Resolutions? Naw.
Last year, I had goals for this blog, even if I didn’t state them out loud. It was my life raft from my corporate job, and I still harbored high hopes that it would save me from intellectual oblivion and possibly launch my career as a writer. This year is different. Last year, I treated this blog like a business (albeit a beloved business), and like a business it grew and changed, but not in the ways I thought it would. I advertised it, I went to a blogging conference, I tried this technique, tried that one. Some of this experience was rewarding, some of it wasn’t. Then, mid-year, something began…
“What do you want to do for Christmas this year?”
“What do you want to do for Christmas this year, hon?” I felt myself jump, even though I know I didn’t actually do it on the outside. We were driving home from dinner, and I mentally cursed the twenty minutes on the freeway ahead of us. Twenty minutes of what would very likely be a Marital Dispute. Someone, probably God, was punishing me. Faster than you could say “Let’s change the subject, sweetie,” the memories of the past few Christmases wheeled through my mind. Like last Christmas, when family members didn’t cooperate with my ideas and Mike and I opened presents alone. I felt guilty for forcing my plans on…
Wide Awake
I flop over onto my other side. Awakening wide-eyed at some vague time in the middle of the night, I spent the last hour (ten minutes? thirty seconds?) rolling around and adding to the pile of tissues on the nightstand. “This is total bullshit,” I state, to no one in particular. Mike is fast asleep, and the cat had long ago abandoned my lap for a more stable surface. I sneeze, grab another tissue, blow my nose. It is total bullshit, almost cruel. Being so tired, yet unable to sleep. I flip over to my other side, pull the comforter tighter against the chill. It’s almost as cruel as the…
When I Was A Little Kid
When I was a little kid, I thought I could grow up to be anything I wanted. This included a mermaid, the President, a famous actress, a successful writer and a beautiful princess. There was no tool more powerful than my imagination; indeed, it took me to places I would never be able to go, even as an adult who was supposed to hold the world in the palm of her hand and bid it do as she liked. When I was a little kid, there was no sadder girl on the face of the earth. Yet even despite the cloud perpetually threatening rain over my head, tomorrow always held…
Performance Anxiety
I can’t do it. There will be professional artists in the audience. What if they see how amateurish I am? I’ve never taken an art class. Ever. I may be an artist, but I am not a skilled artist. These are the thoughts that raced through my mind when the associate pastor at the church we’ve been attending asked me to paint during the worship service. However, you could really insert this conversation into my head any time someone asked me to perform a skill. Case in point: Times I’ve been asked to play the piano at weddings/funerals/plays/church. Times I’ve been asked to sing on the worship team. When I’ve been asked why I don’t do…
Some Thoughts and Songs on Spirituality
I don’t often write publicly about my spirituality for the same reason a new mother doesn’t take her infant out to a Metallica concert; it’s growing and sensitive, it doesn’t need exposure to angry forces, and I feel like protecting it from the world during this formative time. Unfortunately no stranger to spiritual abuse and manipulation, I am more cautious with that aspect of myself now that I’ve been around that block a few times. Why people feel the need to bully others about their spiritual journey I’ll never know. Yet it is a big part of me, as much as my physical and emotional life. Sometimes I feel a…
Freedom is the Best
My days have gotten much more palatable since getting laid off in July. Rather than squeezing tiny drops of enjoyment from things like my drive home from work and stolen moments of frantic writing, I now look forward to every day. Every damn day. It seems a little excessive, huh? Granted, not every day is a cake walk (a couple of hours job searching in this economy is enough to crush even the chipperest of souls). But since deciding to go the freelance route, basically I wake up every morning excited. I love my first cup of coffee of the day, steaming and bold. While sipping those first precious drops of my…
Speaking of Fashion Magazines…
As a recovering perfectionist, in the past I’ve held myself up to very high standards. In fact, my standards were too high. I discovered this last year, when I injured myself by over-exercising. Since then, I’ve made gradual shifts to be more kind to myself, not holding myself to an impossible idea of perfection. This includes how I view my body. Last year I committed to stopping the hate-talk about my appearance, taking care of my body, and learning to see it as beautiful in its own right, without feeling the need to wish it was different. Fully inhabiting my body, with its excessive curves and strong muscles. When I started Operation…
The Bravest Thing I’ve Ever Done
I’m not a terribly brave person. If anything, I’m rather cowardly. Exhibit A: I flee from confrontation Exhibit B: The thought of a spider crawling across my arm sends me into apoplectic shock Exhibit C: A crowded room makes me want to crawl into myself and disappear Exhibit D: I’m not into extreme sports like cow tipping or, to my husband’s eternal dismay, skydiving Exhibit E: It took me about a decade of writing experience before I summoned the bravery to share my work with others That’s a lot of evidence against me, enough for me to write myself off as a cowardly lion, which I’ve always done. But as one of my favorite…
Drafted Into A Project
Mike has been working on a boat for the past few years. At first he decided to build one from scratch, which he did. It was just a little guy, something to tool around with in the harbor. Mike is one of those men that gets an idea, figures out how to do it, and then does it, which is one of my favorites of his qualities. Last year, he found an old, larger boat he wanted to restore. He had tinkered with the engine, patched it up and gotten it sea-worthy, but then thought he’d like it to look a little prettier. After all, this boat was an untouched…
