Yunno me… always thinking.I had a rough start to the day.  I was feeling bad, though I couldn’t quite figure out why.  Could be the full moon, or maybe my hormones.  Could be alcohol I drank yesterday– or all the sugar I’ve had over the last 24 hours.  Maybe I’m fighting something off, or it’s the stress of the holidays, or even me just figuring out this parenting and significant other role…

Regardless of why I was feeling bad, I conquered yet another conflict within me: I felt bad, was able to express it, and then worked through it.

For a good part of my life I’ve been hesitant to express when I don’t feel good.  I don’t want to be one of THOSE people who no one wants to listen to because they’re spouting off negativities… I’ve never liked THOSE kind.  I don’t want to be rejected for my feelings, which is something I’ve apparently been conditioned into fearing.  That goes right back to my good old Fear of Abandonment issues… Alas, I recognize those feelings as such and have learned to identify them for what they are.

I’m feeling better now.  I knew the feeling was fleeting.  It’s been a challenging experience dealing with all of life’s stressors, all of the things that just add to the weight I place upon myself. I learned something new today about myself: be gentle.  Allow and accept the bad feeling, and then set it free. 

I’ve also learned about frustrations… about parenting and financial woes… that I DO actually have a breaking point.  Not that I broke that point, but that I have one.   Huh, and all this time I thought I didn’t!

These, to me, are great things to recognize.  To acknowledge them, validate them, and to allow them works far better than to deny them or to hide from them. 

As the evening rolls in, and my tensions are lessened, I’m grateful for the lesson about myself.  Amazing how I can be solidly into adulthood and still be learning about me.  That’s a good thing, I suppose… that’s something that I think everyone should strive to reach for.  It’s a good indicator that I’m still capable of implicit change within me.  To me, that’s one of the best lessons of all.

So many thoughts going through my head…

Saw some friends from high school. My cousin was part of a production of Little Shop of Horrors.  We had a mini-reunion from the “original” cast… saw some people I hadn’t seen in… oh, a decade or more.  I had a few favorite teachers who attended.  It was beautiful.  We were all adults, equals… on the same playing field.  I still have their graying faces in my head, knowing that Way Back When, I might’ve been the cause of at least a few of those grays…

High school was a long time ago.  It was a different world from now.  In fact, I keep saying how only a year ago was a different world for me, but to look back– really look back over the last half of my life, I’m realizing just how far I’ve come… I heard one of my former classmates– now a teacher at the school– say, “I told the kids to come back at…” I laughed because he referred to them as kids. He wondered what I expected him to call them.  They were kids, after all.  (more…)

A blind man rode the bus home with me yesterday.  And by, “with me” I mean he was on the same bus as I, and I watched him.  I tried not to stare, not for his benefit as much as for the benefit of the other people around me. 

Depending on how long he’s been without vision, his other sensory perceptions are significantly enhanced.  He looked like a professional blind man, so I presume that he did in fact have the heightened sense of smell and hearing.  He could identify the people who stood in front of him or who walked past him.  He could judge how big they were by the sound of their footsteps as they walked by, whether they were a man or a woman (men and women inherently smell different), what their age was, how long it had been since they showered, whether they had had sex that day… and probably an entire list long of identifying characteristics that many people would never care to use as reference to know who and what is around them. (more…)

I’m torn between feeling ecstatic and panic. If this is what manic feels like, which I’ve heard it is, then I can’t imagine cycling through this emotion like a pendulum– one moment invincible, the next moment pummeling through the depths of depression like a fiery comet through the pits of hell… well, then, I’ll pass.

This life is so crazy. Insane. Crackers. Cooo-cooo.

Inevitably, amazing things happen. Of course, then, so do worrisome things. I’ve felt a lot of emotion today… a lot of the precursor towards guilt… not quite guilt, but just enough question in my mind that if I really did fuck things up with so many of the people I’ve experienced in my past, then ouch, I must not be as good of a person as I had thought. At the same moment, right as I’m about to succumb to feeling sorry for myself, the faint whisper in my mind hastens me to stop… Why can’t I be just fine as I am, mistakes and all?

Of course I’m not perfect. You all have followed me along this path of realization that one– that I– cannot always be the perfect (fill in the descriptive role here). I’m not an angel, after all. I may try, but alas, I fall significantly short. So if that is true, and right, and perfect, then why should I feel a negative emotion such as guilt for being human?

My passion for people is proving to be another roller coaster ride… highs, lows, and every place in between. I shed tears for my lost friendships… but in the same body, I recognize that I have three options: change my thoughts, release my thoughts into the Universe, or come to resolve. All of which are valid options, none complete without the others, but some more permanent in healing than the rest.

Choose to resolve. To revolve. To evolve. To embrace the life lessons as my own– my learning opportunities perfectly suited for a Work In Progress such as myself.

How I will go about resolving myself from my sins… is a challenge most people would gift a god. Dear Father in Heaven, save me from myself. Forgive me my sins.

What does a child do who has no Father? Does she cry out with self pity? Does she wallow in misery knowing that no imperfect creature such as herself could possibly pursue the expression of bliss?

I can’t go that route. I can’t allow myself to rot that way.

Instead, I will learn to forgive and embrace myself. In all my passions– my pitiful behaviors– my oversights and loose tongues. I allow it to be my experience, and yet strive for perfection.

They say perfection is god’s work.

And in saying yes, I recognize the goddess in me.

I’m reading about being middle-aged in my Human Development class.  While reading about the physical changes, I started feeling my heart palpitate, and I realized that I was worrying about how I’m going to feel and look and live in twenty or thirty years.  It may seem like that’s so far away from now, but I haven’t failed to notice just how quickly the last 27 years has gone by.  It seems like every day flies through my experience, only for a moment, and then, it’s GONE.

Time is one of those strange things that we as humans have created as a constrict of our experience.  Some cultures don’t measure time, but most do.  Time is a way for us to keep track of our experiences, a way for us to place value on every year that goes by.  We celebrate birthdays, wake up to alarm clocks, and can lose our jobs if we do not embrace time constraints.  Time is never relative.

Being patient is a big part of how we experience time.  One must never be patient for anything if we do not have time limitations.  What does it matter how long we sit in traffic, if there is no time?  All that matters then is how much gas we use, what we allow our brains to think, and whether or not we get to our destination safely.

As much as I realize that time is a human construction, I fall prey to feelings of eagerness or some days anxiety, or as in today, panic, over how much time we have.  Once again, this comes down to our fear of death, our fear of life…

It is our culture that places such importance on time.  It is US– WE, who create time barriers.  It makes me question everything I’m doing in this lifetime– this limited amount of experience I have here on earth with you– as to whether or not I can feel comfortable with how much time I’ve put into the things I’ve handled as priorities.  It makes me wonder if everything is worth it.  Have I put enough time into my relationships?  Have I put enough time into my family?  Have I made poor decisions when it comes to wanting my own family, my own children?  Is putting this much energy into school so that one day I might become a doctor– one day in my middle-aged practice, where I will finally make enough money to support myself and my priorities, and THEN I will be satisfied with the decisions I’ve made so far? (more…)

Daily experience makes it easy to sometimes forget what is important.

More than anything else in this last several months, what I’ve learned about is being given perspective.  Perspective changes how you feel, it changes your experience. 

For example: let’s say one is feeling lonely or left out.  Perhaps she  may feel judged by her friends, due to recent risky decisions she’s made.  Or, on another perspective, perhaps her friends are busy with their own new relationships and life in general and still love her just the same, wishing she would stop by sometime.  No one picks up the phone because they are all viewing the experience from their own perspective.

Perspective is absolutely the one piece that we have control over throughout our experience.  Sometimes things fail us, like time, money, or health, and some of those things we may not have a whole lot of control over.  But our perspective is paramount to experience.  Pick your perspective, and you change your life.

It’s the one thing you CAN CHOOSE.  When you pick the right perspective, there is nothing to worry about, because you know that things always turn out the way they are supposed to, they always turn out well, regardless of the emotions you have attached to the outcome.

Tonight, I feel validated.

With so much going on in my world, I have needed a temporary break from myself– from the constant thoughts that swim in my head.  I have had to take a few days to be quiet… to just Be.

I have been absorbing it.  Re-aligning myself with the inner guidance that drives me towards feeling good.

I have learned a great many lessons through these most recent experiences… learned that as long as I keep putting one foot in front of the other, that I will get through the maze, regardless of where I end up… I have been forced to trust myself, my judgment. To know that I have my best interests in mind.

I was given some great advice.  It was that one should not go around with their head in the sand, not lie in the dark waiting for whatever happens next.  I believe that I create my experience, through intentions, through thoughts, through my attitude towards my experience… and that I shouldn’t ignore what isn’t working– to address it is far more liberating than to lazily allow things to happen to me.

There are so many opportunities to learn from what we go through.  It’s a matter of whether or not we allow ourselves to absorb those lessons or if we blindly grope in the dark looking for the reasons behind why we go through them.

There was a woman on the bus yesterday who caught my eye.  She sat at the front of the bus, and was on it when the driver began his route. She had shown him her half sheet of paper, presumably with directions on it.

She didn’t speak a word of English, only had her half sheet of paper.

I think she may have been eastern, but I’m not sure.  I didn’t see her face, just her covered head and her cream-colored sheet-like clothing.  I don’t know what they call this garb, so I’m going to have to stick with that as a description.

When we got to Downing, the bus driver turned around and told her that this was her stop.  She shook her head, “no.” He insisted that this was her stop, and that this is what her half sheet of paper said.  She continued to sit there, shaking her head, “no.”

The driver waited a minute longer and then said, “I’m sorry, I can’t help you, then.”  He continued his route. 

She waved the paper at another man who was sitting across from her. He read it, and said, “It says Downing.  He tried to tell you.  Downing was back there,” and he thumbed the direction of the back of the bus.   Of course, she had no idea what he said, so she continued to sit there as he handed the paper back.

I wondered what she would do.  I couldn’t tell her to get off the bus now, cross the street, and take the other bus back to Downing.  I felt bad for her.  Can you imagine being in another country, not speaking a word of their language and trying to ride their transit?  What if I got off on the wrong exit?  What if it was in a bad area?  I kept thinking about this as we inched closer and closer to Aurora.  I felt bad, really bad.  But I had no idea if I could do anything to help this poor woman.

So I sat there.  Rode the bus like I did every morning.

Eventually she got off.  I think it was at Kramaria or so.  Waaaay far away from Downing.  Goddess, I prayed for her.  What if it had been me?  Would I have hoped that some kind soul would take me under their arm and point me in the right direction?  *exhale* I felt guilty for not doing this for her.  I didn’t know what else to do, though. 

So, I watched her as our bus left her standing in a parking lot outside of a pawn shop.  She looked frightened. 

Who the hell would put a woman like this on a bus??  Did they really believe that she could find her way to where she was going? Did they explain to her what to do if she went too far?  I know I wanted to blame someone for their stupidity because I felt so bad that I didn’t help her.

I should’ve done something. 

Good things just seem to happen to me.

There’s a lot in my head right now, a lot floating around, and I’m trying to interpret it all– trying to figure out what is important to share and what isn’t. I wanted to tell you all about the good fortune I that is coming upon me.

First, there are the gifts. I have received so many gifts recently, it makes me smile to think of it. Today, I got a ride home from an old friend and a co-worker who stopped by the bus stop while I was waiting. “Where you headed?” I told them, and they said, “Get in!” so I did. I rode to my destination with friends. However, I must add that I’ve learned one really important rule: Never trust a man who brakes with his left foot. *chuckle* I’ve been given homemade cookies from a classmate. A beautiful jade plant from one of the facilities guys. A homemade pumpkin muffin from one of our nurses. Good advice from my mentor… so many gifts!!! And you know what else? I realized that people are REALLY nice to me at work. I pass people in the hall, and I get smiles, constantly. People ask me how my day is or how school is going… people who I don’t really even know. They care, and they smile. Gifts… (more…)

I “met” Joshua on the morning bus out to Aurora.  I had been riding the bus for many months, and eventually began to recognize the regulars.  Joshua particularly stuck out: he was blonde with a buzz cut, had glasses, always wore the same Avalanche jacket, and a contagious “Hi! How Are You?! GOOD Morning!!! Pretty good, thanks! It’s going pretty good. How are you?! Pretty good so far, thanks!” The repetitive nature of his morning greetings were almost ritualistic, entirely child-like, and it was apparent that he had been blessed with some sort of retardation, though even after seeing him every morning, it’s still difficult to know which sort.  I liked Joshua enough, he was friendly, if nothing else.  Sweet, warm-hearted, even if not the brightest man on our trip… Shortly after I started noticing Joshua, I began to notice the young woman whom he had taken a liking for. 

She was in her mid-twenties, also blonde, slightly pretty, and I noticed that she began riding the bus regularly right around the same time as I started noticing Joshua.  At first, she, like many other of the regulars, smiled uncomfortably at his greetings.  After the second or third day, though, she began to smile more warmly.  I think she realized the innocence behind Joshua’s boisterous greeting. 
Not long after these early morning interactions began, it became more and more obvious how taken Joshua was with this young woman.  He would pout if he didn’t get a seat right behind her.  As people got off the bus, he would slowly move on the next seat available between where he was sitting and where she was sitting.  (more…)