After writing yesterday's post, I became very agitated. I kept reading it over and over again and I felt like I wasn't able to truly get across what I was trying to say. I asked Andrew to analyze it (because he's the best husband ever:), and he sort of got it but not quite to the extent I was aiming for.
I became more frustrated,
And, like he always does, he listened to me rant on and on about the way my brain works, jumping from one random thought to the other, protecting itself and my heart from the wall I put up years ago. I'm so scared to break down that wall because all of that pain is lingering there, awaiting my arrival and I'm not sure I'm ready for it.
I'm not sure I ever will be.
He then asked me if I ever considered trying to write from a fictional aspect, creating a character who is more or less me, but not labeling it as myself.
As he was asking me this, my thoughts went on a rampage as I tried to store and memorize each one for future chapters.
I of course, fought the idea at first. How am I supposed to write about a fictional character who is truly myself? How does that work? How is it any different from writing from a non-fiction angle?
He left the room and I stared at my computer screen.
And I began to type.
30 minutes later, I had the beginnings of a chapter. Two pages, single spaced that were completely raw and true...and about me. The words were all thoughts I must have tucked away at some point in my life and they came out so freely and so flowing. I had no idea that they were even there or why I wrote about that certain time in the first place. It just came out and I was happy by the product and felt better once I got it out on paper in the "open".
Funny thing is, I didn't feel defeated. I thought that if I went back there, I would break down and that old familiar pain would overcome me.
It didn't. It just made me feel more empowered, knowing I had lived the scene I had just panned out...and that I had survived it all.
Suddenly, the thoughts are pouring out and I can't get them written down fast enough.
I'm not sure how this worked, but I'm not complaining.
Thank you boosk for being my inspiration every day. And thank you for knowing me more than anyone else and for listening to all of the ramblings of my brain as I try to figure out my next "project" or "endeavor". Most importantly, thank you for loving me in spite of all of this.
You are my muse and I am forever grateful to you.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Rediscovering Self Discovery
It's hard when you are so happy and your brain is trying to empower you to write about such sad events. This is not to say that my entire life has been sad. All in all, I've had a wonderful life thus far. Yes. There have been many rocks, twists and turns along the road, but it's these memories that have made me into a stronger person. It's these memories that make me so appreciative of what I have now.
But sometimes I let myself falter. Sometimes I cave and become that small, insecure being that somehow always felt invisible.
Sometimes it seems easier to be her when in all reality, I could never ever go back.
It's been two months since I have written anything real and it's the fear of what will come out that's holding me back. I've never disciplined myself to sit and think only about me and my life experiences. I always find myself going back and forth between one person to another, wanting to know more about them, too scared to open the closed door within myself to learn more of who I am; too scared to reveal the true person that lies within.
What if no one likes her?
What if I don't like her?
I've become so frustrated while reading old poetry by a girl who could only see the suffering in the world. Wars, famine and tears made her angry and powerless; keeping all of that pent up anxiety mostly inside until she burst out with random words on paper. Poetry of one failed relationship after the other.
The names always changed, but the poems remained the same.
None of this is interesting. It's simply annoying.
God. I was so annoying!
I mean, I am all about peace and love and am completely anti-war, but writing 300 some poems about this mere fact got me absolutely nowhere. It only lead to more bad poetry and less of me being able to understand that I couldn't save the whole entire world. It was exhausting and even now, it's exhausting to go back and read it all; to feel that old familiar pain that is always lingering somewhere within me.
In other words, rediscovering one's self is an absolute bitch.
It's no wonder that I often find myself half passed out on the couch in the evenings, asking myself over and over again, what did I do to make me so tired? The truth of it is that I spend a lot of my energy on a daily basis worrying about every little thing from if I forgot to say "Thank You" in the checkout line to "How in the world did Amendment One get passed?" Sometimes, in fact most times, I can't shut my brain off long enough to even get a decent night's sleep.
And yet I'm not unhappy. I'm the happiest I've ever been. I don't feel like I have ever been a negative person and yet so much of my writing has come out in negative thoughts. Perhaps "negative" isn't the correct word. Maybe "real" is more fitting. Everything I write about is about "real world issues". But it's hard being such a positive, happy, daisy picking person, constantly thinking about everything that's wrong in the world.
Why think about it then?
Because you have to if you want to be a part of fixing it.
I have always tried to see the silver lining in every situation I've encountered. I admit, there was a brief time when I wanted to give up and let myself drown in the current I was fighting so hard against. I wanted so badly to go back to the days of watching the newest Disney movie with my Dad, riding bikes out in the front yard with my brother and taking walks and picking flowers in the garden with my Mom.
I didn't realize that I never really had to stop doing these things. Society secretly took over without me even realizing and I got so caught up in what's right and wrong, appropriate and inappropriate. I got lost in the shuffle of everything.
It was no one's fault but my own.
At one point, I think I truly lost my favorite part of myself; the naivety of believing that everyone is truly good on the inside, it just sometimes comes out bad on the outside. I let this one personality trait take over completely and it nearly erased me into someone I no longer recognized. I became jaded and always hurt and suspicious, never trusting and always thinking everyone had a secret agenda. I went from one extreme to the other. There was no happy medium. I was "Little Girl Lost".
But I broke free, and though sometimes I still have days full of nothing but worry and regret, I look around me and am reminded how very far I have come. I refuse to be taken back in by the evils that threaten my happiness. It may catch me off guard from time to time, but I will always be just a little bit stronger.
I will always win in the end.
"I was born to laugh. I learned to laugh through my tears. I was born to love. I'm gonna learn to love, without fear."
Over the Rhine
But sometimes I let myself falter. Sometimes I cave and become that small, insecure being that somehow always felt invisible.
Sometimes it seems easier to be her when in all reality, I could never ever go back.
It's been two months since I have written anything real and it's the fear of what will come out that's holding me back. I've never disciplined myself to sit and think only about me and my life experiences. I always find myself going back and forth between one person to another, wanting to know more about them, too scared to open the closed door within myself to learn more of who I am; too scared to reveal the true person that lies within.
What if no one likes her?
What if I don't like her?
I've become so frustrated while reading old poetry by a girl who could only see the suffering in the world. Wars, famine and tears made her angry and powerless; keeping all of that pent up anxiety mostly inside until she burst out with random words on paper. Poetry of one failed relationship after the other.
The names always changed, but the poems remained the same.
None of this is interesting. It's simply annoying.
God. I was so annoying!
I mean, I am all about peace and love and am completely anti-war, but writing 300 some poems about this mere fact got me absolutely nowhere. It only lead to more bad poetry and less of me being able to understand that I couldn't save the whole entire world. It was exhausting and even now, it's exhausting to go back and read it all; to feel that old familiar pain that is always lingering somewhere within me.
In other words, rediscovering one's self is an absolute bitch.
It's no wonder that I often find myself half passed out on the couch in the evenings, asking myself over and over again, what did I do to make me so tired? The truth of it is that I spend a lot of my energy on a daily basis worrying about every little thing from if I forgot to say "Thank You" in the checkout line to "How in the world did Amendment One get passed?" Sometimes, in fact most times, I can't shut my brain off long enough to even get a decent night's sleep.
And yet I'm not unhappy. I'm the happiest I've ever been. I don't feel like I have ever been a negative person and yet so much of my writing has come out in negative thoughts. Perhaps "negative" isn't the correct word. Maybe "real" is more fitting. Everything I write about is about "real world issues". But it's hard being such a positive, happy, daisy picking person, constantly thinking about everything that's wrong in the world.
Why think about it then?
Because you have to if you want to be a part of fixing it.
I have always tried to see the silver lining in every situation I've encountered. I admit, there was a brief time when I wanted to give up and let myself drown in the current I was fighting so hard against. I wanted so badly to go back to the days of watching the newest Disney movie with my Dad, riding bikes out in the front yard with my brother and taking walks and picking flowers in the garden with my Mom.
I didn't realize that I never really had to stop doing these things. Society secretly took over without me even realizing and I got so caught up in what's right and wrong, appropriate and inappropriate. I got lost in the shuffle of everything.
It was no one's fault but my own.
At one point, I think I truly lost my favorite part of myself; the naivety of believing that everyone is truly good on the inside, it just sometimes comes out bad on the outside. I let this one personality trait take over completely and it nearly erased me into someone I no longer recognized. I became jaded and always hurt and suspicious, never trusting and always thinking everyone had a secret agenda. I went from one extreme to the other. There was no happy medium. I was "Little Girl Lost".
But I broke free, and though sometimes I still have days full of nothing but worry and regret, I look around me and am reminded how very far I have come. I refuse to be taken back in by the evils that threaten my happiness. It may catch me off guard from time to time, but I will always be just a little bit stronger.
I will always win in the end.
"I was born to laugh. I learned to laugh through my tears. I was born to love. I'm gonna learn to love, without fear."
Over the Rhine
Monday, May 28, 2012
Bucket List.
1. Attend a music festival for the entire week.
2. Travel all of Europe, one city at a time.
3. Actually finish this book and getting it published.
4. Visit every state in the U.S. (We're over halfway there!)
5. Read every single book I own.
6. Create a quilt design made entirely of all of my old "hippie" clothes.
7. Perform a gig in public...just once.
8. Sit in a small Paris Cafe' people watching.
9. Visit Audrey Hepburn's grave-site.
10. Meet (and possibly make out with) Christian Bale.
11. See all 7 Wonders of the World.
12. Work with Special Needs Children.
13. Teach a yoga class.
14. Attend a protest in Washington D.C.
15. Buy a house.
16. Plant and maintain an herb garden.
17. Make my own hand soaps and lotions.
18. Find my dream job.
19. Learn sign language.
20. Hike every trail on the Blue Ridge Parkway.
21. Meet the Muppets.
22. Write a play.
23. Interact one on one with a gorilla.
24. Swim with the dolphins.
25. Teach a child how to read.
26. Conquer my fear of the elderly.
27. Make history.
28. Learn how to play the banjo.
29. See all of the Rocky movies.
30. Become a professional photographer.
31. Visit where the original Woodstock took place.
32. Take Andrew to Disney World and Universal Studios.
33. Build something from scratch.
34. Create something wonderful.
35. Own a donkey...and name it "Moose".
36. Paint a picture.
37. See a play on Broadway.
38. Go to Strawberry Fields one year on December 8th.
39. Play and sing a song with my brother Pat.
40. Spend an entire day without worrying.
41. Watch all 8 Harry Potter movies in a day.
42. Complete a secret mission.
43. Put every picture we've taken in some kind of frame or photo album.
44. Pay off all of my bills.
45. Get all of the bird seed out of my car.
46. Attend the opera and ballet.
47. Dance in public without caring what other people think.
48. Sing karaoke.
49. Feed the hungry.
50. Live happily ever after.
2. Travel all of Europe, one city at a time.
3. Actually finish this book and getting it published.
4. Visit every state in the U.S. (We're over halfway there!)
5. Read every single book I own.
6. Create a quilt design made entirely of all of my old "hippie" clothes.
7. Perform a gig in public...just once.
8. Sit in a small Paris Cafe' people watching.
9. Visit Audrey Hepburn's grave-site.
10. Meet (and possibly make out with) Christian Bale.
11. See all 7 Wonders of the World.
12. Work with Special Needs Children.
13. Teach a yoga class.
14. Attend a protest in Washington D.C.
15. Buy a house.
16. Plant and maintain an herb garden.
17. Make my own hand soaps and lotions.
18. Find my dream job.
19. Learn sign language.
20. Hike every trail on the Blue Ridge Parkway.
21. Meet the Muppets.
22. Write a play.
23. Interact one on one with a gorilla.
24. Swim with the dolphins.
25. Teach a child how to read.
26. Conquer my fear of the elderly.
27. Make history.
28. Learn how to play the banjo.
29. See all of the Rocky movies.
30. Become a professional photographer.
31. Visit where the original Woodstock took place.
32. Take Andrew to Disney World and Universal Studios.
33. Build something from scratch.
34. Create something wonderful.
35. Own a donkey...and name it "Moose".
36. Paint a picture.
37. See a play on Broadway.
38. Go to Strawberry Fields one year on December 8th.
39. Play and sing a song with my brother Pat.
40. Spend an entire day without worrying.
41. Watch all 8 Harry Potter movies in a day.
42. Complete a secret mission.
43. Put every picture we've taken in some kind of frame or photo album.
44. Pay off all of my bills.
45. Get all of the bird seed out of my car.
46. Attend the opera and ballet.
47. Dance in public without caring what other people think.
48. Sing karaoke.
49. Feed the hungry.
50. Live happily ever after.
Let the Inspiration Commence!
I have a writer's nook!!! May the inspiration to write come forth and bring me mad story writing skills so that I can actually accomplish this feat!!
Isn't it beautiful? It's everything and more that I imagined it to be. I am sitting in it right now, drinking my morning cup of tea and awaiting all of the ideas to overflow in my ever so fading memory. Thank you writing nook gods....you have answered my prayers.
This is a close-up of the lamp. And yes. Those are daisies. AND it's a lamp from the early 60's...so it is vintage. My heart is swimming with happiness as I keep peering into it's beautiful soft light, listening to the birds chirping outside of my window. The light is blinding me from everything else that is going on around me...including the multiple times at least two of our five cats have tried to jump into my lap. Nothing can distract me from here on. This is a magical lamp and can steer me in no wrong direction.
The turtle sitting beside it is named "Monty"...if you were wondering.
Ready. Set. Go!
Isn't it beautiful? It's everything and more that I imagined it to be. I am sitting in it right now, drinking my morning cup of tea and awaiting all of the ideas to overflow in my ever so fading memory. Thank you writing nook gods....you have answered my prayers.
The turtle sitting beside it is named "Monty"...if you were wondering.
Ready. Set. Go!
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