Thursday, August 14, 2014

Itchy.

Today I awakened with an itchy throat. I wanted to reach down and scratch it with my overgrown fingernails. Didn't bode well for the day. "If I lay heeeere, if I just lay here..."

Last night I downloaded Allison Vesterfelt's freshly released e-book, Writing To Find Yourself, because of course I need yet another thing to tell me how to do something before I bother trying. Perfectionist. You know this. Anyway, the e-book is an adorable little thing--only one hundred pages. I wanted to read it all in one go, but it was late and I was tired so I stopped on page fifty-five. This is unimportant and I am stalling. It's part of the exercise.

Anyway, the only thing that made me forget about wanting to remove my throat was my excitement about getting to finish Allison's book. The first half was eerily relevant and encouraging, giving me things to work on instead of providing a security blanket for my excuses and bad habits. I was stoked to finish it thinking, "Holy coconuts, I think I'm going to write something after this!" And then I noticed something, yet another thing to hide behind: after this. As in, after I finish reading about how to do this thing as perfectly as possible even though the entirety of what I've read so far is about NOT striving for perfection and instead allowing room for error/growth/allowing yourself to be where you are in order to discover what needs adjustment. So, instead of finishing the book, I stopped (with brute force) on page eighty and decided to tackle what I found to be the hardest challenge yet addressed: "write now, edit later." UM, WHAT. That is completely foreign language as someone who only ever edits as she goes. I don't even know what a draft is. Actually wait, it's that thing where I spend ten years "waiting" to say stuff and then when it finally comes out it's like the ends of the bread that no one ate that you pull from the back of the fridge half-frozen, blue, and disturbingly fuzzy (if you do eat those, comment below--in their fresh state, obviously), and then no one ever wants to see the insides of that fridge again... But I digress.

Write now, edit later. I had to sit and make that mean something to me. Even writing this, I've been careful and even cheated and deleted/added a couple of things. Just for that, I, when I've finished this, have to post it as-is. I don't get to edit later because I cheated. Self-inflicted punishment. That line I wanted to add back up at the top in between "...bother trying" and "Perfectionist"? Nope. You'll never know what it was. You may be wondering whether or not I am being serious--I am. It is ri-di-cu-lous that I have to (choose to) treat myself this way. But until I get more comfortable with being uncomfortable, that's how it's going to be. Don't worry, you don't have to understand. Although, something tells me that a lot of you do.

After I finish Allison's wonderful, Godsend of an e-book, I'm going to tell everyone to download it, and then I'm going to read it again and take notes. What a truly invaluable work that applies to so much more than just writing. Like, I'm considering using the whole of chapter six to patch some cigarette burns in my tapestry, so to speak. There is so much more to say about it--I mean heck, if this mini-book moved me to post on my crusty, dusty, crypt of a "blog," imagine what it'll do for less abnormal people?!

Well done, Allison. Thank you for turning a day that began with an itchy throat into a day of first steps toward betterment. Maybe it won't be a year before I post here again.


~mm~

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Note to self.

-You cannot heal if you think too highly of yourself.

-You cannot be of use to others if you think too highly of yourself.

-You have got to stop drinking coffee when you're already worked up.

-Stop being a bottle.

-But strain your contents wisely and in such a way that prevents the opportunity for  your own incrimination to be used as a diversion.

-Slow down.

-But don't be idle.

-When you have to pee, pee.

-Same goes for the other thing.

-Play/write/study every day. Every. Day. DAILY.

-James 2:14-17

-Get up with the sun sometimes. Remember Who awakened both of you.

-Stop getting distracted by petty feces.

-Don't be ashamed to rest.

-You don't have to defend your need for rest to anyone.

-You don't have to defend your path to anyone.

-Just stop defending yourself. (Wait...)

-Seek only the Father's approval.

-No, but seriously.

-Read more. And more, and more, and more.

-Keep the scissors away from your danged head.

-Work on your cotton-picking handwriting. You should be ashamed.

-Stop being so perfectionistic.

-But don't use that as an excuse for not doing your best.

-And, for Pete's sake, go to bed at a reasonable hour.


Monday, January 13, 2014

Salad.

Oh, look, it's time for my annual blog post.

Making an introduction would be both inappropriate and useless, so I'll just leave you feeling as though you picked up a book and opened it right down the middle. After all, the beginning is still there if you care enough to go back and have a look.

Right now, I'm in the valley. At least I think I am. There's always an inner dialogue in which I question the breadth of my tribulations, wondering whether or not they truly warrant the inner turmoil, feelings of nausea, and constipation (of all sorts). Surely, there must be someone whose valley is darker than mine... I've finally come to the conclusion that this is a no-no way of thinking. Your story is your own, and if this is the darkest your valley has ever been because you spilled your bowl of cereal this morning, then it's the darkest it's ever been. That's not to say that perspective is tossed out of the window... Something worse than spilling cereal will indefinitely occur, and when it does, you'll wish that it would've just been a cereal spill. Realizations of what is truly important may even come from incidents in the lives of others. However, to live in a constant state of thinking which says, "Susy's situation is worse than mine, so my sadness over the cereal is no longer valid," is a never-ending spiral of worthlessness. In so many words, you only know what you know*. It's like thinking NyQuil is the worst thing you will ever put into your mouth until you taste Robitussin. Humans will always, by nature, be infatuated with comparison even when by it they are consumed. To deny yourself agony and pain in the name of "something-much-worse-this-way-comes" may very well be to deny yourself a lesson. You are where you are for a reason, and there is always something to be gained.

It's a funny thing to be asked how you're doing whilst in the valley. The answer I'd like to give is, "Well, I feel like someone has shat heavily upon my head, but at least it's not diarrhea, eh? Eh?? HA!" Actually, sometimes it is diarrhea. There are days when I scream and cry and try to figure out how many variations of "f*ck" I can come up with in an hour because no one wants to be covered in poo and are you kidding me wah wah stomp feet slam door......but then there are times when I sit still with a Friend, snap on the latex gloves, and see if the defecator perchance swallowed any diamonds. I've found a lot of diamonds. And when I'm tired of looking, my Friend finds more. Sure, they need to be sterilized and polished, and rarely is that process a fun one, but the result is always worth it. A ring turns into a bracelet turns into a necklace turns into a crown. *insert something relating to the solid Rock on which I stand ha ha ha, punny*


I was making a salad for breakfast (because when you wake up at 11:30am, you eat spinach and call it breakfast as punishment) and when I went to grab dried cranberries, they were nearly gone. How in the... What the... No one in this house even likes cranberries as much as I do and the bag was full not three days ago and did someone spill them and shucking fit. After I calmed down, which took longer than I'll admit, I thanked the Lord for the few dried cranberries that He made sure were left in the bag. Yeah, I only had, like, six of 'em. But six were better than none because what would've combated the pungency of the goat cheese?! (Has anyone else noticed that after you put goat cheese in your mouth, but before you chew it, it tastes as though you've just walked into a high school basketball game and accidentally inhaled through your mouth right when there was a rebound? No? Okay.)

Alls I'm sayin' is, look for the diamonds in the rough. You won't be able to do it alone, so find the One most qualified to assist you before you drown in a heap of shite excrement.


Peace, love, and goat cheese, playuhzzz.


-mm-

P.S. There were more than six cranberries. There were, like, eleven. But still.


(*To be clear, I do not at all mean this in an ignorance-is-bliss sort of way, or that one should put a cap on their "knowledge.")