“Without reflection, we go blindly on our way, creating more unintended
consequences, and failing to achieve anything useful.” – Margaret J. Wheatley
To be honest, I can hardly remember the details of this past
week, let alone the month that preceeded it. I’m so tired and doing my best to
not let my thoughts get ahead of me to the point I’m drowning in a river of
tears and anxiety. One thing at a time. I’ve got this.
Stagnancy is overrated.
I’m attempting to unpack from what was possibly the most
rushed and disorganized move I’ve ever experienced – but ultimately this move
was necessary. After only a week of living in my new place I’m beginning to
feel better. The last apartment and the environment around it was a
psychological and spiritual drain. Amazing how much of an effect environmental
factors have on one’s overall well-bring. Of course, this isn’t new news to me –
but I guess I never really understood it until this last experience, this past
chapter in life, this phase that feels somewhat like a mildly bad dream.
I did spend a few nights with my folks during the transition.
It hadn’t even been five days and my mother and I were already drawing our
daggers. No surprise there. I’ve wondered lately if she and I both are showing
each other reflections of the other and neither one of us like what we see and
that’s why we rarely get along.
This is about right - we just don't manage to do it gracefully.
I stopped worrying about reaching another decade in my life.
I was out on a hike yesterday and realized I will never be here again. I can’t turn back the clock and probably the
healthiest thing I can do for myself when I’m frustrated and giving myself a
mental beating for not achieving what I think I should have is to remind myself
that I will never be at this place in life again. I have wasted most of my life
beating myself up for not being thin or pretty enough. Good lawd! What a waste
of energy. That’s the pettiest, most superficial thing and it doesn’t deserve
my attention. I have a plethora of other things that actually bring joy to me;
my energy needs to be there, not spent tearing myself apart. I’m not going to
mourn the years of wasted on these antics, either. I’ll just acknowledge what I’ve
learned from the experience and move on.
It's not so daunting now that it's finally happened.
30. I’m okay with that. I think it was time for a fresh start.
This move has given me one and I fully intend to start shaping my life into
something that I want it to be instead of allowing things to just happen. That’s
no good. Granted, things still do happen. I can’t control my bike and car
breaking down on me, but I can control what kind of influence I allow into my
life.
“Everyone and everything that shows up in our life is a reflection of
something that is happening inside of us.” – Alan Cohen
I bought a dog house off of craigslist. The seller was kind
enough to deliver it for me while I was tied up with the move and my family’s
insistence on celebrating my 30th birthday. We exchanged a few
e-mails discussing delivery, payment, etc. He asked me about my gmail profile
photo which is something of me in Minnie Mouse ears that I took while at
Disneyland. He then asks me if I have ever taken boudoir shots because it’s
exciting and attached a couple of his own. They’re artsy, I get it . . . . .but that’s just plain weird. So now I’m just
trying to pin him down so I can pay him for Merlin’s new house and it became
apparent to me that I might have been too much of a damsel in distress over
this past week because it may have given him the wrong message. That type of
behavior attracts a certain kind of person and it’s generally not a good one.
Or, maybe he sent them unintentionally. Hopefully that’s what really happened.
I'm pretty sure I've done this at least once in my life.
I knew a couple of weeks ago that I needed to put dating
back on the shelf for a while. It took me a while to get to my online account
to shut it down. A guy started messaging me as I was doing just that. I was
honest with him: I have too much going on and currently don’t have the time or
emotional space to be dating material. I’m not interested. His response was
that I could possibly use a friend and we should text. Sure. I could use
someone to talk to right now . . . . that was a stupid move.
It wasn’t long before he started asking me about sexuality
and I had to tell him again I’m not in the space for this and couldn’t be what
he wanted anyway because I’m still working on some deeply rooted issues. Of
course, this lead to more questions and like an idiot I answered them. Note to self: strangers don’t deserve
personal truths, or personal history and really have no business asking about
it. I didn’t give him a whole lot of detail, but he probably knows more
about me than he should. Then he dropped a bomb on me about being in an
incestuous relationship with his aunt and thoroughly enjoying it. From my
experience in a course on anthropology, I can understand how that could happen.
On that note, TMI, Dude. TMI.
The anonymity of being online is a major issue with how people interact with one another.
I received more texts from this random stranger last night
that were unwanted with fairly inappropriate content. I told him again that I’m
not ready for something like this and the more exchanges we shared it was
becoming clearer to me that we weren’t compatible. Of course this damaged his
fragile little ego and his responses were vulgar and mean: I’m the one with
issues, I have a bad attitude and how sad it is that the only men I’ve ever had
have raped me and he could understand how that happened because my attitude is
that bad. Holy Fuck! What the hell?!
So I was upset because that was unnecessary, untrue and hurtful. I went to bed
and woke up feeling better. Slightly angry, granted, but better.
I have to take my own advice sometimes and remember to look
forward. My brief encounter with some random person is insignificant. I won’t
dwell on it. What matters is moving on from this past month, not shutting the
world out as much as I want to and allowing love in my life. I have to start
with myself first. So I’ll resort back to my tried and true method of telling
myself I’m wonderful, amazing, lovely, etc. I’ll believe it eventually.
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