Dream -- Sunday, December 30th, 2017 -- Last Day of the Year

Last night I dreamt I went on a choir trip, but forgot my passport, forgot my pants, shirts, shoes, and choir dress. I was so stressed and knew I had to tell my choir director, but somehow when it was finally the time, one of my friends (who I know in real life and was in choir with me), handed me the phone to talk with him, but it was instead a guy in the choir (one of the leaders of the bass/tenor section) and he wasn't helpful at all.

The entire dream I just remember being stressed and worrying about the fact that I hadn't brought the right things.

And on top of that in I realized that I didn't have very much money to buy new things.

I think my dad suggested that I just leave, but that didn't seem like a great option since I would have to pay for a plane flight back and I didn't have money.

Post-Christmas Aftermath

This Christmas was the first Christmas in a long time that I can remember where I feel like a semi-truck bulled me over and I'm in the ICU for the long-haul (haha -- jokes).

I dunno what the special combination of things was, but man-oh-man, it was a doozy. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I am a people pleaser and I absolutely don't know how to not let people have their tussles and for it to be okay that things aren't okay. And maybe it has to do with the fact that when you bring a partner into your family, you are so aware of how comfortable that person is (or is not), and if people are getting along and enjoying them.

All of that to say -- even though this Christmas was a little overwhelming, the day after Christmas was actually the perfect antidote to being in my head.

The whole day I spent with myself.

I read. I took a long bath. And I went outside into the frosted, misty, winter-y woods and took photos and galavanted around barefoot and breathed fresh oxygen into my legs, and lungs, and soul.

It felt like breathing all the way in and exhaling all the way out -- and I haven't felt that in a while.

I think I need to set aside more alone time. I forget how valuable and important that is for me sometimes.

I've come to find

that if I don't start my mornings somewhat early and with some amount of purpose and vigor, I don't start my day -- ever. I stay in pjs and messy hair and a sleepy face.

Right now I am reading Esther Perel's book "The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity".

I'm not sure if reading about affairs and their inner-workings is making me feel more confident and okay with the nebulousness and potential of anyone in the world having an affair (happy, unhappy, open relationship or closed), or if it makes me feel like the world is off it's rocker -- screwed. Stupid.

The thing about me when I'm in a place of uncertainty in life -- such as this moment when I am back living at my parents house having finished school, waiting to sub and then waiting to have enough money from subbing to get board certified and then get a MT job -- I want to change everything in my life. I want to control it all. Pick up marble after marble of uncertainty and hold them in my fists for safekeeping. But inevitably it ends up being that I can't control that many marbles of uncertainty and when I pick up one I drop another, and the more I recognize I can't hold, can't control, the more panicked I get and the more I try to pick them up and tighten my grip on them.

Do you think it's true that some people are better at living with uncertainty? Some people are more adapted to or biologically programmed for living in a state of perpetual uncertainty?

Or is that more of a primitive human thing and everyone has it and some people are just better at making themselves practice living in that place of uncertainty?

I guess I could try and do that. Try and give myself exercises to practice being okay with not knowing and not being able to control outcomes.

But here's the thing. I'm sort of a contradiction; a walking oxymoron. At the same time that I fear uncertainty and not knowing what the hell life holds or even the next day, I ALSO really love mystery. It's why I love music. It's why I love big beautiful things like the stars, Crater Lake, love, eyes, ship wrecks and unexplored land. The uncertainty is also the gleeful excitement that "anything could happen".

What a weird place to be in. On one hand I am trying to mitigate potential for things happening that I don't know so that bad things won't possibly happen. And on the other I am craving the unknown and it's spontaneous ways because it can be some of the most exciting/fulfilling stuff.

I guess it comes down to me deciding how I want to spend my time, and what I want to build towards.

It goes back to the quote that I used in my final presentation for my music therapy internship:

“Water is fluid, soft, and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another paradox: what is soft is strong.” -- Lao Tzu

I want to be soft and yielding, curious (exploring the rock, accepting it, enveloping it into my life as a reality), and strong. Water wears away at rock.

Dear Ellie,

Trust yourself.

Trust that you aren't trying to escape. That you aren't procrastinating. That you haven't "lost vision".

This time to take care of yourself -- rest, re-set, allow your mind and body to just "be" -- isn't you being lazy or backing out.

Rest is a necessary part of life, and you haven't had much of it the last year or so.

Don't let others words and thoughts and expectations fill you with guilt and shame about where you are.

Stay true to yourself. As Brene Brown says -- don't be afraid to explore and wander into the Wilderness alone.

Take a deep breath. Exhale. Take another deep breath.

Forgive.

Smile.

You are your response to events, words, circumstances -- not others' projections of you. Stick it out.

Move forward with confidence, peace, and excitement for the future.

You are a badass.

You have a mother f-ing supreme work ethic.

You have more vision and purpose than anyone could dream residing in your Ellie-being.

Trust that -- again. Trust yourself. Trust the path God has led you down. Open your heart, don't close down. Allow for that vulnerability. Allow for the light.

Now move, girl, move like the wind, on and away from this thought, this feeling, this moment.

The halfway line

At the halfway line for my internship. Which means that I still have another 3 months (ish) to go before I complete it. After that, it's the board certification exam. And then I have absolutely no fucking idea.

What has happened to me over the years? Where has my happiness gone? My optimism? My childlike curiosity?

It feels like the combination of growing up, mixed with money, mixed with life, mixed with I don't know what just what has made me into a freaking cynical bastard.

I don't want to be that. I want to enjoy the world around me. I want to be in awe of beautiful things. I want to laugh and smile and giggle and have such a ball that my stomach aches from the laughter and the smiling and the giggling and the ball of it all.

I say "I want" a lot these days. More than I think I did when I was a kid. Which is ironic considering I need less than I did as a kid. I required more from the world as a kid. Now I ask for more, even though I'm actually quite equipped to just, I dunno. Make life for myself. Live on my own. Do stuff.

Within the last year it seems that I have felt this funneling, this requirement to go one direction, to make life happen in a certain way. And it scares me. Scares the shit out of me. Because what happens if it goes the wrong way? What happens if after all the funneling I get out on the other side of the tunnel that leads one way and find out I took the wrong tunnel?

IS there a wrong tunnel?

Is that just a stupid idea -- that we're "supposed" to do something in particular; make some sort of impact, be some sort of special, contribute some sort of gift?

I dunno man. It's a freaking lot of pressure.

I'm gonna go for a walk.