No More Rain

No More Rain

It’s so funny how your attitude and outlook can change your perception of… everything. I am sad. I am completely downtrodden. It’s sunny out, but you couldn’t tell me that. I think it’s clouds and rain. Seriously – and I was out there today, so I KNOW for a fact that there’s not a drop out there. But it would so match my disposition for it to be as rainy as it’s been over the weekend. Figures that I was pretty content through most of the rain. I just can’t get it right.

My imagination lends to so much, I’ve realized in the last few days. Where and when I’m sad / mad / upset / distraught about something… 9 times out of 10… according to whomever I’m beefing with – it’s all in my head. WOW. I should really be comforted by the fact that if I should ever perceive something a certain way… that I should just as soon assume that I’m probably wrong. Because it takes the guess work out of … well… everything. I can just cut myself off at the pass and KNOW it’s probably my fault. Or my faulty conception of situations. And you know what… it’s been addressed before. I’m the one at fault. That is the DEFAULT. No matter what’s amiss… it’s me. I wonder when I get to be right, though… or allowed to feel that I might have a point…

Wait…

No…

That’s where I start going down the wrong path. It’s me. Seems like it’s cyclical… every year around this time… I’m reminded. And everyone around me is clear that it’s me. So I dunno why I can’t get it right…

Funny. I need to begin investing in a Merit book, it seems, to keep track of the ill vs. the good. But… the way it’s being read… nothing’s ever being done wrong to me. EVER… LOL! So I guess… that’s pointless too.

I suppose I just need to keep reminding myself that I’m the crazy one before I ever get my panties in a bunch about … well…

Anything.

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We’re Always Grown

We’re Always Grown

Blogging from far away in DC on a trip for my job. Feeling especially alone today although I am literally surrounded by people.

On the drive down getting to know my co -workers better we recounted stories of our college experience (we’re in DC for a college fair). And while I thought about and said my story I casually made a statement that has been on my mind all day. “After you hit a certain point in life, you always think you’re grown and know better”. And that point is early… For some around 10 yrs. old. For most going from the teens on. Even though there are elders all around you at nearly every point in your life, you always feel old enough to be respected and wise enough not to have to take the elder’s unsolicited advice.

Shame. By the time we figure out the game… It’s no longer our turn.

If youth knew.
If age could.

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… We simply choose to forget…

… We simply choose to forget…

“So it’s the laughter, we will remember
Whenever we remember the way we were…”
- Barbara Streisand

An aside… I can say that I only recently have been able to listen to portions of that song as it was Grandma’s favorite song and she would cradle and sing it to me when I was a little kid. She’s been gone for 6 years now and I still can’t listen through to the end without blubbering…

Last night I was watching “Californication” my new obsession on cable tv. To make a very long scenario short, the main character, Hank, CAUGHT IT, physically, from a young pugilist female whom he sexed and never called again and apparently forgot her face. He couldn’t remember why he didn’t call her back or why he failed to remember her at all… until a precarious situation involving him as the tre of a threesome where his friend was about to learn why Hank didn’t call back…

I saw someone on the street yesterday that hurt a friend/soror/sister of mine a long time ago. And truly the only reason I remembered his name is because the image of her tears rolling down her face as her sobs syncopated the syllables of his name is one that I can’t seem to get rid of no matter what I do. There are certain people you just don’t want to see cry. They’re always so bubbly and so sweet and wonderful that the idea of them crying is so foreign until you see it. And then it JARS you. (I remember I did that to a number of people at my father’s funeral. I felt so bad, but there was no more holding back to it…) To be very honest… I’m not 100% on WHAT he did to her. I just know that he hurt her enough to make her cry. He seemed to remember me very vividly, although he couldn’t place my name. I greeted him lukewarmly all the while thinking “you hurt my sister.”

It’s amazing that she has moved on from it, has a new someone in her life and that was YEARS ago, but strangely enough… I stay stuck back there. On the perpetual defensive against him for her feelings. I find that I do that for most of my friends and loved ones. Hold the grudge for them, just in case they’ve tapped into the Christianity to forgive. My job is to NEVER LET THEM FORGET. We have such a way of selectively remembering sections of our lives that were not really the best of times that when something or someone pops up from it… our faded memory may allow us to stray down that path anew. I feel that I’ve assigned myself to be the barrier to those roads for my friends.

Of course it’s do as I say… not as I do. Because I sure have forgiven folks who have done some inexcusable stuff. And even revisited paths where the mental greenery had grown over the “DANGER” signs on those roads. My brother stands firm as my wrong path guardian, though. Sometimes to his detriment… makes me want to avoid conversations with him at all re: certain people.

I find it so easy to forgive the transgressors in my life… but I wonder if the hate I harbor for my friend’s foes is killing my spirit equally as much…

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Wean

Wean

Again. I let half a month go by and letting thoughts squirrel in and out of my head but no time / desire to sit down and write them on paper. In large part because of the esoteric nature of my thoughts lately. It’s not something I want the whole world getting into my head about. Or maybe… reading it and misinterpreting so there would have to be this over-explanation. But I promise to check in every now and again.

There’s a plethora of behaviors that I’ve been accustomed to that I am actively (or passively, pending on the nature of it) beginning to debunk and discard. Some things just don’t make sense anymore and it’s obvious. They just don’t need to be a part of my everyday. Mostly because they end up causing more trouble than happiness or pleasure. But from such great heights, everything looks so beautiful. Till you crash. I’m kinda tired of crashing though. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. So I can officially label myself amongst the insane. But you know… there are enablers. The folks around you get so used to you doing the same thing over and over again that allowing you to change your method is… foreign to them. And sometimes it’s just comfortable for them to keep you in what you’ve been doing. I admit that I give in a lot because it’s easier to stay the same than to change. But this complacency has leaked into damned near every facet of my life. And I’m scared that if I don’t change now… I could be stuck in various scenarios indefinitely… just in a horrid loop that would never end but would most definitely destroy my will. I don’t want my life to become a Sisyphean task. So I gotta push through the threshold of discomfort this presents. But it’ll be hard, of course. For me, I never take on one task alone. I gotta completely re-invent over night. It almost seems easier… than to try to hold on to pieces of the old me and change one behavior.

Ever want to wake up and be someone completely different? We all do at some point. The best we can hope for is to do that slowly. Eventually.

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Now/Now

Now/Now

“She made my heart beat in a Now/Now time signature”
-Mos Def

Happy birthday to me! I’m dedicating my year to living in the now… in the name of the wonderful memories I’ll extract from them to take with me when I go. Now is all we have. Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow – we only have marginal say in what happens…. the only thing we can really control is NOW.

Happy 33 to me…

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