Saturday, July 10, 2010

A Love Affair



      Revel called on Sunday morning and said that he would come over later to pick up my copy of  The Omnivore’s  Dilemma.  Our definitions of later were different. Mine was after lunch, after I got dressed, after I had tea, after a couple of hours. His wasn’t even close to that.  His later was after a few minutes. That’s why he caught me still in my pajamas, not even nice pajamas. I was in the ratty cotton ones I wear with my pink cowboy boot tee shirt.  If he had arrived when I thought he was going to I would have been dressed. Maybe.


    “At least you’re out of bed and dressed.” He knows me. I'll give him that much. My plan was to hand him the book and go back to what I was doing. His plan was to talk about tilling up a section of my yard for a fall garden and play chess.  So, I stepped outside to talk about the details when neighbor pulled up on his bike. It’s one thing to hang out in my pajamas with Revel and quite another thing to do it with my neighbors.


     It's true that I've been known to eat dessert first and cake for breakfast but pajamas in public might be going too far. More than one person has told me that I march to the beat of my own drummer. It’s either said with a shake of their head dismay or a mixture of envy and wonder depending on who they are. My reaction to the sentiment has varied over the years depending on where I was at in my own life. I’ve always been myself one way or another though, come what may.   


    I like being my own person. I don't know who else to be, even when I don’t know who I am.  Not everyone in my life has felt the same way. There has been any number of people who thought that I should be who they wanted me to be, who they needed me to be, or who thought I should be. My personal favorite was a boss to who told me that I needed to be more southern.


      Frederick Douglass said, “I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, than be false, and incur my own abhorrence.”  The most any of us can ever do is be ourselves, scars and all. I'm trying to be me, free of negativity and all that implies. We are each part of the flawed joy of the human experience and that includes me. I'm not sure I need to wear my pajamas in public to be part of the human experience though. Even I  have limits.


       Earlier in the year I was surprised to find that I didn’t know who I was anymore.  90 Days of No Negativity was an interesting way of getting to know who I was at this point in my life.  No one told me that knowing yourself is a life long voyage of discovery. Turns out it is. If you’re lucky it turns into a love affair between you and your soul and you and God.  

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

In The Beginning....


Late one evening last March a friend called. Janet asked me how things were going and when I told her things were fabulous her response was typical Janet, “Yes, but....” I kept telling her how well things were going and she kept digging for something that I was upset about. She finally dropped a gossip bomb that affected me directly. I lost my temper, my cool and as for feeling fabulous? I wasn’t. I tracked down the rumor and even though it wasn’t true my panties were in a twist and my precious peace was shot all to hell. Now, Janet wasn’t doing what we all do to some extent, bonding through negativity. She wanted to connect and find a way to be supportive. I had certainly done my share of that. But, for whatever reason, I had enough. I felt like I drowning in negativity and couldn’t take it anymore. I decided to take a break from negativity and started a 90 Day No Negativity Challenge that I wrote about on Vibrantnation.com.

What started out as little break from negativity turned into a journey into the wilderness of my inner space. Around Day 30 I realized that to be effective I couldn’t just eliminate negativity from my life because it seemed to be everywhere. It made more sense to try and eliminate what it was that made me respond to negativity. That’s when the real challenge and the real work began.

90 Days of eliminating negativity and writing about it was like going through psychic detox. I was engaged in a journey with my soul that was more productive than anything I have ever done before. That’s why I need this blog. I like my life a whole lot better without negativity and writing about it forces me to be accountable, kinda like AA but for negativity. So, here I am, continuing my journey on a weekly basis for my sake. I don’t have any special wisdom or knowledge to share, just this journey into the wilderness experience of being human.