I get caught up sometimes in the different expectations and obligations that have pull on my time. In the end I need to remember one thing:
the most important thing to me is that I work, work my fucking ass off until my fingers bleed. I have words that need to get out. I have stories that need to be told. I have to be committed in a miserable and one-track way that defies all things and abandons all things. I need to be crazy in pursuit of my goals. I need to be committed to dig deep and find the true things inside of me that my characters crave; that my readers are entitled to. People need to hear me. I need to be heard.
That's the bottom line.
“The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity. The inventor did it, because it was natural to him, and so in him it has a charm. In the imitator, something else is natural, and he bereaves himself of his own beauty, to come short of another man's.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Love
Lately I've been feeling like a crybaby, because everything I see makes me teary. I should clarify, not everything, mostly just touching, beautiful, or amazing things are making me cry. The only problem is that I find a lot of things that fall into one of those three categories.
Part of me thinks that since I have started to feel the ticking of my internal baby clock, and as my body is pumped full of hormones I have fallen into some estrogen-induced happiness-coma in which I attempt to love as many things about the world as possible. Maybe there's something biological about it? It ruins it to overanalyze, but sometimes I wonder. It just seems unreasonable that one person could be as happy as I am, or in any way deserves to be. And yet, I am.
As I go about my day I am sometimes terrified that I don't deserve this, that the universe is fixing to serve me up a nasty slap in the face in the form of something horrible happening to me, some new kind of devastation that mirrors my current jubilance perfectly. Isn't it strange that I've grown up thinking that happiness is unattainable and that I don't deserve it? There's nothing in my upbringing to suggest this, so don't get the wrong idea. I just keep waiting for the arm to reach in and snatch back all the wonderful things I've been given.
But meanwhile, I've decided I'm going to enjoy it. It isn't part of me to give in to those feelings, to feel depressed, to let my fears diminish my appreciation for my life at all. So I feel sappy and lovey all the time, so what? What's wrong with telling all the people in your life how much they mean to you, or crying over the way a song makes you feel? I told my husband that all I wanted in our relationship was for him to always feel that he was loved, appreciated, and adored every day. So far, so good. I told him that when I die I don't want there to be any question in his or in anyone else's mind about how much I loved them. I did. I do. I love my friends and family in the way that you love something that you know you were lucky to get, and that you will be torn apart to see it go. I know that I am lucky, or blessed if you prefer that term, and I guess I will just take this time while it lasts to be in constant appreciation of it.
On that note, I cried watching this video today. It's lovely.
I hope when I am old, when my heart has been broken, when I have lost many of the things I today appreciate and love, I will still have the capacity for joy. Please don't let it die before I do.
Part of me thinks that since I have started to feel the ticking of my internal baby clock, and as my body is pumped full of hormones I have fallen into some estrogen-induced happiness-coma in which I attempt to love as many things about the world as possible. Maybe there's something biological about it? It ruins it to overanalyze, but sometimes I wonder. It just seems unreasonable that one person could be as happy as I am, or in any way deserves to be. And yet, I am.
As I go about my day I am sometimes terrified that I don't deserve this, that the universe is fixing to serve me up a nasty slap in the face in the form of something horrible happening to me, some new kind of devastation that mirrors my current jubilance perfectly. Isn't it strange that I've grown up thinking that happiness is unattainable and that I don't deserve it? There's nothing in my upbringing to suggest this, so don't get the wrong idea. I just keep waiting for the arm to reach in and snatch back all the wonderful things I've been given.
But meanwhile, I've decided I'm going to enjoy it. It isn't part of me to give in to those feelings, to feel depressed, to let my fears diminish my appreciation for my life at all. So I feel sappy and lovey all the time, so what? What's wrong with telling all the people in your life how much they mean to you, or crying over the way a song makes you feel? I told my husband that all I wanted in our relationship was for him to always feel that he was loved, appreciated, and adored every day. So far, so good. I told him that when I die I don't want there to be any question in his or in anyone else's mind about how much I loved them. I did. I do. I love my friends and family in the way that you love something that you know you were lucky to get, and that you will be torn apart to see it go. I know that I am lucky, or blessed if you prefer that term, and I guess I will just take this time while it lasts to be in constant appreciation of it.
On that note, I cried watching this video today. It's lovely.
I hope when I am old, when my heart has been broken, when I have lost many of the things I today appreciate and love, I will still have the capacity for joy. Please don't let it die before I do.
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