CH-CH-CH-CHANGES...
"Turn and face the strange, ch-ch-changes."
"You can't be chased by something you turn around and face." - label on a bottle of Synergy Kombucha
So, turning. And facing. And changes. These are the themes we're working with today. They're also crutches that I will lean on as I realize it's been months since I've posted or written a blasted word for any reason at all. It's strange how the experience of living can stagnate due to life itself. My mindset has always focused on the belief that you are in control of your outlook, your actions, and how you approach your daily life. To a certain extent I still believe this to be true, but I also realize that each immediate moment is not separate or static from all other moments in my life. The reverberations of actions from the past will continue to cause ripples in the experiences of each present moment. This can cause a lot of white noise that keeps me from knowing a moment of peace or creative expression.
In other words, I work four jobs, I have five roommates, I keep a list of ten books to read each month, and I have countless curiosities to attempt fulfillment of. Additionally, incidentally, alas, there are eighteen hours (if I'm true to my REM cycle) with which to attend to these various numbered things.
One thing is certain, and it is that I am in the thick of it all. Not commencing, not completing, but right there muddling through my life in the most fantastic and wonderous of ways. The anxiety has ceased and both the beginning and end of the road are far out of eye's sight or intuition's senses. For quite some time I was waiting for things to begin; for decisions to mean something and to be weighty with significance (decisions made under the watchful eye and above the cushiony safety net of school systems and privately funded education mean alarmingly little if we are truly honest). Then I was fearful of what might/could/should/will/won't happen if/when I do/don't make/avoid any potential decision/step. Too many paths diverged in a labrynth and I took no path because I was tentative and cautious and mild and afraid.
One of the scariest things I have realized as I grow older (I choose to avoid the term 'grow up' because I don't think anyone ever should. Grow up, that is.) is that opportunities certainly present themselves to be taken, but they will not always lead down a path of least resistance or most successes. Only when taken properly are they of value at all, and even then their value is to your own internal happiness more than anything truly quantifiable. Being at peace with this fact is the only way to live with your own decisions. Tallying up your rights and wrongs changes nothing of external value, and is detrimental to the soul that lives within your physical self.
I am asked (I would more specifically choose the term berated, but that makes me seem more rancorous than I would like) constantly about why I am where I am in life, what my future goals are, and what I really 'want to do.' These questions agitate me because they are the wrong questions. What I want to do is everything. What I want to learn is everything. What I want to see and feel and experience is everything there is. I know this is an impossible goal and that is why I reach for it. I want to learn trades and languages and names and lessons. My goal is to live before my life is one day extinguished, and to accept and enjoy that my place in life is as a piece of dust in a universe of complexities and purposeful chaos.
Human beings are constantly lecturing themselves about giving up the toxic things in their lives. For me, currently, I am trying to cut down on desk jobs and television. Does this make living in middle class America more difficult? Yes. Is it worth it? Double Yes. I see a landscape of possibilities before me as an expanse moving constantly outward in every direction. Unlike the labrynth of anxiety and choice of my formative years, this is a sweeping vista of beautiful complexity and occasion for success and for failure in equal measure. Wandering, mouth agape, through this metaphorical scenery is what I will lay blame to when considering why I have not written a blog post in months and months and months.
I also work weird hours, but let's just leave it at "wandering through sweeping metaphorical vista of possibility" because that sounds a lot more like Norman Rockwell painting a storyboard scene for The Lovely Bones.