The 'Always' of 'Be Coming'

I have been doing a lot of talking with friends these days about life changes, wondering about how many times in our lives do we change on a personal note.  Now a smartass would say that we are changing constantly.  Well, duh, but when do we get to the point of satisfaction or where we want to be in our growing state of mind?

I kept coming back to the phrase ‘coming of age,’ which in its true self is a vague term.  What defines a coming of age?  Internet sources such as Wikipedia and Webster’s Dictionary say that ‘coming of age’ is when we become an adult.  Based on that statement alone a part of me screams “I am not growing up and you cannot make me.’  However, what is growing up or becoming an adult?

Yes, I took a lot of time to think about this.  Is becoming an adult the legal side where, ‘let’s pick an age and say you can do what your parents do?’  Is being an adult an amount of maturity you have based on responsibility and obligation?  Maybe being an adult is like entering a secret society where you have a ‘right of passage’ with actions that prove your commitment.  FYI, my inner child is still rejecting every definition of growing up and being an adult.  I do not know about the rest of you reading this, but picking a number out of a hat seems unethical, as there is no criterion for it.  Maturity is subjective these days with the help from the set legalized adult age and not everyone wants to be in a secret society with uncalled for obligations.

I am sure anyone reading this is in question where this is exactly going.  It is going to a point that no matter your age, like the defined child, we are all a bit lost in the definition of who we are.  I will be the first to admit that I have been in this position, revisiting the thought every now and again  to confirm that I am following what will make my life ‘worth it’ to me.  At thirty years young, (yes, I am thirty and yes, I still feel young thank you very much), I am slowly revamping the puzzle pieces of my life.  By this time in my life I wanted to be married to a man who truly loved me for me as passionately as I love him, have a child or two, and be working somewhere that makes me want to get up in the morning.  Well as life may have it, I was married to a guy who was passionately in love with every insecure female in five different towns (that have been verified), I do not have any children from him (thank God) or any other man, and my current career is under construction.  The process feels like a second chance in the defined stage of ‘coming of age.’ *snerk* I have to chuckle as I write this because the here and now is not where I wanted/planned to be at all.  Now this does not mean I am not optimistic about things to come, however, sometimes my impatience gets to me.

Life is not set in stone nor does it follow a specific plan no matter what others may think, but it does follow a plan, I believe that we are all here for a purpose and until it fulfilled, we remain where we are in each living moment.  So when are we 'finalized'?  To me, this means we are always at some 'coming of age' type period, always and forever changing/improving.

A friend of mine this week confessed how lost this person feels thinking that life would be different also.  The advice I gave was to set one goal and find how you are going to meet that goal because until you meet one goal the other goals will just fall apart since they are not receiving your full attention.  For me, my goal is to leave the town I was forced to live and find my own place.  Living a life that someone else has forced upon you is surrendering and I am too strong for that.  It took a lot of time to think things like through, so I decided to write it down in a book I am working on publishing.  I someday hope that in print it will not be as confusing as it felt, but a better vision of a realization.

Amazing Connections

Today I was thinking about connections and how each person has some small thing that relates them to something or someone else.  The idea started when I left my apartment to go mail some letters at the post office and check my post office box.  One of the letters was to my mom sprinkled with ladybug stickers and a quote from the movie Under the Tuscan Sun.  I love the movie, not the book, because it portrays turning something negative into something positive even if it was not quite how you pictured it. 

The quote, in brief, was about when Katherine, one of the main characters, was describing a childhood memory of a time where she was trying to find ladybugs in the field, but was not having any luck.  She grew tired and decided to take a nap.  When she awoke, she was covered in ladybugs.  From this, you are probably thinking that the lesson lies along the lines of 'patience is a virtue' or the idea that when you do not concentrate so hard on something, it will come to you in time.  I have heard other stories similar to the idea, like if you catch a butterfly hold it gently because if you hold on to it too tight you will kill it.  

So I put this letter to my mom in the mail, sensing that she had been missing her best friend who had passed away earlier this year, one week after my birthday, from cancer.  The feeling I get, even as I type the words, is extreme loss and utter confusion.  I may share with people bits of me and consider people friends, but then there are those select few who know or just about know everything about you.  That was the type of friend this woman was to my mom and to our family, so it is hard to just 'get over' that type of love.

After the letter was in the drop box, I went over to my post office box to find a thick envelope...from my mom.  Now this may sound silly to many who read this, but I broke down and cried even before I opened the letter knowing that she had done the same thing I just did to her a few seconds ago.  I stood for a moment in front of my box in disbelief as I appreciated this extremely rare connection I had with my mother.  We have not talked for a couple weeks, yet we both knew just what the other one needed.

Now I know that many of you will think that this connection is obvious because it is based on mother and daughter, but there is more.  I do pray that when she is gone that there is someone who is that close and knows exactly what I mean even when I hold back, telling that person not to do something in fear a weakness will be shone.  

In my everyday life I do see similar connections, like when you text a friend just as the friend was in the middle of texting you or when someone notices something that everyone else misses, like the color of your eyes and that you did something different with your make up.  Both of these scenarios have happened to me and makes me think 'What makes me so important that you noticed something so insignificant about me?'  Let me clarify, it is not that I am not important, but important to that person at that moment.  For instance, the eye example was from a guy I barely knew, but then again maybe he is like me and just notices things about people that others commonly miss.

I continue this night feeling a bit lost as it appears that some of the people closest to me do not seem to understand me, while the people I barely know are able to see those things that are missed.  If anything, these just give me hope that there are people in my life whom I am connected to that are just as important as my mom no matter how small that connection may be, but it also gives me hope that if one person can see at least one insignificant thing about me then that person must obviously be able to see more than what meets the eye.

Embrace the Beauty in Darkness

The last few days I tried to rest my mind, but unfortunately, it is processing difficult problems in many venues of my personal life as well as others leaving me what others may describe as a bit dark.  It is common in society that 'dark' is negatively foreseen to cause damage in the simple comparison that light is assumed to be the reflection of an angel while dark is the reflection of a demon.  However, what if dark was actually beautiful and the ignorance of society was completely overlooking what could be a solution instead of a problem?

With society's stereotypical idea that dark is bad and light is good we seem to forget that without one we do not have the other, that means the two words define each other working hand in hand like any healthy relationship should.  To simplify, it is called balance or sometimes referred to as a theory based on Ying and Yang.  Light cannot exist without dark, but keep in mind that in many myths or legends that dark was created from light, but that is another tangent that is not meant for the analyzation of this blog.  So if one cannot exist without the other, how does that make dark labeled bad when it is actually doing ‘good’ in defining light?

Beyond the definition of the angel on one shoulder and the demon on the other, everyone has a light and dark side to their personality at some point in time, which is part of compatibility with others and our environment.  This can be something we become codependent upon, but what if it is something that we utilize and turn into something good?  For example,  as I write this it is October, which is a month commonly known for Breast Cancer awareness, which to society is bad because it is something that kills, taking some of the most precious people in our lives and trust me, I know this feeling as someone was taken from me due to this illness.  Now think of everything that has birthed from the condition that is labeled bad or even a dark topic to discuss and consider.  Society is trying to find cures for the illness and trying to prevent it from ever developing in the first place, which would mean people would live longer when the realization is that we all die at some point.  Now if someone close to you has passed away from the illness, think about the impact that person had on you to which I am sure most of you cannot tell me there was any darkness associated with this person.  In fact, if the person was anything like the person close to me that passed away from the illness, that person was rather inspiring who empowered those around her/him because of that person’s big heart.  We hear stories of people who have cancer and how they make a difference with their outlook on life, which inspires people around them, so how can something as dark as this disease be completely bad?  I apologize if this is misinterpreted into some morbid psychopathic idea and anyone is offended as this is not my intention.

Subsequently, what are my true thoughts on something being described as dark?  I believe that it is a type of inspiration that gives the ability to see everyday things in our lives through a different perspective allowing us to explore new aspects of life that are meant to teach us something.  With this in mind I think of artists that produce dark form of art in visual forms, literary forms, or even musically.  Considering I spend most of my time in the literary world, I think of how popular the writings of Edgar Allan Poe have become after the man has long since passed away and how misunderstood his darkness was to the world during his time.  Today some consider him a magnificent writer beyond his time even those around him did not understand the beauty in his writings only to deem him as crazy. 

So, when did dark become something negative instead of being used as a tool utilized in the progression of something positive?  Could something dark be the first step on a path to  something great that would change many life-altering things or be an obstacle to challenge and prove our self-worth? How would stories end in ‘happily-ever-after’ if there were no darkness or would the story-line not have anything to aspire to become? 

Why not embrace the power darkness to give you the power to direct you to the light, for is it not in darkness we dream in the night leading us to become something inspiring during the light of day?

 from: photo.99px.ru

Simple and Small Pleasures: Stop to smell the roses

In a previous post I referenced something I call "The Proximity Drug," which is basically the high feeling you get from being around particular people, but then there are those simple small pleasures in life that make you smile for just a brief moment realizing that you are where you are needed.  I have one of these every so often and lately it has been more frequent.

I never really started to pay attention to these moments until about a month ago.  I was having a terrible day, the kind where you realize you should have never gotten out of bed, so I ditched my regular healthy diet and decided to get a bacon cheeseburger pizza slice from the pizza joint down the street from where I was working at the time.  I used to frequent this place at least once a week for the bacon cheeseburger pizza specifically until one of the employees there knew my order by heart.  I will say I appreciate when that happens because it makes their service faster as well as me getting to eating faster.  Anyway, I had not visited the pizza place for quite some time, so to walk in to be acknowledged like I was a missed friend felt great.  Not only had I felt special for being missed, but I had recently become a blonde and was self-conscious on the change.  The employee took a second look at me with a smile on his face as he got my pizza for me.  

Me: "What?"

Employee: "I like your hair."

Me: "Oh, thanks"

Employee: "It is really pretty and brings out your eyes."

Yes, I blushed, I'll admit it.  However, my self-conscious feeling dissipated.  Until that one brief moment, my day had weighted me down to the point that I did not care about anything, but that one employee changed all that.  No, my day did not change too much, but my attitude did.  I felt safe and secure enough to conquer the world, even though that is not my quest in life.  I could....I could be Wonder Woman, confident enough to walk around in crazy bright spandex.  HAHA...Nah!  Either way, I felt good.

Within the last month or two, I became a member of the YMCA with the intention to improve my health on my own like I had done before, but to also just pass under the radar of anyone there because of certain painful situations that I intended to avoid. My weight began to plateau, so I thought I would try something new by adding a group fitness class.  

I took the Zumba class since I had a bit of experience thinking I could sink into the background.  I do not know what happened, but by golly Harry Potter's invisibility cloak was removed.  I remember one day one of the people from class asked how I was doing as she knew a little bit about some challenges I was and am currently still facing.  I am cursed with vague honesty, so I told her that I was basically 'hanging in there.'  Then she said something that I did not expect.  I could not believe the words came out of her mouth since I barely knew her and once they were set free I prayed that my face did not reveal the shock I was in.  She told me she had been praying for me.  Now, I am not the most religious person nor am I not a religious person...it's complicated right now, but those words stayed in my head for a long time.  They actually still  come back to me at certain moments (like this one).  Since then, this person has inadvertently done a few other things that I appreciate or needed motivation for, but for now I might just ride the inspiration until it is time to tell her, "You made a difference in my life, thank you."

There have been other brief moments like when one of the desk jockies acknowledges my attendance at the gym or even a brief acknowledgement from a familiar face with a smile that makes you want to smile also.  So, you see stopping to smell the roses is not a waste of time as some may think, but more of a small gift that is given in small doses to make sure you appreciate every piece individually and then as a whole.  I am hoping that at some point in my life I could/can/am this type of inspiration to someone else because to me it is a very rewarding position, but for now I am going to be gracious for this tidbits and smell a few more roses on the way.

The Almighty 'Out'

In our lives many of us come across a fork in the road where we know we are suppose to pick one way when we really want the other path, but should we take the other path a feeling of guilt will overcome us.  No one wants to feel guilty and no one wants to be punished for wanting what they want.  I understand this feeling, so when the option is presented to someone I know and it concerns me I offer the other option without the guilt.

However, tonight was the first time I was asked not to do this, which of course left me confused.  You see, in my experience, I do not recall being the path that is  chosen even when the other path is full of guilt.  I figured that if I remove myself from the equation I have control over my feelings of potentially being hurt that I was the second choice and by doing so I am ultimately in control.  There would be no guilt for the other person and no pain for me, which did give me a feeling of freedom because it was my choice and not the choice of the other person.  The down side to this is that I knew deep inside that every time I did this I was sacrificing to be the second choice, I did not feel the need to fight to be first.  It all made sense, until tonight.

I thought about this for awhile trying to figure out why this request shocked me.  As I rehashed the conversation small pieces seemed to expose responses with which I was not familiar.  I told this person I was offering an out knowing that this  person would rather being doing whatever other task was on the individual's mind, but the response was, "I don't need an out."  

I don't need an out.  I...don't need an out. I don't....need an out.

The words repeated in my head as I tried to examine them.  You see, I have this habit of dissecting what people say to find out the true meaning instead of the assumed meaning because long ago I learned that sometimes people tell you things without actually telling you, but I could not shake this phrase.  

I tried different emphasis, different organization like changing don't to do not, and I even changed out synonyms for the same words.  I don't need an out, I do not need an out, I do not want you to give me an out, I do not want the option of a second choice where you feel you need to give me an out......

Now maybe I am wrong in my development, but when I person does not want the option of a second choice it means that person wants just one and only first choice.  If you do not want to pick the other thing you desire, that leaves only...me.  I inadvertently became this person's first choice.  I will admit that this is something that I need to get used to feeling, but the sad part is that it should not have taken this person for me to be a first choice.  I should have owned the first place spot from the beginning. For some situations, the opt-out selection may be a wise choice as not all battles are important, but those times when I should have been the only choice I should have fought back.

So with respect I will try not to offer the sacrifice of the almighty 'out,'even though old habits die hard, but I will also appreciate the option this friend has shown me.  Between you and me....it is nice to be chosen first for a change.

The Proximity Drug

The past week has been hard for me for specific life adjustments that are recurring.  I still have no idea why certain paths like this are made and repeated, but I am holding on to the belief that everything happens for a reason. However, on this journey I have come across some people who have kept me focused by implanting some stability in a positive attitude.  What I am referring to is the situation of being between jobs.  There is fear of worst case scenarios and then there is the appreciation of a little time to do what you have been wanting to do for some time, like write.

Last time this happened, I lost some extra weight, finished some documents for grad school, and found a new love in exercise.  I took it a bit further and joined a gym knowing that I needed a bit extra in my life instead of the same routine exercise for my body.  My goal was to just concentrate on my health, but somehow some people slipped under my radar.  Now if you know me well enough, you will know that I am not the type to trust others with the most vulnerable side of me (yes, that deep dark mysterious hole in my heart that is never to be understood-ok, that was actually a bit of a joke), but after a life made of lies I chose to step out of my comfort zone by giving a little trust to a person unless they provide some reason for a background search. However, based on the atmosphere of the gym I have felt comfortable and safe there whether I am alone or not.

So I established a membership with the idea to blend in and 'lose myself in the crowd' theory of self preservation until one person said 'hi' and asked for my name because I was new to a fitness class. I'll be honest and say that this happened a couple times with different instructors, which for me was hard because I no longer blended.  Instead, I stood out.  Another incident was when one of, what I like to call, desk jockies pointed out to me how often I would show up to work out.  Once again, more confusion on the fact that I was noticed and shock because it seemed just a little out of the ordinary that someone was keeping track of me.  

These situations had taken place after a month of membership and I started to question why these particular people were in my life because it could not have been by chance that I was noticed.  I somewhat thought a bit that maybe something or someone (depending upon your spirituality) was keeping track of me and that I just had to trust wherever I was going.  I sometimes still doubt the path, but like the idea of Hansel and Gretel, I follow my trail of breadcrumbs to the gym....because after I eat them I'll need to burn them off. (Had to add some sarcasm to that.)  

Anyway, I have become accustom to the feeling or almost natural high from the atmosphere at the gym and the people there.  These people have established what I will call "The Proximity Drug" into my life.  Proximity is how close you are to something whether measured in space, time, or relationship.  I know this may say a bit about my age, but this idea brought me back to an episode on Dawson's Creek where Pacey Witter told Joey Potter why he would follow her even when she return the feelings he had for her.  He said:

"I mean, when you like somebody, proximity is a good thing regardless of how they feel about you. Or don't, as the case may be."

Why is this important you may ask?  Well, it is important to me because those people at the gym make me better by giving me something better.  There are people there who I just want to see for only a minute because I can share an intellectual conversation with that I am not getting from other areas in my life.  There are people who kick my butt to get off it and tell me every time they see me that I'm going to be okay, which forces me to focus on positive things and look at life in a rough situation with a smile.  There are people who miss me in a form that is a bit on a professional side, but the knowledge that I made an impact is comforting because that person would notice if I was gone.  Finally, there are some people there who, out of nowhere, tell me more about them than I need to know only to hunt me down later because I am their "proximity drug."

Honestly, I do not know what this year is going to bring, how it will end, or if I will ever feel completely safe as I worry about my financial well-being, but somehow I trust in the strength of proximity because it has gotten me this far.  Sometimes we just need to let go so we are able to follow whatever is leading us because even though that journey is meant to strengthen us, it does not mean that we will not need a little help along the pathway.

The Skinny and the Phat of my life

In the last few months, many people have said to me 'Oh my goodness you look great' or 'Wow, you have lost a lot of weight? How did you do it?"  I am not going to lie and say I took some magic wand that tightened up my core and toned up my legs, but I am going to tell you the key ingredients to the answers of those questions, which someone recently brought again to my attention.  To be where you want to be physically is controlled by your mentality and steam powered by your heart, literally and figuratively.  Now please note that I am neither a doctor or a dietitian nor am I a trainer or anything applied to the medical field, but I am a person like every Tom, Dick, and Harry who is out there trying to make my life better for me because it is the only one I have.  There are no redoes, rewinds, or even fast-forwards.  There is only the here, the now, and onward.  I will tell you that I do a lot of research, reading articles from many sources on many topics to find the right chemistry that it take for me to excel and achieve my goals. 

About ten months ago, a friend of mine needed to lose some weight for his health and he succeeded, but his mind changed in how he saw people and more specifically food.  When he talked, it hurt me because he could not empathize with those who were overweight, even though he was there only months prior, and it not only annoyed me, but angered me feeling as though he was attacking me for being fat.  Now I brought this to his attention knowing and agreeing with his answer that it was my own inferiority blocking my path, as well as his cocky ignorantly arrogant attitude.  So with my own pain I focused on something my mother had taught me and repeated often in my life which is, "If you don't like something, change it."  Simple, right?  Not so much, but I was afraid I was going to lose a friend if I did not change because I would not be able to keep up with him.

So to start, I changed my mind.  I began by setting goals for myself that were obtainable and I could be proud of with my success.  I realized that for me to begin I had to get up and move around, which of course took time away from other things in life. Sadly, some days it seemed to take more work just to get started, but the fact is that I realized this struggle telling myself, "If you just do some walking today you will have made a difference," which it did.  This thought was actually motivated by a video a friend had posted on social media of a man's journey to better health.  The man started with yoga, so I kept it simple and concentrated on just getting myself to move whether it was the elliptical aiming for ten minutes at first and then increasing over the next few weeks, walking, or even increasing my flexibility through yoga.  Eventually I lost my first five to ten pounds.  I knew that if I was going to continue I needed to amp up my process, so I set a new goal including more time as well as incorporating healthier foods into my diet.  Now I could go on a tangent about food, but for the sake of this entry, I am going to digress temporarily as changing one's body is beyond just food and exercise.

Over the next few months, I discussed different techniques to better my body with my ultimate goal being to run a 5K.  My mother encouraged me to complete a 5K telling me I could walk it and still feel successful, but I told her that was not good enough being that in my eyes it was too simple and I needed a challenge to motivate me.  I picked up my momentum and focused, which if you knew me is hard since my mind wanders constantly about random things and how that moment of running could be used for laundry or school work instead, but I had to change my train of thought once again.  What was I truly doing in those minutes?  Why was I viewing this as a waste of time?  I thought it was a waste of time knowing I could be doing other things, but taught myself that like the finance world, I was investing in myself for the future.  That is right; my trip to better my health soon became a metaphoric banking investment that I was determined not to lose interest in.

Now if you must know, this journey started around Thanksgiving and Christmas, so you can only imagine how hard it was to choose to ignore all the good cooking and baked goods.  This does not mean that I did not eat anything at all, but made choices for smaller portions or even sharing desserts just to have a taste of a holiday goody.  I hate to say it, but on a journey like this, a person needs comfort and unlike some people, I did not revamp my diet to exclude ALL goodies.  Instead, I embraced them as I incorporated them into the rewards to my goals.  I carried this motivation into the new year investing in a scale that calculated more than just weight and a Fitbit, which gives a numerical estimate of what my produces.  I bought these because I wanted to see how my numbers worked and how to readjust them as needed.  I will admit that I became a bit anal retentive by tracking what I eat, how many steps I take in a day, how many inches I lose on any part of my body, my weight, etc., but I needed those numbers like steps to the top of a ladder to see that my small goals were being met on the numerical aspect.

My new year was going well until a very unlucky day, March 17 St. Patrick's Day, I was let go from my job due to downsizing while I was away on vacation.  I panicked about everything from food, to money, to bills.  So I turned my focus to my health and pushed myself a bit further since I really had no other choice.  The weight continued to go down while my body began to tone up with muscle allowing me to do things I had not done in a long time and not be scared of them in fear of hurting myself.  Walking became my new friend as I would invest hours a day, with no job, to freeing my mind while I absorbed the outdoors.  I lost forty pounds walking in a couple of months.  I monitored my steps with goals to outdo the day prior, but my biggest accomplishment was not allowing my emotions to dictate my eating habits.  If anything the scenario improved it, giving me time to focus on what I was actually eating giving me opportunity to revamp my eating habits and foods that I craved.  This actually set a new goal for me in sharing my experience with others, leading me to apply for a fitness instructor position.  I was not completely qualified with physical certification, but the passion to share the knowledge and experience I gained did qualify me.  I now want those certifications in addition to everything else I have gained.

To this day, I have lost at least seventy-five pounds and continue to lose with the understanding that some weeks I am going to plateau and others my weight number may not change because I toned up my muscle to lose inches on my body instead.  I also need to acknowledge that my health has been an issue and the product of peer bullying since my early elementary years that I now see how it feels to be in the healthiest shape I have been since my teenage years (and it only took me twenty years to figure this out).  My friend, whom I mentioned before, would monitor his progress through the BMI scale and though I keep those measurements in the back of my head, I know and understand that those numbers are unrealistic.  I have seen too many people compare their health to that scale only to see them end up hospitalized because it was actually not a healthy measurement for their body.  I, however, measure my body by numbers and correlate those numbers into what I see and how I feel that day in my own skin.  Again, most of this begins in the reprogramming of your mind, but it also takes a lot of heart.  Not only is your heart the engine for your to do many physical activities, and keeping you alive, but you need to be passionate about yourself.  To think, initial intention was to impress and attract a boy, but became a journey where I realize I deserve much more and better than him.  Mainly, I deserve me the inside that is now being reflected more on the outside each day.

So for those of you who continue to ask me how I did this, well I learned to focus and value myself a bit more than I had in the past.  Instead of completely putting all others before myself, I learned to include myself because I am no less than anyone else.  So if you are reading this, I hope you understand that there is no proper education in the method of my madness even though learning from others and what works for them can also be essential and effective in motivation.  Start simple until you are comfortable because once you are comfortable, you need a new challenge.  With that said....Anyone want to go for a walk?