continuity.

There's a funny thing about misdirection, or what we assume to be a diversion from the main road of our lives. It doesn't really reveal itself until you're fifty feet deep into it, until you're in the middle of the woods of it all by the same tree you saw an hour before, while the evening light (of LIFE) is starting to fade, while you wander around in the same circles, drive past the same landmarks, see nothing new and then realize,


Ta-da! I think we're lost.


Or, I think I'm lost. Though, if you were to take a moment to look about you, I'm sure that you'd see you're not alone in this unforgiving wilderness, as ironic as that turns out to be.


Not knowing where you are, or how you got there for that matter, poses two opportunities. Fear, which may lead to curling up, protesting reality, refusing to go on, indignation, etc. Or, more positively, exploration, or the need to find your own way out of this mess, preferably into something new rather than something tried, which you may do with determination, arrogance, anger, or aimlessness. (All options tend to become categorized if you think about them long enough, as I always seem to do.)


No matter which way you go, however, I believe a lot of what stops us from taking one option or the other is not knowing where we are going to end up. Either way, we assume, could end in disaster.


For wanting things to change as badly as we claim, we tend to not recognize the opportunity for it when it's staring us directly in the face. As far as I can tell, change is always no further than a few feet in front of us, but we either aren't looking, aren't listening, or aren't willing to take the steps towards the change itself. If we're not willing to meet life in the middle, we could find ourselves standing in the same state for a long time, stamping our feet and waving our fists at the sky, wondering why it all won't come together.


A long time has passed now where I have told myself, told everyone, world included, that I was ready for something different. More than ready. Had BEEN ready for days and axiomatic decades now, was ready to be hit by a tidal wave of newness, was prepared to go forward, into the empty space, into the unknown, into anything else so long as divergence was promised, sought out, and secured.


Well, clearly the universe is finding me funny, as it seems to believe I am telling a nonsensical, two-year-long joke. OR. Yes, or. Justtt maybe, my talk, my words, my something, isn't completely matching up with what I'm actually doing. Maybe the house of my wants are honest and real, while they sit on a hollow, useless foundation. Could that be? Could someone else, anyone else, really know things about me that I don't yet recognize?


Maybe. If anything's possible, then I guess that includes this particular phenomenon. All this time I've been sitting around blaming the world for not being ready for me, when perhaps part of this process is (who knew?) patience, one step I was more than willing to skip right over, bypass completely, pretend to have mastered, collect completion and continue on again.


We're being readied for something. And things are happening because of our choices, sure, but the ways we've been led to them are intentional. If I'm supposed to be learning something, and we all are, then I better listen up. And you had better believe I've so far been listening impatiently and imperfectly, because I'm ready to get this show on the road. Still, there is something to be received from silence, from true stillness, from waiting on the moral to the story, even if the story itself sucks from beginning to end.


I don't know. It seems I've been starting most of my days, knuckles bared, ready for a fight. When, really, I'm not sure the whole system has ever really dared oppose me. Rather, I think it might be backing me, setting me in place for Phase 2, or 10, for the next level or tier or ... valley. For what, I couldn't tell you at all. But, it's a odd mix of humble frustration to know you must not be ready for something yet, despite how strongly you feel that you are. Still, if we can meditate on the fact that all things happen for a reason, or there being a time and a place for all things, or that doors will open for us in time, or that forward is the only way to go, etc. Well. You get the point.


Call me certifiably insane (and most of my closest friends would), but I think to hope is better than to have complete certainty. If we have outlined our lives down to the minute we die and the way it happens, we leave no room for, sheesh, error, happy accidents, our brightest moments, small joys, being taken aback, real revelation. 


Of course I have ideas of what comes next. But it sure as hell isn't written in stone, to which we all can knowingly attest. EXIBIT A: THE APRON IS GREEN. I've been wrong before, and I've been surprised continuously. We're so antsy to get moving, and while most people would take one look at our circumstances and not blame us one bit for our urge to run, perhaps there's something more to be said for the now, instead of our constant focus on what tomorrow brings. Everything being so smocked in symbolism like it always is, so over-ridden with huge purpose and what does it all MEAN ten years from now and for ETERNITY, which, by the way, we have no fucking way of knowing or controlling. The best-laid plans get turned upside-down and over again in a moment, in the single blink of one eye, any eye, every second a new thing stands up and bares its teeth and refuses to cooperate with what we had in mind. 


So? Fine. And it's a totally different perspective than one normally encouraged to take in this scenario, in this particular country and society anyway, where everything is measured in visible success, by the thickness of your hair, how smooth your manipulative skills, how punctual you are, how educated. Everything is seen as a stepping stone toward your life, rather than your actual life itself, a moment only to ask, "When will you do better?" or "When will you make more?" No one will think you have arrived until you no longer sweat the price of things, of all things, because you HAVE all things. This is happiness? 


I'm not sure of it. Rather, I would imagine it all turns out to be a shame. And frankly, a huge fucking waste. Because your life will never manage to live up to everything you expect out of it. That fact doesn't deny us our right to dream, but I think it can ground us in the present, which I have to (HAVE TO) believe is more important than what might or might not happen to us someday, or never at all. Knowing that, really knowing it, can in many ways be so much more valuable to us, can be our real sense of freedom, can make us see that what we have before us is so much better than anything we may have previously thought up. 


Again, the crazy-calling is something I can take. I'm learning this even as I now write it, and even when I'm through I will have miles to go. It's something that will require a sense of diligence I have admittedly yet to master, but if I have made it out so far, there is no sense to refusing now to continue to grow, to be the flowering in the sandy sidewalk cracks, to make the most of the least of it all. 

the shoes

Let me tell you something; rock-bottom is a black, nine-dollar loafer. 

I can explain. 

When you think you know your lowest point, you don't. Because finding that place is something you will never recognize until you are right down in the midst of the lowness, of the ground that surrounds you, of realizing just how far you've fallen from your last bottom line to get where you are now.

Perhaps this seems a bit extreme. Which is understandable coming from an outsider's perspective, if you yourself are not the one feeling tripped up or let down or facing defeat, feeling no fight left, for only today. If it's not you for this moment, it has been, or it (tragically) will be for the next. It's safe to say that we will all, at some point, reach a new sense of feeling failed, or failing, and cannot seem to come to terms with what our next step ought to be. This haziness has such potential for destruction, all while still harnessing a chance to win out, to come through it better, inspired, or changed.

But how many times, though?

How often? 

How much? 

How much can we really take before we give in?

Noted, giving in is not the same as giving up. It feels similar, in many senses, and it brings us to corresponding conclusions at times. But giving up, despite the ease it implies, though it promotes a sense of shrugging off the world without a care, requires a lot more of us, a stronger lean toward the inability to go on at all. Giving in, however, means we merely can't go on with the way things are. So we admit that, take an honest look at what surrounds us, we find what we don't like about it (or the way we see ourselves in it), maybe we take a day or two to suppress it, analyze it, rethink it, review it, and believe it or not, despite the difficulty this decision brings, you come through it with a plan, usually just a small one, or some sort of reassurance, a next step in mind, the slightest or the grandest, and you move on. 

Giving in leaves you somewhere to turn. Giving in means we can confess we're not okay with the way things are going, that we can still picture the way things ought to be, the things we wish for, faintly. With that vision in mind, however far from us it feels, we can work towards something, whatever that amendment is, with a new sense of purpose and resolve.

It won't necessarily make us stronger people all at once. But it's laying out a challenge, a written and formed journey, it's realizing that despite the step-by-step plan we have envisioned all along, we are going to have to at some points a. go with the flow, b. bend with the curves or c. (my favorite) wait and wait and wait. 

I don't know what it takes for most people to stand up with a proverbial light bulb over their tired heads, gleaming with new thoughts and intervention. For me, times turn when you're standing in a Walmart shoe department, analyzing your life with your meanest microscope, while a woman next to you in a floor-length fur coat talks to herself.

I'm pretty sure that would make anyone publicly cry. If not, then I admit that it was me, and if Colin wasn't there to remind me, in sincere kindness, that I'm doing my best, that we can only persevere, then I might still be there today, trying to find a goddamn pair of shoes for a job I was born to hate. 

Still, just like that, the world has changed. While everything remains the same, we can remaster the way we face the challenge. It's almost like the universe is daring us all to go on, is throwing boulders in our paths, shorting our brakes, sticking it's clunky, ubiquitous foot in our way, watching us trip down the hall, laughing at our clumsiness. 

But here's the thing. The confrontation of it all is what keeps me going. For all the ways that life seems monumentally unfair, I am given the constant opportunity to love what's before me, or to let the difficult parts drown out the ways I'm blessed. Do I want to spend my afternoons off going to 10+ stores, all to seek an ugly pair of black sneakers so that I can cling to a position I never wanted?

No.

But, the fact is that I got to spend those afternoons with a person I love, and who undeniably loves me as he was patient with my impatience, caring with my complaining, and comforting when I reached the end of it all. What I think I mean to say is, whatever you're going through, you've been equipped, more or less, or paired with the things you need to make it through. Whether it's your strong sense of self, the mornings off you can spend outside, the art you create when you're alone, the places you've seen, or the people who have made your life worth it, who have made your days more than bearable but full of real and true happiness. 

While we will always retain the right to hope for certain things and aim for change where we can manage it, our hardest days come and go, and we will be reminded of where our support comes from, by who cares for us, by who knows our hearts and believes in what we can do. 

And really, how lucky we are to have just that. 

writing vs. agriculture?

Something I feel I should have known already is that if I ever want a damn good laugh, or the urge to throw my laptop out the window (sorry, Macbook, but it's true), all I need to do is take some idiotic website's version of a career aptitude test. 


Basically: oh HA.


Even though I have done this several times before, the only instance ringing clear in my memory was when my dear institution of higher learning, through a series of multiple choice and either/or questions, suggested that my ideal career would be that of a farmer. Oh, ifff they onlyyy knewww NOW. Despite this comical result, and the image of me sitting atop a hunky green tractor wearing overalls with a piece of straw hanging from my lower lip (don't all farmers look that way?), I decided that for the hell of it, or for my own twisted sense of humor, I would give it another try.


The main reason behind this somewhat crazy idea of mine came from a (ahem) frequent frustration of what feels like running out of options. Or being backed into a corner. Or not being able to imagine my life any differently, which is a phase that can be brought on from time to time when things aren't exactly panning out as planned, or in any real tangible in-my-face sense. I'm not saying this is a bad move, or necessarily a useful move, as you will soon see. But I thought that perhaps a neutral, data-driven results test could show me some avenues I hadn't yet considered for myself, some guidance towards certain professions that wouldn't otherwise come to mind. 


This, my friends, is called dreaming big.


While these aptitude tests are not entirely useless, and while I think the personality you have plays a tremendous part in what sort of work you're suited for (apparently I am an intuitive introvert with a stronger sense of perception than judgment. Well, I could have told you that.), the chances that these questionnaires are going to revolutionize your job search are slim as can be. Most of them, while answering them honestly, informed me that I am due for a creative career choice, that I am best suited for a job in the traditional visual arts, that I should be a writer or an editor or be involved in some sort of communications department of a business or enterprise.


I know, CareerPath. I know. 


While some may deliver more humorous and "HUH?" reactions (such as the one random site that suggested I was well-suited for a medical career ... um, pass), and while one pithy results page (that seriously could use a web designer's touch, because YIKES) steered me right back to my agricultural roots (seriously, it must be all those vegetables I love so much. Check it, folks, new blog on the rise. Here's one for integrated advertising!), and even though I can quite clearly envision myself sitting on a farmhouse porch, perhaps cowboy boots on my feet, at least much more than I can bear the thought of buying new non-slip shoes, I'm afraid the search continues with avengance, and with not much new information under my belt. Still, it doesn't hurt to know that even a computer-generated test can read who I am, just as real live people can, and know that there is something I'm deliberately here for, something my very being craves and demands.


It will set your mind reeling, to say the least. It will make you consider yourself, and with the best of intentions, it will make you tell the truth, which is something that bears surprising difficulty, even when nothing seems to really be at stake. 


Still, if this year, already half of the first month underway, doesn't start yielding some serious possibility, you may have to find me digging deep into the earth, dirt permanently caked under my nails, cultivating rich results, starting fresh. Apparently, somewhere in the world, it's what I'm meant for. 

new year, same rules.

I know, 2012.


The world is going to end, we're 10+ years past Y2K, we're globally at each other's throats, financially at our knees, and technologically plugged in from every angle. 


It seems that every new year starts with solid ambition, true determinations for change, and ways to improve ourselves, body and soul. The gyms are packed with new members, we have begun an early-morning meditation routine, we are kicking our bad habits, smoking, gossiping, procrastination, sugar, we are promising new accomplishments and worthwhile hobbies, big beginnings and out-with-a-bang endings.


Though the tone might seem sarcastically otherwise, I am actually a fan of resolutions, of resolving, of challenging ourselves and deciding to try harder, dig deeper, go further. The major problem, however, that everyone seems to find, is that when these commitments don't work out, when we don't lose twenty pounds or finish that scrapbook or master a new language, we blame ourselves, we point towards the pressure we faced, the inevitable factors that fought against us, the ways in which we were destined to fail. 


And by then, it's only February.


While there are no guaranteed ways to make sure your aspirations don't become complicated, tripped up, or ignored, the most reasonable idea I can concoct is that we should be comfortable choosing more achievable goals. While there's nothing wrong with wanting to run a marathon or read the top 100 classics of literature (umm, I'm sorry but ZZZ), sometimes it's okay to focus on tiny changes that will benefit us directly, will resonate with who we are specifically, things that will enhance our surroundings and therefore our attitudes. For example:


Two winters ago, due to a new year that brought change of several varieties, I decided that the best stab I could take at a life makeover was to repaint my high school room from its shabby pale pink (which teenage trepidation led me to cover with sorrowful lyrics in black permanent marker) to a sea-foam green hue aptly titled "Green Myth." ...when did green become such a big part of me?


Paint is paint, I know. The world is not a different place because of a mere color change. But green is newness and calm-spirited and wholly natural. And it is only an example of what tiny accomplishments can do for our being, and the wellness of it all. Even though I would really love if I could compose a to-do list, number one saying in bold print "NEW JOB" and the rest would all fall into my lap, or into place. Even though that is always at the top of all hypothetical and mental lists of mine, the big-picture-small-steps version is more likely to pan out successfully. 


I think.


So? For now, my aims are [still] as follows:

1. To seek out new positions daily, spending a reasonable though not overwhelming window of uninterrupted time doing so, and to submit interest to 2-4 positions a week 

2. If 2-4 options don't present themselves in a week's time (which is a likely possibility), to not write off this self-imposed requirement as a useless frustration (also a likely possibility, if you want to know the goddamn truth). 

3. And, going along with the second, to remain consistent, to remember what other things makes my life joyful in the midst of being tested, and, when all else fails, to remain hopeful in the face of difficulty.

As a whole, these determinations remain daunting, as they have since the beginning, and I'm already not feeling the motivational pull as strongly as I'd like to be. But the point is to remind ourselves of what we can do now, rather than worrying about what life looks like ten years down the road, more on bettering ourselves today than hoping to become this more dynamic, interesting individual later. That, of course, depends on what our actions look like in the present. And small movement is better than standing still and saying we can't. So one step at a time, let's move.