New Year! In the middle of the Summer!!
I feel like I have so many things to tell you! I feel, maybe, a little like a field that has been lying fallow and resting, not posting, not writing. Thinking. Doing a lot of thinking. Having a lot of conversations with deep wonderful thinkers. And now I'm ready to communicate again!
I stopped mostly because I've been really pissed off for almost a year. After my mom's death, suddenly there was a lot to be angry about. Not just that she's no longer here (although that was a pretty good hate-spiral instigator) but just about everything. And I won't go into it because the things I was hating on or fighting against aren't bad things, but I considered them to be so. What does Hamlet say? "There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so." And so the only reason I was hating on so many aspects of life was because I had decided to hate on them. They weren't/aren't hateful in their own right. It just felt good to hate on them, to be quite honest. It was satisfying. And I probably would have stayed in that comfortable dark anger a good deal longer, but my sister got in the way. During a phone call a few months ago, my sister said, "Uh, so you know. Your Facebook posts are really dark. Pretty depressing. And they have been. For a while, now." And my first response was Well, yeah! Duh! It's dark and depressing because I'm dark and depressing! Life is dark and depressing. I'm not going to put my "Happy Face" on so that other people can feel better! I feel terrible! And I like it!! So the next day I found one positive thing and posted it. And I did it as a total middle finger to my sister. And the greatest thing about her is that she not only got it, but she loved it. And in fact told her husband about it, "Yeah, Corrie's trying to stick it to me." Everyday I found one thing to be positive about and posted that. I literally have no memory of what these things were. I'll have to check my history. But to my absolute horror, it worked. I'd say within a few weeks, my perpetual dark and stormy cloud was gone. I was still sad and still grieved, but I had very quietly stopped hating everything. One of the characters in The Mindy Project said it so articulately in an episode toward the end of the season. "I'm just mad, that I'm not mad anymore." Some people will get it. And to you I extend an internet fist bump.
So now! No longer actively hating and angry and dark and depressing, I'm ready to catch up everyone (and possibly I do mean everyone since readership spiked last year) on The Plan. I nearly always have a The Plan. It doesn't always pan out, but I usually have one. This last spring, I applied to three grad schools in Europe and was rejected by all of them. Which is good!! I wasn't ready to leave the country. But it was a great learning curve on applications and schools and the programs I am interested in. I have a lot more to learn, but I plan to aggressively apply again for next fall and I believe I'll get in. I have some things to work on this year to make that happen. That might be a different post. We shall see.
But what this has done has given me a more definite timeline. One year from now. Whatever I want to accomplish while I am in Nashville (and I have a very clear if not finalized list), I have a certain amount of time to do them. I'll take on different aspects of what I'm doing soon. But I'm ready to start talking. I'm ready to start sharing. I'm ready to start being here, being present and being pro-active.
At work we just switched over to a new fiscal year. And I'm feeling that same switch inside me. For awhile now I've done what I want and I've gone where I want and I've bought what I want. I've done very little to restrict immediate impulses. But these long term goals that I've recently become very attached to require me to forgo short term desires for long term gain. I recently read a quote by Muhammad Ali: "I hated every minute of training. But I said, 'Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.' " I've done some suffering, at least it felt like suffering, that I did not choose to do. But I've never been good at suffering by choice to be great later. I'm excited and scared to commit to this time. To sacrifice now and achieve some pretty daunting long term goals. That include but are not limited to:
- Grad school at a top UK or Irish university
- Being physically fit with established healthy eating and exercise habits (already posted a little about that)
- Better productivity and future-casting at work
- Filling the Tanks (a phrase by Joss Whedon meaning reading books, articles, and journals; listening to podcasts; collecting stories and information; exposing yourself to different forms of art; particularly going outside your normal entertainment zones to find things you wouldn't usually come across)
- Organizing, clearing out clutter from Dad's house
- And (ugh) addressing my damn dating issues by (again ugh) dating.
Comments
Post a Comment