A New Year, A New Dream, A New Goal

It's been a long time since I've written here. I've had a lot of things that required more time and attention than the time I spent writing, reading, or really anything else.
I've spent almost four years trying to gather myself, trying to re-realize who and what I am and what I'm capable of. It takes time, it's a process.
I have a wonderful job- I love my boss, and I like what I'm doing. It's taught me a lot, really, about things. It has restored some of the fight that I had in me. And it is teaching me about process. My sainted mom has been telling me since I was a child that I can't make everything happen overnight, that I need to be more patient, that I should respect that there is a process involved in everything. My motto this year is "Life is not an event, it is a process." I've been totally made and broken by living like it's an event- extreme highs and lows, a hallmark of my persona. I don't want that anymore, I haven't wanted that for a long time, and I think I've finally gotten it together well enough to have some real control over myself and the events that happen in the process of living.
Going to school isn't news- I've gone to school for years before establishing this blog, and have remained in school since. But now, I have a real concrete goal in mind: I'm going to get my business degree in economics and go to law school. It's a viable form for me to have peace with myself, have a career that I can enjoy and excel at, and it's a way that I can have the positive change that I want to have- become the change I want to see in the world. It's going to require a lot of discipline that I'm still restoring, but it'll be there. It's happening now, and it's process with a goal in mind.
The problem I've always have with creating goals is that they're so lofty that I already have it in the back of my mind that I can't actually achieve them, but even if I fail I would have gone farther than most. I look at that now and know that's absolutely effing ridiculous- what sense does it make to set yourself up to fail like that? Law school is a reach, but it's not so far that it's not possible.
I've also started dedicated real time to restoring my body now that I've restored a good portion of my soul. It feels good to work out and look in the mirror and see obvious positive changes. I liked being a head-turner. The problem I've had for a long time is that I felt so old in my soul and in my brain that my body also felt old and I felt that it was wasteful to spend time trying to restore something so old and worn. The reality is that I'm 26. I'm a long way from old, even if I feel like it, but I will never be old if I don't take care of the business of my health, which deteriorated in ways that should never occur in a body my age. So, I've started working on that before it's too late to save it.
My soul is another story. I've restored myself a great deal in the past four years, but I can honestly say, living in the South makes me feel far away from the Divine. I find no place to go for that connection. Here, people are dedicated to their churches and their bullshit rules and judgements, not God. I cannot, will not enter a church of any description here. I still have to figure out what to do about that. I don't necessarily need a church, but I do want to share that experience with someone else because nothing delights me more than sharing a great experience with someone. I love to watch another experience happiness- it brings me more joy than having it for myself.

It's a process. It's a matter of learning and living.

Soul-Bare

It's been a long time since I've written- I honestly don't know if anyone reads, but it definitely feels good just to put how I feel or what's going on in my life out there. I suppose the correct term is "therapeutic". Everyone needs something like that every once in a while. It seems so often that the things I do lose "soul'- things like planting flowers are not joyful activities but things on a to-do list that is too long for any one person to actually accomplish. I rarely do anything because it actually gives me emotional fulfillment but rather mental peace- it's another item off of an infinite checklist.
I'm back in school, which means that the commodity of time is at an all time premium price. I'm a business major now, which means I get to do things like accounting and economics- time intensive and requiring full mental faculties. It's hard work, it's a lot of driving (I live 43 miles from school), but it's happening finally that I'm moving on so that I may have better tools to make a better life. Hopefully it'll be a fuller but more peaceful life. I realize I'm still trying to get a real steady foundation built, and I can't wait for the day that I get to actually build a frame.
I'm trying really hard to learn how to balance life. Sometimes, it's so much more important to stop and take a moment to enjoy what's around you- professors don't necessarily understand that, but I'm really beginning to get it.
Life is work, but life is also joy in tiny, lovely things.

Someone Like You

Good news: I got accepted into the four year university today. Yay for patience and multiple submissions of paperwork.

Good news #2: I got to play the piano for FIVE hours today. It's the beginning of squelching the withdrawals I've had while I was living to work.

Good news #3: I don't have my hardware store job anymore. Thank God. I hate that place.

I had other plans, but because of the rain, I didn't get to follow through with them- mainly painting on my house. It's okay, though. I did a little bit of laundry, some dishes....and then it occurred to me: I have time to do something I enjoy.
So I sat down at the piano....that was at four this afternoon. It's now nine. I didn't realize I'd been playing for so long until I got up to go to the bathroom and get another drink. If there was the possibility of me having any job in the world, I would love to be a music teacher. The problem? I can't perform in front of anyone, and I don't know a band instrument. Both of these things are required to get your degree as a music teacher. This really is a case of "having nothing to fear but fear itself"- fear is what makes me choke up and mess up the notes. It's not that I don't know the song I'm playing- it's that someone is watching me do it.
I've never been a limelight kind of person. I like to stay kinda shadowy, I suppose, and this is why, though I love to play, I've never had any desire to play in front of someone. What I would want to do as a music teacher is just set one kid on fire with sound and have a passion for it as strong as mine. There are few things in life that can bring me such solace or joy as the right song at the right moment.
So, life is looking pretty sweet from among my black and white keys with college on the horizon. I can't wait to get that done so that I can get a real job making some money that isn't minimum wage. Maybe after I get done with that I can take more piano lessons and get better. Maybe someday I'll go back to school to be a music teacher.
Maybe someday.

Good Things Part Duh

There are things in life that I very much enjoy. The Boyfriend, for example, is one of them. Trivia is another. Music and coffee drinks are two more. What's the best- combining all of them and adding a sprinkle of friends! This is the plan for tomorrow.
Even though it's due to illness, I got the weekend off, and I have to say, I remember why I love this so much. I've cleaned a little here and there (which is no small feat when you have vertigo), and I've done a lot of sleeping and reading.
I'm reading a very interesting book called A Clockwork Universe, which is about the British Royal Society (which was stuffy British men with microscopes and telescopes- but brilliant nontheless), and the dawn of science as we know it. Some of the key figures in this book are some of my most beloved scientists- Sir Isaac Newton, Tycho Brahe, Copernicus, and Galileo. Granted, they're not all British, but still had huge parts to play in the world of science. The one thing that these men never tried to disspell was that God was real- that came later- but instead had the profound idea of God the Mathematician. It had never occurred to me that in those times, suggesting that the universe was heliocentric made people feel as if they were further removed from God and therefore undermined humanity's place, hence the backlash against the idea. I suppose I take this for granted, as it has never bothered me that I'm not at the center of any universe, and quite frankly don't feel that my place is a threatening one.
I'm also reading a book called Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks, who is a world renowned neuroscientist and psychologist. Who knew that there are people that have seizures if they hear a G sharp? I didn't before this book. But there's more to it than that- there's the cardiologist that, after being struck by lightening, becomes an obsessed and gifted pianist- after 43 years of having little to no interest in music and no skill whatsoever. Or the woman that had seizures when she heard Neopolitan music. There's more- I haven't finished the book yet- but so far it's definitely one I'd recommend. I think after this I'm going to swipe my dad's copy of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by the same author. He does great research on a fascinating and wonderous topic- the brain and all it's misfunctions.
It's books like these, and articles in newpapers and online, that make me a queen of bullshit trivia. I revel in this- granted, much of the information I garner from my sources has little to no practical use except in livening a conversation. But still, it pleases me, so I continue to spend time on it.
Regardless, both books are great reads and they come highly recommended.

Wading Through The Red Tape Paperwork of College

There's something to be said for anyone who navigates through the mess of college. I'm not sure what it was like in decades past, but today it's fraught with absurd amounts of paperwork, long periods of waiting, and hopes and dreams that the postal service will work. There is no one to give you a clear path to getting things done- it's up to you to navigate the choppy and unnavigatable waters of four-year universities.
I think it's a preliminary test to keep stupid people out- if you can't make it through, you don't deserve to waste your time and money here. Well, okay, let's be honest, that's probably more of a dream. I know that the PC thing to say is that everyone deserves an education, but the truth of the matter is that they don't: you don't deserve something you don't want to work for.
I'm currently going through the mess of trying to get myself into a four-year university. Why? I'm tired of being poor, and I'm tired of doing meaningless jobs. Both reasons are equal in rank. I want to do something that matters, but I want that something to keep a roof over my head and food in my dogs' bellies without me having to cast a prayer out to the Universe that I'll have enough to pay the electric bill too.
So, the new goal: to get my bachelors in economics and finance. Why? Because it's interesting and practical- everyone's concerned about money (moreso now than ever), and everyone needs help. The dream part: I open up my own financial advising center someday specifically to help small businesses. I believe in the mom-and-pop sector strongly, and so many of these companies fail because of terribly money decisions and a complete lack of advertising. Eighty percent die within the first five years of opening. I want the small businesses of America to make a come-back: in doing so, we could conceivably save our economy.
What I have to do to get there: 1) get back into college, 2) bust it to get my four-year degree 3)get a job as a financial advisor 4) take the test to become certified three years after getting that job.
I'm still on step one, but I'm getting it together. It'll happen. Nothing is forever, and the current state of affairs is not immune to that. I'm working hard to change things around.

Speaking Words of Wisdom Let It Be (Fourth of July)

It's hard to explain the feeling of being American these days.
It's tiring, it's a battle, it's glorious that I can say whatever the hell I want, it's infuriating that other people can say whatever the hell they want, it's fantastic that we are supposedly guaranteed so many things, frustrating when none of those guarantees pan out.

I suppose it's all just a double edged sword. And, like it or not, Americans still very much live by the sword- proverbially or otherwise. We will never be a nation at peace, a nation at rest. Our arrogance is in fact our saving grace.

I'm tired, I'm hungry, I'm poor. And there's thousands of us- but there's no Lady Liberty to run to.

What is to become of us all?

It's Been a Minute, Huh?

It's been a long time since I've been on this blog. I've been too busy (and too broke) for the internet.
I've been trying to get it together, and I gotta say, I'm pretty proud of myself. I have a home that I love very much. It's soooooo much better than the last place I lived. It's a work in progress...but it's exactly what I want. It's modest, but nice, and it's my space. My dogs have a big backyard, and I've got a big garden in the front, and a flowerbed.
I got cable for the first time in five years yesterday. It was kind of a moment of triumph that I'm making it enough to afford cable and internet again. It's been a long time.
I have a new man, too, that has really enhanced the living experience. He's a little older than me, very kind, and a great head on his shoulders. He's kinda a big deal, mostly because he's what I've been waiting for.
Life's more bearable now than it has been in a long time. I'm lucky. I keep making it through bad situations and winding up in a better place than I was before the bad situation. I'm grateful for it, too.