Today I feel fully alive. This morning, rather. So I think to myself... of course I think this to myself, I am always asking the questions of why. Maybe it's just my natural ability to analyze things, maybe it's my desire to always maximize opportunity, to create the most efficient efficiency, or to live in the best way possible. Any who, I thought, why this morning? What has set me up to feel so alive?
First things, my setting. I'm here alone in my dim lit kitchen. No one is home. Sometimes my introversion screams for individual space, though I deeply love people in my home. The quiet is nice. I can think here. Let us not neglect the small details, either. No bra. If I had half the cognitive energy that most people have when they wake up, maybe I would have gone for no underwear too. Again, back to trying to maximize the comfort of life; always, trying. (Rabbit Trail #1: Which sadly, if we carry on that philosophical nature of thought, we end up realizing that our analyzing to maximize the comfort results in frustration and exhaustion. Thereby minimizing the comfort we did have. If only we (Or shall I confess to the pronoun, "I" here?) could rest in the "what is".) ... No bra; it's a nice thing. Furthermore, there is an incredible bouquet of large sunflowers on my kitchen table dressed with things that look largely like weeds, but beautiful ones. Nature is near. This creates a peace in me.
I also woke up to planning with my Mom via text for my parents and grandmother's arrival. Matters of what hotels to stay at are a small thing, but I love planning. So upon waking I was faced with an exciting task of event planning for people that I love. These things make me tick, hospitality and planning events. Furthermore, no small joy, my roommates are allowing my parents to stay here with us in the large-ass house, which I am feeling incredibly blessed by recently. Over text my roommates and I are ducking and dodging each others plans of baking 800 cupcakes and hosting out of town friends whom they've discipled. My heart is all the while screaming "Yes! Let's plan well, women!" as well as "Welcome to our home friends and cupcakes!" ...Yes, I did say earlier that I'm an introvert, but who really knows? I'm as much half and half as the "ultra-pasteurized diary liquid" I splashed into my "crap coffee" this morning. That has made me happy too. There are certain small details of life that make you feel at home - these details have no need for being super sophisticated. I like sitting down with what I call my "crap coffee, with my crappier cream, with my two "will give you cancer" Splendas". It's my thing.
This morning, the ritual of a quick morning check of twitter (really just to see my boyfriend's tweets), Instagram and Facebook, surprised me with an interesting article of a guy and girl friend set who decided to embark on a 40-day experiment of "dating". My thoughts and curiosity dance in and out of the blogged thoughts from each of them, delighting in the differences between male and female, and finding myself continually relating to her thoughts. Twenty-one days into the timeline she says she's an INFJ; no wonder I get her brain. I LOVE diving into their thoughts, their problems, and their quirks. I find myself dying laughing at the miscommunication, and nodding my head with "Amen!, this rings true with me." to the ins-and-outs of the ambiguity of dating and her fight against her desire for a black and white world. If you gave my sisters a text book of medicine, biology, and pictures of muscles they would love it. Give me a dusty copy of, "Psychological Types" by Carl Jung, and my heart will sing. In this article the very things that make me "tick", people's lives, stories, problems and psychological curiosity have been beckoned forth this morning creating for a sense of aliveness that I long for.
Broadening the picture. I feel comfortable right now in my relationships. That is a specific ingredient to making me feel alive. It's like that 1/8 teaspoon of salt in the cake recipe of life. Sometimes you forget it and it can make the biggest difference. It's small but important. My boyfriend called me last night instead of us stringing along a conversation of text messages and I enjoyed a voice, the sound of laughter, and at least the amount of emotion that sound can carry without facial expression. I've had good conversations with my family and have a plan to see them soon. I am enjoying closeness with my roommates and friends within the past few days. So I feel comfortable, content with that. When these relationships feel content that adds significantly to my feeling of being alive.
I'm feeling creative. For me creativity is a feeling. So are dancing, whether I want to be with people, whether I have something to talk about, etc. Okay, so maybe I'm a feeler and I need to learn that I can't live life based on how I feel in any given moment. Even so, I'm thankful for the feeling this morning that I have DEEP ENERGY to create. I keep wanting to grab for my roommate's water colors tucked nicely away in this incredible box with a picture of a weird lady on it... or write notes to friends.
I go to write in my journal, but my hand and pen are too slow, so back to technology and my Macbook.
Of course, if you are still following a long, and could keep up with my brain's rabbit, deer, and fox trails it is no surprise to you that I am now wondering whether or not I am bipolar, because sometimes I have a burst of creativity. (Rabbit Trail #2) All the good writers and painters were depressed often. Right? Bipolar? Am I? Typical me. As soon as I begin to see the world for the beauty it is, a pessimistic cloud drops into the thought process to rain on my sunny day, "the earth is as it should be" parade. (Cue the Sesame Street song, "Sunny Days" into brain. - Rabbit Trail #3)
The hilarity of the sudden changes in my setting right now are loud and obtrusive. The kitchen just got darker because the gray clouds are forming out my window, literally. I just realized how little time I have before I have to go work a full day, and my email inbox has a beckoning call something like a crying baby on a plane that drives you crazy until you realize it's your baby. I'll try to harness this feeling of "things are as they should be" to carry it with me into the day. I feel like it will die out though. My sense of wonder will be squelched by having to wonder about bills, emails and student loans. My feeling alive quite possibly will be deadened by the fact that after I create writing I will feel too vulnerable and shamed-filled to share it. My sense of rest will be interrupted by the bride-zilla who thinks more about choosing a wedding dress than she did a spouse. And yes, I'll have to wear a bra to work. Pessimistic, much? Maybe. I like to think I have a real sense of the brokenness and the beauty in our world. This is the world we live in. People say it's the good, the bad and the ugly. I say it's rather the gorgeous, the good, the bad, and yes, even the ugly. We live amongst the beauty and the broken, and I long for a different world. So what's the recipe to be HERE and feel ALIVE? Haha, no one knows. All I know is that when I have a morning like this, I must celebrate it well, and when the rain clouds form outside and the morning in which I feel alive slips away, I must grieve it well. Celebrate well, grieve well. That's my motto. What does that look like you say? hahaha, seriously... I will not even give the fuel to my desires for "how to's" and the love of "black and white"that drives me, in answering that question. To some questions there are no "answers" in the cognitive sense that we Westernized intellectuals long for. We learn by living. To learn this either will be the death of me or the beginning of living in adventure, creativity, and hope.
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