I always feel like I'm looking for something. And it's something that I haven't found anywhere. No solace, no hope, no joy. Not in a person, not in a cup, not in my job, not in a piece of fruit.
I can't find it.
I'm missing something and I can't find it. And it doesn't help that I don't know what it is. Maybe if I knew what it was I would be able to find it. Maybe it wouldn't be missing.
My mother asks me why I'm always irrationally angry, or why I always seem to have a sourpuss on. And to be honest, I don't know. But why does anyone do anything? Maybe it's part of what I'm looking for.
Maybe it's part of who I am. Maybe what I'm looking for is supposed to help with the sourpuss.
If only I knew what I was looking for.
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
The Caged Bird
This past week my aunt and her family went on vacation so my parents agreed to pet-sit for them. They have a beautiful blue parakeet named Lily. My aunt and uncle have had her for a few years now, but I totally forgot about her until I heard something chirping in the porch. And there she was.
I decided to sit down on the daybed and 'birdwatch' if you will. Lily was pretty quiet, only really chirping when she heard the other outdoor birds chirp. I watched her hop around in her cage from bar to bar, playing with the few toys they had given her and then becoming bored quite quickly. And the way she hopped around her cage, it was as though she was trying to escape out into the wild, dangerous world to play and discover with all the other free birds. And then she stopped chirping.
It was then that I realized that although a different species, Lily and I aren't so different after all.
I have been content with where I live, my job, the car I drive, the food I eat for too long. Can someone really be content locked up in that cage, wondering what is on the outside and never actually doing anything about it?
I was on the inside, looking outward, wondering what life had in store for me instead of actually doing something about it. And, like Lily, I want to know what is on the other side. I am tired of living in a cage, the way people live in glass houses. And I'm getting tired of trying thing after thing, thinking it may help define me, only to get bored in the end. But I know I don't want to stop chirping.
So, from now, I will do what Lily cannot. I plan my escape from a life with no passion. I will discover and live wildly and freely on that other side. I will explore my spirituality and who I am fervently. And I will wander down that road.
But first I must break out.
I decided to sit down on the daybed and 'birdwatch' if you will. Lily was pretty quiet, only really chirping when she heard the other outdoor birds chirp. I watched her hop around in her cage from bar to bar, playing with the few toys they had given her and then becoming bored quite quickly. And the way she hopped around her cage, it was as though she was trying to escape out into the wild, dangerous world to play and discover with all the other free birds. And then she stopped chirping.
It was then that I realized that although a different species, Lily and I aren't so different after all.
I have been content with where I live, my job, the car I drive, the food I eat for too long. Can someone really be content locked up in that cage, wondering what is on the outside and never actually doing anything about it?
I was on the inside, looking outward, wondering what life had in store for me instead of actually doing something about it. And, like Lily, I want to know what is on the other side. I am tired of living in a cage, the way people live in glass houses. And I'm getting tired of trying thing after thing, thinking it may help define me, only to get bored in the end. But I know I don't want to stop chirping.
So, from now, I will do what Lily cannot. I plan my escape from a life with no passion. I will discover and live wildly and freely on that other side. I will explore my spirituality and who I am fervently. And I will wander down that road.
But first I must break out.
Saturday, June 15, 2013
The Tao of the Content
25.
Single.
Ready to mingle.
At least not yet, anyway.
I know I skipped an entry last week in my effort to remain committed to watching back to back episodes of Sex and the City as I ate saltine crackers with butter on them. But for good reason. For research, potentially.
I wanted to know what it would be like to just take a week and do absolutely nothing outside of working. Meaning: No gym time, no cooking, no hanging out with people and maybe lots of online shopping. This all started when I decided to spend a lovely Saturday afternoon with my good friend, Val.
Our original plan, since we are both taking classes, was to do homework for a couple of hours. I brought some healthy veggie snacks to her house and we sat down with our laptops. And for four hours, we did nothing but not do our homework.
We sat on her couch doing absolutely nothing but talking about how miserable we felt about our lives and eating ice cream.
It was the best thing I had done in a long time.
You see, Val is the only friend I have who is my age and in the same exact place I'm in. We are both:
-Mid-twenties
-Single (and not wanting to be)
-looking for better opportunities for our careers (most women have either the career or the un-single life. We figure we may as well at least have the fabulous careers if we are going to be single for a while longer).
-still living with mom and dad (and not wanting to be. Because we can't afford to live elsewhere. This is where the whole career thing comes into play).
We vented to one another about how miserable we've been feeling. About how we just want a little more money, to lose a little more weight, and to be a little more loved by someone unrelated to us.
And that word. That little word that isn't supposed to pop up anywhere in the single woman's vocabulary kept on popping up in my head: UNHAPPY. It had somehow occurred to me that by standards put upon us by society, that we were unhappy.
According to society we should be out serial-dating, or having fabulous careers, buying ourselves fancy things, and drinking ourselves into an oblivion every once in a long while. Even people who are coupled up have this expectation that they need to constantly be happy, and I find it sickening.
It occurred to me also, that maybe this wasn't everyone's definition of being happy.
But sometimes happy isn't something we need to be. And maybe being happy isn't something we are supposed to feel all the time. Maybe being happy was just a temporary state, like a high, that we come crashing down from, and sometimes quite hard, into a state of unhappiness.
And maybe unhappiness isn't unhappiness at all. When you really think about it, and I mean really think about it, most people would say they are content with their lives. Not happy. Content. And that's how they feel most of the time, which is great. And then they get this brief glimpse of euphoria, whether for a second, or a minute, or a day or a month and then they come down from it, back to exactly what it was they were content with, mistaking it for unhappiness. . There is no separation of the two ideals. There is no clear distinction between the rise and the fall back down to the steady state that has always been. There is always a blurred line. Maybe happiness is the new designer drug?
As far as I am concerned, and as far as I have seen and learned, I don't think I'm unhappy. And, as Josh Radnor said in an interview with Rainn Wilson ( you can watch that here) "I would rather be content than happy." I would rather be considered constantly unhappy rather than go through the ups and downs of happiness. I would rather kill that addiction now and just be content.
Because there is absolutely nothing wrong with being content.
Single.
Ready to mingle.
At least not yet, anyway.
I know I skipped an entry last week in my effort to remain committed to watching back to back episodes of Sex and the City as I ate saltine crackers with butter on them. But for good reason. For research, potentially.
I wanted to know what it would be like to just take a week and do absolutely nothing outside of working. Meaning: No gym time, no cooking, no hanging out with people and maybe lots of online shopping. This all started when I decided to spend a lovely Saturday afternoon with my good friend, Val.
Our original plan, since we are both taking classes, was to do homework for a couple of hours. I brought some healthy veggie snacks to her house and we sat down with our laptops. And for four hours, we did nothing but not do our homework.
We sat on her couch doing absolutely nothing but talking about how miserable we felt about our lives and eating ice cream.
It was the best thing I had done in a long time.
You see, Val is the only friend I have who is my age and in the same exact place I'm in. We are both:
-Mid-twenties
-Single (and not wanting to be)
-looking for better opportunities for our careers (most women have either the career or the un-single life. We figure we may as well at least have the fabulous careers if we are going to be single for a while longer).
-still living with mom and dad (and not wanting to be. Because we can't afford to live elsewhere. This is where the whole career thing comes into play).
We vented to one another about how miserable we've been feeling. About how we just want a little more money, to lose a little more weight, and to be a little more loved by someone unrelated to us.
And that word. That little word that isn't supposed to pop up anywhere in the single woman's vocabulary kept on popping up in my head: UNHAPPY. It had somehow occurred to me that by standards put upon us by society, that we were unhappy.
According to society we should be out serial-dating, or having fabulous careers, buying ourselves fancy things, and drinking ourselves into an oblivion every once in a long while. Even people who are coupled up have this expectation that they need to constantly be happy, and I find it sickening.
It occurred to me also, that maybe this wasn't everyone's definition of being happy.
But sometimes happy isn't something we need to be. And maybe being happy isn't something we are supposed to feel all the time. Maybe being happy was just a temporary state, like a high, that we come crashing down from, and sometimes quite hard, into a state of unhappiness.
And maybe unhappiness isn't unhappiness at all. When you really think about it, and I mean really think about it, most people would say they are content with their lives. Not happy. Content. And that's how they feel most of the time, which is great. And then they get this brief glimpse of euphoria, whether for a second, or a minute, or a day or a month and then they come down from it, back to exactly what it was they were content with, mistaking it for unhappiness. . There is no separation of the two ideals. There is no clear distinction between the rise and the fall back down to the steady state that has always been. There is always a blurred line. Maybe happiness is the new designer drug?
As far as I am concerned, and as far as I have seen and learned, I don't think I'm unhappy. And, as Josh Radnor said in an interview with Rainn Wilson ( you can watch that here) "I would rather be content than happy." I would rather be considered constantly unhappy rather than go through the ups and downs of happiness. I would rather kill that addiction now and just be content.
Because there is absolutely nothing wrong with being content.
Monday, June 3, 2013
Weekend Away with the Gal Pals
We first went to a show where four men dressed in drag decided to have a bachelorette party and pulled the actual bachelorettes in the crowd onto the stage. It was fun and racy and everything a girls' night should be.
We then went for dinner and drinks at a little mexican restaurant, which was delish but barely had an AC going.
Afterwards we went back to the club and danced the night away to the sounds of an amazing cover band called Digital Getdown (you can find them here). They covered the music of my generation, which I absolutely loved (Nsync, BSB, NKOTB) as well as some old school hip hop. It was an amazingly fun time and aside from the douchebaggery from some weird guy wearing a vest who tried to dance in the middle of our circle (whothefuckareyou?! lol...) and another young lad in a striped shirt who kept bumping into me and my sis and spilling his beer on my feet (like eww!) we had an amazingly good time dancing and sweating our asses off for two hours.
It was drama free and super fun, and an excellent way to reclaim and celebrate your Happy and Single-dom. :)
So, if you haven't done this, I highly suggest it! It's a great confidence boost when you can plan a girl's trip to do something fun, grab dinner, and do something even more fun afterward!
Now, go forth and be HAPPY!
Friday, May 24, 2013
Find Things That Define You
It has come to my attention that I am terrible at being single. I have very few friends that I rarely ever see. I am usually either working, working out, or sitting at home waiting for my life to happen rather than making it happen. And quite frankly, as I sit here yet again, writing this blog, I feel undefined. Not that there is anything wrong with being undefined. But I feel as though I don't have one thing that makes me passionate about life.
Yes, I have many different interests and skills. But I don't have anything that's my 'thing'.
So I have decided that over the next year, I am going to set out and try one new thing every week until I find something that I absolutely love and can 'define' me. I am setting out to discover who I am and what I love and what makes me passionate about life.
So, no more going on dates, other than with my girlfriends or myself. No more negative people. And, quite frankly, no more things that make me feel like poo.
I think this week I will start with clay sculpting and painting my projects. I promise to update with pics later. :)
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