On being still

When life gets overwhelming and threatens to suffocate you, you have to just be still. Lay on the bed and concentrate in getting air in and out of your lungs. It is highly likely that during this process that your heart will bleed saltwater tears from your eyes. That is ok. It's the only way for the hurt to not hurt so bad. Crying is ok. Just remember to breathe while it's happening.

In and out. In and out.

If you're lucky unconsciousness will claim you and you will drift into a dreamless sleep. In and out. In and out. Don't move. Don't think. Don't talk. Just breathe. Let the oxygen push the heaviness from your chest. Let it flow through your heart and down your cheeks.

Be still. Just breathe. Cry.

In and out. In and out.

Breathe.

Reflections of 2018

I started 2018 at home. Chillin' & drinkin & reflecting. I made resolutions that I call goals. I anticipated what might be next.

2018 brought me-

A lot of travel

Legal adult children

Old friends

New friends

Reciprocity

Kindness and love

Graduation parties

A 4.0 gpa

14 hour service days

Italy & France

The ability to say no kindly

Babies

Death

More service

Men that come

And men that go

Nutritionists

Cross country drives

Arabic & English

Good year. This was a good year. I'm ready for Next.

2019 let's go.

A

Sometimes you need Coltrane

Sometimes you just need to drive fast. To get away. To outrun to bob and weave to duck and dodge. When life is trying to catch you and run you down you should get in the car, turn up the music, and drive fast.

If you're lucky the gods that rule the Pandora selections will shoot you this song:

Coltrane

A

The times that I am not my best self

I was not my best self tonight. I threw a small fit, realized I was throwing a fit which made me more angry, so I threw a bigger fit, then tapped out. Chagrined, embarrassed, ashamed, and still mad. Mad at him, mad at me, mad at the situation. Mostly mad that I didn't keep my insides on the inside.

There is a part of me that will always be a 5 year old. I like that 5 year old and protect her because she keeps the kid in me alive. The hope, the purity, the joy, the curiosity- all of the things that kids possess, she nurtures. But she also has a temper. I also have a temper.

I am good at my temper. Not so much because I have learned to keep it in check, which I have (yay, rectangular breathing), but more because it's rare that I allow anyone to get under my skin deep enough to make me angry. I cultivate the duck in water kind of zen. Let it all roll off.

I have found that there are a very small subset of people that get under my skin with no effort at all. I don't know why. I don't know if it is a good thing or a bad thing.  But it feels like they find the fissure in the seams of my armor and use their nails to pull it back and slip right inside. That kind of intimacy leaves me feeling naked and vulnerable. Raw. I don't like it.

I was having a conversation with someone who saw me clearly the other day. He called me on some things that no one outside of my blood and adopted family can see. I hated it. At the same time I liked it. It left me questions: Is my mask slipping? Am I losing my walls? Is that a good thing? Why do they see me? What do they want with this information? What am I doing wrong to be seen so clearly? Is my smoke and mirrors act dissipating? Then it left me the usual solution when someone gets too close- run.

So I did, then I didn't. And tonight, ill in-tune with how far their fingers have penetrated my mask, I made a tactical error. I assumed that they had gotten lucky in seeing me and lucky in their wins instead of giving them due credit. In doing so I took an L and threw a fit. First the pleading kind to get my way, then the attitude kind to challenge the ego (also to get my way), then the tap out kind (because it was clear I wasn't going to get my way). I was not my best self. And he knew it.

Why do some people get into you like that? It feels personal. It throws me off my game and causes me to be irrational instead of logical. It frustrates the 5 year old in me. Both because my ugly bits show and because, well because my ugly bits show. I'm not so mad that I lost. I'm mad that I didn't lose well. I'm mad that someone who already sees me so clearly had another authentic glance. The not pretty kind.

I feel like I fell asleep with my blinds open and the lights on while napping nude. Once awakened I realized it was dark outside and that the inside is totally illuminated. The only thing to do is hope no cars drive by during the mad naked rush to close the blinds. Only to realize that the one person you don't want to see you in the buff is watching from the drive way. The cold realization washes with the hot shame and you are caught. A thing done can't be undone. A thing seen can't be unseen. Now all you can do is brazen it out and hope that they afford you your dignity. Hope they are willing to pretend that it didn't happen all the while knowing that that's impossible.

I was seen at not my best self tonight and now I have to look the person in the eye tomorrow (or not) and accept that they have a new knowledge of who I am on the inside. Who I am naked.

I hate it.

Dewb

The Things I Know to be True

Why is it that when I need to write the most I forget that I am a writer? Why is it that I forget that it is my voice that has always been my power? Why is it that I forget that when things get complex I simply need to listen backwards to act forwards? Maybe the other voices are too loud. Maybe I simply forget that it is as simple as creating a word document and that in that white space and 84 keys my life’s fog dissipates.

I am a writer. My blog saves my life by preserving my voice. In here I am the true me. The authentic Amy. Ready to talk, listen, read, and remind.

I want to write about expectations. About how people choose to see you through the lens of what and who they are as opposed to who you actually are. About how if you aren’t careful you will start to believe that who they think you are is what you actually are. About how easy it is to live someone else’s expectations of you and how because they want to be you, they will try to convince you that you are them. And you are not. About how it is a kindness to them to mute yourself but in that muting you can easily forget the sound of your voice. Lose your plan.

I want to write about running shoes. I ran for a long time. I started when my brother left and continued until I had deteriorated the cartilage in my knees. I ran to think. And to breathe. And to find my voice in the rhythm of my feet hitting the pavement. My shoes represented freedom and health and life and discipline. My shoes represented both who I was and who I wanted to be at the same time. They were all I needed when things got rough. They both tied me down and set me free.

I want to write about men. About silly ones and cowardly ones and ones that act like girls and ones that act like men. I want to write about men that surprise me. And men that are exactly what they seem to be. I want to write about how good men go bad and how sometimes moving across the continent is the best way to see that: yes, he was hiding something and it was pretty terrible. Dodged a bullet, again. I want to write about young men that make me question my wings and old men that make me cringe when they touch me.

But I don’t think that I am going to write about any of these things. Not because I don’t have alot to say about any one of them but because I do. I think what I will write instead what I know to be true. In this moment, in this space in time, here is what I know:

God is love.

He loves me.

Love is the most powerful thing in the universe.

Mothers love no matter what.

It’s ok to fly.

It’s ok to fall.

It’s ok to fly again.

In being a part of nothing people will want to make you a part of their everything.

But you can’t do both.

I am a good roommate but a bad boarder. I need my home to be a haven not a hostel.

I have itchy feet that need new adventure to be scratched.

True love happens so frequently it’s ridiculous. But it’s still a miracle.

True love usually happens outside of romantic relationships.

Babies. Babies are true.

Next time I should pick the nice guy.

Be patient and stick to the plan.

When Jehovah says no on a guy, take the no.

Messi is messy. Messes are gross.

There are plenty of guys.

Call your mom.

Call your dad.

The kids will be fine.  

Don’t get into a relationship with a guy that lives with his mother. Mothers and sons have interesting relationships, especially if there are no daughters around. It’s like a queen bee and subjects that you will never shake. No queen bee wants another queen bee around. Especially if they still live at home as adults. Walk away.

Being content is not mutually exclusive to following the bigger plan.

Sometimes you still have to jump.

Love yourself.

This is what I know to be true tonight. That and the fact that I still love the blog. I will walk away tonight a little more (a lot more) centered, reflective, calm and ready to take the next days steps with power and grace. I think I am going to set a quarterly reminder in my phone to blog. Or a note that says, “Don’t forget that you are a writer. Go write.”

Yeah, I’m going to do that now. Well, as soon as I post this.

Dewb

Happy

Sometimes picking up and moving away is the answer. Sometimes you can see more clearly when the minutiae that is day to day life is removed. Sometimes you have to leave the forest to see the trees. Sometimes when you see the trees you realize what you really want to see is the mountains.

Our stories in life are largely unwritten. By which I mean that the story is both writing itself and completing itself as one bobs along. It takes diligent forethought to pause in the midst of chaos and mentally project the anticipated outcomes. Then it takes courage to pick and choose the one that fits the narrative that you want your life to be. So many choices. So many outcomes. So many eventualities. 

I have always wanted to live a life of adventure. I recognize that that word, adventure, means something different to me than it does to others and that life itself is a choose your own adventure book. Specifically to me adventure is always having the ability to have a plan for the the next thing, then the next. I know that some people crave stability and consistency. I am not one of them. I prefer to discover what's around the next river bend. 

What is the point? The point is that I find that the more paths I delve into the wider the options become. That I find myself becoming less and less encumbered by the atypical life. That I really, really like being free. That I have found birds to fly with whose melody compliments my harmony.

I am pretty darn happy. 

Life is good.

A

Reciprocal Music

My daughter told me recently that outside of the natural world, nothing is actually correctly tuned. Orchestras, bands, & singers are all just the same amount of out of tune. I sat listening to a brass ensemble tonight and realized that the same could be said of life. None of us are correctly tuned, we just find humans that are as out of tune as we are and decide to play with them.

All is perfect until someone breaks enough hairs in their inner ear and suddenly what sounded melodious before now grates the ears and nerves. People are like that. We grow out of, into, around, and beyond friendships.

My new favorite word is reciprocity. The dictionary definition of reciprocity is: the practice of exchanging things with others for mutual benefit. The practice of - so something that is an expected norm, something that happens with regularity. Exchanging things with others- there is a tangible give and give; not a give and take wherein one does the giving and someone else does the taking. Both are giving. For mutual benefit- the regular interchange is valuable to both parties. Wow. What a great word.

I am applying it to my life. How many relationships can you, can anyone, say that they have that are reciprocal? Generally relationships are unbalanced. One or both people feeling like they are doing the lion's share of the giving. I think that occurs when the exchange isn't mutually beneficial. Not all love languages are the same, some need translation.

I have been evaluating my relationships through the lens of reciprocity. Granted it may seem like I am making myself to be the standard for reciprocity, I am not, at the same time it is my blog- I get to tell the story the way that makes sense to me. Writer's prerogative that I see my story through my lens. My need for reciprocity is based on what is valuable to me. 

What I realized was that I need time away. I am exhausted from pouring so much into so many. I blame myself, I am writing my story. Probably there was a part of me that liked to be needed. To be the resource. To be the go to. The 30 year old part of me. I'm about to start my 4th decade of life and what I really want is to surround myself with people who hear my tune. Is this what 40 brings? A new understanding of what you will and won't allow in your life? Is this the "midlife crisis" that everyone talks about? The one where to validate yourself you buy a new car? 

Maybe all it really is is people that are tired of being taken from by those who don't give back. I don't know. I obviously don't know much- the older I get the less I am sure of. But I am sure of this- Until the next word, reciprocity is my favorite one. And while that is the case I need to make sure I surround myself with the group that plays to the same tune as mine.

The tune of reciprocity.

A








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