feel bad.

there are some days where i feel really bad that i don't cook wonderful meals from scratch every night just because i love to cook and love to use fresh ingredients and then post photos of my creations on my blog. days i feel really bad that running doesn't clear my mind and relieve my stress and that i'll never get a tan and that there will probably never be a picture of me at the met gala in vogue (seriously, i feel bad about that). days when my to-do list seems to fill itself out, page by page, and i am afraid to even look. and i feel bad that i don't want to look. i feel bad, on these days, that i haven't already started a company or become a household name or written a book, and then i google "people who were famous before 25" (which is really not helpful) so that i can compare myself to rihanna and jonathan safran foer and everyone i know.

most nights, i'd rather have frozen pizza for dinner. and broccoli on the side - not from the farmer's market, but the kind that comes from the frozen bags you get at the grocery store. most days, i feel the deep pull of laziness and idleness as i go through my tasks. sometimes, i feel disconnected from other people. sometimes i feel disconnected from God.

some days, i just feel bad.

letting go

Part of me always hoped (to be perfectly honest, expected) that there would come a moment sometime in my mid-twenties when I would be Enlightened. I'd gain knowledge in a flash of what it means to be a Grown-Up and How to Balance a Checkbook and Act Maturely in all Relationships and see the world free from the cloudy lenses of my emotions and anxieties.

To be perfectly honest again, this has sort of been my religion. Hoping for the day when everything would be perfect, when I would be whole. Hoping for wholeness to come from marriage, from my career, from a beautifully decorated home and a full wardrobe and lovely friends. This is what I've put my trust in, what I've had faith in. And I've liked to think that everything, every little thing, is a stepping stone on my journey to clarity and wisdom and a God-like worldview.

When I was nineteen, one of my good friends from high school killed herself. And I remember thinking that she just didn't get it: the goodness of the future, the hope for what's to come, the love of God. And to a degree, I still believe that to be true, while recognizing all the complications of deep depression to preclude you from seeing the truth. But some of my journey has been and continues to be this struggle against a moment. Our lives are made up of choices, and hard work, and there is no magic moment. There are setbacks and deep valleys and there is a good, a very good God whose deepest desire is not that I know everything he knows, or become immensely wise, although those are good things, but that I live with him in peace and joy and not in fear.

My deepest fear is that I will keep waiting, and I will spend my waiting on managing others' impression of me. That I will shop and talk and not really listen and complain and smile and wait and wait and wait until my life has slipped away and there is no time to wait anymore. There is a new country, as Henri Nouwen writes, where my real life is ready to be inhabited. And I don't get there by waiting, but I am so afraid sometimes of leaving behind what I know to go somewhere unfamiliar. I think that if I had that moment of Enlightenment, of growing up, then I'd be ready to walk forward untethered to fear or anxiety.

So if I'm not waiting, then what do I do? That's the question that rings in my ears when I feel brave enough to ask it.


There was a dream and one day I could see it
Like a bird in a cage I broke in and demanded that somebody free it
And there was a kid with a head full of doubt
So I’ll scream til I die and the last of those bad thoughts are finally out
-The Avett Brothers, Head Full of Doubt

guilty pleasure for a thursday

i am listening this morning to the musical stylings of mariah carey, circa 1995, and am brought reeling back to fourth grade when gina trapani (not this gina trapani) and i would play 'daydream' on repeat, before we knew that 'open arms' was a journey cover and before mariah went crazy (see: glitter) and came out with a fragrance whose name suggests that she is even crazier now.

i remember playing the song 'one sweet day' on a cassette for my parents in our green minivan, driving down 90 toward chicago, waxing earnest about how touching this boyz II men duet was. and you know what? i sometimes still choke up. don't tell, though. that's my guilty pleasure (for today).

belize

in t minus two weeks or so, we will be here.




staying in one of these:













probably drinking something with an umbrella, reading in the shade, snorkeling until the sun goes down, and seeing the rainforest before all this goes down.

oh, my

it's been a really rocky last few days for me, and i'm learning that my intuitive response when things get rocky is anxiety. i guess i've known this for quite some time, but it always feels new when the emotions are so strong and all-consuming.

so here's the tricky part: how do i change my intuitive response? what practices do i need to take on to get a better gut reaction? because sometimes, even when i want to seek after growth, i get anxious instead.

this morning

everything in me wants to complain right now. about being at work, about leaving vacation, about not getting to see the ocean enough and my desk being too messy and our house being too messy and missing my friends. i just want to feel bad for myself, complain, pout, and daydream.

actually doing anything about this would, while possibly having the consequence of being productive, ultimately put me in the position of having to be moved from this posture of complaint, and if i must be honest, i really like being in this posture right now. i enjoy building a case in my mind whereby i am a victim with no active responsibilities, especially because it means that everyone else is responsible for making my life better.

and this is where i start to run away from myself, from the hard work i need to do to become better. this is where i leave who i am and ask everyone else around me to fill me up, when really, only one thing can fill me up. when i leave my self-centered mind, i cling to the truth that henri nouwen writes about:

"be patient. when you feel lonely, stay with your loneliness. avoid the temptation to let your fearful self run off. let it teach you its wisdom; let it tell you that you can live instead of just surviving. gradually, you will become one, and you will find that Jesus is living in your heart and offering you all you need."

comparative yoga

and again, it all comes back to yoga.

i went last night. laid out my mat in the usual spot, stretched, and no sooner had i laid down for my pre-yoga nap than my mind began to race with the comparative competencies of the people around me. the guy with the curly hair who does the hop-up thing reeeally well, but otherwise just sits in prayer position most of the class. the woman in all black with cropped blond hair who, even with a wrist brace can do a headstand that puts the rest of us to shame. the new girl in the magenta top--ooooh, she's grabbing one of the studio's mats. she doesn't even have her own; she's in over her head.

really, who am i kidding? this started before i even walked into the studio, when i started wondering who would be in class and who i would be better than and who i could try to beat. in yoga! has my need for recognition really grown so trivial that i need to win at yoga? then again, i guess, the need for recognition is inherently trivial and immature. still, this feels like a particular low. but that's what happened. i compared and compared all class long, with intermittent guilt breaks. when does it start to get better?