ability to love. Most would default to it being completely wonderful...but understand that being able to love incredibly deeply, means you are much more likely to feel pain as well. When someone attacks a friend, they are attacking me. They're attacking my heart. I become a lion if I have to be. As a friend drifts out of my life, I feel the distance. I actually notice space between us and it saddens me more than it should. I feel like a piece of my heart gets cut away every time a friend does - even if that friend was nothing but toxic to me. It's because I love...despite what that person does to me. I still love. I still have love in my heart for them. There have been a small handful of people who have really left my heart and it was freeing - what I imagine most people experience when they lose a friend. I don't get that relief often. When I do, it usually takes years to occur.
More than just friends - I love very deeply and find that I love more than I probably should. I can build up a moment and live on that feeling for days. I can feel a sensation on my arm and it washes over every nerve in my body and lingers. It's because I attach. I link. I connect. I embrace. It also makes the severing of that love even harder. I feel like I lose hope, lose a piece of who I am every time romantic love slips through my fingers. Every time I get an inch closer, I feel like I've just gone a mile...but when reality sets in...that I only made it an inch...well. It feels like a weight on your chest - if you can imagine someone loading it slowly with bricks. A longing for that hope, that moment when you could imagine what the next encounter would be. You want to be back in that blissfully unaware and hopeful little moment. But time marches on and you come to reality. That's when the bricks start getting laid. Not being able to have love is when the pressure reaches the most. It's a hole - a missing part of you. There's so much love I have to give to someone that it almost makes me explode. I'm like a thundercloud with lightning ready to strike the earth - but with no place to direct it. For those of us with so much love in our hearts - the best we can do is hope that one day, we'll be able to direct it somewhere.
Despite the pain and sense of distance loving causes - I can't stop. I don't want to stop. I get to experience relationships so deeply, and that's irreplaceable. I don't want to stop loving this much. Someday I'll find someone who loves as deeply as I do and hopefully he'll direct that at me. While I search for that, I still get to love my friends and my family with a fierceness I can't live without. A dedication I have to breathe in. It's worth it, I guess - the love even with the pain. The ups are only as great as the downs. So if my downs are really deep, I suppose that's why my highs are so incredibly high. It's a rush. It's a rollercoaster ride...and one that I'm taking in stride. Even on nights when I want to die the lack of love hurts so much. It's still worth having because the hope of having more is still there. Without that love to look forward to...what would hope be?
Live, Laugh and Above All...Love.
Feeling things has been an up and down battle for me. I've been through times when I thought my chest literally had a hole in it and I've had times when I felt nothing for months on end. I've had times of such utter ecstasy and I've had moments of uncontrollable sadness. The worst was the time when I stopped feeling. For a few months in my life...I felt nothing. Pages were blank. I was bland. My friends saw me smile - it was all just so no one would ask me how I was...because I didn't feel anything. Not feeling, being at a 5 constantly is unbearable. I'll take my highs and lows any day.
That leads me to feeling love. I'm an intensely loving person. I don't know yet if it's a gift or a curse - my extreme desire and ability to love. Most would default to it being completely wonderful...but understand that being able to love incredibly deeply, means you are much more likely to feel pain as well. When someone attacks a friend, they are attacking me. They're attacking my heart. I become a lion if I have to be. As a friend drifts out of my life, I feel the distance. I actually notice space between us and it saddens me more than it should. I feel like a piece of my heart gets cut away every time a friend does - even if that friend was nothing but toxic to me. It's because I love...despite what that person does to me. I still love. I still have love in my heart for them. There have been a small handful of people who have really left my heart and it was freeing - what I imagine most people experience when they lose a friend. I don't get that relief often. When I do, it usually takes years to occur.
More than just friends - I love very deeply and find that I love more than I probably should. I can build up a moment and live on that feeling for days. I can feel a sensation on my arm and it washes over every nerve in my body and lingers. It's because I attach. I link. I connect. I embrace. It also makes the severing of that love even harder. I feel like I lose hope, lose a piece of who I am every time romantic love slips through my fingers. Every time I get an inch closer, I feel like I've just gone a mile...but when reality sets in...that I only made it an inch...well. It feels like a weight on your chest - if you can imagine someone loading it slowly with bricks. A longing for that hope, that moment when you could imagine what the next encounter would be. You want to be back in that blissfully unaware and hopeful little moment. But time marches on and you come to reality. That's when the bricks start getting laid. Not being able to have love is when the pressure reaches the most. It's a hole - a missing part of you. There's so much love I have to give to someone that it almost makes me explode. I'm like a thundercloud with lightning ready to strike the earth - but with no place to direct it. For those of us with so much love in our hearts - the best we can do is hope that one day, we'll be able to direct it somewhere.
Despite the pain and sense of distance loving causes - I can't stop. I don't want to stop. I get to experience relationships so deeply, and that's irreplaceable. I don't want to stop loving this much. Someday I'll find someone who loves as deeply as I do and hopefully he'll direct that at me. While I search for that, I still get to love my friends and my family with a fierceness I can't live without. A dedication I have to breathe in. It's worth it, I guess - the love even with the pain. The ups are only as great as the downs. So if my downs are really deep, I suppose that's why my highs are so incredibly high. It's a rush. It's a rollercoaster ride...and one that I'm taking in stride. Even on nights when I want to die the lack of love hurts so much. It's still worth having because the hope of having more is still there. Without that love to look forward to...what would hope be?
Live, Laugh and Above All...Love.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Rock Chalk
I've never been a big sports fan. I liked playing sports, I loved softball when I played - 10 years - I liked tennis a little, I hated soccer and I'm way to short to have ever dribbled a basketball. Watching them was a different story. I felt pride when the Diamondbacks won the the World Series back in 2001. I was sitting in my mom's big California king bed with a four-year-old brother bouncing beside me in a little purple and silver shirt and hat. He didn't really fully understand the magnitude of such a young team winning, but he knew we were cheering for the boys in purple and that everyone was excited when Louis Gonzalez made that homerun - so he cheered. I was about 12 and was excited about sports for the first and only time until I came to KU.
Sports fandom wasn't big in my family. My dad never pronounced "The Celtics" right, always using the Irish iron-age pronunciation and making it very clear to anyone he spoke to that he didn't follow basketball. I went to maybe two games at Bank One Ballpark (BOB as we called it). I never went to a Suns game...and remember, they were an incredible team. I watched Garrison play T-ball. That was my introduction to sports. Then I met my stepdad, who, among so many other things he's taught me, brought me into the world of sports...to a degree. My stepdad is no sports junkie, he hates professional basketball, will MAYBE go to a Royals game...but unless he's in a luxury box with air conditioning and Fat Tire...probably not. We do watch Chiefs games sometimes and the Superbowl. But what he introduced me to most - was the Jayhawk Nation. He was one of the first people in my immediate family to wear collegiate attire a lot. He sports his fandom all the time on the weekends - and now on casual fridays, despite being the head of the legal department....he rolls in wearing a KU shirt on fridays.
As a freshman and sophomore at KU, I still didn't get "Jayhawk Fever." I was commuting, which I think was a major problem. But then...2008 happened. I was sitting in an upscale bar/restaurant in Overland Park with 2 Alumnas (my stepdad and a family friend whom I babysat for), their respective spouses, my brothers, my sister and the kids of the other family. Alex and I, being by far the most ridiculous ones in the family, wore all red and blue, including face paint and bandannas. We looked absurd, and it was amazing. The game was exciting - but the moment Mario laid that 3-pointer in....I honestly had never felt pride swell in my body like that. I didn't know you could feel that high, that buzzed, that elated from something you weren't physically doing. I didn't put that shot in the basket, but I felt like I had. That sealed it. From then on, I knew why people were fans. I felt the connection to tens of thousands of Jayhawk fans across the world. I felt a part of a whole.
This year, I got to really feel the road to the Championship. Having people around me to cheer, get excited with and bond with - those are memories I will never forget. Those are people I will never forget. I never thought I could scream walking down the street, be part of a mob, or be in an environment where people are climbing stoplights. That's a world this once quiet little girl never thought she'd live. Now, I can't imagine my life not being this connected with people. I now crave connecting. That's why I ask people's names - I talk to waiters by their first names, I ask the stranger I'm standing by at the corner their name and how their day is going. I make connections. The more I do, the more aware of the world I become and I don't know how to express in words that feeling. Usually I express myself best in text, but feeling like I didn't ignore the person I just passed on the street...it's a wonderful feeling. I'm so much happier and I find my life gets put into prospective a lot because of it. I commented on the necklace a worker at McDonalds was wearing and she told me she had been diagnosed with Breast Cancer last week. That's why I comment, I ask, I talk to people - because you connect with someone...you don't blindly go through life.
Fandom has given me that. It's made me comfortable to walk down The Strip in Vegas with a KU shirt on and high-five every Jayhawk fan I saw last year during the Elite Eight. It helped make me bolder and helped me realize - we're all in this together. So Rock Chalk and let's bring it in together on monday, boys!!
Sports fandom wasn't big in my family. My dad never pronounced "The Celtics" right, always using the Irish iron-age pronunciation and making it very clear to anyone he spoke to that he didn't follow basketball. I went to maybe two games at Bank One Ballpark (BOB as we called it). I never went to a Suns game...and remember, they were an incredible team. I watched Garrison play T-ball. That was my introduction to sports. Then I met my stepdad, who, among so many other things he's taught me, brought me into the world of sports...to a degree. My stepdad is no sports junkie, he hates professional basketball, will MAYBE go to a Royals game...but unless he's in a luxury box with air conditioning and Fat Tire...probably not. We do watch Chiefs games sometimes and the Superbowl. But what he introduced me to most - was the Jayhawk Nation. He was one of the first people in my immediate family to wear collegiate attire a lot. He sports his fandom all the time on the weekends - and now on casual fridays, despite being the head of the legal department....he rolls in wearing a KU shirt on fridays.
As a freshman and sophomore at KU, I still didn't get "Jayhawk Fever." I was commuting, which I think was a major problem. But then...2008 happened. I was sitting in an upscale bar/restaurant in Overland Park with 2 Alumnas (my stepdad and a family friend whom I babysat for), their respective spouses, my brothers, my sister and the kids of the other family. Alex and I, being by far the most ridiculous ones in the family, wore all red and blue, including face paint and bandannas. We looked absurd, and it was amazing. The game was exciting - but the moment Mario laid that 3-pointer in....I honestly had never felt pride swell in my body like that. I didn't know you could feel that high, that buzzed, that elated from something you weren't physically doing. I didn't put that shot in the basket, but I felt like I had. That sealed it. From then on, I knew why people were fans. I felt the connection to tens of thousands of Jayhawk fans across the world. I felt a part of a whole.
This year, I got to really feel the road to the Championship. Having people around me to cheer, get excited with and bond with - those are memories I will never forget. Those are people I will never forget. I never thought I could scream walking down the street, be part of a mob, or be in an environment where people are climbing stoplights. That's a world this once quiet little girl never thought she'd live. Now, I can't imagine my life not being this connected with people. I now crave connecting. That's why I ask people's names - I talk to waiters by their first names, I ask the stranger I'm standing by at the corner their name and how their day is going. I make connections. The more I do, the more aware of the world I become and I don't know how to express in words that feeling. Usually I express myself best in text, but feeling like I didn't ignore the person I just passed on the street...it's a wonderful feeling. I'm so much happier and I find my life gets put into prospective a lot because of it. I commented on the necklace a worker at McDonalds was wearing and she told me she had been diagnosed with Breast Cancer last week. That's why I comment, I ask, I talk to people - because you connect with someone...you don't blindly go through life.
Fandom has given me that. It's made me comfortable to walk down The Strip in Vegas with a KU shirt on and high-five every Jayhawk fan I saw last year during the Elite Eight. It helped make me bolder and helped me realize - we're all in this together. So Rock Chalk and let's bring it in together on monday, boys!!
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Freedom to Dream
I have a dream. No, it's nothing as radical or society altering as another speech beginning with those iconic words - but for me, it is just as important. For me, it's life. It's my future, and what I want from it. I was walking in Downtown Lawrence today, just people watching and wanting to be part of this city I'm learning to love when I started realizing that dream more and more. It's simple. It's small. But it's what I want. As a woman in the 21st century, I have the freedom to be and do what I want. I can be a housewife, or I can be a CEO. I can be in the Peace Corps, or I can own my own business. Sometimes I think a lot of women forget that even 50 years ago, that wasn't the case. There were road blocks and barriers everywhere. But now, I can be who I want. As I was walking, I started thinking about how differently my life might have turned out if I had been born in another decade. Would I be as independent? Or would I be married right now? Not that marriage and independence are mutually exclusive, I believe quite the opposite...but back half a century ago...marriage was the destination. Now, it's a luxury along the way.
I realized as I was walking that I envy the simple. I want to be part of that couple taking their kids to Downtown, carting balloons on their wrists on a sunday afternoon. I want to be part of that life. I want to tie the strings of the balloons on the wrists of kids and teach them to respect people and be kind. It was a reality that even a few years ago I didn't think I wanted. I thought I'd want to be a famous doctor living a life I controlled in New York or LA. Something powerful, someone unstoppable. I sat in the lab and wondered what discoveries I'd make. As I mixed chemicals and found the outputs, I felt that was the life I was destined to live. That life, for many reasons, would have prevented kids...at least in part. I couldn't expose a child to those chemicals while pregnant and taking a year or more off to carry a child...I don't know that my career would wait for me. A year in science is an eternity. Being passionately in love with science and chemistry...this wasn't a sad decision, it was picking one love over something I didn't even think I wanted. When I hung up my lab coat - that still hangs, stained, in my closet - I put away that forced reality. I stepped away from being forced to make a choice. Now, I am on the precipice of getting both. Being in a job where I can make a difference, but also have a family. You don't have to give up children to be a writer. Now the picture is changing. Suddenly I don't have to pick between life as a powerful woman and life with love of a family. Maybe, just maybe, I can have both. If my screenwriting takes off, I can write from anywhere. I can be with a husband where ever his job may take us and live life anywhere we want. That's an idea I've never really had until now. Before, between career and a family, I was torn. I didn't want to disappear...that's my biggest fear - becoming nothing. But now...I have the chance to be remembered and have a life. It's surreal.
I've never limited myself to being alone. I wouldn't have the life I wanted being alone. I'm a people person. I love people, I need people. And while I've never NEEDED a man to survive, having one is something I want. I want someone to be ingrained in my life. Someone to share those moments with. Someone to do things on a whim with me. Someone who holds me accountable to someone other than myself. Someone to let me take care of them - and in turn take care of me when I need it. It's not the MRS degree that my predecessors were forced to get. It's just wanting a partner. A friend who will love me no matter what. I want the marriage. But the great thing is, I'm not forced into it. I'm allowed to just...want it now. I'm not expected to be Mrs. ______ the day I graduate college. Hell, I'm not expected to drop out of college so I can have kids for my husband. I'm just expected to be and do what I want. Do women out there realize how different that life, that outlook is from 50 years ago?
I wonder sometimes if I'm letting down the female pioneers that paved the way for me to have this life by wanting to have that family and be simple. But then, I realize that's what those women fought for - was for me to have the CHOICE. Because of them, I can be a high powered CEO if I want. But I can also be a housewife. I don't think either fit me anymore. Being a CEO, I could do that, but if I wanted a family, I couldn't live so much of my life away from them. I know myself, I will fall head-over-heels for my kid(s). Being a housewife, let's face it...I was never cut out for that work. Have you tasted my cooking? But women who fought to give me the right to vote, who proved my gender to be as powerful as the other...those women gave me this dream. They allowed me to breathe and live the life I wanted. As I was walking, I thought back on what they went through. What their lives must have been like and because of their work...I can't relate. I've never been turned away from a job because of my sex. I've only once been belittled because of my gender (thank you KU science department) and I overcame that with no shake to my confidence because I knew I was capable.
So my dream, how little and small...is real because of those who fought in the past to give me that freedom. I wish I could thank them, and this is my way. Putting down in words the gratitude I feel for them giving me the choice to be whatever I want. I can be the woman who roars thanks to them. Their sacrifices gave me a life of freedom.
Live, Laugh and Above All....Love
I realized as I was walking that I envy the simple. I want to be part of that couple taking their kids to Downtown, carting balloons on their wrists on a sunday afternoon. I want to be part of that life. I want to tie the strings of the balloons on the wrists of kids and teach them to respect people and be kind. It was a reality that even a few years ago I didn't think I wanted. I thought I'd want to be a famous doctor living a life I controlled in New York or LA. Something powerful, someone unstoppable. I sat in the lab and wondered what discoveries I'd make. As I mixed chemicals and found the outputs, I felt that was the life I was destined to live. That life, for many reasons, would have prevented kids...at least in part. I couldn't expose a child to those chemicals while pregnant and taking a year or more off to carry a child...I don't know that my career would wait for me. A year in science is an eternity. Being passionately in love with science and chemistry...this wasn't a sad decision, it was picking one love over something I didn't even think I wanted. When I hung up my lab coat - that still hangs, stained, in my closet - I put away that forced reality. I stepped away from being forced to make a choice. Now, I am on the precipice of getting both. Being in a job where I can make a difference, but also have a family. You don't have to give up children to be a writer. Now the picture is changing. Suddenly I don't have to pick between life as a powerful woman and life with love of a family. Maybe, just maybe, I can have both. If my screenwriting takes off, I can write from anywhere. I can be with a husband where ever his job may take us and live life anywhere we want. That's an idea I've never really had until now. Before, between career and a family, I was torn. I didn't want to disappear...that's my biggest fear - becoming nothing. But now...I have the chance to be remembered and have a life. It's surreal.
I've never limited myself to being alone. I wouldn't have the life I wanted being alone. I'm a people person. I love people, I need people. And while I've never NEEDED a man to survive, having one is something I want. I want someone to be ingrained in my life. Someone to share those moments with. Someone to do things on a whim with me. Someone who holds me accountable to someone other than myself. Someone to let me take care of them - and in turn take care of me when I need it. It's not the MRS degree that my predecessors were forced to get. It's just wanting a partner. A friend who will love me no matter what. I want the marriage. But the great thing is, I'm not forced into it. I'm allowed to just...want it now. I'm not expected to be Mrs. ______ the day I graduate college. Hell, I'm not expected to drop out of college so I can have kids for my husband. I'm just expected to be and do what I want. Do women out there realize how different that life, that outlook is from 50 years ago?
I wonder sometimes if I'm letting down the female pioneers that paved the way for me to have this life by wanting to have that family and be simple. But then, I realize that's what those women fought for - was for me to have the CHOICE. Because of them, I can be a high powered CEO if I want. But I can also be a housewife. I don't think either fit me anymore. Being a CEO, I could do that, but if I wanted a family, I couldn't live so much of my life away from them. I know myself, I will fall head-over-heels for my kid(s). Being a housewife, let's face it...I was never cut out for that work. Have you tasted my cooking? But women who fought to give me the right to vote, who proved my gender to be as powerful as the other...those women gave me this dream. They allowed me to breathe and live the life I wanted. As I was walking, I thought back on what they went through. What their lives must have been like and because of their work...I can't relate. I've never been turned away from a job because of my sex. I've only once been belittled because of my gender (thank you KU science department) and I overcame that with no shake to my confidence because I knew I was capable.
So my dream, how little and small...is real because of those who fought in the past to give me that freedom. I wish I could thank them, and this is my way. Putting down in words the gratitude I feel for them giving me the choice to be whatever I want. I can be the woman who roars thanks to them. Their sacrifices gave me a life of freedom.
Live, Laugh and Above All....Love
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Experiences
Life is about experiences. I think I've reached a point in my life where I can safely say that's my belief - life is about experiences. Small ones, big ones, random ones, planned ones...all lead somewhere. Take you somewhere. Make you someone. Think about it. You wouldn't be you without your experiences. The thing is, a lot of us are too afraid to start experiencing like we should. We're afraid we'll fall or afraid we'll fail. Sometimes we're even afraid we'll succeed. But in the end, those are the experiences you miss out on and your fear becomes who you are. Your fear becomes your soul.
Bad experiences teach me so much more than good ones do. So I've started thinking about them in the context of how they will fit into the puzzle of my life. Of course I'll still get down at times, you can't avoid it - without lows you can't have highs....but they don't pull me down as far as they used to because I look for the bigger picture. I've learned from the bad people in my life who I don't want to be. I've learned that they're suffering far more than I am because I don't have to live their life. They let me feel how it is to be treated certain ways and in turn, I know not to cause that pain to someone else. Them making me feel that prevents me from making hundreds feel that. I think it's a fair trade. But it's only achieved if you stop, and think about life that way. If you stop feeling like the bad experiences are the end of the road. That only happens once in everyone's life at the most. For many, the stop at the end of our journey is a pleasant one. But until that last stop, everything will get better and when you are done experiencing the bad....the Universe tends to throw you something good to balance things out.
Good experiences make me remember what life is all about. It's about relationships and love. Not just romantic, fall into each other's arms kind of love...but love for a friend, love for a stranger, love for a family member. Just love. Laughing with people you care about is the great thing about continuing to breathe and exist. You are happy, but you also are making others happy. By being there, you're sharing your positivity with someone else and even if you're close to that person and know all their little secrets...you really don't know all their little secrets and your time with them may be changing their life. The good is what we live for and it's what we strive for. It's why we're here. And yes, the big moments - weddings, child birth, engagements - those moments are the makings of photo albums....but the little moments in between...walking downtown with someone on a cold night, making eye contact with someone you know is going to be in your life for some reason for the first time, holding hands for the first time, seeing a friend smile....those little things are what keep us moving. They're the uncaptured moments that make our life a wonderful journey.
Experience. Live and love. Just experience. Because even if it is a bad one, you learn from it and are ready for the next one.
Live, Laugh and Above All....Love.
Bad experiences teach me so much more than good ones do. So I've started thinking about them in the context of how they will fit into the puzzle of my life. Of course I'll still get down at times, you can't avoid it - without lows you can't have highs....but they don't pull me down as far as they used to because I look for the bigger picture. I've learned from the bad people in my life who I don't want to be. I've learned that they're suffering far more than I am because I don't have to live their life. They let me feel how it is to be treated certain ways and in turn, I know not to cause that pain to someone else. Them making me feel that prevents me from making hundreds feel that. I think it's a fair trade. But it's only achieved if you stop, and think about life that way. If you stop feeling like the bad experiences are the end of the road. That only happens once in everyone's life at the most. For many, the stop at the end of our journey is a pleasant one. But until that last stop, everything will get better and when you are done experiencing the bad....the Universe tends to throw you something good to balance things out.
Good experiences make me remember what life is all about. It's about relationships and love. Not just romantic, fall into each other's arms kind of love...but love for a friend, love for a stranger, love for a family member. Just love. Laughing with people you care about is the great thing about continuing to breathe and exist. You are happy, but you also are making others happy. By being there, you're sharing your positivity with someone else and even if you're close to that person and know all their little secrets...you really don't know all their little secrets and your time with them may be changing their life. The good is what we live for and it's what we strive for. It's why we're here. And yes, the big moments - weddings, child birth, engagements - those moments are the makings of photo albums....but the little moments in between...walking downtown with someone on a cold night, making eye contact with someone you know is going to be in your life for some reason for the first time, holding hands for the first time, seeing a friend smile....those little things are what keep us moving. They're the uncaptured moments that make our life a wonderful journey.
Experience. Live and love. Just experience. Because even if it is a bad one, you learn from it and are ready for the next one.
Live, Laugh and Above All....Love.
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