The Only 3 Things I'd Say Under Oath

I've written before about how you can find me on the floor in my living room, hands above my head admitting "I don't know anything!" Apparently, this feeling of uncertainty, incompetence, non-mastery is one of the blossoms of my introvertedness. Whowoulddathunk?! According to a book I read the first 50ish pages of three weeks ago (the pick up/put down method to my reading madness is a topic for another post), it is so boringly common for introverts to feel as though they know nothing until they have three Ph.D.'s in the subject area--perhaps that's a bit of an exaggeration from what the author actually said, but you get the gist, right?

Well, there's a lot I don't know, that's for sure; volumes of knowledge I have yet to learn and even more that I will never learn. In these 23 short years of mine, I have learned some things, here's a list of 3 things I swear to be true and important:

1. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. I learned this as a theorem in geometry class as a sophomore in high school--it's likely the only thing I remember word-for-word from that class. My classmates say the teacher was talking about figures and numerical distance, but that's not what I heard. I heard her whispering truths about life, about pain, about friendship, about the going to the doctor. She said, the most efficient way to go is through rather than up and around and back three steps in order to cross the bridge which will take you to an elevator to take you back down to where you want to be. Efficient, not easy. If you get caught kissing your best friend's boyfriend, you can avoid him and her and lose them both, or you can go through the embarrassment and guilt and apologize and try to save at least one of the relationships. If you were hoping to get into that one program, and then you don't, you can go on being "fine" and just putter around because there's no joy left to be found or you can cry about it, remember what about it brought you joy, and find plan B. You can get your flu-shot at CVS and your birth control at planned parenthood and a cast for your broken wrist at the ER and just assume 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' works for healthcare, or you can deal with the obnoxious questions about your sex life during your yearly physical and know you've got somewhere to go if you need more than a physical.

2. A well stocked supply of chocolate, a pair of rain boots, and a best friend will get you through the hard stuff. Someone once told me, "there's no heartbreak that chocolate can't fix." Well, there are some heartbreaks that chocolate can't fix, but that's what the rain boots are for. When the rain comes down, it clears the streams and streets and washes away everything, if you let it. Put your rain boots on so you don't wash away, then let everything else go. And if you've got someone to hold your hand or sit on you or just be with you, you'll be able to remember there is a reason to keep going.

3. If you can dream it, you can do it. I once got into a heated argument with a professor about this statement because, at the time, my mind was bound by self-depreciation. This truth does not promise you dreams don't require you to work your patootie off and get disappointed and betrayed along your way to your first 12940724 failed attempts. It says your dreams are possible, they can become real. Dreams are not just sparkly wishes floating in and out of the puffy white clouds...some are, I suppose, if you just close your eyes and imagine and call it quits. When I said I wanted a pony for my birthday when I was little (I was joking, but if I was serious), it totally could've happened. I would have needed to have a legit chat with my parents and figure out how we could, together, make this dream of mine real. Dreams seem lofty for a reason--to get you to reach and become. A life of static existence is boring. Dream...and do.

Now You See Me...Now You Don't

When I brush my teeth before bed tonight, 

I will be looking in the mirror for the last time for a month. 

I'm beginning a month without mirrors.

completely

It's not because I'm so vain that I need to take a break from loving myself. It's not that I'm so full of self-hate that I need space from my ugliness. Some of both, sure, but it's way bigger than that. 

People fast from food and technology and bad habits and all sorts of things as a way to cleanse themselves physically and spiritually. This month without mirrors (I'm hoping) will serve the same sort of purpose. When I look in the mirror, yes, I see myself. More often than not, however, that image staring back at me seems distant, imperfect, and wrong because I'm busy comparing what I see to what I think I "should" see...who I "should" be. And I'm sick of it. 

Brene Brown says, "COMPARISON is the THIEF OF JOY."

I don't know what it's going to be like. I don't know what to expect--other than that it will be challenging. I don't know how it will affect me. I don't know if I'm ready to do this. The way to figure it all out, though, is to try. 

Ready? Go!

I'll keep you updated each week!

The move part 1: leaving the Lou

I moved westward in August 2009 at the beginning of my fresh woman year at SLU and, unlike many college students, I never once moved back home. That is to say, I have spent the last four years accumulating things in St. Louis as I bought them or brought them from Michigan. Look at it all!!!

 

The accumulation that occurred over the past four years has not just been of material goods but of knowledge and comfort and moments of joy and exultation and success and pain and exhaustion and failure and second and third and fourth chances. 

St. Louis and I have had a strange courtship. In the winter of 2009, as I was deciding which university's name would adorn my mother's car bumper, St. Louis was the forbidden city. My parents said it was too far away because they wanted to be able to get to me with relative ease if something major were to happen. There's a story in between that conversation and the moment I confidently walked up to my Mom in the student center hallway and said, "I think I found it" (referring to SLU as my college home) a few months later. St. Louis was a source of pride and anticipation that summer as I awaited the day I'd make a home for myself in the exotic, far-off land. Now, St. Louis is more home than Farmington Hills. I declare myself a member of and true devotee to Cardinal Nation. I know shortcuts and side streets here better than many who grew up here (thanks to many, many, many miles of running). Granted, we have had our rough times; I won't detail them here, but they have caused me to sink deep into my seat  hoping to disappear as tears stream down my cheeks each time the pilot alerts us "we are making our final descent into St. Louis." And there is a whole lot in between thinking St. Louis was an exotic, far-off land full of possibility and now...and that's why my head and heart are so congested with flutting emotions right now.

I've had this existential feeling all summer that it doesn't matter. I spent middle school and high school and much of college trying to get noticed and being noticed and then those people who noticed me just drifted away. I spent years worrying about being involved in the right activities for the right amount of time and the moment I graduated, it seemed like no one cared what you did anymore. I'm worried now that when I leave St. Louis, I'll realize that most of it didn't really matter. Maybe I'm right and I'm too vain too anxious too goal oriented to notice in the midst of it. Or maybe I'm wrong and there is lasting value in every word, every decision, every moment. If it doesn't matter, it is easier to forget. That's what I'm really concerned about. I don't want to forget the joy and exultation and success and pain and exhaustion and failure.