blahh

What do you do when nothing is wrong? When you are going through life, there are going to be times where there are obvious challenges ahead of you and your task is to think hard, work harder and do whatever it takes to get through it. From these challenges, we learn and grow and become generally better. And hell, more often than not we find a way to roll some good times into that process. But what do we do when nothing is, in fact, wrong?

You would think this scenario is a near nirvana, the utopia that we constantly search for throughout our lives. But just because nothing is wrong, does not mean that everything is right. Or anything for that matter. When things are wrong, we push ourselves. When things are right, we work to maintain that same level of satisfaction. But when things are neither, there is little reason to work for any reason; you have dug yourself a rut and you are safely trudging away in it.

The monotonous back and forth of daily life only deepens the lame state of being. And the only way out is to identify your place in that rut and strengthen yourself mentally and physically to remove yourself from it. Little is going to present itself as a means of forcing new behavior or reinforcing existing ones. 

Sometimes I find myself waiting for a sign. A sign that I am doing something right, or wrong, or anything. Because, frankly, this rut is killing me. I have worn away the ground beneath me in my frantic pacing. The walls grow as the ground sinks, closing me into the chamber I have put myself in; a physical representation of the feelings whizzing around my being. But I am not so sure the sign will show itself. 

So I must pick a direction and force myself to travel thusly. Even if it is not right, it should be wrong enough to force me to want to make it right once more.

is this real life?

Anyone that knows me knows that I love a good crime drama. I love to escape into the fantasy of chasing the bad guy and determining why a crafted villan executed his absurd crimes. The problem is that recently, I can barely differentiate the terrifying reality of the local news with the fantastic escape of these made up tales. The crime scenes are not sets built to look familiar, they are the stores I frequent and neighborhoods I have driven through on streets that I know. The responding officers are not actors, they are my neighbors. The blood of the wounded and killed is not from the prop closet, it is from the hearts of those that loved people close to me and protected our homes.

How is this real? I know that being in a "lockdown" is to keep us safe so I try to take comfort in a day at home. But then I watch SWAT teams invade not a camp in a warzone... or a city in another country... or even a city in a different state, but the neighborhood down the street. Down the street. That's not a random mall that they are using as a terrorist-tracking base camp, that's the mall I was at last week - there is a military vehicle where I parked my Corolla last week. This doesn't happen here. It happens, but it doesn't happen HERE.

Shit just got real and I am NOT handling it well. And this is barely happening to me.

I am one of the lucky ones - I got the "you're next-door, so you lockdown too" warning. I got the "shaken, but ok" responses from my panicked texts and frantic calls. I got to respond with "good, please stay safe" and someone was alive and well on the receiving end. There are others out there that are not that lucky. They are sitting in their houses, afraid to watch the chaos unfolding outside their front door, literally. They are in hospital rooms or worse, staring at make-shift memorials trying to wrap their minds about how they are going to continue on without loved ones.

So if I'm removed, why can't I handle it? Because this is what it means to be human: to feel on behalf of someone else. And even though we want to remove ourselves from such horrible experiences, we cannot ignore what hits home. We use physical distance to create emotional distance from tragedy because without that defense mechanism we would never be able to muster-up the strength to exist, but then it happens down the street and you have no choice but to be affected.

So here we are Boston, being affected. And it sucks. But so far we have done a damn good job. We have helped each other, we have informed each other, we have been there for each other, and we are feeling for each other. We are Boston Strong and we will continue to live up to our reputation of being the tough, resilient city at the foundation of America.

"You showed us, Boston, that in the face of evil, Americans will lift up what's good. In the face of cruelty, we will choose compassion. In the face of those who would visit death upon innocents, we will choose to save and to comfort and to heal. We'll choose friendship. We'll choose love." - President Barack Obama

Boston, you're my home. And I cannot wait until it is a wicked peaceful place once more.

oh the things you can think

A poem.
(And yes it is one of those ones that doesn't rhyme.)

So many things I want to do.
No.
I want to hear your voice.

No, not yours...
I'm talking to him.
The one that loves me even though he shouldn't.
So yeah, not you... Not you at all.

Want.
I wish I took the chance.
I can't,
It's not right.
We can't.

Emptiness.
It fills me from the inside.
The desperation,
Longing to fill it.

Love.
You will.
It isn't fair.
Not to you.

Sad.
I want to call him too...
And him.
Just tell me I am ok.
Anyone.

Cry.
Because it hurts.
If you care, it can't work.
Not good enough.

Selfish.
Get what I want, what I need.
Use any and all of you the way you used me.
That's not who I am, or is it?
I need to put me first, but I can't.
Contradiction.

Think.
I don't want you forever.
I just want you for now.
And him tomorrow and her the day after that.

Regret.
Too unsure of you, more unsure of me.
Loneliness hurts.
Insecurity hurts more.

Life.
Pretending I dont hate what it's doing to me.
Pretending that I have to keep putting up with it.
Pretending my life is quirkily awesome rather than painfully tragic.
Pretending I'm over it.

Alright.
Not now.
Seems like never.
Change someday.
Pretending.

life: it's just notthat pretty.

I was driving home today and it hit me.  What?  Nothing.  As I was driving from my childhood home to my apartment (which will soon no longer be), I got swept up in this big feeling of nothingness- I was washed with the realization that I was empty.  How could this be?  I have been working for a year to be anything but empty.  I thought I was finally at a point where I was the only one who can build me up or tear me down.  Isn't that what all this hard work was for?  So that I could be the master of my environment and not the other way around?

And beyond that, even if I wasn't as on top of my game as I thought, what in my environment was even making me feel this way?   I have everything I need, maybe not everything I want, but who does?  My environment would be more than pleasing from most people.  But for some reason I was blindsided with this desolate nothingness.  

I think I need to find that one thing that makes everything else all fall together.  As freeing as it is to be in your early 20s with nothing holding you down but your own will.  But really it's terrifying.  There is no direction, barely a suggestion of where to go.  Everything is so far up in the air that you barely think it's going to fall down, let alone where it may or may not fall.  So hard to make forward progress when you can barely see what lies ahead.  I am starving for that one thing that gives me the direction I'm lacking.  but in order to get that one thing I know I am going to have to take a risk.  

Taking a risk is never easy- the definition of risk is going in blind and hoping for the best out come while knowing that failure is a high possibility.  It's scary, but in order to have a starting point fore the rest of my life, it is that time.  As Britney Spears says, "I'm not a girl, not yet a woman" (yes I am quoting Britney, do not judge me)- I have to take that risk as a girl with nothing in the word holding me back and keep the responsible woman in me at bay with the confidence that I am doing this for her, so she can figure out what is to come.  Time to take the deep breath and jump into the unknown- its the only way forward.