Girl 27

My palms are sweaty.  I sit here with sweaty palms.  I find myself a bit nervous...no...perhaps a bit...undefined?  Okay.  Undefined.  (Perhaps a bit unrefined, as well.)  Sometimes I love the beauty, angst, the flow of words.  And sometimes I feel they cheapen an experience or state of being, never quite being able to give proper credit to what is now.  That's why I think I love theatre so much.  It is a look, a voice, words, a picture.  It is raw.  Sometimes it's a facade...yet-you can still see what is underneath.  There's always an underneath.  You can never fully be who you are portraying...you are always somewhere underneath.  I don't think I've even come close to being.  I have acted, and I have reacted until it hurts.  I want to find someone until the underneath is blurred, and that person becomes part of the underneath forever.  I want to take the pieces and spread them out on the floor and begin to piece it together bit by bit.  I want to be a story, and not just tell it.  I suppose I don't want to ever fully be someone else's story, though.  It is not mine to be.  It belongs to someone else, doesn't it?  And I would want it to remain theirs...I would not want to cheapen their story because my ability can only take it so far. 

Who do I think I am?

Suddenly I feel very inadequate and selfish.  Who am I to think I should get on that stage and tell someone else's story?  I can't help it, though.  There's something within me that fights, stirs, does not rest...what do they call that?  Insatiable?  My insatiable appetite to be.  That sounds nice and dramatic. 

I am absurd.  Trouble is, I don't know how else to be.  No matter who I try to be, the underneath is always there.  The strangest part?  I like the underneath.  I like the raw, the ugly, the deep calm, joy at its truest form.  I like me at my truest form.  

I started this blog because I did not want my previous post to be the first thing someone saw if they chose to read my story.  When I find myself in a moment to write such babble as the previous post, it is just that, a moment, and then it's gone.  Such stuff.  People will draw their conclusions, I suppose.  Or, perhaps, people do not think about me as much as I would like to think they do.  We're all a bit too busy thinking about ourselves, yet we still manage to draw conclusions about others, don't we? 

I wish I were brave. 

I want to be brave.

You see?  A picnic planned today with old friends.  My heart and mind know there is some place I need to be, so they decide to trick me into contemplative melancholy.  A few years ago I might have succumbed and spent the day locked away in a tower of pretension...or perhaps I would just be still.   I am beginning to understand that sometimes (only sometimes) I would use those opportunities as an escape from the responsibilities of being social.  It is so much easier to sit in a tower than it is to plaster a smile on the ugly for a day, or have to constantly tell people that nothing is wrong...you just feel...content being calm.  Now, however, I have opened up enough to realize that I am not alone in the underneath...we all have it.  I can write for a piece, throw my hair into a ponytail, grab my flip flops, jump into my jeep, and use the ride over to find who I am today...no more plaster...the sticky-tape doesn't work well in the humidity anyway.  I choose to climb down from the tower and spend time today with people who bring me so much joy, and peace, and make me laugh until my face hurts.  

I never thought my story would have so many delightful encounters...   

    

Present-tense Inclination

Just write.

If you begin to type, it's amazing how the words begin to pour out...

or maybe not...maybe not this time...

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I want someone to play with my hair

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intertwine their fingers in mine

when they know I'm feeling insecure

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just before I make my grand entrance

or perhaps 

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just because

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I want to talk about the shapes in the clouds

and straighten his tie

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I want to sit on a bench in the garden

and read

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pausing for a moment

to watch him mow the lawn

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I want to feel safe

and loved

and..

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I want old hands

and a young heart

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I want to respectfully decline an offer to dance

with a handsome stranger

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because my heart is no longer my own

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I want to close my eyes

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and breathe

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and wish again tomorrow...for something new.

I don't want to fall another moment into your...

I like to be alone.  I would love to say it's because I can then create and live, for a moment, in a different kind of reality that I have created just for me, but, I think it's more that the truth has a better opportunity to present itself to me when there is no one around to muck it up.  I'm not saying people muck things up for me.  I'm saying I tend to muck things up for me when people are around.  I don't know why. (I'm not trying to play the perpetual victim with that statement, or seeking affirmation.)  I don't need it right now, actually...affirmation.  I, also, don't have any desire to be a victim in this moment, either.  I desire...truth.

I heard it said once that if you're questioning your sanity then that means you're sane because insane people do not question their own sanity...uh-huh.  I don't believe myself to be insane.  I am human, and with that comes some pretty crazy shit.  The end.

I do, however, question my choices, sometimes.  I question how much I allow my emotions to drive the daily decisions I make.  I would love, at times, to be able to put my nose to the grindstone and do something I don't want to do to accomplish something I want in the long run.  What do they call that?  Discipline?  Ahh, self-discipline.  I feel like self-discipline has always played a cruel little trick on me my whole life.  Okay, maybe that's a little dramatic, but I feel like it taunts me, from somewhere just out of my reach, and the only reason I want it is because I can't have it.  Or maybe that's my lame excuse for not making the necessary changes to obtain it.  Maybe.  Maybe...it's a lot easier to sit here and whine about who I wish I was then it is to actually get off my butt and do something about it.  I like who I am more than I ever have before...but I must not become complacent and think that this is good enough.  Part of me thinks this is just fine, and knows I will grow and change with time and through experiences that are beyond my control...it's inevitable.  The other part of me thinks time is of the essence, and there's no time like the presence to get off my butt and get moving...even if I don't always know where I'm going, exactly.  Clean your room, do your homework, make some dinner, write a blog, take a shower, call your mother, pay your bills, go out and meet a nice man...why?  Why should I?  Because that's what everyone does...but why?  Why do you spend half the day thinking about what you should make or have for dinner?  Why do you go to a job and continually look for a better one?  Why do you make goals for a future you don't even know will happen?  How do you walk by people who are hurting and ignore them because you have things to do?  We all do it.  We all ignore people who might make us feel called to a different action than the one we are in the midst of in that moment.  Sometimes I wonder if I have the urge to drop what I'm doing and help because it might be easier than whatever I am responsible for in that moment.  As if helping is an escape for me rather than a necessity or intrusion.  It's easier to live poor because it weighs less.  Maybe that's what makes it right.  Maybe that's what makes it wrong.  Somewhere deep I know the answer...but it doesn't seem to stop me from asking questions.  

I have found myself in a different place in my mind than I thought I was when this writing began.  The desire for truth remains, however.  I do not want my emotions to guide me unless it is the truth...I have a sinking feeling that oftentimes I am deceived by my own feelings.  Ha.  The alone time allows me to separate it all out, and begin to piece it all back together in a way that makes more sense...well, to me, at least.  I know a lot of times people think I am...odd.  I'm sure I could throw a few more words in there, but for now, odd will work.  :)  I have tried to figure out what people wanted from me, and played the part as best I could.  I have also fought hard against it, and stuck out a metaphorical middle finger at the world through my actions, or inaction.  I have cared, and worked tirelessly to the point of exhaustion, and I have sat, detached, stubborn, and immobile.  I have woken up in the middle of the night, contemplating life.  I have gone through the motions, and I have slept soundly, knowing it all works out in the end.  Sometimes, I have gone through all of these things in the course of a single day.  Believe me, nobody knows better than me how...odd...I am.  I fight it...and embrace it...all the time.  

In the end, though...it's not really about me, is it?