The Real Me

Okay, so I know a few months ago I said I was done blogging for a while.  I'm back, but as a more honest me.  I've had space and time to really work on what it is that makes me who I am.

I had a friend tell me they don't recognize me anymore, I know that might sound like an awful thing to say to someone, but I took it as a compliment.  Hopefully I've done enough soul searching to change my unmanageable life into something that looks completely different to those I love.  I no longer feel the need to agree with everything my friends and family think, but disagree on the inside.  I am allowing myself to be more open to what I really feel is right for me.  I remember the first time I said, "no" to the friend I live with.  It felt so foreign, but so good and we were just picking out baskets for the apartment.  That's how long it has been since I could make my own decisions without input.

I've said no to others since then and I'm getting more comfortable with it.  I have set up new guidelines for myself, if I am being guilt tripped, yelled at or made to feel less than, I remove myself from the situation.  I won't do it any longer.  Gone are the days of just taking it to not make waves.

So I'm still in the middle of finding out who I really am.  I know now that I am strong, I can stand up for myself, and I can do what I need to do to stay healthy.  I had a dream recently where I walked into a room full of people and everyone was telling me how good and healthy I looked.  How good it was to see me like this.  I feel like that was my subconscious recognizing the huge strides I've made in the last six months.  

So I'm going to keep going, and I'm going to keep putting me first.  At one time I would have balked at the idea that I wouldn't put everyone else before me, but that never works.  If we don't take care of ourselves, how are we supposed to care for others.  So, blogosphere, I'm back.  Better than ever.

This Is What God Looks Like

I've been toying with the thought that GOD is so much bigger than I give GOD credit for.  God is in everything, not only in, but GOD is everything. God is the good, the beautiful, the perfect, the sacred, the honest.  God is also the unexplainable, the horror, the pain, the death that is in the world.  God created everything, is everything, even evil is an expression of God.  With that very simplified version of what I've been thinking about I started a blog with my friend and soulmate called thisiswhatgodlookslike.tumblr.com.

I won't be blogging in words for now, so if you want to check me out, look there or still at rootedwanderlust.tumblr.com.  I may come back to traditional blogging, but for now I need some space between me and all that this blog contains.  I pride myself on being an honest person to a fault, but for most of the last two years I was lying to myself, lying to the people around me.  I was living a life that was borrowed, and like most borrowed things, it doesn't quite fit--and I knew it.  Deep down I didn't want to be married, I didn't want to have children, I felt so trapped but I didn't know how to get off of the bullet train.  The love expressed here is real, but so complicated.  There were times I looked at my life and asked, "Is this it?  Is this all there is?"  I now know the world is just as vast as I remembered and I won't waste another minute pretending to be something I'm not, or want something I don't.  I am going to do the hard work to live authentically, and it's not pretty.  I lie, I can be mean and hurtful.  I am floundering to set up boundaries with friends and family that I have never had before.  If you feel cut off, it's necessary for my survival that I do things my own way.  I need to feel safe and free of guilt trips for not being the doormat I was before.  I will make mistakes, huge ones.  I may lose things, or people, but all that is my own doing, my own decisions.

Looking back at this blog it is evident that GOD is all through the pages... and it is GOD after all who led me to where I am now.  And, for that I am eternally grateful.  I was spared from living a life that was not mine.  Allow me, dear friends, to walk forward in the life that is all my own.

It's complicated: A lesson in Anxiety

Hi Readers,
As some of you know I did something last night that I rarely do on Facebook.   I changed my relationship status.  SHOCK AND AWE. I've gotten lots of emails, calls, IMs, messages and any other means of communication you can think of since I posted it last night.  And while I am very grateful for the outpouring of concern, it's given me a crazy high level of anxiety today knowing that something as small as listing a relationship as complicated--to which my friend David said, "Is there such thing as an UNcomplicated relationship?"--can create such a stir.  What I usually do in situations such as these (you know the anxious ones), is I try to make the anxiety stop.  In this case that could be revealing my lover or lack there of, and describing what is so complicated.  
I am working on living with anxiety, trying to figure out why I care so much about how everyone else perceives me, like me being in a complicated relationship.  I keep asking myself "what will people think" if it's true or false, if its truly is complicated or nonexistent.  I care more about what people think than what I think.  So even though this may cause more anxiety for me, or more anxiety for my friends, I think we should take the time to sit in a little awkward silence.  Me on coming clean on what could be very serious indeed, or a little something dreamed up after a few martinis.   So my status will remain on complication alert for the foreseeable future.  I know, talk about complicated.  And Sara, don't worry, Sherri is all yours.  

It's Hard Everyday.

I found myself saying that to my new roommate last night as we were both getting home from work.  Don't get me wrong, I love our house that is totally peaceful, crazy and beautiful right now, our new city, my job (and the creative project I got to help her on at her work last night), etc.  I wrote a few posts ago that I am happy, and it's true.  But it's hard everyday.  Hard knowing a relationship I thought would last forever didn't.  Knowing that I'm jaded, and don't want to get that hurt ever again.  Knowing that I probably won't give that much of myself again.  Part of me feels like I had the love of my life, and part that I got screwed.  Maybe both are true.

I cry everyday. Still. I am moving through life and doing the things I need to do to keep me safe, and move on, but a lot of the time I feel like I have to will myself to place one foot in front of the other.  I feel so hurt, so hopeless about love sometimes.  Part of me wants to just start dating and fill my time so I can forget, the other part of me knows it's going to take a lot longer.  I don't know if that kind of all-in love is something I can do again.  It just hurts too damn much.  I feel like she left with everything... my hope in fidelity, my family, my heart in pieces at her feet.  And here I am trying to dig out.  I probably won't be able to get my Ph.D til I'm forty because of the bills I have to pay.  That is a huge blow.

I made it through November, and I really am doing better, but that doesn't mean I still don't cry in my sleep, or burst into tears at the mention of her name.  All I can say is never again.  I never want to feel like this again.

It's hard everyday.

I'm living, People

Hi Friends,
So, I set out to blog everyday in November, and I started out going pretty good, but the last 10 days I've been absent from the blogging world... why?  I've been living, people.

It feels so good to say that.  We got the apartment, and we've been working like crazy to clean, fix, and move in all our stuff (we are painting tomorrow!).  I've been teaching more at work and that feels right too.  I love the life I'm living right now.  It seems like every night Kris and I sit around and talk about life and art, listen to awesome music (who doesn't like Armenian flute music?!) and be real with each other.

I feel like I hit rock bottom a couple of months ago when my relationship fell apart, but life has kept me moving, into a place I never thought I'd be.  I'm learning to move through the world as a single person again, having to answer to only me.  It's a weird, freeing, sometimes really uncomfortable feeling.

Things are coming together though, and I'm excited to start being creative again and see where that takes me.  Kris and I have more art supplies than furniture here, and I think that is telling about what we value as the ethos of our home.

So for now I can say, blogging everyday might not be realistic, but living?  Oh yes.  I have gripped life by the horns again, and am enjoying the bumpy, messy, real life kind of ride.  It's a beautiful thing.

I Am So Happy

Sorry I haven't posted in a few days... Life has been crazy beautiful.  Kris and I got the apartment and have been cleaning, living at home depot, making trips to storage units, losing furniture on the freeway... we are doing it all.

I can't begin to tell you how excited I am that we have our own place, with it's own eccentricities.  It needs some work, and lots of scrubbing and paint (which we have all picked out, yay!) but it's ours.  The best part is that Kris and I get each other creatively so decisions are happening with fluidity, it's rare people.

I can only speak for myself, but I am loving the idea of living in the midst of creative space.  I have one goal right now, and that is to live life covered in paint:  go to work, come home, live art. Rinse, lather, repeat. (Oh, and eat fabulous ethnic food often).

I am so happy.

Interfaith Taize

Last Night my church, St. Luke's in LB held an interfaith sung meditation service.   It was beautiful.

There were candles everywhere, spilling out all over the church.

 The altar was covered in candles and with tiles representing the faith traditions used in our meditation.

I was so moved by the meditations we did in Sanskrit.  The woman who led them had this haunting voice that took me away with her.  I love being transported in meditation to the center of God's very heart.  It was a beautiful thing.  It made me want to check out the Vedas and Hinduism.  So beautiful.