Some days life just hits you and makes you it’s bitch. While this can happen in a variety of ways, today it happened to me esoterically. There I am, 30,000 feet above Dallas, and I just started crying as I stared out of the plane window, watching the sun setting over the cars, buildings and lakes during the hustle and bustle of Tuesday evening traffic. What’s the point? Half of me wondered if life matters at all. A sad, depressed wave as thick as oil oozed slowly over the top of my head and settled all around me in my seat. My life is meaningless. What’s the fucking point of all of this? As I lamented the work trip I was wrapping up, filled with client meetings and a tour for an up and coming luxury airport product. The other half of me looked…
Darkness sometimes can hit without warning. No call, no siren of impending danger, it slithers up and strikes the psyche while infecting your being with it’s lethal venom. While there are varying forms of darkness, it visited me yesterday. It slid up next to me whispering nasty everything’s into my mind. It had more of a revealing quality, yesterday – one of those flavors of darkness that presented it’s side of the truth in it’s twisted and emotionally heavy way, forcing me to stare directly into it’s big, black, darkened eyes. It beckoned me with intensity to confront it. And so I did. We sat on my bed with the lights of the day snuffed out by the hiding of the sun, and took turns tossing the information presented – wrestling, dancing, chiding, and humiliating. It cast accusations at me while I held up…
I’ve spent an unnecessary amount of time looking at social media posts this morning. Every so often I’ll do this. To catch up on the lives of those I know, used to know well, or have recently met. I often don’t enjoy my time on social media – I rarely post on my own. At the end of a perusing session, I feel as if it’s time wasted. Sure, I get to see so and so’s new ugly baby (because all new babies are ugly), or chuckle at a video here or there. But it always leaves me thinking, “Oh that’s cool they went and did this, or that, but I wonder how they really are.” Because while people will make something public, rarely is it as real and raw as we think it to be. And when we post too real or too…
It’s December 31st, 2018. Tomorrow marks the start of the New Year. I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. I am not one of those types of folks. I often joke that if I did, I’d share a kindred soul to Bridget Jones in this regard, “This year’s New Year’s resolution? Keep New Year’s resolutions.” But there is something in the air this year where my heart longs to make New Year’s resolutions. I likely won’t. I likely won’t stick to them, even if I make them. That, or I’ll make them vague enough that if I fail them, I won’t beat myself up. Or, perhaps I’ll just invoke some old (good) habits I used to do regularly, since I’m finally feeling a tinge of empowerment to do so after what feels…
I’m mad. Not like, fiery, furious mad. But just really frustrated. There is a rebellion in my soul right now. The kind where I absolutely cannot make myself work. See? It’s 3:44pm right now on a Monday. I spent half of my Sunday the weekend before last working until 10pm. Which is fine. I wasn’t too upset about it – except for the fact that it was in Nashville and I had my last night with my best friend planned – but had to work. Luckily, she’s one of the bravest souls I know and has a deep comfort with exploring new towns (and cities… shit, and countries too!) on her own I have to admit – I do not have that level of curiosity and adventure. And she had a great time. And because I had a 7am call the next morning, I had…
Sometimes I can’t shake The Burn. Actually, almost everyday, I carry it inside me. What is the Burn? Well, for starters it has taken up a lengthy residence in the center of my thoracic (chest) cavity. It lives a little closer to the chest surface, but it is definitely inside. Pretty sure it’s not indigestion (but I’m open to correction) as I’ve seemed to house it since I was around 16 years old. But rather, it’s more of this emotive sensation. I’d liken it to heat in my chest – sometimes scorching, searing hot and sometimes weak and exhausted – but always with a definite degree of warmth to it. It governs my life if I am honest. And well, seeing that’s kind of the title of my site and all – it seems like a fitting topic to discuss. As…
This was quite an unusual 2 weeks. I have been on a rollercoaster of emotions coupled with a prison of chaotic thoughts that I couldn’t seem to silence or escape from. That, friends, is a recipe for our feature guest today: Breakdowns. Welcome, Welcome, you exhausting fucks… Lucky Me. But, seriously, I am lucky. I’ve been there/here before. I am familiar with this chaotic place. I’ve actually had a long stint where I lived in this place for quite a few years. I bet some would call it depression – and it is for sure, oh, lord almighty, it is… But I always seem to come out of it. I emerge different, changed, renewed (for a while) until the next wave starts to slowly make me sink. But when it relinquishes its heavy grip, it then leaves me alone for quite some time (again, years). And…
So, I am kind of terrified of wasting my life. After some deep and long, thoughtful questions from my best friend, we began discussing the idea of further defining our values the other night. It’s something that is so simple, and struck me as odd that I never thought about it. Her number one purpose in life, she reports, is “love.” That got me thinking. What do you mean by that? What is love? Love to me is so vague and is widely interpreted. I asked her – what does that mean? She responded with “Growth and Intimacy.” Ok, and so what does growth mean? What does intimacy mean for you? I think that’s a problem that many of us get hooked into – chasing vague ideas. As I was asking her these questions, I flipped it on myself. Success. Success to me is vague and therefore, I…
Ok, so I have been thinking a little more on this self-help addiction thing. I do believe that I have an addiction. I do believe I should cease a lot of meaningless article reading. I don’t believe, however, in ceasing all together personal development! I realized the other day, that I can (and it is good to) still listen to podcasts on my hour+ commute when I have to go into the office. This is a good thing. I am taking otherwise worthless time, and learning and hearing other people’s stories and so forth. So, that stays. I don’t believe I need to google every thought or feeling that comes my way, however. On another note, I am realizing that I am not so far gone in my addiction as I could be. Sure I get the next fix/high off of a…
My very best friend and I talk about having a podcast – I made the comment it should be called, “Welp, fucked that up.” Either that, or a book/memoir. It wouldn’t be something spectacular, but rather a series of events explaining the ways in which we have so often attempted to make things go “right”, or our way, and in looking back have completely fucked up the situation even further. I am here to inform you, that this once again has happened with me. How you might ask? Well… I wouldn’t be writing a post unless I was ready to divulge all the dirty details… So, yesterday was rather a bit of an awakening. And of course, riddled with embarrassment and a hard reckoning. I realized: I am a self-help addict. [gasp] No, but seriously. After blowing almost…
So many things to be grateful for. And I am. I don’t want to sound like a brat…. But I do, and it seems like I am ungrateful. That couldn’t be further from the truth. I am in a job – the box. Been at this job for a long while lately. Sure, it’s hard. Sure, it’s challenging and it feels some days like a false sense of reality, working to fulfill insignificant goals. A place that I use to pave the way to afford the things I want, need, and love. And that is the truth. But I am so grateful. I have been tossing around and testing a truth that I think I have discovered: that “For something to be true, you have to see it from both sides.” I truly feel that is a place where…
Woke up at 4:30am. Made coffee. Straightened up the living room. Last night, although my heart was terribly heavy, was also full. Of memories and magic. My guy, in the kitchen crafting and curating an orchestra of flavors on a pork butt. Me, on the couch, serendaded by jazz music as I rumaged through a few pages of Bird by Bird. I stopped to take these moments in, and pushed aside the panic and dread I felt in my chest about the weight of my current job. When I go a few weeks without travel, I find I fall into a corporate haze. The Rat Race. Suits. Chains. Beholden to the Almighty 9-5. In my desk most days, I sit in my cubicle, watching the minutes sludge along as I eagerly anticipate my release into freedom. Locked in a brightly halogen-lit mecca box of clacking &…
My view of things is so low-level right now. Drink water. Eat a salad. Do a meditation. Attend a jiu-jitsu class. Fold this piece of laundry. Put the dishes away. Finish this task. Send this email. I think I’d like to pull myself upward a bit. Outward. Higher-level. This means assessing where I’m going – not that I really get to know where I’ll end up. But more like, who do I want to be? “Be” is my word this year. I am taking advice from Gretchen Rubin, author of The Four Tendencies, and host of the podcast, Happier with Gretchen Rubin. Her and her family get together over the Christmas and New Year’s holidays and choose a word to focus on for the year. Gretchen’s word is “Delegate.” Clearly, she likes to…
I’ve been there before. That place “In Between.” Different scenarios, of course have this identification, but I’m referring to that in-between place of my career and living in this almost “no mans land.” It took me around a year – actually a little over a year – before I found my next path on the first go-round. It was challenging. It was demoralizing. It was hard. However, that next time (with the grope) was different, in that I had it kind of happen to me, rather than a choice I made to get me there. However, that wasn’t my first rodeo folks. The first time I chose it. I chose to branch off, and create that kind of career that I believed would propel me into my own business, and would kick-off my new found life –…
From my last post, I apologize. Not for expressing myself, but the rant and anger that I displayed. Don’t get me wrong, all those feelings and emotions were incredibly present, and still 100% are when I reflect back. However, giving in to a lot of those fueled expressions was…potentially distasteful. And for that, I am sorry. But again, it doesn’t mitigate my experience. Not one bit. Those were real emotions pouring from me, real experiences, real heartbreak. That was my absolute reality after the most powerful man in my company, and my direct boss, took it upon himself to violate my body by touching my butt, sexually, multiple times. And as I chose to press forward in the complete dark, I wanted to reflect back to raise awareness to the very real consequences, of not my choices (but also yes, my choices too in…
Sometimes life throws you some deeply unwanted curveballs. An emotional rollercoaster of events in such a concentrated amount of time can change the trajectory of your life as you know it. It’s ok. I had been seeing the change in the distance looming nearer and nearer during the time this all had occurred, I just had no idea it was going to crash up against me the way it did. Let’s go back to a time when I thought I had found myself at pretty much the top of my game in my career. I had secured a great income and had worked my way up in my career over the course of a year that had found me working directly with the CEO and COO of a wildly successful startup company, I was helping them form a leadership team, of which I was a key…
I remember the first time I was honest. Not in the normal, day to day meaning… but the first time I was honest to the point that it cost me… I remember it clear as day. I was 16, in a bathroom stall at my school and I had cheated on 3 high school end of year exams. I had recently found a faith (that I loosely still proscribe to) but back then, it was a new found faith and a set of beliefs that challenged my character deeply. I remember I had been caught cheating on one of the exams – I was humiliated. And after that 3rd exam, I went into this stall to breathe, to cry, to sulk and to gather my devious game plan of how to handle it. I wanted to lie, to blame it on someone, to minimize what I had done…