I was in a serious car accident a few nights ago. One that I am not proud of, one that I am also not ashamed of. It was a series of choices and consequences that led me to being thrown into the dashboard of a Honda Accord speeding down the 10 freeway at 3 am on a Wednesday night. Those choices involved massive consumption of tequila.
Disclaimer: I still plan on consuming tequila. Maybe not on a regular basis, and probably not so much all at once. It wasn't the alcohol that did this...well it wasn't entirely the alcohol. It was the people, drinking the alcohol, and choosing to get into cars.
We were out, celebrating. Celebrating my birthday actually, a few weeks early, but it was the only day everyone seemed able to come out. The party was a blast, good music, good people, dancing, festivities. All things that I like. We were close to my home, in the same town...no need to get on the freeway. So why did we get on the freeway? That is a question that will likely never be answered. I left the celebration with a male friend (who really is a whole other story...or a non story anymore). *Confession: Maybe not exactly at the moment, but in the very recent past I had been aware that this friend drinks and drives.* I was not paying any attention what so ever to how much alcohol he was consuming at the party. In all seriousness, I figure that he had a little to drink, or maybe even more than a little, but I felt sure that we were going to get home safely. Or did I? Did I even think about getting home safely? Here is where my level of alcohol consumption comes into play. I was so drunk that I didn't make a conscious decision to figure out if the person who would be transporting my life from point A to point B was sober enough to do so safely. Instead, I got in the car and passed the fuck out. Out of habit, thankfully, I buckled my safety belt before slipping away into unconsciousness (slipping away? more like I was already there).
The story picks back up for me when I wake up, startled, confused, shocked, scared as I look to my left and see the driver of the vehicle against an inflated air bag. At that moment it registered that something happened and I looked in front of me to see my airbag and myself covered in glass. I don't know how long I sat like that before the police arrived, but when they did, they helped me out of the car and checked me out. I didn't seem to have any broken bones (xrays confirmed this later) or huge gashes, just scrapes and bruises. They asked me lots of questions. I felt like a baby bird that had fallen from it's nest, stunned and shaking. I was still not sober, and really confused. Meanwhile, the driver of the car was getting arrested for Driving Under the Influence and shuttled off to jail. "What happened?" they kept asking..."good question" was all I could reply. Did I need the paramedics or to go to the hospital? Maybe...but I declined. I wanted to go home, and so they took me.
I woke up the next morning with glass in my shorts, and a bad hangover. Or was it a concussion? Either way I alternated between puking and sleeping all day, barely coming to terms with what had happened little than 6 hours before. What happened...?
That night, the male-friend driver came over. He had spent the last 24 hours in jail wondering what the hell happened and if I was OK. He could hardly look me in the eyes. "What happened?" I asked. "I don't know," was his answer. I don't know what we hit. He doesn't know what we hit. The police don't know what we hit. A guard rail? Another car? A deer? God??? No answers. No one knows. The police think, according to the angle of our car and the damage, that we were hit. That another car, perhaps a drunk driver as well hit us, and never stopped.
The next morning I woke up like a zombie. I cried off and on all day. I went to Urgent Care to make sure I was fully intact and as far as they could tell I was. The effect of the trauma however was truly expressing itself through my depression. I stayed in that state most of the day, which was yesterday. I forced myself to hang out with some friends in the evening, and that really did lift my spirits and help me laugh. It also brought about discussion of "what next" and how what had happened was the most text book cliche of a life changing experience.
That brings me to today. 3 days after a serious accident i've heard that your injuries should feel worse. Mine feel better. I also feel clear that my life is very very valuable to me. I thought that I valued my life, in the way that anyone who hasn't come close to loosing it has valued their life maybe. I feel clear that there is a tremendous amount of momentum behind me propelling me into forward motion. I feel clear that now is the time to ride that momentum and change and shift into where and what I am on the verge of becoming...which is me...the same me that has always been...but more me than has ever been. It is time to have value in my work life and I feel that a shift is happening there. But it isn't that I am giving all of my power to this event and to this force. I am feeling my own power. My power to take responsibility and make this life what I want. It feels as though I have no other choice at this point, like there is no going back to wherever back was. I cannot shrink into the same stifling habits any longer. It's time to put in work and really show up. I'm not getting run over this time, or anytime. I'm here. I'm really here.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Friday, March 11, 2011
Offering it up to.......
What is it with resistance? Do we resist anything other than change? Sometimes I resist the urge to shove a cookie in my mouth, or to quit doing sit ups. It seems however that anytime change is nearing, I immediately want to cling tightly to my current and past experiences, and avoid the oncoming endeavor. It is such a strange reaction because I really do know that change isn't bad. I have been through enough changes in my life to truly know that by surrendering and keeping a positive attitude render the "dreaded" change generally harmless. If it isn't harmless, it is at least a learning experience which is the reason I am alive anyway. So either way, no matter what happens, everything is as it should be. So why, still, do I feel that certain stress, the digging of my heals into the earth, my nails sharply scratching at whatever it is that I am so afraid will go away...
It isn't the actual change that I am afraid of. It is the times before the change and after the change- the adjustment period. It is the fear of not being able to adapt. It is a fear that things will suddenly go wrong and that I won't be able to find happiness again. It is a fear that I will be left out. (I am not so sure that I even know what "wrong" is anymore.) And what is under this irrational fear of mine? (I say irrational because, as I stated above, I know that change is nothing to be fearful of.) There must be a deep hurt under these fears.
The first most gigantic change that I ever experienced in my life was that of my father passing away right before my eyes. It was a sudden thing, nothing that could have been prepared for, one second your here, the next, kaputz! Do I still have a hurting place inside about this that is unexplored? I don't think that it was his death that conjured up all of my hurting feelings more than it was what happened around me as a result of his death. We did the best we could, all of us, mourning and moving on. But maybe I left something behind, maybe some part of me got swept up in the commotion of things, the swirling of energies, the change of times.
I remember that day, knowing that my life was going to be completely different from that moment on. I remember thinking that all I had ever day dreamed, my mom and dad and brother taking vacations and laughing and being happy together, was not a possibility anymore. More than anything, I changed that day.
Working through and healing this hurt, as much as I have, has helped make it possible for me to live. I have had many opportunities to face fears and defeat them, to take life by the reigns and to steer my future in any direction of my choosing. I have traveled. I have moved many times. I have started new things and I have ended old things. But today, when my roommate announced that she would be moving out and in with her boyfriend, I felt happy for them, genuinely happy for them, and a very real shot of anxiety for me. Now I'd have to find a new roommate, new furniture and cookware, I'd have to take over the lease, I'd be loosing a friend. That is where my mind jumped to. All of those things and places that, if I slow down for a second, could really be pretty cool, except for the loosing a friend thing, that isn't really cool...But again, if I just slow down I know that if she and I are to drift apart, we will drift apart, and if we don't we won't. Can I simply be grateful for the time that we have shared? For what I have learned? For the very moment???
My only solution, the only thing that sounds completely comforting and secure to me to do with this is to just offer it up...to someone else. I have found myself in situations sometimes wondering how on earth I would handle it, or wishing it could be for someone else and not me. I have found that often things just work themselves out, and that if there are things that seem much too big for me, I don't have to carry them alone. I don't have to shove them onto someone else either, but I can ask for help. I can offer the things that I am confused, stressed, or upset about and get them off of me. Who am I making these offerings to, you ask?
Some people offer their god's delicious fruits and beautiful flowers. My god? My god gets offered all the shitty things I can't handle! And a gracious thank you. No really, I don't know if it is god, or spirit, or universe, or nothingness, I don't know what it is....perhaps it is just the space between here and there, but whatever it is, I am allowed to offer things and issues up into it's vastness. That is what it's there for. And to be honest, it feels good to know that I can do that, to know that if I can't figure anything out, that I can just throw it all up into the sky and ask for a little assistance and then tune in and see what happens.
So that is what I am going to do with this circumstance. Dear who/whatever, for however many reasons, I am having trouble figuring out how to feel, what to feel, what to do, and where to go with this current situation of having to get a new roommate. At this moment, it seems much bigger than I can handle, and I would appreciate some help. I also want to throw in there that I am open to whatever it is that may be happening for my greatest and highest good. Thanks.
Deep breath in. Deep breath out.
And now, I get to just stop thinking about it, because even if I didn't find a roommate, fix the world or heal my inner child, I did something, and the something I did is enough right now. I am sure that I will gain more insight and clarity as time moves forward with not only this situation, but also with this issue which I recognize has more to do with opening rather than just resisting.
It feels good here, in this space, like this. That is all I need to know.
It isn't the actual change that I am afraid of. It is the times before the change and after the change- the adjustment period. It is the fear of not being able to adapt. It is a fear that things will suddenly go wrong and that I won't be able to find happiness again. It is a fear that I will be left out. (I am not so sure that I even know what "wrong" is anymore.) And what is under this irrational fear of mine? (I say irrational because, as I stated above, I know that change is nothing to be fearful of.) There must be a deep hurt under these fears.
The first most gigantic change that I ever experienced in my life was that of my father passing away right before my eyes. It was a sudden thing, nothing that could have been prepared for, one second your here, the next, kaputz! Do I still have a hurting place inside about this that is unexplored? I don't think that it was his death that conjured up all of my hurting feelings more than it was what happened around me as a result of his death. We did the best we could, all of us, mourning and moving on. But maybe I left something behind, maybe some part of me got swept up in the commotion of things, the swirling of energies, the change of times.
I remember that day, knowing that my life was going to be completely different from that moment on. I remember thinking that all I had ever day dreamed, my mom and dad and brother taking vacations and laughing and being happy together, was not a possibility anymore. More than anything, I changed that day.
Working through and healing this hurt, as much as I have, has helped make it possible for me to live. I have had many opportunities to face fears and defeat them, to take life by the reigns and to steer my future in any direction of my choosing. I have traveled. I have moved many times. I have started new things and I have ended old things. But today, when my roommate announced that she would be moving out and in with her boyfriend, I felt happy for them, genuinely happy for them, and a very real shot of anxiety for me. Now I'd have to find a new roommate, new furniture and cookware, I'd have to take over the lease, I'd be loosing a friend. That is where my mind jumped to. All of those things and places that, if I slow down for a second, could really be pretty cool, except for the loosing a friend thing, that isn't really cool...But again, if I just slow down I know that if she and I are to drift apart, we will drift apart, and if we don't we won't. Can I simply be grateful for the time that we have shared? For what I have learned? For the very moment???
My only solution, the only thing that sounds completely comforting and secure to me to do with this is to just offer it up...to someone else. I have found myself in situations sometimes wondering how on earth I would handle it, or wishing it could be for someone else and not me. I have found that often things just work themselves out, and that if there are things that seem much too big for me, I don't have to carry them alone. I don't have to shove them onto someone else either, but I can ask for help. I can offer the things that I am confused, stressed, or upset about and get them off of me. Who am I making these offerings to, you ask?
Some people offer their god's delicious fruits and beautiful flowers. My god? My god gets offered all the shitty things I can't handle! And a gracious thank you. No really, I don't know if it is god, or spirit, or universe, or nothingness, I don't know what it is....perhaps it is just the space between here and there, but whatever it is, I am allowed to offer things and issues up into it's vastness. That is what it's there for. And to be honest, it feels good to know that I can do that, to know that if I can't figure anything out, that I can just throw it all up into the sky and ask for a little assistance and then tune in and see what happens.
So that is what I am going to do with this circumstance. Dear who/whatever, for however many reasons, I am having trouble figuring out how to feel, what to feel, what to do, and where to go with this current situation of having to get a new roommate. At this moment, it seems much bigger than I can handle, and I would appreciate some help. I also want to throw in there that I am open to whatever it is that may be happening for my greatest and highest good. Thanks.
Deep breath in. Deep breath out.
And now, I get to just stop thinking about it, because even if I didn't find a roommate, fix the world or heal my inner child, I did something, and the something I did is enough right now. I am sure that I will gain more insight and clarity as time moves forward with not only this situation, but also with this issue which I recognize has more to do with opening rather than just resisting.
It feels good here, in this space, like this. That is all I need to know.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
grey is my favorite color
I just read this sentence..."her ambivalence between letting go and hanging on intensifies..."
One in the same I suppose, hanging on and letting go. Both are extremes, holding tight to something, clutching it for dear life, or letting it loose, free to run through you fingers like ribbon, unsure if you will ever hold it again. Both hold a sense of urgency and perceived relief. Somehow if you hold it, it will be safe right? Or if you let it go, it will be better, safer out there doing whatever it is programed to do. The holding and releasing are only major functions of the one doing the holding or releasing, the object is not what is important, the attachment to the object is what causes all the fuss. The issue is never really the issue, it is how one reacts to the issue.
This letting go and hanging on business are made up concepts, fooling us into thinking that we "care" or have roots. These earthly constraints, these conditions that we learn and adhere to are sometimes so cleanly unlearned, yet sticky in practice. That quoted sentence I started with is about a daughter experiencing her mother's death. There is such honest beauty in the gray area of her ambivalence between those two concepts. Certainly in times of death...what can one do other than reside in that space between here and there, where it is neither safe nor unsafe, neither exciting nor depressing. That space simply is, just like life simply is. We try to make it much messier than it is, and we try to clean up the messes that we make. What would happen if we could all just observe and not judge and not try to fix everything?
One in the same I suppose, hanging on and letting go. Both are extremes, holding tight to something, clutching it for dear life, or letting it loose, free to run through you fingers like ribbon, unsure if you will ever hold it again. Both hold a sense of urgency and perceived relief. Somehow if you hold it, it will be safe right? Or if you let it go, it will be better, safer out there doing whatever it is programed to do. The holding and releasing are only major functions of the one doing the holding or releasing, the object is not what is important, the attachment to the object is what causes all the fuss. The issue is never really the issue, it is how one reacts to the issue.
This letting go and hanging on business are made up concepts, fooling us into thinking that we "care" or have roots. These earthly constraints, these conditions that we learn and adhere to are sometimes so cleanly unlearned, yet sticky in practice. That quoted sentence I started with is about a daughter experiencing her mother's death. There is such honest beauty in the gray area of her ambivalence between those two concepts. Certainly in times of death...what can one do other than reside in that space between here and there, where it is neither safe nor unsafe, neither exciting nor depressing. That space simply is, just like life simply is. We try to make it much messier than it is, and we try to clean up the messes that we make. What would happen if we could all just observe and not judge and not try to fix everything?
Mumbling to myself
I'm sitting here, musing over this impatience theme again. Ironically enough, I am sitting here, thoughtfully writing about impatience. There is some acceptance of present moment steeped in that.
I caught myself thinking about a habit I've had, in the past, to push things off until...? Until when? Until I am ready? Will I ever be any more ready than now? I think yes. Perhaps if I prepared, there is a chance I would be more ready in the future. However, am I certain that the future will ever come?
Along with that however is the simple fact that I cannot possibly do everything at once. Picking and choosing come into place, as does what opportunity presents itself. What is the percentage here...10% me, 90% life. That is all I get, 10% to fall all over, the other 90% is left up to that big tumbling lottery wheel in the sky doling out scenarios. Putting it that way really brings things into perspective; that I am a small part of a much bigger laugh in. Does this mean that I should just eat that damn cookie? Or does it mean that I should just wear the damn dress, screw loosing the 5 pounds first? Does it mean I should eat the cookie while wearing the dress? Does it mean I should not eat the cookie and loose 5 pounds?
I caught myself thinking about a habit I've had, in the past, to push things off until...? Until when? Until I am ready? Will I ever be any more ready than now? I think yes. Perhaps if I prepared, there is a chance I would be more ready in the future. However, am I certain that the future will ever come?
Along with that however is the simple fact that I cannot possibly do everything at once. Picking and choosing come into place, as does what opportunity presents itself. What is the percentage here...10% me, 90% life. That is all I get, 10% to fall all over, the other 90% is left up to that big tumbling lottery wheel in the sky doling out scenarios. Putting it that way really brings things into perspective; that I am a small part of a much bigger laugh in. Does this mean that I should just eat that damn cookie? Or does it mean that I should just wear the damn dress, screw loosing the 5 pounds first? Does it mean I should eat the cookie while wearing the dress? Does it mean I should not eat the cookie and loose 5 pounds?
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Because I Can Type, I can Have A Blog.
Anyone can have a blog. Well, anyone that can reach a computer with internet and string a few words together forming at least a semi coherent sentence. Put that way, certainly not anyone can have a blog, and surely, many people shouldn't. What makes me so special, that I am one of the "approved" millions that gets to rant it out online? I fall under the privileged category, having the tools and where with all necessary to make it happen, along with the slight ability to corral some words together into a sensical thought.
Nice to meet you.
A common theme that has been quietly haunting my life and most recently pressing with increased urgency is that of impatience. The feeling of wanting desperately to "be there" is one of such familiarity. Yet I know the worn out expression that, "it isn't the destination that is important, it's the journey." And, at fear of sounding like an insincere brat, the truth is that I am enjoying the journey. I take time to laugh and appreciate. I'm alive, I'm well, I'm surrounded with good company. But I'm no Buddha and sometimes my ego finds the opening and goes for it.
So why this impatience nipping at my heals, and how to keep it at bay?
I believe my impatience is building because I have kept it stifled at great lengths, hog tied and gagged, thrown in the trunk of my life, willed to keep quiet. I willed it as such because I didn't really want to think about what it wanted. It wanted to know when we were getting there, if we were close, and that is the most annoying question to ask someone who has no god damned idea where they are going. How do you answer that question other than a repeatedly furious I DON'T KNOW, shortly there after followed by an uninspired yeah, sure, almost. At least the first answer was more honest. But the second answer became the all too common answer. I got tired of trying to figure out where I was going. I was uninspired. I was a little bit hopeless. I was scared.
Let's talk about now. The truth is that I am still scared. And that I still don't really know where I am going. But I'm giving myself permission to dream a little bit, and to play, and to experiment. I'm learning how to let go of the fear of failing, or the fright of commitment, of the endless self judgements. I'm remembering that just because he is doing this, or she is doing that, doesn't have to mean a damn thing about where or what I am doing. It's a freeing thing to know that my path is my own. I forgive myself for the misunderstanding that I should be like anyone other than myself. I am right where I need to be.
There. That feels a lot better, no? That's all I have to tell that little impatience monster and he skulks off, defeated. For the moment, I've won the battle. Tomorrow is another day, and next week, and next month, and next year, but if I can live with this sense of self assured calm, the space between here and there seems like a nice place to be.
Nice to meet you.
A common theme that has been quietly haunting my life and most recently pressing with increased urgency is that of impatience. The feeling of wanting desperately to "be there" is one of such familiarity. Yet I know the worn out expression that, "it isn't the destination that is important, it's the journey." And, at fear of sounding like an insincere brat, the truth is that I am enjoying the journey. I take time to laugh and appreciate. I'm alive, I'm well, I'm surrounded with good company. But I'm no Buddha and sometimes my ego finds the opening and goes for it.
So why this impatience nipping at my heals, and how to keep it at bay?
I believe my impatience is building because I have kept it stifled at great lengths, hog tied and gagged, thrown in the trunk of my life, willed to keep quiet. I willed it as such because I didn't really want to think about what it wanted. It wanted to know when we were getting there, if we were close, and that is the most annoying question to ask someone who has no god damned idea where they are going. How do you answer that question other than a repeatedly furious I DON'T KNOW, shortly there after followed by an uninspired yeah, sure, almost. At least the first answer was more honest. But the second answer became the all too common answer. I got tired of trying to figure out where I was going. I was uninspired. I was a little bit hopeless. I was scared.
Let's talk about now. The truth is that I am still scared. And that I still don't really know where I am going. But I'm giving myself permission to dream a little bit, and to play, and to experiment. I'm learning how to let go of the fear of failing, or the fright of commitment, of the endless self judgements. I'm remembering that just because he is doing this, or she is doing that, doesn't have to mean a damn thing about where or what I am doing. It's a freeing thing to know that my path is my own. I forgive myself for the misunderstanding that I should be like anyone other than myself. I am right where I need to be.
There. That feels a lot better, no? That's all I have to tell that little impatience monster and he skulks off, defeated. For the moment, I've won the battle. Tomorrow is another day, and next week, and next month, and next year, but if I can live with this sense of self assured calm, the space between here and there seems like a nice place to be.
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