A meaningful dream

Last night I dreamed I was in a city (New York? Chicago? Boston?) trying to hail a taxi. It was raining, and none of the taxis were stopping, so I turned around and started walking down the street toward someplace that was dry. As I was walking, a woman roughly my age put her umbrella over my head and asked me if I knew any good restaurants. Behind her were her friends; one was smiling and laughing and telling stories, the other seemed very shy.

I led them past a super fancy Japanese restaurant. "I heard it's really nice, but it's also really expensive so I won't recommend it to you," I said. The girl with the umbrella laughed and said, "Now here's a girl who knows my style!"

I finally led them to a relatively nice, relatively inexpensive restaurant and was invited to join them. I sat between the umbrella girl and the shy girl. The shy girl didn't order any food.

"Don't worry," said the umbrella girl to the shy girl, "we'll find some place to get some chocolate after this." The shy girl smiled sweetly. I suddenly remembered something. "I know a nice chocolate cafe around here," I said. The part of me that knew I was dreaming wondered if I was in the right city, or if the chocolate cafe was just a memory of some other city I'd lived in.

I'm not sure why this rainy, random girls night out with strangers struck me so much, but it did. Previously, my dream was filled with people from every different era of my life (who seemed to all know each other, and we all lived in this imaginary city that seemed to be a composite of every city I've ever stepped foot in.) Everything had been familiar, everyone was someone I knew, and I was very happy to be in the company of all of these people... and then I was alone and the three girl strangers showed up and I seemed to accept it as part of my life.

"Do you know what the meaning of life is?" The shy girl asked after a while. The umbrella girl laughed and said, "Don't mind her, she's in a phase where she has to figure everything out." But I smiled and told the umbrella girl it was fine, and I turned back to the shy one. "I have no idea, but here's how I see it: every day should be enjoyable. If you don't have anything to do that day, go out and do something awesome. Spend time with people whose company you enjoy, and forge meaningful connections with as many people as you can." The laughing girl let out a beautiful laugh, the umbrella girl grinned at me, and the shy girl gave me a shy smile.

And then I woke up.

Home

I'm a leaf on the wind; no trees in sight, no roots to keep me grounded. Last night I sat staring at all my most useful and most prized belongings, packed neatly into a handful of bags. I thought about everything else I own, squirreled away in a ten by ten tin box with a lock on the door. I wondered what life would be like without it all. But I already know because I'm already living it.

This morning I moved my bags to a different location. As I set them down I took in the sight of the place that I knew would never be my home. It was not an unfamiliar feeling. It was not a pleasant feeling. But I was determined not to feel sad.

I was overcome, though. As the day wore on I was consumed by my yearning for some place warm and familiar. Some place filled with memories and photographs and life.

I miss the ocean. I miss taking pictures. I miss every best friend I've ever had.

I miss waking up and not having to wonder where I'll end up next.

The Plunge

It's funny how life works out. We go through waves of good and bad, easy and difficult, simple and complicated. It's never black, it's never white, just gray and gray and gray. But sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's red and blue and green. Sometimes it's magenta and silver and periwinkle. Sometimes it's rainbows and prisms and patterns and everything all at once-- and sometimes it feels like nothing.

Remember when you were a kid and you discovered something exciting that you wanted to show all your friends? "Hey, watch this," you'd say. Maybe it was that you learned how to do a cartwheel, or ride your bike without holding onto the handlebars. Maybe you rounded up enough courage to poke an angry dog with a stick while it was sleeping, or pull on your big sister's pigtail when she wasn't looking. It was always that mix of pride, doubt, and pure, sweet adrenaline. And then that huge sense of wonder when you finally took the plunge-- that was the best part. Did I really just do that? That's how I feel now.

Watch this. 

I close my eyes and when I open them I'm suddenly a businesswoman. I'm learning about accounting and income tax. About marketing and vendor's licenses and limited liability companies. I'm reading contracts and writing emails and calculating expenses.

Watch this. 

One moment I am artless and without inspiration; the next I have a camera in my hand and a vision in my head. I'm remembering all I've forgotten and learning all I never knew.

Watch this. I'm stumbling in the dark, groping for the nearest way out. I panic, I flee, I carve out a path of destruction... and with the flick of a switch I am able to see again.

Watch this. Blink, blink, and blink again. I'm a writer, I'm an artist, I'm an organizer. I'm all three at once, and all three separately. Blink again, and I'm so much more. I'm a screenwriter, I'm a photographer, I'm a filmmaker, I'm a treasurer, I'm a stage manager, I'm a marketing coordinator, I'm a designer. I build websites, I create logos, I play an instrument, I paint pictures.

Watch this. Watch as I grow. Watch as I succeed. Watch as I become everything I was meant to be and more. Watch as I do things I never thought I'd do.

Watch as I become something great.

Stream of consciousness

Today was one of those days where I realized that despite all of our rivalries and cliques and preconceived notions of each other, we're all really just looking for the same things out of life.

I went to Comfest today and did a bunch of people watching. I realized how much I enjoy finding new people who aren't so uncomfortable with silence that they feel the need to fill every pause with words. I also enjoy casual outings with near-strangers.

I sometimes assume people are being standoffish when really they're just introverted. I then feel stupid when I realize that I'm the same way, so I ought to recognize it when I see it.

I realize that first impressions are often misleading, and I appreciate when someone acknowledges that their impression of me has changed. It takes a certain amount of moxy to admit to someone that you were wrong about them.

There are many different kinds of love. Love for a friend, a family member, a spouse, a sibling, a pet... but even within those categories love is different depending on who it is you're loving. I don't think I've ever loved two people the same way.

We often dislike and mistrust people who are unfamiliar. It's a survival mechanism from back when we were more primitive creatures. I'm going to try to keep that in mind from now on.

I miss walking at night.

A word of advice to all the single ladies out there:

Find a man that challenges you. Not one who dominates you and belittles you, because you'll never love yourself. Not one that puts you up on a pedestal and worships you, because you'll never love him.

On Jealousy and Letting Go

Jealousy is a funny thing, isn't it? I feel like it isn't so much a singular feeling as it is a group of related, distinctly unpleasant feelings. Confusion, inadequacy, anger, contempt, arrogance, envy, sadness, and probably a bunch of other things all wrapped into one. The only thing I hate more than feeling jealous is feeling humiliated. The difference is, humiliation is more or less momentary and is forgotten soon enough. Jealousy can eat away at a person if left unchecked.

I think it's reasonable to assume that no one really enjoys feeling jealous. And yet so many people try their damnedest to make others jealous. And that's kind of what makes it so interesting to me. There are people out there who would never think to try to humiliate another person because they think it would be mean or they recognize that it's against society's moral code. They would never try to physically harm someone for the sake of seeing them hurt. But these same people will go out of their way to try to make someone jealous-- a feeling that is uncomfortable at best and painful at worst. It's like this passive aggressive form of sadism that we all more or less accept as a normal part of life.

I find that in most cases people try to make others jealous because they themselves are jealous. An eye for an eye, right? But making someone jealous doesn't ever seem to ease your own pain the way you'd hope it would. I know, I've been there. Everyone has been there. It leaves little more than a hollow satisfaction that departs as quickly as it arrives-- if it ever does.

In a world where we're all plugged in to each others lives via texting and social networking, it's easy to let ourselves give over to little temptations. Post a few pictures of yourself partying up with strange guys for your ex boyfriend to see. Write a blog post about how much better your life is now that whats-her-name-that-skank is out of your life. Gloat on facebook about how your team won that oh-so-important game against your rival. Mostly we got over doing these things in high school... but sometimes we slip. If we're hurting badly enough, if we're feeling ignored, or if all we want is to trade places with someone else.

Being the hugely insecure person that I am, jealousy and envy used to be kind of a big problem for me. About a year and a half ago I started reading up on Buddhist philosophy, and they talk a lot about letting go of attachment and giving into genuine affection. It seems to me that jealousy stems from unhealthy attachment mixed with dissatisfaction with oneself. 

I'm not saying I don't get jealous anymore. I do, just like everybody else. But instead of giving into all those negative emotions, I ask myself whether or not I care about the person I'm jealous of. If the answer is yes, then I allow myself to feel good about their happiness or success. If the answer is no, then I recognize that it's just not worth it and I move on.

And if you're out there right now trying to make someone else jealous, do yourself a favor. Just let go.

The Importance of Being Earnest

I hung out with Corbin the other night for the first time in a while. We went and saw Super 8 and then we made our way to a 24 hour coffee shop where we proceeded to sit and talk until 3:30 in the morning. As we talked, I started to come to a pretty unpleasant realization. The reason Corbin is such a good guy is that he's genuine. But that's not the unpleasant bit.

The unpleasant bit is that I noticed how genuine Corbin is. Not because it was an unusual thing for him, but because it was an unusual thing for me. As we were talking (about life, about school, about movies, about everything), I started to think back over the past couple of months. I thought about the various people I'd been in nearly the exact same situation with (sitting in a coffee shop, having a conversation), and how different it had been. How I was never able to relax; how I was constantly wondering what the other person thought of me, or if he or she was being open with me; how I watched what I said, and never let myself be me. And yet there I was, with Corbin, saying everything that came to my mind and actually enjoying myself.

I thought about the first time I ever hung out with Cory, and how he told me that one of the things he values in others is earnestness. "It's the opposite of phoniness. And it's no good condemning phoniness. I should just encourage its opposite." I agreed with him then, but I'd never really applied it to my own life until now.

I'm probably gonna get a lot of flak for this next bit if the wrong people are reading this blog, but it's how I feel so I'll say it anyway. The thing about the theatre department is that the majority of people who run the show (so to speak) are actors. In my experience with actors, I've found that they often put on kind of a front, even in real life. We all do, really, but perhaps being in theatre brings that quality out more so than in other professions. Or perhaps the theatre simply draws in those who are used to acting in their own lives already. I don't really know-- I'm a writer, not a psychologist. 

I'm not saying that everyone in the theatre department is that way. In fact, I think it tends to be more of a group characteristic, because on an individual basis people tend to be a lot better. But those who shun that way of social interaction tend to be on the fringes rather than in with the crowd.

At any rate, I've sort of been drawn into all of this posturing and trying to impress others business. So much so that I've forgotten what it's like to have real friends. Friends like Cory, and Corbin, and my friends from back home, and from other departments. People who are down to earth, and who aren't so afraid to be themselves. People who don't mistake friendliness for romantic interest. People who value earnestness and good naturedness and honesty. I'm ready to get all that back.