Carve my own path.
Looking back on it... forward... any which way really, I have always thought that this was exactly what I was doing. I have been through things, lived through things, caused things that some people would never understand; and then there are those who would. We underestimate people... especially the people we love because we are so terrified of getting hurt. We’re scared to be left behind, as if the truth as we know it were a total lie. That’s all the truth is... it’s what we know, as individuals; our interpretation of some cosmic unavoidable event. Maybe I’ll return to that thought, but for right now I want to stick with this one, which is that I am a horrible friend sometimes.
I owe a really close friend of mine a really big apology. A friend who, for nearly a year now, has seen me through the hits that just wouldn’t stop coming after I got back from Denver; we’ll just call them “Q.” We reconnected, as is usually our way... whether that is our paths constantly crossing (“cosmic unavoidable event”) or some innate ability to find each other when it almost seems out of dire necessity – I still haven’t figured out yet. For the most part, Q and I started talking again because Q needed someone to listen... and I needed to hear someone else’s voice inside my head besides my own. I could sit here and pretend that I have no idea how this situation switched, but I got over lying to myself a long time ago. So the truth, as I see it, would be that I needed someone other than myself to hear me.
You take people like that for granted sometimes. Believe me, I know, which is why I’m kicking myself at 5 in the morning because I’ve now been on both sides of that fence. Yeah, my life has royally sucked on occasion, and yeah, there are bad days and there are worse days... and there are really good freakin’ days. This does not give me any right to diminish Q’s truth, to make it seem as if Q’s problems – whatever they may be... I hope one day I’m trusted enough to find out – are somehow less than mine. There’s a deep, deafening sadness to it... that two tragic lives find each other so constantly. Are we hopeless? Is it because it’s something comfortable or is there something “cosmic” to our lives? The question I find myself asking a lot lately is... why Q?
Li-Young Lee said something that’s stuck with me ever since he came for a reading at Oswego last year. He told us to think of all the steps that have to occur in a precise order, at a precise time... to create one rain drop. Not his exact words, but they’re on my facebook somewhere. The point is, think of all the steps that have to occur in order for you to be held up at your front door because a delivery you’ve been waiting for all week has just arrived, and so you just miss the red light and you’re standing on that sidewalk with the blinking red hand telling you it is not your turn to go when that first rain drop falls, and it’s cold and it’s wet as it slips down your cheek. Imagine if that rain drop were specifically designed to fall on you...
Where are the coincidences? I’m blowing my own mind here. Let me back up a bit.
We underestimate people and their truths because, as prideful creatures, we hate to be disappointed; we hate to be wrong. No one is ever truly who we thought they’d be. Sometimes they can surprise us... with the good and the not so good. Over time, some of us learn to expect the worst out of people... we have to relearn how to let ourselves be surprised. I appreciate Q for everything. It wasn’t at all the person I expected to be trying to help me through some ridiculous – some not so ridiculous – things, but I wouldn’t trade Q for anyone else. That qualifies as a good surprise.
Carve my own path.
Thinking on it, I’ve always found more fulfillment in surprising myself then in waiting for other people to step up and surprise me. Which was always mom’s big advice – you can’t expect people to live up to any expectation you wouldn’t hold yourself to.
So I’ll leave those reading this with the amazing words of one Leigh Wilson, “She is a rolling stone. She gathers no moss.”
Blog Theme song:
Yours in a rolling Peanut Tin,
Carissa
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
...I should've proudly claimed that oh my head's to blame for all my heart's mistakes...
Not to toot my own horn, but... I’m good at a lot of things, not great, but good. Like a jack-of-all-trades kind of good, never perfecting it; never making it into something worthwhile before moving on to something else. Currently, and for the past few months, mostly I’ve been really good at making a mess out of my life. Not just small aspects of it either, it’s pretty much been a mess of my entire life – personal, emotional, physical, mental.
So I’ve decided that I need something consistent and while re-reading the Percy Jackson series has kept me fairly grounded the last few weeks, I’ve finished it again, it’s left me with an itch to do something more. The job search has sucked, but I haven’t given up... I can’t, and there’s still an offer lingering in the back of my head that I can’t shake, but I should. The something consistent I think has a lot more to do with my writing than anything else because if nothing else, I’ve let myself falter when it comes to the thing that I would tell everyone was my saving grace. I definitely need some of that right now.
I’m going to try to use this blog for just that, again, but just as before it might not exactly work. I have to try though. Starting with these crazy thoughts that have been going through my head. Well, the last two days my head has been filled with Greek gods and demigods and the awesome story Rick Riordan has written, and is still writing, bringing Greek mythology into the present, but I’ll get to that a little later. Before all the gods and demigods filtered into my head, I was thinking a lot about my generation, about the kids born mid 80s early 90s.
We’re the “life is too short” generation. I think that has a lot to do with the Y2K scare we all faced as kids – my parents and neighbors toasted with champagne and I would’ve died along side people who weren’t very fond of me – and then the attack on the Twin Towers... and the war that’s still happening. I think yet another end of the world scare looming over us for 2012 has come just in time to welcome another generation of neurotics into the fold. The good part about the whole “life is too short” argument is how it gets many people to own up to their fears and take that risk sooner rather than later – the bad part is what if you aren’t prepared for the consequences? We talk about kids growing up faster and faster these days and I can’t help but wonder if that’s because we’re all trying to look at the bigger picture and missing the smaller pieces that make the picture whole.
We’re scared. I’m terrified; terrified of being in this room forever, of never doing anything worthwhile or living up to the expectations people have for me – the expectations I have for myself. In the words of one Colin Singleton, "How do you just stop being terrified of getting left behind and ending up by yourself forever and not meaning anything to the world?” (An Abundance of Katherines) The how, for me, comes from stories like Percy’s and Naruto (yeah, I’m a nerd)... it comes from Margo and Alaska... you just can’t ever give up.
Fear is paralyzing. I am scared of so many things. I’m scared of failing, of letting myself and others down. I’m scared of success, of getting a taste of what it’s truly like to know what you want and to get it because you deserve it... because what if the success doesn’t last forever? But a lot of the time, I’m simply just too terrified to follow my broken heart because my rational head gets in the way, and I walk away from closed doors I should be walking through; I walk away from people I’m too terrified to walk towards. Which puts a big red circle around my biggest fault because that doesn’t come from my fear... it comes from that broken heart I sometimes can’t follow. It doesn’t let go easily... or give way to change. It won’t close, but it’s never really open either – keeping things, people at a distance. And it gives way to my conscience so willingly... steps away from people it believes need me are so unbearably heavy. It’s gotten harder to tell myself day after day that I can’t give up... that this room which was inhabited by that 13-year-old girl is no longer a place of refuge, but a box I have become so much bigger than.
Something inside me pushes on though. It’s my inner demigod ; )
Yes, I am kidding. I promise, but it does change the topic. Rick and his demigods have been plaguing my existence as a reader since Christmas and it’s become very frustrating. I haven’t been able to pick up anything since reading The Lost Hero – it angered me that much, it was so good and so shocking at the same time – and I thought I’d re-read Percy and everything would be fine, but after finishing I’m not too sure about the fineness of it. I feel like I should pick up The Hunger Games or there was another series I came across that I thought sounded really interesting, but I can’t think of it off the top of my head right now. It’s awful being surrounded by these awesome books (The Book Thief, Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares, for cripes sake I even asked for Peter Pan), knowing they’re awesome, and not being able to dive head first into them.
I’ve written a lot for trying to get back into the saddle and while I could probably go on for pages and pages, I think I’ll let all this sink in for now. However, I’ll leave you with the theme song for this particular entry:
Yours in a contemplative Peanut Tin,
Carissa
So I’ve decided that I need something consistent and while re-reading the Percy Jackson series has kept me fairly grounded the last few weeks, I’ve finished it again, it’s left me with an itch to do something more. The job search has sucked, but I haven’t given up... I can’t, and there’s still an offer lingering in the back of my head that I can’t shake, but I should. The something consistent I think has a lot more to do with my writing than anything else because if nothing else, I’ve let myself falter when it comes to the thing that I would tell everyone was my saving grace. I definitely need some of that right now.
I’m going to try to use this blog for just that, again, but just as before it might not exactly work. I have to try though. Starting with these crazy thoughts that have been going through my head. Well, the last two days my head has been filled with Greek gods and demigods and the awesome story Rick Riordan has written, and is still writing, bringing Greek mythology into the present, but I’ll get to that a little later. Before all the gods and demigods filtered into my head, I was thinking a lot about my generation, about the kids born mid 80s early 90s.
We’re the “life is too short” generation. I think that has a lot to do with the Y2K scare we all faced as kids – my parents and neighbors toasted with champagne and I would’ve died along side people who weren’t very fond of me – and then the attack on the Twin Towers... and the war that’s still happening. I think yet another end of the world scare looming over us for 2012 has come just in time to welcome another generation of neurotics into the fold. The good part about the whole “life is too short” argument is how it gets many people to own up to their fears and take that risk sooner rather than later – the bad part is what if you aren’t prepared for the consequences? We talk about kids growing up faster and faster these days and I can’t help but wonder if that’s because we’re all trying to look at the bigger picture and missing the smaller pieces that make the picture whole.
We’re scared. I’m terrified; terrified of being in this room forever, of never doing anything worthwhile or living up to the expectations people have for me – the expectations I have for myself. In the words of one Colin Singleton, "How do you just stop being terrified of getting left behind and ending up by yourself forever and not meaning anything to the world?” (An Abundance of Katherines) The how, for me, comes from stories like Percy’s and Naruto (yeah, I’m a nerd)... it comes from Margo and Alaska... you just can’t ever give up.
Fear is paralyzing. I am scared of so many things. I’m scared of failing, of letting myself and others down. I’m scared of success, of getting a taste of what it’s truly like to know what you want and to get it because you deserve it... because what if the success doesn’t last forever? But a lot of the time, I’m simply just too terrified to follow my broken heart because my rational head gets in the way, and I walk away from closed doors I should be walking through; I walk away from people I’m too terrified to walk towards. Which puts a big red circle around my biggest fault because that doesn’t come from my fear... it comes from that broken heart I sometimes can’t follow. It doesn’t let go easily... or give way to change. It won’t close, but it’s never really open either – keeping things, people at a distance. And it gives way to my conscience so willingly... steps away from people it believes need me are so unbearably heavy. It’s gotten harder to tell myself day after day that I can’t give up... that this room which was inhabited by that 13-year-old girl is no longer a place of refuge, but a box I have become so much bigger than.
Something inside me pushes on though. It’s my inner demigod ; )
Yes, I am kidding. I promise, but it does change the topic. Rick and his demigods have been plaguing my existence as a reader since Christmas and it’s become very frustrating. I haven’t been able to pick up anything since reading The Lost Hero – it angered me that much, it was so good and so shocking at the same time – and I thought I’d re-read Percy and everything would be fine, but after finishing I’m not too sure about the fineness of it. I feel like I should pick up The Hunger Games or there was another series I came across that I thought sounded really interesting, but I can’t think of it off the top of my head right now. It’s awful being surrounded by these awesome books (The Book Thief, Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares, for cripes sake I even asked for Peter Pan), knowing they’re awesome, and not being able to dive head first into them.
I’ve written a lot for trying to get back into the saddle and while I could probably go on for pages and pages, I think I’ll let all this sink in for now. However, I’ll leave you with the theme song for this particular entry:
Yours in a contemplative Peanut Tin,
Carissa
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