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
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