Life is a verb. It's about what we do. It is an action, forward motion, forward progression toward a desired destination. At any given moment, you could be living for a better job, living for a better relationship with lost friends, living for a lost opportunity to have kids with the man you love, living for the moment when you might hear your boyfriend say "I love you" for the first time.
I once read that you had to identify what you want, plan out how to get, then the hardest part--do it! Life is identifying your wants, figuring out how to get them, and then doing something about it.
And the thing that just is befuddles me is our expectations. It should be easier to DO IT, whatever we decide IT to be as we get older. My mom said it best. "I think it's harder. The stakes are higher. You have more to loose."
Life is both your choice and how you decide to live it. And it's not like a train that makes stops. I heard this great quote in a movie once that sums up my point. "This is your life- it doesn't wait for you to get back on your feet." We sometimes get derailed, stalled, and have to slam on the breaks when something unexpected is in our way, preventing us from moving forward.
It makes that choice to live and progress a longer thought process, at least it is for me. You think about it longer. You wait. You waste precious time. You try to convince yourself that it will be ok if it does not go according to your hopes or plans. But really, rarely does live ever go as planned. You can hope. But at some point you will have to close your eyes and act. Take a leap and put yourself out there, working toward your goal.
Then comes gravity and all it's infinite weight and density. The gravity of action. The gravity of a feared result. Gravity of the real possibility that the happy ending really won't be happy or the end at all. Sometimes the choices we make, the actions we take, lead to the dead end of the train tracks. There is no where to go in sight. You have to make a path. And you have no idea where to begin.
It's about follow-through. This is your life. And no one is going to fight for it except for you.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
What I know about Grace and Growing up
I don't care how old I am today, at any given time I can go back to being 5 years old again. Mentally that is.
When I think about being an adult, one word rings through my head: responsibility. No wonder that's all our parents and elders talk about. The concept has had time to sink into them while it seems foreign when I was younger. As I have grown, the people around me have taught me how to behave with grace and elegance. I am not sure how much of that actually pans out in my actions but I try to think about it every time I want to act badly.
And when I want to act badly, I feel 5 years old again. I want to get all huffy, stomp my feet, yell, throw my arms around, and go sit in a corner with my arms crossed. I am not sure if I ever did that when I was 5 but I've seen enough other children do it at that age to feel fairly confident I had a moment or two that looked like that.
Well I think those moments where you mentally go back to being 5 years old never go away. No matter how old I am, the feeling of wanting to act like that angry 5 year old when I am frustrated doesn't disappear with time.
I am not sure why we act like that when we are actually 5 but I know that I want to act like that at 27 because I feel powerless at times. Powerless to change certain obstacles or frustrations. Powerless to make people behave or feel a certain way. Powerless to overcome that which stands in my way between a happy good day and a powerless "I really want to act like a pissed off 5 year old" day. And I recognize how immature it sounds to want to act like that. I don't think it's a conscious want to be that way but more the fact that at one time, it was tolerable to behave that way without too many hellish consequences. At 5 years old, you go to bed without being able to finish your dinner and you don't get to watch tv. At 27, you could get fired, lose your apartment, lose your car, lose your friends, lose your dignity, lose your credibility.
I asked someone at work today "How do responsible adults develop healthy coping mechanisms for stress? Are they just better at it than me or are they just better at dealing with things because they have been working at it longer than me?." To which my co-worker said "Yeah, it must be that they've been doing it longer because I've been dealing with shit for 15 years and I'm still learning how to handle that better."
When I think about who handles stress the best, I think about my mom and how I learned to try and embody that from her.
My mom has always been in a high position of power at academic institutions. She has always worked very hard, become the best at what she does, and gained the respect of her fellow peers every step of the way. But when there are challenges, the severity of them is always on a very large, significant scale. I guess that's what you agree to take on when you are in a position of power; you agree to take the credit when it's good and the responsibility if it's bad.
But whenever I saw an issue that my mom tackled, she did it with Grace. I never once got the sense that she wanted to refer back to her 5 year old self. She was the person who handled that situation as it came, in the moment. I saw strength, perseverance, and poise in her determination. I still do to this day.
So when I mentally jump to the 5 year old having a "spazz out- party of 1" session, I think about my mom. I think about the face she would give me if she knew what I was thinking. I can see her face so stern and almost sad with her arms crossed. I can hear her gentle voice saying "you don't really think that's going to help you accomplish anything do you?" I can see her face relax as I mentally go back somewhere more healthy and less well, immature. I can see her face then smiling as I give up the 5 year old self and start becoming my 27 year old self again. The thoughts of rage and anxiety are replaced with perspective and determination.
On any given day, I can so clearly envision my mother smiling at me with pride. I want her to be proud of me. I want me to be proud of me. And 5 year old me doesn't make anybody proud. But 27 year old me has and that is who I have to remember to be when things go south. I got this far, I survived worse along the way, and bad is relative. When I think about all the reasons my mom would smile at me with pride, none of them are about me wanting to go back to being 5 years old.
So maybe coping is not just about acting appropriately. Perhaps it's just about letting yourself mentally go backwards before moving forward with grace in reality.
When I think about being an adult, one word rings through my head: responsibility. No wonder that's all our parents and elders talk about. The concept has had time to sink into them while it seems foreign when I was younger. As I have grown, the people around me have taught me how to behave with grace and elegance. I am not sure how much of that actually pans out in my actions but I try to think about it every time I want to act badly.
And when I want to act badly, I feel 5 years old again. I want to get all huffy, stomp my feet, yell, throw my arms around, and go sit in a corner with my arms crossed. I am not sure if I ever did that when I was 5 but I've seen enough other children do it at that age to feel fairly confident I had a moment or two that looked like that.
Well I think those moments where you mentally go back to being 5 years old never go away. No matter how old I am, the feeling of wanting to act like that angry 5 year old when I am frustrated doesn't disappear with time.
I am not sure why we act like that when we are actually 5 but I know that I want to act like that at 27 because I feel powerless at times. Powerless to change certain obstacles or frustrations. Powerless to make people behave or feel a certain way. Powerless to overcome that which stands in my way between a happy good day and a powerless "I really want to act like a pissed off 5 year old" day. And I recognize how immature it sounds to want to act like that. I don't think it's a conscious want to be that way but more the fact that at one time, it was tolerable to behave that way without too many hellish consequences. At 5 years old, you go to bed without being able to finish your dinner and you don't get to watch tv. At 27, you could get fired, lose your apartment, lose your car, lose your friends, lose your dignity, lose your credibility.
I asked someone at work today "How do responsible adults develop healthy coping mechanisms for stress? Are they just better at it than me or are they just better at dealing with things because they have been working at it longer than me?." To which my co-worker said "Yeah, it must be that they've been doing it longer because I've been dealing with shit for 15 years and I'm still learning how to handle that better."
When I think about who handles stress the best, I think about my mom and how I learned to try and embody that from her.
My mom has always been in a high position of power at academic institutions. She has always worked very hard, become the best at what she does, and gained the respect of her fellow peers every step of the way. But when there are challenges, the severity of them is always on a very large, significant scale. I guess that's what you agree to take on when you are in a position of power; you agree to take the credit when it's good and the responsibility if it's bad.
But whenever I saw an issue that my mom tackled, she did it with Grace. I never once got the sense that she wanted to refer back to her 5 year old self. She was the person who handled that situation as it came, in the moment. I saw strength, perseverance, and poise in her determination. I still do to this day.
So when I mentally jump to the 5 year old having a "spazz out- party of 1" session, I think about my mom. I think about the face she would give me if she knew what I was thinking. I can see her face so stern and almost sad with her arms crossed. I can hear her gentle voice saying "you don't really think that's going to help you accomplish anything do you?" I can see her face relax as I mentally go back somewhere more healthy and less well, immature. I can see her face then smiling as I give up the 5 year old self and start becoming my 27 year old self again. The thoughts of rage and anxiety are replaced with perspective and determination.
On any given day, I can so clearly envision my mother smiling at me with pride. I want her to be proud of me. I want me to be proud of me. And 5 year old me doesn't make anybody proud. But 27 year old me has and that is who I have to remember to be when things go south. I got this far, I survived worse along the way, and bad is relative. When I think about all the reasons my mom would smile at me with pride, none of them are about me wanting to go back to being 5 years old.
So maybe coping is not just about acting appropriately. Perhaps it's just about letting yourself mentally go backwards before moving forward with grace in reality.
Friday, May 7, 2010
Life on Friday
People have been telling me all my life to write. Someone told me today I should have a blog. So didn't want to be rude by letting people think I can't rise to the occasion. So here is my attempt at documenting life as I see it and feel it, day by day. I hope it touches whoever reads this in some way.
Today I am one day closer to dying. One day further away from living. Yet I am alive. But the reality of life and death paid me a visit today.
I found out a girl from my college graduating class passed away last year. Considering our 5 year anniversary is this year and I am 27, this is a shock. Even more shocking was that she was in medical school and died of brain cancer. Can you imagine, being in school and learning about everything that can destroy the body and how to fix it, and then hear that you are diagnosed with one of the very things you are learning about how to eradicate? She was 26 I think. I did not know her well. But looking at her pictures made me think of her smile when ever I saw her. She had kind eyes and a bright white teeth and perfectly blond hair.
The scary thing was, I had no idea until I got an email from the people organizing our 5 year reunion saying they would hold a memorial service for her at our reunion. Everyone in our graduating class got that email. How freaking sad? People you know, dying, gone and you don't even know. I wish I could know inherently, like in a psychic way, so I could do something to show that person I cared, if even in a small way. I instantly sent a message to a friend I know knew her in college. She said "I had a feeling you were gonna ask about her." I wanted to find out how she died because the memorial email did not say. It is a strange feeling to know that someone you once saw, every day, is gone. Knowing that you will never see them that way again.
The reality of mortality is ever more present the longer you live. And hearing about death to me only makes it harder to swallow, never easier. I was not friends with this girl. But hearing of her passing makes my heart sad in a very real way. To think, why her and not someone else? The scarier thought is: this will only continue to happen as I get older. And that thought is the scariest. I hate the reality of loss. How tangible it is, how unfair to seems, how unrealistic it feels to be given the gift of life only to know it will one day be taken away again. How does one come to grips with that reality? I wish I knew the answer. Because the fear of death, something that should not plague a 27 year old woman, scares the shit out of me. And however I ponder it, it never scares me less, only more.
I went to this deceased girl's facebook page. It was comment after comment about how her friends were thinking about her every day and missing her. I didn't feel right commenting on it but in a way, I want to. I hope in some alternate universe she knows that I thought about her today. I really hope so.
Today I am one day closer to dying. One day further away from living. Yet I am alive. But the reality of life and death paid me a visit today.
I found out a girl from my college graduating class passed away last year. Considering our 5 year anniversary is this year and I am 27, this is a shock. Even more shocking was that she was in medical school and died of brain cancer. Can you imagine, being in school and learning about everything that can destroy the body and how to fix it, and then hear that you are diagnosed with one of the very things you are learning about how to eradicate? She was 26 I think. I did not know her well. But looking at her pictures made me think of her smile when ever I saw her. She had kind eyes and a bright white teeth and perfectly blond hair.
The scary thing was, I had no idea until I got an email from the people organizing our 5 year reunion saying they would hold a memorial service for her at our reunion. Everyone in our graduating class got that email. How freaking sad? People you know, dying, gone and you don't even know. I wish I could know inherently, like in a psychic way, so I could do something to show that person I cared, if even in a small way. I instantly sent a message to a friend I know knew her in college. She said "I had a feeling you were gonna ask about her." I wanted to find out how she died because the memorial email did not say. It is a strange feeling to know that someone you once saw, every day, is gone. Knowing that you will never see them that way again.
The reality of mortality is ever more present the longer you live. And hearing about death to me only makes it harder to swallow, never easier. I was not friends with this girl. But hearing of her passing makes my heart sad in a very real way. To think, why her and not someone else? The scarier thought is: this will only continue to happen as I get older. And that thought is the scariest. I hate the reality of loss. How tangible it is, how unfair to seems, how unrealistic it feels to be given the gift of life only to know it will one day be taken away again. How does one come to grips with that reality? I wish I knew the answer. Because the fear of death, something that should not plague a 27 year old woman, scares the shit out of me. And however I ponder it, it never scares me less, only more.
I went to this deceased girl's facebook page. It was comment after comment about how her friends were thinking about her every day and missing her. I didn't feel right commenting on it but in a way, I want to. I hope in some alternate universe she knows that I thought about her today. I really hope so.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)