Moonshine & Wanderlust

... a cosmopolitan view from a southern perspective

In the Spring

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When I was younger, my mom would say to me: “People come into our lives for a season and we don’t know how long they will stay, but they will leave you at some point. Enjoy them while they are in your life, but remember to be careful.” I remember getting genuinely angry when she would say this to me – it always came off as some sort of heeding or buzz kill. I hated it. And, I think I hated her saying it because I never wanted to acknowledge that someone I cared about would leave. That doesn’t happen – when you care about someone, when they’re your friend, when you’re in love… those people don’t leave. Of course, I was 18 and my mom had no idea what she was talking about and she hadn’t lived the life *I* was going to live. No sir – I was going to keep everyone and we would sing Kumbaya by a fire every Friday night. Wrong. So wrong.

 

I learned the “seasons” metaphor the hard way. More than once. I’m still learning it. I’ve mentioned this in a former post, but my childhood was pretty sheltered. I didn’t make a lot of “mistakes” until waaay later in life. Sometimes, I think that was good and sometimes I think that was really unfortunate. I will never forget sitting in my therapist’s office and her saying to me: “You’ve learned something a lot of people learn much younger. You learned that {insert some idea here that would seem obvious to anyone over 21} isn’t a sign of a healthy relationship.” I remember laughing – the incident we were talking about seemed so stupid. Like, how did I not think that was a bad idea at almost 30? In that moment, I realized even though I thought I had my life perfectly planned out and A, B, and C would happen in perfect order – in doesn’t happen that way. It hasn’t happened that way. I am still making mistakes and learning and growing. I have to be gentle on myself. And, likewise… it has taught me I have to be gentle with other people.

 

Perhaps the greatest give we can give to ourselves is to simply be. And, to not expect people to stay and fulfill our needs. We are responsible for ourselves – we’re responsible for our own happiness, our own trust issues, our sadness. That is not to say man is an island, but at the end of the day… we are responsible for our lives and our actions. There is a quote I’ve loved for a long time: “If you expect nothing from anybody, you’re never disappointed.” Maybe I love it because it’s a Plath quote and it speaks to my dark and morose, but I think it’s true. It seems bleak and it seems unattainable, but it is true. It’s impossible to not expect things from people – especially when you cultivate a close relationship. It’s going to happen. That’s normal. But, what isn’t impossible is how we let our own expectations dictate our feelings.

 

The past several months have been a big blur in many regards, but one thing that has stuck out to me was that at the end of last year I became completely content. I processed a lot, I went to therapy a lot, I spent a lot of time by myself, I spent time with close friends. I listened to a lot of Lana Del Rey and Carole King and Carly Simon. I ran – a lot. I started practicing yoga. I let myself just get out whatever it was that had built up inside me – I had been on cruise control for a long time. I had become discontent and complacent. More than anything, I hated myself. These thoughts really belong in a post that I promised to make about what prompted my beach getaway over Christmas break, but I had to go through all of that to get to where I am now. It seems a simple lesson: I am responsible for myself and my own happiness. It’s a hard lesson and it’s one I have to work on every.single.day.

 

Seasons come and go – nothing we do will ever change that. People come and go – nothing we do will ever change that. Nothing is guaranteed in this life. Not a single, damn thing. Our pasts do not define us, other people do not define us. When we can come to a place of contentment and happiness with ourselves, minus everything else… that’s when we can appreciate each passing season and its beauty and the people that pass through our lives without want or hurt or expectation or malice.

 

“Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.” – Albert Camus

 

Hey, it’s just …

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Hey, it’s just one night, it’s not like it’s forever
I just want to feel better

How many times have we looked for an escape route in order to “feel better”? The fine art of escaping takes many forms – we all have our vices and they seem be exascerbated by whatever is ailing us at the time. We ache to escape when things get tough – when we want to forget the pain in our lives. My childhood left little room for me to escape a situation I might have found hurtful or stressful – I read to escape. Books were my safety net and safe haven. However, adulthood opened up a Pandora’s box of escape methods. I went from very limited parameters to no parameters.

For a long time, I didn’t feel the need to push my escape boundaries – I nudged them a little, sure, but for several years I never full fledged sacked myself up against a wall. My first real grownup, big-girl, “I can do whatever I want” escape came in the winter of 2011. I had gotten some pretty unexpected and hurtful news from one of my best friends and suddenly, the idea of reading seemed very ten years old of me. I found myself in a blur of actions and feelings that landed me, alone, on the floor of my apartment. From cold to cold – a friend came and transported me from the cool linoleum of my kitchen to the cold and hard bathroom tile. It’s funny how we hit these walls with such force, yet we visit them again and again – no matter how badly they can make us feel.

So, once you find a boundary that doesn’t dull the pain anymore, you move on to the next one… and the next, then one above the last one, etc. We climb the rungs of the numb ladder in hopes to find something that will squelch the longing, the pain, the ache, or the empty forever. But, it’s not to be found. It’s a bottomless pit that begs to be filled. In those moments when alcohol numbs, drugs soothe, other people distract, sleep blankets, we are temporarily satiated. We forget – the line to the top of our empty gauge is full – until the escape stops. It comes to a hault. We learn to ride out the escape route for as long as we can – we stretch it as far as it will go and each route lasts a different time than another, so perhaps we combine our escape routes in hopes of creating one giant ride of oblivion.

The thing is – we can never escape. We try and perhaps for a time we are transported to a place where we forget, temporarily, or our wounds are salved. But, unless we are willing to make peace with whatever is causing us to run toward escaping, we will never truly be free. In more recent times, I found myself trying to get out of town for a couple of days when I was going through something that shot up my “escape” flag. After doing this a couple of times, I realized I was missing out on really wonderful moments with friends and family and myself because I was still consumed with what I was trying to escape. It almost felt like a burden because I was so entwined in my own feelings I failed to notice so many things. When I started to change my attitude and stopped using things I loved as ways of escape – traveling, people, the ocassional glass of wine – I enjoyed them for what they were and how they enriched my life, not how they could be used to duct tape the broken pieces of me together.

I’m still learning how to “cope” with life as an adult – I still nudge my boundaries and I’m still tempted to flee. But, I am getting better at being a little bit more gentle with myself and allowing those feelings and emotions, no matter how negative or painful, to exist and be with me until it is their time to pack up and move on. I don’t use experiences or people or things I enjoy to be bandaids for emotional craters that are far too deep for them to cover. Running away from those feelings only seems to make them more eager to stay. Every experience is a lesson – trying to block it out can cause us to miss out on something that in the end could be more beautiful and powerful than we ever imagined.

Misty

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I was driving home from helping shooting a wedding the other night and as my mind works one thing led to another and I started thinking about writing. I had recently been having some conversations that were heavy on my mind – conversations about doing what I loved and what I am passion about, but that’s another story. However, part of that is relevant for this post.

I began to think about words unspoken – specifically, love letters. I know there have been compilation books of letters between lovers, but I wondered if there were any dedicated to the love letters that were never sent to their intended recipient. I couldn’t help but think of my own unsent letters I had written – there is always a reason those things don’t get sent. For me, what was impressed upon someone to pour their heart into, yet never deliver, resonated far more than reading a letter someone had received. The stories behind the words written and the reasons why the letters were never sent – it gives me chills now just thinking about it. The next day, I did some research on the internet to see what was out there and of course I did find some books that were along those lines however, I did not expect what occurred next to have such an impact on me.

A website was asking for unsent letter submissions with the intent on making them into a compilation book. Some of the submissions had been added to the site – naturally, I started to read some of them. A small picture of a grey kitten caught my eye. (Now, you should know upfront I am one of those crazy animal people who thinks their animal is their child. More to come on this at a later date.) The letter was addressed to Misty, the cat, from an adult woman – it was an apology letter. The woman wrote from her perspective as a little girl – although she didn’t have a lot of money, she loved her kitten… she treasured her. As things happen, the kitten became ill and the girl did not have enough money to take her to the veterinarian. In her panic and heartbreak, she placed her beloved kitten in a box and took her deep into the woods, leaving her there. Alone. To die. You see, the little girl was scared and felt helpless – she didn’t know what to do. She loved her cat, but she couldn’t bear to watch it suffer and not be able to do anything. She did the only thing she could rationalize – she walked away.

We all can relate someway to this story – either as the kitten or the little girl. We’ve all walked away or been walked away from by someone we care about. It doesn’t mean genuine love or care isn’t there – it’s just the way it is. We panic. We are scared to hurt or to be hurt. We get too close and don’t want to put ourself in a situation to lose. We are selfish because we are fragile. We are human. Sometimes it is because of timing, sometimes it is because of past experiences that have burned us, and sometimes we just aren’t ready. Or, we are left behind to wonder what happened, what went wrong – was it something we did? Why are we being left alone in a time when we want to be rescued and taken care of? It’s a mismatched affair… both parties are hurting, yet both are confused and miscommunication (or no communication) only compounds the situation.

Unlike the kitten in the box, we have a choice to not stay confined to our circumstances… things are not always what they seem. People are not always cloaked in shadowy darkness – sometimes they are just as broken as we are. So, we crawl out and we move on… we shift and change and grow. We love, forgive and most importantly, accept. We accept people for who they are, we accept ourselves, and we accept this is an ever changing and never fully stable world we live in. We cling to what is good and right when we have it – and if we lose it, we remember it for the pureness that is was in those moments. We live.

If you’re interested in the website I mentioned, check it out at www.ourunsentletters.com

Revisitation

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Well, this feels familiar… I have been here before, but this time I hope to stay for good. To blog has always seemed intimidating to me, but somehow I have come to terms with what I have to offer (which may be nothing, but might be something to someone even if that person is me) and I am looking forward to some shared reading experiences with other people who crave to see some black and white letters on a screen.

I have had my fair share of blogging experiences. Once, I had a beauty blog to accompany my makeup/beauty based YouTube channel. It lasted for awhile and was fun, but I went to college and life got busy and what eyeshadow I wore on a Monday suddenly seemed very vapid.

Then there was that time I made a blog to document my “giving up” of text messaging for 30 days – I had a house phone installed and the whole shebang. The blog was for a school project, so it died shortly after the semester ended and my presentation was successfully completed.

Right now, this blog IS – it is in existence and I am invested in writing and producing my words. For now, I am not labeling what this is – life is already too full of labels and things (and people) that refuse to be labeled – so… read if you want, comment if you like, and let’s get to know each other.