When times get hard, you know the teacher's in the room. 
-- from Have a Little Faith by Michael Franti

Truth Be Told

 My friend/colleague John shared this list today. It's from a book called If You See the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him. I haven't read the book but apparently the idea is that we need to stop looking for enlightenment outside ourselves and turn inward to find it. I don't understand everything he has on this list of eternal truths but I like the sense of humor and wisdom in it. Right now, the ones that especially speak to me are numbers 6-9, 14, 28, 40 and 43. How about you?
 

Eternal Truths

1.   This is it!

2.   There are no hidden meanings.

3.   You can’t get there from here, and besides there’s no place else to go.

4.   We are all already dying, and we will be dead for a long time.

5.   Nothing lasts.

6.   There is no way of getting all you want.

7.   You can’t have anything unless you let go of it.

8.   You only get to keep what you give away.

9.   There is no particular reason you lost out on some things.

10. The world is not necessarily just. Being good often does not pay off and there is no compensation for misfortune.

11. You have a responsibility to do your best nonetheless.

12. It is a random universe to which we bring meaning.

13. You don’t really control anything.

14. You can’t make anyone love you.

15. No one is any stronger or any weaker than anyone else.

16. Everyone is, in his/her own way, vulnerable.

17. There are no great men(women).

18. If you have a hero, look again: you have diminished yourself in some way.

19. Everyone lies, cheats, pretends (yes, you too, and most certainly I myself).

20. All evil is potential vitality in need of transformation.

21. All of you is worth something, if you will only own it.

22. Progress is an illusion

23. Evil can be displaced but never eradicated, as all solutions breed new problems.

24. Yet it is necessary to keep on struggling toward solution.

25. Childhood is a nightmare.

26. But it is so very hard to be an on-your-own, take-care-of-yourself-cause-there-is-no-one-else-to-do-it-for-you grown-up.

27. Each of us is ultimately alone.

28. The most important things, each person must do for him/herself.

29. Love is not enough, but it sure helps.

30. We have only ourselves, and one another. That may not be much, but that’s all there is.

31. How strange, that so often, it all seems worth it.

32. We must live within the ambiguity of partial freedom, partial power, and partial knowledge.

33. All important decisions must be made on the basis of insufficient data.

34. Yet we are responsible for everything we do.

35. No excuses will be accepted.

36. You can run, but you can’t hide.

37. It is most important to run out of scapegoats.

38. We must learn the power of living with our helplessness.

39. The only victory lies in surrender to oneself.

40. All of the significant battles are waged within the self.

41. You are free to do whatever you like. You need only face the consequences.

42. What do you know…for sure…anyway?

43. Learn to forgive yourself, again and again and again and again…

I will not die an unlived life.
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible,
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance;
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.
                      Dawna Markova

Rough evening. It's been almost a year since my life began to unravel and become the unrecognizable thing it is today. I have no doubt that there will come a time when I recognize it as mine again but right this minute, I kinda feel like I want to live an unlived life. What a relief that would be! To live in a daze of routine. Work, eat, sleep. Work, eat, sleep. 
     I want to dive into fear and wallow in it. To shake and cry and scream and run away. I want to catch fire while I'm falling. I don't want to inhabit my days, I want to inhabit my bed and never leave its safety. To sleep for hours and hours so those pesky feelings won't bother me. 
     I don't want to be "awake." I want to push things underground again and be numb. I don't want to open and be more accessible. I want to be closed and safe and protected!!  I feel my heart not loosen but tighten and freeze and crack into a million icy shards.
     Despite the pull of the dark side, though, and how much easier it would be not to, I do inhabit my days. As painful and annoying and enraging as these darker emotions are sometimes, I'm awake and I'm staying awake. It's just such a damn lot of work.
     When I wrote about my life unraveling, I had to think that's a good metaphor! My life was all knitted up into this one way of being. I pulled on one little string and it all came apart. The material is still there. I just have to figure out how to knit things back together again. 
     I'm knitting a very pretty scarf right now (the photos don't do the color justice - it's a nice warm, orange-y color) and it seems an appropriate metaphor too. It has a leaf pattern -- yes, the obvious -- turning over a new leaf, etc. It also makes me think of an organic process. Things grow the way they grow. You just have to step back and get out of the way. I just have to trust the process, right? I'll end up where I need to be.

Sunshine!!

It's amazing how much a sunny day can lift my spirits! I'm trapped in my office today with back to back to back appointments but it's so nice to see the sun shining...I was thrilled yesterday evening when I got out of class and it was still bright outside. I was a little thrown off for a minute. 
     I also have another trip to look forward to so that cheers me up. Maddy and I have scheduled our trip to Amherst so she can visit UMass Amherst. March 31st to April 4th. I'll have time to visit with Susan in Boston and Maddy will have time to visit her lovely friend Rosie. It'll be a fun trip to take with Maddy. She's really great to spend time with and to travel with. She's very funny and is an easy traveler. I guess I'd better get online to see what the town has to offer. I want to see the bars the kids go to so Maddy and I can hang out with them at night. You know me, party, party, party. JK. I'll be in bed by 10...My partying consists of staying up past 11 and watching the Twilight movie or DVR'd shows like Shear Genius, Say Yes to the Dress and Project Runway. I'm so WILD.

I had no idea...

Thank you to those of you who sent emails reassuring me that you read my blog! I seriously wasn't fishing for that. It did make me feel loved, though. I have a really bad habit of assuming that if I'm out of someone's sight, I'm out of their mind. 
     It's hard for me to trust that I matter and that I'm loved so I project all kinds of rejection onto silence. Not just rejection but indifference, which I find far more painful than rejection (relatively). Causes me lots of unneeded worry. If someone does reject me, it's their loss anyway, right? (now I am fishing - feel free to agree with me on that one). I'm working to figure out how I can believe someone's feelings are still there even when they aren't reassuring me every five minutes. 
     It's kind of embarrassing that I'm already 30 years old and I still can't seem to grasp the concept of fully trusting and receiving consistent unconditional love. What's my deal?! Well, I know what my deal is. I won't bore you with family of origin details. Most of you already know them anyway (or experienced them with me). 
     I don't think it's that people haven't offered it, either. You all know who you are and I appreciate you staying with me while I learn. I think I don't know how to receive it. I suppose I could pull a Sarah Palin and write it on the palm of my hand. If I'm ever in doubt I could just look down and see "you matter to..." and list people. I guess that didn't work out so well for her, though, huh? 
     I mean, how do you know someone still cares if they're out of touch or if you go your separate ways? It's a serious question. You just know, magically? Is it something they've said or done? Is it about how much you believe in yourself and feel lovable? Do you say to yourself, "Of course they love me and are thinking about me. Who wouldn't? Look at me! I'm great!!" Please help my therapist out here if you have any pointers to help me get there. 
          I hope you know that even though I may not tell you every day (that would get old very quickly -- for you, not me!), I hold each of you very close to my heart and value your friendship/ sistership. I really hope I'm better at expressing my unconditional love than I am at receiving it. I'll keep trying...   ;-)

Yay, me!!

I just found out that the book cover and interior I designed for the Story Shop project was chosen to be this year's design! I'm actually really surprised. The Story Shop is a project where 7th and 8th grade students submit stories and a handful (18) are selected to be published in a book. Then they have a well known author come in for the awards ceremony to talk about writing. Here are my designs if you're interested.

 

Whaddaya think?!

Do you like the new look of my blog? If you haven't checked out this color website and you like playing with colors, you should! I could play around in that site all day. That's where I got the colors for this blog. I like this font too -- the little g is just so cute! I want to pinch its cheeks. I made it big here so you could see it better.
   I took the blog offline because it felt like no one was reading it anyway so I was just writing to myself. I already do that all the time in my private journal so it was really redundant and repetitive. Then, my sister Sarah called and left a message saying she'd gone to my blog but it was down. I felt all warm and fuzzy and decided to put it up again. I'll put it as my website in my Facebook account too in case anyone there wants to read about my thrilling life. If no one but you two read it, Lisa and Sarah, it's still worth it since we live so far away from each other! Thanks for checking it out every once in a while. 
   I'm a sick puppy so I'm crawling into my cozy bed and -- hopefully -- getting a full night's sleep tonight. Busy week ahead! Sleep tight.