Tell me something

Last year I had a tough time getting over a break-up. When I finally got to a mental space where I started feeling better I realized that it helped me to take note of the good things going on in my life. I also realized that I could help share those positive feelings by asking others to share with me. My friends could take the opportunity to consider their own good fortune and I could simultaneously share in their happiness while reflecting on my own. So I started texting others to tell me something awesome or amazing about their day. I received some great responses. I re-connected with friends I had lost touch with, had a few who thought something was wrong, and overall heard some awesome and amazing things. So thanks to my friends and family for sharing with me!

Let Others Tell You "No"

My Dad is a “no” man. When my siblings and I were growing up, the first thing out of his mouth- before our questions were even fully articulated - was “no.” It did not matter if we were asking to stay at a friend’s house for dinner, or going to school early for math club, his first reaction was to respond in the negative. Given his fondness for saying “no” to our childhood requests, his advice to me later in life seems at odds with his own typical response. He told me to approach jobs, school, and life by letting others tell me “no.” His advice was not suggesting I give power to others to make my decisions for me, but instead he did not want me to say “no” to myself before I had even tried.

To put this in the positive sense, and how I have since interpreted his advice: I say yes to myself, yes to the possibilities that may lie before me, and I have become my own biggest advocate. There are so many times that I told myself no, that I told myself I could not do something even though I had the desire to do it, or that I assumed the answer would be “no” if I asked. Each time I did this I lost an opportunity to grow, experience, or learn. As I have adopted the mindset of letting others (rather than myself) tell me “no” I have become the person I have always wanted to be. I have the job and career I want, I live and love my relationships fully, and I have pushed myself physically more than I ever thought I could.

In some of the ways I benefited, it has been simple but important for my career. It has meant that I asked for the graduate school teaching position, I asked for reimbursement of my moving experiences, I asked for a different start date, and I asked for an increase in starting salary. I asked for all of these (and more) and I received a lot of what I asked for, but not everything, and that is okay. It is okay because had I assumed the answer would be “no” and therefore, had I failed to ask the question in the first place, I never would have heard yes for any of the things I asked for. I did not let myself assume that the answer from my graduate schools or potential employers would be “no,” but neither did I assume it would be “yes.” Asking does not entitle me to what it is that I want, it merely means I am not my own limiting factor.

My relationships with others has been one of the areas in my life which has felt more natural to fully embrace letting others tell me “no.” I am an extrovert, I love meeting new people, I love interacting and sharing with others, and I thrive on their joy and happiness. I approach my love life in the same manner: I am open, honest, I feel emotions fully and deeply, and I make my feelings well known to my partner (or potential partner). Although I feel that it is natural for me to approach my love-life this way, it does not mean that it is easy. Letting others tell me “no” has meant that I am extremely emotionally vulnerable, and I have been crushed, devastated, and hurt, a lot. But saying yes in the first place has allowed me to experience love. It has allowed me to experience relationships and all the joys and challenges that come along with them. With each of these relationships I have learned, I have grown, and I have a better understanding of the type of partner that I want in my life.

I am not perfect in always saying “yes” to myself. I still have many moments of doubt, and anxiety about my skills, particularly as it applies to my physical abilities. I am in constant awe and admiration of friends and acquaintances who run marathons, hike and bike long distances, obtain the perfect yoga head-stand, or any number of other amazing physical feats. The first time a friend of mine suggested we go on a bike-ride of over 50-miles. I laughed in her face. I laughed because I thought it was absurd, the most I had ever biked on one ride was 25-miles. But she kept telling me that she knew I could do it, so I finally said yes, and by the end of our ride we had actually gone over 60-miles. I have similar experiences in hiking and yoga, and each time my friends have played a crucial role in helping me realize what my mind and body can do if I just say, “yes.” I am forever grateful to them and for knowing that when I doubt myself, they are there to help push me towards “yes.”

I have in turn tried to play the role of “yes” for other people in my life. For Father’s Day this past year I went with my Dad on a bike ride he had been mentioning for over a year, but had never done. He was nervous about it, and maybe a bit worried he could not do it. I insisted we go, and constantly reminded him I knew he could do it. Now, he is riding his bike more often and motivated to go even longer distances. I am not sure my Dad knows the impact of his advice on me, or that years later it would come back to show him that saying “yes” to a situation rather than “no” could help push his own physical abilities. 

Sum-Sum-Summer

Standing on the edge

Of a cliff, I am

Confident.

Inches

From death, with

Thoughts only of life:

I have no need for

Jealousy, towards the

Hawk and eagle.

I have mastered

Their art: flying

From the edge of a cliff.

They stain my skin,

With their blood

Leaving delicate, purple bruises

On my fingertips.

But, they do me no harm

Their weapon is a mere

Kick in the mouth:

A tart bite,

Before the burst of sweet liquid

Is worth the fight.

The trees, flowers and weeds were ripe, ready and overwhelming.

            They smelt of sex:

                        Sweet,

                        Lustful,

                        Willing,

                        Desirous

            Was the only way to describe their potency.

I took a breath,

Drank their essence,

And fell victim to their wicked potion.

Chocolate Disillusionment

The German chocolate cake tempts me.

I crave it at those times of day when I desire distraction from work,
Or when alcohol has eased my inhibitions

The German chocolate cake sits in front of me,
Stacked high and covered with a smooth frosting
I must have it.

As I move to fulfill my want
I realize too late
that it is merely a hostess cupcake.
Even then- its individual packaging appears to be just for me.
The white icing draped on the top of the cake is familiar, and comforting.
I tear off the wrapper, and the crinkle of the plastic nearly excites me.

But before I can even take the first bite I am disillusioned:
I bring the cake towards my mouth but there is no deep chocolate smell,
I can feel no moist cake perfection.

The first bite confirms,
The brown colored bread merely alludes to the dark chocolate I desire
And the white cream is a distraction from what I really want.

I finish it nonetheless.  Unsatisfied,
I reach for the second cupcake and finish that one off too.

Although I am not satiated, I am full.
It is not until the sugar high has worn off that
I sit with the empty wrapper and once again look for the
German chocolate cake.

But it's not there.  It never was.

To those who won’t love

I want to kick you. Hard.  I want you to succumb to the physical pain.  And I want you to use it as a proxy for emotional pain. So imagine that pain, feel it tearing through your body and now make it a million times worse than that.  I want your whole body to be revolting against you. Then imagine the pain as though someone has stabbed you in the chest, not just with a knife but with a pair of scissors, and the weight of a grand piano is sitting on top of those scissors and your chest, and is pushing the scissors open and deeper into you and creating an intolerable pressure and pain that is debilitating. Sometimes all you can do is cry, and sometimes you can’t even cry, you can only sit there and wish that your body would disperse into nothingness. You wish that your body would just fall apart because without your body, the pain you’re feeling wouldn’t exist. So you wish for this, and hope that somehow you will just stop being. Imagine this, because this is what it feels like when someone you love rejects you.

This feeling is a combination of a whole shit ton of other feelings: it’s the realization that you won’t ever get to hold onto that person again, that you won’t ever be able to wake up next to them and feel at ease, and calm, and happy.  It’s knowing that you’ll never be able to share the things you once shared with one another. It’s reminiscing about the memories you created together, and it’s knowing that you will miss them. And then it’s a feeling of shame at the idea of having put yourself so deep into another person’s life and yet you meant nothing to them.  It’s a feeling of shame at the stupidity you exhibited at believing your relationship to mean something more than it was.  It’s the sense of humility at having to tell your friends and family that once again you somehow failed. No, it’s not just that you’ll miss the person; it’s that your individual ego suffers when rejected, or faced with a sense of failure. So it’s this combination, this mixture of overwhelming feelings that causes all of this pain, which at times seems unbearable.

Then, a friend reaches out to you, because they too know this pain.  It might not manifest itself as a pair of scissors and grand piano on the chest for them, but it’s a pain that is a common language to many.  They help make it better, for a while at least. And the weight of the piano no longer feels quite as heavy. Slowly this weight becomes lifted, but then one day it’s all back again, and you’re crying, and sitting, and wishing for nothingness.  Then it eases a bit more and other things in life start to look a little more beautiful and then it’s back.

You might fall into this pattern for a while, but each time you come out of it feeling a little better than before, until the day where you can actually look at someone else and think that there is potential there.  And you’re fine, in fact, you’re better than fine. You are you, and you’re happy because life is about living.  And yeah, it sucks sometimes, but other times it’s amazing, and crazy, and wonderful, and beautiful, and the ecstasy of being happy with the one you are with is just mind boggling giddiness.  It’s always best to feel, to experience, and to live the ups and the downs, because the alternative is to never love and to feel nothing at all. 

Welcome to Suburbia

The streets, they lie.

Their names: Rolling Brook, Mountain Laurel, Pepper Hollow and Longview.

These are only meaningful as labels. Not descriptions.

I can hear no talking stream, smell no poignant flowers, walk in no forested depression or see no far reaching scene.

Instead the plethora of split level, 2 car garage homes is only interrupted by the carefully manicured monoculture lawns and sculpted, stone lined gardens.

The rolling brook is channelized and coddled with galvanized steel, the pavement stifling the talkative nature of the moving water.

Transformed and hybridized flowers bloom too late or too early, defying their ordinary tendencies, escaping their stony habitat

Any contoured relief is filled and tapered, defeating the natural topography and boring my eyes.

The highway bisects the longview, stunts the landscape and aches my ears.

I complain

And yet this is home.

A reminder about the power of water

The river was:

Swollen,

Pushy,

Expecting.

It forced itself across roads, through trees

And made room for itself

            Where-

                        There-

                                    Was-

                                                None.

With its exertion it carried the

Birth of its toils,

Cars, Homes, Dreams, Death

And with a final thrust,

Released them to the ocean.