Smell the bleedin' flowers, already

[my_window_seat]

Difficult semester. Blah blah blah, I've said that every semester since I've gotten back into school.

It's funny, my difficulty in being able to process short-term emotional memory. Funny strange rather than funny ha-ha. Right up there with why it's so hard to be friends with me. My oh-so-charming propensity for being in the middle of a feeling and not always remembering that it will change. On the plus side, the happy is really double plus good, because that doesn't feel like it will change, either. The not-so-happy - not so good.

Meh.

I'm not upset about anything. I'm just pondering, as I have more than once over the past year in particular, what kind of life I want to have. It bothers me when I think about that in the future tense rather than the present. You're supposed to do that whole live-in-the-now thing, but for someone like me, that's not always an option.

Just rambling. And likely to continue for a bit. Please drive through.

It's just that I don't like being the driven-for-success single female. I'm not competitive. I enjoy leisure time. I like to have uninterrupted days of just puttering around, doing things for no other reason than that I feel like doing them. I don't like the idea of having a life that's a series of unending push-and-shoving contests and desperate rushes to complete the impossible. Good on me that I've managed better than I ever would have thought in a lot of cases - maybe I haven't always passed with flying colors, but the GPA does suggest I'm at least doing something right -

But this isn't the pace that I want to live my life at. Breakneck, with little time to savor and reflect on the good stuff. Or even time to look at the bad stuff and be able to see it for what it is, and either do something different to change the outcome, or just - not sweat it if I can't.

It certainly could be worse. I could be where I was at a few years ago. No direction, going through pointless options with no real sense that I could be or do anything worth being or doing.

It's good to at least have a direction right now. However vague the outlines, there's at least a skeleton of something that I'm building on. There are presentments of possibilities. There are things to look forward to.

I can be so much more than I thought I ever could. I'm holding on to that.

I'm thinking about what I don't want to be too, though. I think it's valid to look at that. Certain aspects may be out of my control. I'm driven, if not competitive - but there are things in life that are steered by other forces. There are things that I may only be able to look at through the passenger window as they happen to other people, but not to me.

Yeah, yeah, cry me a river, Emo Girl.

I can't say that I'm at peace with everything. But I've got more than I expected I'd ever have.

But now I want to get to a place where it feels like there's time enough to appreciate that more. Time to just watch everything go by and revel in the scenery, regardless of whether what's happening as it goes by is only something I can watch.

Dear Diety,

Grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the firepower to make the difference.

"Because guns don't kill people, people kill people, and monkeys do too, if they have a gun."

Hello, stream of conciousness.

I'm past the dizzying twenties when everything was new and sparkly-fresh and the present was full of unconquered vistas. I don't have the energy for all this charging around and graaaar ACHEIVING all the time.

Funny thing, though. Even in my twenties, I still took the time, reflexively, to follow bliss. Be it in the form of hippie-dippie philosophy and road trips, making amateur forays into fine arts, or the ever-popular feeding of the masses through an inability to cook in anything less than HEROIC quantities. Or just hanging out with friends. Making new ones. Tacking all those things and more together into a ridiculous and patternless crazy quilt of experiencing joy.

Jesus CHRIST I am dancing perilously close to the cliff overlooking the Chasm of New Age Vacuity with that last statement.

Doesn't mean it isn't true.

I don't know how to make it happen, but I need that to be a part of my life again.

I need to get through school. That's not a bargainable option.

I also need to figure out a way to make my life roomy enough to accomodate the inconsequential, along with all the Big Important Stuff^TM, too.

All I want is a room somewhere,
Far away from the cold night air.
With one enormous chair,
Aow, wouldn't it be loverly?
Lots of choc'lates for me to eat,
Lots of coal makin' lots of 'eat.
Warm face, warm 'ands, warm feet,
Aow, wouldn't it be loverly?
Aow, so loverly sittin' abso-bloomin'-lutely still.
I would never budge 'till spring
Crept over me windowsill.
Someone's 'ead restin' on my knee,
Warm an' tender as 'e can be. Who takes good care of me,
Aow, wouldn't it be loverly?

I don't demand the taking care of bit, though it lends itself nicely to the whole picture.

The sitting still part, though. Could do with a bit more of that.

Note to self:
Pencil "Take time to smell the fucking roses" into schedule.

Comments

[broken-bokken.livejournal.com]

"I'm not competitive. I enjoy leisure time. I like to have uninterrupted days of just puttering around, doing things for no other reason than that I feel like doing them. I don't like the idea of having a life that's a series of unending push-and-shoving contests and desperate rushes to complete the impossible."

Looks like the public education programming failed on you, too. I think that's the most reasonable mindset one can have, but the world is unfortunately unaccommodating of it. If I figure out the secret, I'll clue you in.

[my-window-seat.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure the world won't ever 'allow' us that - I think we just have to figure out the way of giving society the finger and carving that time out for ourselves.

And, who ever figures out the secret first damn well pass it on. :)

[broken-bokken.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing it involves wormholes in closets to faraway lands with talking lions and shit.

[my-window-seat.livejournal.com]

What - you say that like it would be a bad thing.

Oh, okay - I guess I was supposed to outgrow Narnia fantasies at some point. Damn. My bad.

[sinaesthesia.livejournal.com]

You're supposed to do that whole live-in-the-now thing, but for someone like me, that's not always an option.

Living in the now is incredibly overrated and unstable.

[my-window-seat.livejournal.com]

I <3 you.

What? I'm just sayin'.