I’ve been in a lot of relationships where things have been broken…
Things that I’ve bought; things that I’ve earned;
been given, gifted-
…learned.
But bones often heal and time-
Well time, it blurs the edges…
Now I’m finding myself in a lot of situations where things are being restructured…
Things I’ve been taught;
things that I’ve chosen;
been given, gifted-
…learned.
But hearts often heal and experience-
Well experience, it sharpens focus.
Hot shower, warm hug;
Music muffled water white noise.
We return to womb.
Forlorn sigh and yawn,
My pillow has lost your scent.
A fortnight, plus half…
Haven’t done one of these in a couple years. Seems fitting as I am in my 38th year… which is the year I’ve been thinking about since I was 19 years old.
It’s been a wild ride.
And a long life.
Hopefully, I get 38 more years.
1. Codependent is not the same as interdependent… no matter how you package it, some people will never understand the difference.
2. Never take friendships for granted; even after 28 years, they can end without proper maintenance. Even with proper maintenance, people grow apart. That’s ok.
3. There are social contracts that we all must abide by, to some extent. However, any social contract that requires you to be anything but your authentic self (save for concrete moral deviance) can go fuck themselves. This is your life. You probably only get one. Love it. Live it. Choose it. You’re the driver.
4. “Stairway to heaven” really is truth. 🎵“Yes, there are two paths you can go by… But in the long run…There’s still time to change the road you’re on.”🎵 Two paths. Fear or love.
5. If you’re all the way right or all the way left, you can’t see the whole picture. Take a couple steps back and listen.
6. Echo chambers are bad.
7. Sometimes the best thing you can do as a parent is stop parenting.
8. You can lose/leave most of your things and be happy.
9. Dogs really are better than cats. By a small margin. But still better.
10. Money definitely doesn’t buy happiness. Always choose the job that feeds your soul. If you’re doing things right, someone will feed your belly.
11. When you have enough to feed your belly, feed someone else’s. When you have enough to feed your soul, feed someone else’s.
12. Energy is cyclic. I knew that years ago but I was definitely reminded repeatedly this year. Be mindful of the energy you put out. It’s easy to become comfortable, complacent, and forget.
13. Choose love. Even if it ends badly, you will end up better for it. You can leave with love. You can lead with love. You can heal with love. Always love yourself first. Insert some cliche about airplane oxygen masks.
14. Experiences are better than things. But… sweet gestures are still sweet.
15. Excitement and exuberance count. More than you realize.
16. Gratitude begets gratitude.
17. Douglas Adams really is a genius.
18. You can be aware and understand without co-opting and/or being offended. It really isn’t about you.
19. Except when it is… if you have a boundary, don’t let yourself or anyone else violate it.
20. There is healthy shame and unhealthy shame… learn the difference.
21. People tell you who they are and what they want through actions. You have to listen and watch. They often contradict each other.
22. Timing is everything. Sometimes things circle back around when you’re ready, sometimes they don’t because they were only there for the lesson.
23. The world, and humans, haven’t really changed. Comparisons are moot.
24. You can’t save anyone but yourself.
25. And Hobo Johnson/Frank is a lyrical genius.
Huzzah. Xoxo
On my way home from work, I often spend a lot of time thinking. It is a fairly long drive as far as regular commutes go so if I get bored of the comedy channel on my radio, I become almost meditative. I suppose it is actually at times a bit disassociative, because I often don’t really remember much about the drive. Anyhow, I digressed.
I have actually been listening to a lot of the music I listened to when I was younger, I guess in some sort of way to find my center, return to myself (this is actually going to be the subject of a post soon…). I haven’t listen to a lot of that music in recent years just because it tends to bring out a lot of anger and remind me of things I have tried to forget. But, in another one of life’s mysteries, as you grow and mature, you start seeing things through different lenses. Not unlike a person grows to view their childhood differently once they are adults, I was actually hearing the music and the lyrics as an adult instead of an angsty adolescent. To give you framework, I have been listening to the Korn channel on my Pandora, which plays primarily Tool, Korn, Three Days Grace, Staind, etc. based upon my likes and dislikes…it’s a little selective for me due to some magical form of AI or algorithm.
Yesterday, I heard the song I am posting at the bottom, and it started me thinking on the subject of “hate”. I say “I hate ____” a lot, usually in regard to people as a whole, rather than individuals mind you, but I tried really hard to think of if there was anyone I actually could say that I hated. And you know how many people I came up with?
ZERO.
Yep. A big, fat, NADA. And this honestly surprised me.
If I was to give you a quick little overview of my life, I think most people could find a few people in there that I could or should hate. But I came up with not one.
In fact, I couldn’t think of anything I actually hate.
Not even actions. And let me tell you, I am sure you already know but, humans are capable of terrible things. There are some things that I strongly dislike. There are things that I disagree with. There are things that I do not understand, in application, but understand as things that people do. But nothing that I hate.
I tried very hard to think about people that I could or should hate. And you know what? I couldn’t think of any. People that have wronged me, wronged my children, wronged other people’s children, etc. My current job puts me in a position to see some of the darkest things that people can and do in fact, do to each other and children. But, today, I found that the strongest feeling I could muster was pity. That is the closest I can come to hate.
As I realized this, I swear to sweet ancient baby alien space monkey Jebus, I FELT LIGHTER. There was a physical perceivable CHANGE in my body. Like I have spent so many years, anticipating and experiencing the exhausting WORK of hating people and things that it was a physical weight upon me.
It was a relief, really.
So what did I actually want to share today? Just my knowledge, I guess. Knowledge that all that emotion and hate and anger and negativity was not doing anything but weighing me down. I had to flip it. Acknowledge that my negative feelings did not affect those I direct them at in a positive way. I only made myself heavier, dimmer.
Sometime last year my friend Daniel posted a video of a girl sitting in a car with a crazy system. She appeared to be, well, really enjoying it. I called bullshit. Maybe if it was a Harley I said, but not “just” bass.
Well, this previous summer I had to buy a hamster car…totally stock 2013 Kia Soul, but it has a freaking badass stock system. This song came on my Pandora station and suffice it to say, I was driving down I-84 and had to pull off for a second or 4 minutes.
Straight up.
No joke.
I doubt most computers can pick up the low frequencies in this song, but if you have a way to find it and play it through a good system, it’s pretty effing sweet.
Ladies, you are all welcome.
Men, you should buy this album for me. er, your lady, if you like ladies.
So maybe I have been slightly distracted by life and slowly becoming more distracted…
I hadn’t realized it had been two freaking weeks since I blogged. EEEEP….
But the return is worth it…for example:
I smile for no reason and when no one is there to observe it;
I’m busy as hell between FT work, kids, new friends, old friends, my lovely new boyfriend, etc;
I am running in the run for your lives event tomorrow (my second year!);
I’m also trying to figure out how to cut costs and make extra money….. if you have legal ideas, hit me up cause at this point I am thinking commune….;
My fantasy football draft is tonight *fingers crossed*;
My kids are amazing and responsible and I can do things without a babysitter and they don’t throw rocking parties (YESSSSSSSS)…;
My student loans are arranged to start next week and be $39.45 a month for the next 108 years;
I haven’t killed all of my plants;
I have been writing again, a lot… I have no idea where I find the time….
Andddddd I got to see the Silent Comedy do Fleetwood Mac and dance with said boyfriend.
What else could a woman want?
xoxo
Jani
Ok, Ok… so I have almost gotten Lana Del Rey out of my system BUT! I wasn’t able to get an entire album onto one disc, so I have only been listening to the one. Today I decided to listen to the other one with a measly 4 songs on it and lo and behold; she has a song called Body Electric which is a throw back to my favorite Whitman poem…
OMG I love her fucking face.
She is one of my soul mates I am sure of it now.
xoxo
Jani
Have you ever had one of those moments where you are remembering something you previously thought or said when suddenly something specifically interacts with you regarding it? I’m sure it is some sort of confirmation bias, part of the reason that divining tools and/or oracles seem spot on… You hear what you need to or are supposed to or are receptive to… right?
Ok, so riddle me this, Batman…
You know that place between dreaming and awake? When you are still responsive to the world for the most part but also starting to dream? Yeah. So there I am, there being a subjective ethereal term… and I am remembering a conversation I had about a recent tarot reading and the continuing conversation about a certain song’s potentially related lyrics and how it was super sweet and what I wanted….blah blah blah girl crap…. fast forward back to dreamspeaking state….
and that song comes on.
It was kinda awesome. It even took me a second to process it actually was playing outside of my dreamy state. HA
Yes, I know it doesn’t mean anything, per se….
But it was badass nonetheless.
Overall, I have so much to be grateful for; specifically right now.
I am telling you, this singing to the Universe is working. I should give lessons.
Yes, of course I would love more money so I wasn’t always sooo breaking even but hey! I’m fucking breaking even. I have a job, I am healthy, the people I love are healthy, the music has come back into my world, I am able to have magical experiences, and I am becoming myself again. I have had the blessing of a muse in one form or another for the last few months… and I have written more in the last 3 months than I have in years.
I might even finish this damn book: Exorcising the demons is another title for it I am considering… maybe that shall be the working title. HA
I am staying conscious and present of not over-thinking, not questioning, not doubting… Not looking too closely and analyzing things…
Just accepting what is and being okay with that while not putting myself in a position I do not want; yet not preventing myself from embracing things because I do not want to be vulnerable…
It’s a beautiful and precarious balance.
I don’t know exactly how to do it but….
Kissing helps.
xoxo
Jani
Devour or be devoured, I suppose….
Appreciate and reciprocate….
I believe in Energy.
I believe that all the energy that ever was or will be is already here.
I believe it can be stolen, given, shared, transferred, manipulated and controlled.
I believe that it is cyclic.
I believe that dark isn’t always a negative and light isn’t always a positive.
I believe that you need good and bad and that both terms are relative.
I believe that people need to name it.
I believe it is, but is not conscious.
I believe everything you ever need to know can be learned from the ocean…
When the tide goes out, you can be confused about whether you are sad that it is leaving or happy that it is leaving….
But the tide, it always comes back…
And you never know what is under the water, in the tide pools, on the rocks, until the tide retreats…
The full moon sheds light on the beach, just as much as the sun does;
While treasures wash up on the beach, so does trash and dead things;
“And I threw bitter tears at the ocean but all that came back was the tide…”
I believe in love.
“”true” love is about the extending of one’s ego boundaries to include another, and about the spiritual nurturing of another, in short, love is effort.”-M. Scott Peck
Ruminative on synchronistic evolutions;
almost growing paranoid by each shared thought.
Such interesting revelations;
drawn by each obscure reference caught.
Reciprocality in physical and mental states;
asks us to avoid habitual over-musing.
Chemically enhanced binaural beats;
stay present, speed can make it more confusing.
Rhythms in compatible energies can be misleading;
but sometimes they are also psychogenic.
Just because something happens to come easy,
does not allude that it can’t be authentic.
Fear isn’t the only immortal enemy;
questioning the wisdom in another chance.
Like control, it too is just an illusion;
It is what it is, just dance.
I’ve been feeling really exposed and slightly too eh, transparent, let’s say in my last couple weeks of blogs; so I am giving you something more palatable for today.
This magical album reminds me of girls named Miranda and Kisha and Misty and boys named Dan and Tim and Rick and George and Calvin and Eli and Ace; everything that was good about my longest summer, 1995.
I ❤ the whole thing, but I suggest you start at 10:48, then go back to the beginning 😉
Cheers.
Fucking llamas.
XOXO
God help you if you are a Phoenix….
“My mother was a phoenix who always expected to rise from the ashes of her latest disaster. She loved being Judy Garland.” ~ Lorna Luft
From one Pisces fish to you.... 