Maybe.

Right now is not fun. Right now is exhausting and tiresome and lonely and painful. Right now is crawling into bed in the wee hours of the morning after working all night, just to wake up and head right back into the daily grind. Right now is never sleeping enough, and on random days when I indulge, sleeping too much. But always feeling tired, and never quite rested enough. Right now is lacking a sense of home and a sense of family. Right now is stressful. Right now I am worrying, all. The time.

I’m terrified that I won’t make anything of myself, that I’ll never get out of this writers block funk (it’s been 22 days since my last post), that I’ll work minimum wage jobs forever, that I’ll never repair my relationship with the Lord, that I’ll think this poorly of myself forever, that my children will end up exactly the same. I’m not willing to come quietly and allow that to happen, but the fear lingers on.

Right now I’m resting on the hope of maybe.

I’ve applied to 7 other jobs in the past month. Because maybe if I get one and have two jobs along with Starbucks I can get my head above water and buy myself a nice pair of pants, because I deserve a nice pair of pants. Starbucks is killing me, what with everyone having a great distaste for my presence. Have you ever spent 6-8 hours a day 5 days a week with people that strongly dislike you? It’s disheartening. And a self-esteem crasher. But I am staying. Because maybe one day they won’t look at me like a bug they’d like to squash, and that would be a good day. Maybe I’ll start going to church again and stop using cuss words. Maybe we’ll save up enough money and actually get to Colorado. Maybe my kids will be much better versions of myself and I will cry at every ballet recital and soccer game because I’ll be that happy that they actually obtained a skill and won’t feel like I do.

Maybe will be refreshing and exciting and full of life and a family that likes each other. Maybe is all about connection and improvement and a better state of living. Maybe is nights and weekends off and a regular sleeping and eating schedule. Maybe includes a foundation and a sense of home and community.

Maybe sounds depressing and impossible, but maybe is all I’ve got. Maybe is better than dwelling on Right Now.

It’s all in the balance

There are times when I feel very isolated from people in this world. Regardless of the fact that I am a wallflower, and kindof a loner, and would 99% of the time rather be reading a book alone than at a party, I have moments when I feel completely disconnected from everyone else. Where I seem to live in a different dimension, yet somehow on the same planet. I have those fleeting blips in time where I know no one sees things like I do, or feels the way I do about something. It can be frightening and rather upsetting. Because nothing is more lonely than not having one person understand. Surrounded by people? Great. Thousands of friends? Fantastic. Prayers going out to you? Awesome. But no one gets it? Catastrophic.

You can accept that no one gets it. Understand and move past it. But that wash of complete desolation and solitude will wave over you again. The same damn thing every time, just a different scenario.

All you need is one person to reach out and say, I know what you’re feeling, and you believe it. When you hear that, and you know it’s true, it flows throughout you and settles in your stomach like a hearty meal. I’m not alone. 

I have no idea why it is so reconciling to know that. Knowing that someone else is just as messed up as you doesn’t make you any less damaged. It could be our human nature to not be the weakest link breathing a sigh of relief at the fact that you are not, in fact, at the bottom of the totem pole. But in a prideful, somewhat selfish way, I’d like to believe it’s something more than that. Something deeper and a little more fleshy.

Music is fleshy.

Listening to one person play music is soothing. It is nice and relaxing and entertaining.

Listening to multiple people play music.

Brings about the same feeling of understanding. They all get it. And are meshing together in a harmonious chatter that ruffles inside you and awakens nerve endings that have long since given up on feeling again.

Music is that kind of common denominator that has no language barrier. There’s a certain amount of it that is mathematical and can be calculated, however there is another entire side to it full of innovation and emotion that comes directly from the right brain. You would think that this would be better, this emotional creative side of music. No, friend. It is the marriage of the two that makes it beautiful. Because what are ideas without knowledge? What is the desire to bear a child without the careful chemistry of the human body? And an artist’s mind without a steady hand?

Music gets it. Music entangles you to people again. In the absolute best way possible. It ties you into knots with people with every note played. And wraps your arms around each other with each glorious chord strummed.

There’s some kind of connectibility about music. It’s universal.

It is more real and concrete than words. But somehow still soft and fleshy and inviting. Again, the marriage of cold, hard fact with bright emotions.

Which may be why nothing works for me. I am always one or the other. Complete fact tyrant, or psycho softie. I can’t find the balance of the two, and it is holding me back in ways unimaginable. Until I get there, people aren’t going to get me.

One day.

Chacos are Ugly.

For whatever reason I find myself constantly consumed with the battle of “cool and trendy” vs. “creative and new”. Cool enough to fit in to the norm of everyday life, but strange and different enough to catch people’s attention.

When some new fashion craze bursts to life, I am drunk with the idea of owning whatever it is. Then the trend takes its toll, and I suddenly realize I am but one of ten trillion teenage girls sporting [nike shorts, skinny jeans, side bangs, chacos, wayfare sunglasses, oversized teeshirts, high waisted jean shorts, etc., etc.] And as a bonus, I wear none of those well.

Not as a generation or even as teenagers, but as human beings we leech ideas off of one another like they are the very things that keep us alive. One person produces one cool item of clothing inspired by another piece of cool clothing that someone famous happened to like and wear one time, and suddenly half of American girls (and 25% of the boys) are completely captivated by skinny jeans. We are victims to our desire to be accepted and loved. The world has been sending us mixed signals on how to do that.

It screams in our ears in every commercial and billboard and magazine and that we must have [whatever-the-hell-their-product-is] in order to be loved and accepted by our peers. We get suckered into believing that our boobs must be bigger by buying this bra, and our waists smaller by ordering this workout dvd, we will make better phone calls from this phone, and listen to better music on this mp3. They hypnotize us, and make us accept the idea that we all need the same damn iphone. But those same people are putting out promotional crap every day that we have to be ourselves and be love who we are as an individual. They put celebs on talk shows and have them give a nice speech about how individuality is important. The moral of every story is “be yourself”.

We are confused. Running around in Nike shorts and strange indian print things trying to be original. We sit on Pinterest for hours repinning cool, original house decor crafts that by the same time next week everyone already has in their house. Because they repinned it too. Or we just all have it repinned and never do anything with it. We write blogs where we got our inspiration from other blogs, and we post statuses with words from other people’s mouths. Society has perpetually discombobulated our idea of originality and what it is worth. We all do the same things, trying to stand out. We see something we like and we latch onto it. We can tweak it sometimes and “make it our own”, but everything has a source.

Nothing can be created.

And I didn’t even say that first. Some old guy did, I think, but I don’t know his name and I’m too lazy to Google it.

There is worth to be had in originality, friends. We can be creative beings, we just have to let go of the idea that we can be the first. The wheel has already been invented. We just have to get this original bug out of our heads. This, “hipster” mindset where we have to do everything before it’s cool.

If skinny jeans don’t look good on you, don’t buy them.

If you think chacos are ugly (and they are) don’t buy them.

If you think you will be the ten thousandth girl to buy nike shorts, you probably should buy them anyway. They work.

If you don’t have a face shape for bangs, step away from the scissors.

If you don’t like pilates or hot yoga, don’t do it. Plus, yoga is so five years ago. Just kidding.

It’s taken me a long time to realize that if trends don’t work for you, you don’t have to partake. And I still haven’t fully accepted that. I still, in fact, own skinny jeans. And chacos. And I regret bangs every time I cut them. There’s something to be said about eating the food you like and the clothes that look good on you and engaging in activities you enjoy. Rather than taking food network up on the newest salad craze and joining the 7,000,000 other college students in wearing nothing but athletic clothes and occasionally go running or hiking, but acting like you do it every day.

We are capable of more than enlisting in trends, and that includes the originality trend. As little sense as that makes. In my opinion, the idea of being original has been watered down to nothing more than words. “I did that first, I liked that first, I ate that first.” For Gods sake, people. That’s not, that’s not even what it’s about.

Anything else I want to say is going to sound like a “love yourself” speech, and that’s not what I’m after.

Alls I’m saying is that chacos are ugly and if the skinny jeans don’t fit, don’t wear em.