Where my thoughts meet me
A musing where I word-vomit between cute pictures of myself in honor of another year alive on this planet
Memories twist and warp what we believe about ourselves. The past has a way of doing that to us.
If you’re anything like me, it has a way of sneaking out through crevices deep inside we didn’t realize existed until their proof shows up as a soggy rug. Seeping through cracks like rain in an old house.
Beliefs playing on repeat when you’ve shoved the broken record player into the dark corner of that room you never use. They somehow figure out a way to keep playing, loud and crackly, and inescapable.
Sometimes I feel like that person in a horror movie who keeps taking the wrong turns and the music keeps getting more ominous and everyone watching knows it doesn’t end well and they cringe with fear and pity on their faces.
I’m not enough the voices say.
You’re not worthy of love they tell me.
Don’t be a burden I hear.
Twisting me into someone else. Warping me into a lifeless flesh sack.
Today is my 36th birthday. I thought about not writing anything this week. I thought about ignoring my birthday altogether, which I sometimes attempt and always fail.
I want to be so many versions of myself.
I want to be that person who doesn’t give in to the birthday hype, because really it’s just a day that happens to mark the fact that another 365 days have passed since the last cycle of 365 days. I want to be that person who throws a big party because I deserve to love myself enough to know that it’s okay to let people love me too.
I want to be that person who isn’t tied down by a single thing and travels the world and learns five and half languages and makes lifelong friends on every continent. I want to be that person who lives on a few humble acres of land and builds a homestead with her dogs and grows her own food and trades eggplants for eggs with her neighbors and walks down the dusty, wildflower lined road to buy raw honey.
I want to be that person who lands an agent and then lands that book deal and writes books and lives in a cozy cabin in the woods and has a loyal following of readers who can’t wait for my next novel. I want to be that person who lands a good enough job and lives a nice enough life and doesn’t care about the rest of it.
I want to be that person who says no when she needs to say no and carves out her own space in this world that’s just for her. I want to be that person who's so welcoming she doesn't need to consider having something that's reserved only for her.
I want to be that person who knows who she is without falter no matter what’s happening around her. I want to be that person who embraces herself changing and knows that’s okay too.
Or, do I want to be someone else entirely? And maybe those things aren’t necessarily, or don’t have to be, so in conflict with one another. But also, is there a world, is there a version of me, where all of these exist, albeit in significantly smaller degrees? Can I have a piece of every pie?
Yes.
Wait, no.
Fuck, I don’t know.
Does it even matter?
Oftentimes it does feel like it matters. Like it matters a whole truckload of steaming feces that needs to be dealt with right now because if you don’t, they’re gonna dump it on your front porch.
And other times, I know it doesn’t really matter. I won’t always feel like I know myself or am being myself or know who I want to be and that’s okay. I think that’s just part of being human.
The older I get, I sense more knowing deep inside me. Like I really do know who I am and who I want to be and I know that I - like all humans - aren’t actually stagnant creatures. We’re constantly being molded and shaped by our surroundings and experiences. Each decision we make - tiny or momentous - has infinite possible outcomes in various degrees of change on our future lives.
I’m not sure if your brain is like mine, but mine just goes and goes and goes and never seems to stop analyzing every moment, connecting seemingly unrelated dots, pondering hundreds of outcomes as if they’re playing out like acts in a never ending play.
If we could take a trip with Ms. Frizzle on The Magic School Bus to the inside of my mind, we’d likely be met with a view that closely resembles the slightly creepy and mostly atrocious office of a detective hunting an axe murderer. All pictures and notes and pins and strings with no beginning or ending. A clusterfuck of data.
This week I decided to ignore all those mean comments bouncing around inside my head like bats stuck in a drawer.
This week I’m deciding to ignore the doorless closet where all my messy thoughts get shoved. I’m walking right by without a care in the world.
I’m not ignoring my birthday this year. I’m embracing it. I’m embracing me.
If the weather holds out, I’ll be riverside in the woods with my dogs around a campfire with some friends and their dogs tonight, hopefully eating s’mores and my friend’s homemade carrot cake and drinking hard cider and celebrating me.
Because You’re too much isn’t true.
Because You have too many problems is a false narrative.
Because You have too many dogs just isn’t possible.
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