Lost & Delerious

I admit that I’m feeling a little lost and completely directionless regarding my career.

The problem is: I am good at many things… but a master of nothing.

I have wide and varying interests and skills, and that makes it all the more challenging to find something that really fits, where I won’t get bored with in a year, and also something that challenges me just enough without overwhelming me… as well as something that pushes my creativity while utilizing my analytical side…

On top of that, I have an entrepreneurial spirit. I want to help people. I want to improve the lives of others.

All the ways I know of doing that… all the ways I’ve tried so far, just don’t pay a lot (or any, in some cases).

So I’ve been feeling a little lost.

Okay, I’ll cut the sugar-coating. I’ve been feeling a whole lot lost.

I know I have valuable skills, attitude, and worth to bring to… something. The question is… what?

I’ve thought about this a lot over the last several months, and I keep coming up with the same answer.

I really want to find a way to make a living as a writing coach and jewelry artist. I even have an idea for starting a non-profit around the writing coach idea, and maybe even incorporating jewelry into that as well. The few people I’ve told about my idea think it’s really good.

The problem is, I’m out of time.

I have a few dollars to my name (really, not exaggerating there), and no clue how I’m going to pay February’s rent. I have bills piling up on my table and no way to pay them. I’ve had some serious motivation issues because of that whole paralysis from analysis thing, and yes—since I do struggle with depression, I am battling that hard right now.

So, what does it mean to have faith?

Faith that it’s all going to turn out all right, even though I’m not exactly sure what that means or what it looks like?

I suppose I am truly learning that, now.

In the mean time, I’m combing craigslist and a lot of other sites, looking for creative and different ways to make income that don’t involve going back to Corporate America. There is really no place my soul is less suited for than within the confines of endless rows of putty-colored cubicles under fluorescent lights.

I know there is another place for me.

It’s just a matter of finding it…

(and fast)

P.S. I Love You

The first time I watched P.S. I Love You, I cried during the whole movie.

At that time my marriage was on the rocks, and I had never known the kind of love that Gerry and Holly had. I had never known what it felt like to be truly, deeply desired. To know that I was adored, loved, and accepted, just for being myself and no one else—I’d never understood what that felt like, and watching that movie the first time was heartbreaking, because it held up a mirror to my own life, to my own marriage, and I felt a deep, gaping hole in my soul. A hole I had created by giving up pieces of myself, by turning myself into someone I thought my then husband wanted me to be, by trying to live up to some invisible standard, some invisible expectation of perfection: fake it till you make it, to the extreme, as if living a perfect life and upholding an empty image for long enough would finally will that perfection into being, and everything would be ok.

Then my life fell apart… and I fell apart.

A couple of months after my ex-husband moved out of our house, I was walking through a used DVD store. I found myself feeling some—I don’t know—instruction, almost, to purchase P.S. I Love You.

I remembered how that movie made me feel. I walked away from it, but kept circling back. The insistence was relentless. I didn’t understand it, but I picked up the movie, set it on the counter, paid for it, and then it proceeded to sit on my shelf for another month or two before finally, one day, I felt myself tearing off the plastic wrapper and signing up for two hours of crying.

But this time it was different.

This time I understood where the gaping hole was—where it had been. I understood the choices I’d made that had led me to settling, and I recognized my accountability in those decisions and the behavior I exhibited that solidified my bad decisions.

And I knew that I had made the right move, by setting myself free, and by setting my ex free, I was really giving both of us permission to be happy.

I cried for that two hours, yes. But that time, I no longer felt the desperation and hopelessness and regret that I’d felt before.

This time, I felt sadness. I watched that movie at just the right time so that it was yet another step in my grieving process.

I didn’t only feel sadness, though.

I also felt hope.

Hope that I could, one day, have a love that ran as deep as the love between Gerry and Holly. I finally realized that I deserve that kind of love. That I’m worthy of it. And I knew that one day soon, I would be ready for it.

Tonight, I felt a calling to watch P.S. I Love You, yet again.

I had tried journaling, and I touched on what I was feeling in my journal. I tried playing piano, and I touched on what I felt while playing. But I knew I needed a good, hard cry to accept my own feelings, and to embrace them.

I wasn’t sure why that particular movie tugged at me, though… I wasn’t sure, until I started watching it. Most of the movie is overflowing with sadness—sadness from grief and also from the depth of love that Gerry has for Holly… And I wasn’t feeling sad.

Then it hit me… and the feelings overwhelmed me, and I spent the next two hours crying.

My favorite letter in the movie is the last one Gerry sends:

Dear Holly, 

I don't have much time. I don't mean literally, I mean you're out buying ice cream and you'll be home soon. But I have a feeling this is the last letter, because there is only one thing left to tell you. It isn't to go down memory lane or make you buy a lamp, you can take care of yourself without any help from me. It's to tell you how much you move me, how you changed me. You made me a man, by loving me Holly. And for that, I am eternally grateful... literally. 

If you can promise me anything, promise me that whenever you're sad, or unsure, or you lose complete faith, that you'll try to see yourself through my eyes. Thank you for the honor of being my wife. I'm a man with no regrets. How lucky am I. You made my life, Holly. But I'm just one chapter in yours. There'll be more. I promise. So here it comes, the big one. 

Don't be afraid to fall in love again. 

Watch out for that signal, when life as you know it ends. 

P.S. I will always love you 

My life, as I’ve always known it, has ended, and a new life has begun.

I knew it the first time David and I kissed.

But I knew it before that.

I knew it when I saw his smile for the first time. I knew it when we started flirting. I knew it when he asked me out, and when he told me I have an intoxicating smile.

And when he first held me, I thought I had never been held before, by anyone, because it had never felt like it feels with him.

It’s unnerving and overwhelming and most definitely more than I bargained for. But I knew, the minute I laid eyes on David, that he would move me.

So, yes…

I am in love.

It’s so much more than that, though.

I trust him.

And most phenomenally—

I have given him my whole heart.

It feels good, and naked, and scary, but honestly, the fear is so pale at this point, and continuing to shrink every single day.

‎"There are two energies on this planet: fear and love. Fear contracts, love expands. Her Holiness Sai Maa Lakshmi Devi teaches to think of fear and love as two plants—you're always watering one of them with your thoughts. All thoughts fall into one category—fear or love—so which plant are you choosing to water and grow?" - Katharine Sise

I choose love.

Always Go With Your Gut

(...even when it hurts... even when that means you get the answer you don't want to hear...)

Always go with your gut.

I’m sure you’ve heard that saying before… your gut, your intuition, your heart—whatever you call it… it doesn’t steer you wrong.

The key is listening, though.

Sometimes it’s hard to hear, with all the noise in our day to day lives. Sometimes, hearing that little voice seems impossible. And even once you hear it—how easy is it to second-guess? How easy is it to ignore that voice within and try to steer your own path? It’s so easy to tune it out, to try to “do the right thing” – even if the right thing isn’t really what you want… and especially if the “right thing” is never what you would do if you were really following your heart.

Right now, I’m in the middle of a bit of a mess where I’m having a hard time having faith. I have no idea what my next step is, and in this moment, I’m not handling it well. And normally I wait until it’s all sorted out before I type up a blog post. But right now… I’m just in a weird place, and I thought that instead of waiting around until I had all the answers figured out… I would put it out there in the raw for once.

So here I am… raw as ever.

On Tuesday in the Movement Montage class, I had a huge feeling of fear crop up. This is a type of fear I hadn’t experienced since becoming emotionally and physically healthy.

I actually ducked out of class for a few minutes to record what I was feeling in the moment. I transcribed it:

I think it’s natural for us to feel fear.
Fear is something that keeps us safe, something that is always there. It’s one of our built-in mechanisms to help keep us alive.
As someone who has done a lot of work and a lot of growth, and a lot of self-improvement stuff, I’ve done a lot of work to overcome feeling fear.
And, so, when that feeling starts to crop up again, I immediately try to suppress it.
And then, inevitably, I try to figure out… what’s making this so real? What’s making this so big? Why am I feeling this? I try to analyze it and dissect it to death.
Sometimes I just need to let the feelings be there.
I felt afraid earlier.
I feel afraid now.
I don’t want to fall for this guy.
Because a part of me is afraid that I can’t handle it.
And so, when I asked the sassy little girl inside of me what she would do in my position—she just kinda reaches out her hand and touches me and says, “It’s ok to be afraid. Just let it be there. The only way to push through it is to let it be there.”
I can handle it.
I can fall in love, if I let myself.
If it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen no matter what. And if I try to fight it, that’s only going to make it dysfunctional.
And I want to be functional.
So… my challenge to myself is to allow my fear to be there, because I know that that’s what helps keep me safe and ok.
And I know that no matter what, I will be ok.
And I can just let this be.
I can just let it be there.

And now, I am very sad to report, that possibility has been taken off the table. (See the previous entry, where I mentioned being rejected…)

That isn’t the only “mess” in my life right now, of course. But for whatever reason, it’s the thing that makes me incredibly vulnerable and wide open to random people on the internet, when the other “messes” are actually not so close to my heart.

I’m not entirely sure why I’m willing to talk about this stuff here. I think because many of my close friends are going through something similar, with learning how to be functional and healthy and also… in love. Or at the very least—open to the possibility.

I haven’t bounced back yet. I don’t have the perfect words to say. I don’t even have that much perspective yet. My heart is still very much in pain.

I allowed myself to feel more than I have in years, and something that’s incredibly baffling to me is this:

Why is the pain so much more intense than the joy?

I don’t get it.

I really don’t…

I do understand why this man was brought into my life, though, and that has given me some enough perspective that I can at least appear to go on with my normal life.

He came into my life so that I could understand what I want. Not just know it, not just see it… but to actually experience it… to feel it. I think that’s pretty important, because up until this point, I’ve only experienced what I didn’t want.

So, it was just a taste… but it left a lasting impression.

That’s all I’ve got at the moment… but for the moment, it’s carrying me through.

What I am choosing to do from here, though, is to continue to be open. I am continuing to be vulnerable and real, and to show who I really am—in this blog as well as in my everyday life. I will keep listening to my voice within—my heart, my intuition. I will feel my faith again, and I will keep following my gut.

I thought about the alternative. I thought about how much easier it sometimes seems to live life all closed up—and I used to pride myself on being mysterious… and back then, my incongruent actions directly contradicted what my heart really longed for. But I lived in the alternative for so many years that at this point, it doesn’t even feel like a choice that’s on the table, for me to try wearing masks again, or to try being perfect again, or to try fooling everyone around me into thinking I’m a more amazing person than I really am.

The only thing that feels right, authentic, and true, is to continue living just how I am. Vulnerable, open, courageous, brave, and yes—sometimes, even messy.

Logic says that I shouldn't even post this. It's too open, too vulnerable, too... emotional.

I will never again apologize for being emotional. I am emotional.

And, I am also following my gut...