Delusional hope.

I can't decide whether to give these to my shoe-loving friend for Christmas.

I think I've decided (for a brief moment of time) to be hopeful, for the future, because why not? Hope might be silly, and embarrassing sometimes, but it's tangible. There is no ephemeral hope. There is only hope for change, hope for better, hope for something different already, geez.

I often hope for a day without war, without violence in name and deed. I hope for this because I believe that we, the people, have the power to change the world for the better.

There's nothing better for fostering hope than staring through the window of a moving car (or train, if you're so lucky). That's how I get recentered, I guess, seeing the same scenery I've been seeing all my life, the same highway, the same crazy religious signs, the same oleander bushes. And I think to myself, "Well maybe I could change, maybe things could change a little, and everything would be okay".

I have hope that emptiness will be filled, that loss would be redeemed, and that someday, everything will make sense already, geez.

Peace out :)

Breathe in...breathe out...

All 26 poses in the Bikram series :)

Oh man. I've really been struggling the past couple days. I've become overwhelmed by the amount of pain and suffering in the world, the constant horror stories I'm privy to. I know I can't save anyone. I know it's not my job to fix anyone else's problems. But it weighs on my soul in a way that feels like I can't breathe, and it almost feels better not to breathe, but then I get really really tired and I want to lie down and die.

This feeling makes sense to me because of Bikram. I've noticed that it often feels better in some poses to stop breathing, because breathing necessitates moving, and makes me more likely to fall down. But one has to breathe in order to get through the whole series. You might be able to get through a pose or two without breathing, but then you're too wiped out, and have to sit down. I get dizzy when I stop breathing. So I have to consciously breathe, six counts in, six counts out. Sometimes it hurts to breathe. I don't know why. But you have to breathe.

So breathing feels like dying, but won't actually kill you, and not breathing feels better, but might kill you. Quite the paradox, no? Somehow there is a psychological profundity in there, but I can't find it. Whatever it is, it isn't a pleasant thought.

Image retrieved at: http://theguiltlesslife.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/bikram.jpg

Good Sunday to you :)

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Eleanor Roosevelt

A great thing happened today: I went rock climbing (at a climbing gym) for the first time ever, and I went all the way to the ceiling! It was awesome, and I thought you should know. It seems like the scariest thing ever, since you're hanging onto a wall with your fingertips and the side of your foot, but then you just take one step at a time, and eventually you're there! My friends who took me go all the time (they're fiends), so they were super positive and encouraging, and I felt really supported. I figured out that I don't like being told what to do when I'm in the middle of doing it. I need to be able to focus as much as possible on the task at hand, and voices calling out to me where to put the foot I can't see (on the 2" rock I also cannot see) are simply not helpful to me.

So that was good to know about myself. I hadn't quite put those two things together before. See how much I love personal development? I think everyone should do things that scare them just for the heck of it, and we'd all be better people. Unfortunately, I think that a lot of people do drugs and join gangs in an effort to confront their own fears, and this isn't usually a good idea. So maybe the ethos isn't perfect, but it's worth thinking about.

Peace out.

Love them anyway :)

People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.

The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.

People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.

People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.

 ~ Kent M. Keith 

When I was in high school, and going through a pretty difficult time in my life (parent in the hospital), my school found it prudent to send me to a sports psychologist. Whatever. That was the last thing I needed at the time. They might as well have sent me to an accountant. I was sixteen, and my life was falling apart. I did not need to talk about swimming.

But he was a wonderful man, who really wanted to help me, but who, because of his credentials, could only do so under the auspices of sports psychology. Now that I'm older, I know that he could have done it differently and still have been ethical, but I guess he did the best he could with the information he was given. I admit that I was a particularly difficult teenager, who probably said that nothing was wrong, so I really can't blame the guy for trying.

My heroes were Ralph Waldo Emerson and David Thoreau. I was a romantic, a dreamer, at my core. So when he gave me this poem, it became incredibly formational in my approach to life. The ideas spoke to me in my I-refuse-to-be-cynical view of the world. They told me that there was power in my choices. It gave me hope to think that there were other people in the world who fought as hard as I did.

That thought still gives me hope :)

Credit card debt creation

I really can't figure out what this book is about.

I think I've mentioned that my financial poverty has reached an all-time-low. Seriously, I don't know how low I can go. This is the first time in my life that I have chosen to use my credit card for necessities. In the past, I've baulked at people with credit card debt. "How did you buy that much stuff that you couldn't afford?" But now...I don't know.

I've worked my butt off this month, going through all my old inventory, photographing, listing. I don't know what else to do. What happens when a store just stops selling? This has been an okay month sale-wise, but between graduation last month, and the car breaking down this month, and my shop 2-3x as full as it has been all year, I'm pretty much just hoping that this will blow over, and that in the end, I'll come out okay financially.

Okay, thinking time is over. Now it's coffee time.

The brain fog.

Tape dispensing machine. I love those pretty buttons :)

I am in such a brain fog right now. Yesterday was super windy here in my fair city, and our cherry tree broke in half. I heard something fall against my window, and walked outside to see what it was. By the time I made it to the front door, I'd forgotten why I was there. I didn't see the tree until someone pointed it out to me later. I went to yoga soon after, hoping that some static poses would do well for my static-filled brain.

Being out of school does not bother me. I can fill time like no one's business. But my brain is not my friend. I forget things. I can't think. I spend whole minutes staring at the ceiling. I used to do that because I was depressed. Now it feels like I'm resting my brain, but I haven't done anything to rest from. A friend, who also just graduated from a masters program, told me that her blood pressure was suddenly hovering at a ridiculously low level. I think that this is what biofeedback is all about. Our bodies are telling us that they need to rest, and even though it feels like a complete turn-about from where we've just been, it is a necessary part of the recovery process.

I was in school for the better part of five years, and I got pressed to limits I didn't know I had. So now, I'm just going to stare at the ceiling for a while, because I forgot what this paragraph was going to be about.

Peace out mofos.

All the way to the end

I have taken the week off of thrifting and have committed to getting more of my inventory (i.e. overflowing box in my living room) listed. It seems to be going fairly well, if you don't include the rude intrusion of various humongous problems that shall not be listed here. I spent all of Monday photographing and listing, and that went very well. I have noticed, however, that there is a certain point where I have so much stuff that I have difficulty finding an item that has already been bought and paid for! When I had 100 items in my eBay shop, this was never a problem. But for some reason, 150 crosses that invisible line.

I have a couple dresses that need to be photographed. This photo reminds me that one of them is a vintage wedding dress. I tried to photograph it once before, but I just couldn't find the right light and surroundings to do it justice.

Now here's the important stuff that has nothing to do with the thrift store aspects of thrifting, prompted by the recent shootings in Seattle, by which my community has been affected directly: Life is really, really crappy, and life is really, really wonderful, and it's all jumbled up together in a big indistinguishable blob where you don't know which end is up, and whether suicide is a good option, or the stupidest option of all. In life, we will experience losses that will change us forever, scar us forever, and that is just how it is. There will always be grief, and there will always be loss, and our job sometimes is to ride the wave smoothly, even when the pain is unbearable.

Geysers are big.

Yellowstone postcards from 1931

Oh wow. I've gone off the deep end. I've lost track of the words that are coming out of my mouth, and my mouth has taken on a life of its own where it operates without the presence or direction of my brain. Bad times, my friends. I am in trouble.

Bipolar disorder runs in my family, and I have only ever run on the severely depressed side of the mood spectrum. I've been having a lot of different weirdness going on in my body, and I'm not feeling like all is well, or as it should be. Tomorrow is a holiday, and I work all day on Tuesday, but I'm calling my psychiatrist as soon as I can. Whatever is happening is abnormal and not at all okay. Maybe it's nothing; maybe it's just a ton of anxiety, but I am not going to let it continue.

That being said, if you have any kind of mental health issues/diseases/conditions, please know that there are always people willing to hear you. Whether it's a suicide hotline, or a teen crisis line, or a domestic violence hotline, people want to help you. Sometimes all we need to do is reach out from the frenzied clutter of our brains and tell other people that we need help, and we gain a new chance at freedom. So I'm gonna do that, before things get worse, while I still have a chance of turning this train around.

Online Dating Update #4

Sandra Boynton mug :)

Okay, so I haven't given an online dating update because I suddenly feel very vulnerable writing about what has been going on. Suddenly I'm extra nervous about people reading my blog, and people finding my blog. A few months ago, I found out that a very unpleasant person was reading my blog and then using it to manipulate me. That was enough for me, but now this is different. This is new and scary and should I have a pen name? Should I change the name of my shop and blog so that I do a better job concealing my identity? Yikes. Ack! Anxiety! Waking up at 6:30 every morning with dark circles under my eyes!

Phew, okay. That's all you get.

Record setting day :)

Thorvald Marthinsen Scandinavian Sterling from Norway

Record listing to selling time: 3 minutes

I listed these spoons at a reasonable price, because I wanted to sell them quickly. I just didn't know how quickly. I'm so proud of myself for taking the time to find all the marks. 

NM: Norsk Monster
N: Norway
830S: Scandinavian Sterling Silver
Chalice/Goblet: Thorvald Marthinsen Solvvarefabrikk (1900-1925)

I think I've made some big gains over the past month or so. I've been selling fewer low-priced items, and that was difficult to do at first. First of all, I have had to work really hard to learn what to look for. Then I had to take lots and lots of risks, and allow items to sit in my shop for months. I had to be confident that I had listed the item at a fair price for its value. I definitely had a few bad days over the weekend. I lost my confidence big time, and I was starting to doubt myself. Self-doubt is normal, and sometimes I need to take those moments of self-doubt to remind myself that all is not lost.

Patience, friends.

Feelings of lost-ness

Handmade Hmong quilted wall hanging

There is a deep melancholy that comes with graduating. My bachelors degree came and went, and I don't quite recall what I did afterwards. I kept my three jobs, and enjoyed quality book time and wandering the aisles at the public library. I think I mostly just lost myself in a terrible relationship that all started with a black string bikini and a Winnebago. I started training for an Ironman triathlon, and got diagnosed with diabetes and epilepsy.

Graduating didn't make my life fall apart, but it gave me less structure to cope when life did fall apart. I think I've created a significant structure now that will help to alleviate some of that lost-ness that I experienced eight years ago. Mostly I need to ride out the weirdness. Maybe I'll also go to the beach a couple times.

Funkdigity

Knitting? Gardening? Staring out the window?

Should I be doing something else? Should I be watching less television? Should I be walking on the grass and staring at the sky more? I'm in that weird place where my life is changing and I don't quite know what to do while it's happening. I've been talking about it for the past nine months or so, but now my graduation is a week away (nine days to be exact). I'm in a funky funk, and I'm just going to have to ride it out.

I'm pretty much a professional now. I'm a professional who sells trash on the internet (when I'm trying to convince someone how lame I am, I create really pithy sayings like that). I'm actually pretty awesome, but I don't know if it's okay to really live in that feeling. I might become obese or sociopathic if I care about myself too much (or too little for that matter). I guess I have a core fear that I have to maintain some kind of emotional balance that errs on the side of depression. That way, karma will repay me in my next life by blessing me with many virgins (seriously, why are virgins so valuable in the afterlife?) or cows.

I created an outfit for graduation day. I bought a dress yesterday, and took it to be altered today. I still need to have my earrings fixed. Everything fell apart at the beginning of the school year, and I've just kinda limped along ever since. Now I'm on the other side, and everything needs repair. Including me, probably.

Too busy to care

My idea of Hell is to be young again.

- Marge Piercy

As I get older, I find that life is never what I expect it to be. It is always more difficult. It is always more complicated. This past week, I have found myself at an end I've never experienced before, some sort of emotional place I didn't know existed, where life can be physically exhausting, and still continue. I can be more tired than I've ever been before, but still go to work, and still be good at my job.

Everyone is limited. We are human. But to choose to live in that imperfect humanness, accepting all of one's faults and limitations, allows us to be who we were truly meant to be. For me, that means that I am less able to be "on" than other people I know. I have less energy to give than other people I know. And every effort I make to fight that reality just puts me further behind.

Today, I didn't go to church. I felt guilty. There are things I need to take care of, and people expecting me to take care of those things. But I only have what I have. I can only give what I am able to give. The past few weeks have opened me up to a new reality of understanding what people mean when they say that the older they get, the less they care about what other people think. Older people also say that they like themselves more than they did when they were younger.

It's way better being a grown-up.

Thrift Share Monday :)

Pretty much, as a rule, I always buy Vogue patterns when I see them. What a fun idea for a kid's room or a classroom-fake animal skin rugs. Also, I just realized that these are vegan-friendly animal skin rugs! All the pleasure-none of the pain.

There was no publishing date on this book, just a copyright date of 1918. But then I got home and did some research-the book was not printed in 1918. What can I say? I just got it on a whim. It was early and I hadn't eaten breakfast (it was also dark and rainy). In general, I'm just not good at buying books. No matter what, I don't do it well.

Toner cartridges. These were also purchased on a whim. I think I've lost a bit of mojo in the past couple weeks. I've been buying and selling a lot, but no big ticket items. Sometimes I go through phases where I just want to get rid of stuff. I get tired of seeing the same things for longer than a week. I want movement! But then I start selling, and I get tired of low prices, and I settle down a bit. It comes and goes, I suppose. Right now, I'm definitely in an impatient period.

This was a pretty boring thrift share, in my opinion. I apologize. I will try to do better next week.

Linked with Apron Thrift Girl.

Productive day!

I was so productive today. I put together my brand new printer! And I used it!

Last weekend, I bought a Brother laser printer, a shipping scale, and sheets of printable labels. Now I will be more productive during the week because I won't have to spend so much time at the post office. When the printer came to my house, I got ridiculously happy and jumped up and down. I've just been walking around with a big grin ever since.

Before the printer set-up, I cleaned my toilet. And before that, I went to a workshop on Human Trafficking. At some point during the afternoon, I took a long walk with the dog, and worked my brain hard thinking about my senior paper.

It was a very productive day.

I am not an alien.

 

When I was seven or eight (or nine?), at Sunday School, we were asked to draw what our life would look like when we were 26. I wrote that I would be a professional ballerina. That was what I wanted to be; I worked like a maniac to be that person, and it didn't work out. My body didn't have what I needed to go as far with dancing as I wanted to go. Then the same thing happened with swimming. My body didn't have what it took.

So now my life is different that I thought it would be. The faces are different from the old faces. The people who were in my life at ages seven, eight, and nine, are no longer in my everyday life. Not a one. And that is strange. I don't have all the markers people commonly have that remind them who they were, and how they became who they are. That disconnect is jarring sometimes. It's normal for a person in my situation, but it's still jarring.

I talk about this stuff a lot, because it's central to my everyday functioning. Sometimes I have to remind myself daily that I'm still real, that I'm a person. I am not an alien. I am not invisible.

Totally freakin' out!

 

So I'm graduating soon, and I am having a moment of terrifying fear. Ack! So scary! What will I do? Where will I go? How will I get there? Will I be prepared? Who will be my friends when I arrive?

There was talk at the dinner table of me going online and finding a nice Canadian gentleman to wed and give me health insurance. There are non-crazies out there who would love to get with a nice Californian girl, yeah?

Thoughts, anyone?

Shame in me

Shame is an awful thing. I can feel it in my chest. It's like a fist grabs my heart, and then wrenches it to the right. Ouch.

I am feeling shame at this very moment, and I am trying to talk myself through it. I feel the shame of a little kid who is tattling, something I don't directly remember doing, but imagine I did quite often. Doing the right thing is very important to me. And when I see it out there, possible, I want to grab it and make it mine. I want to own the essence of being right. I want to own it and let it define me. I want to be right. I want to be right. I want to be right. Ad infinitum...

Being right makes us feel safe. It makes us feel in control. When that is questioned, when we make small mistakes, we are struck with the uninvited wrenching fist in the chest.

I have to talk to myself often, remind myself that I am fallible, remind myself that I cannot know the right and perfect way to do everything. All I have is myself, and whatever faculties are available in that particular moment.

In all reality, I am human and flawed, and I never do the right thing. But so are you, so at least we're all in this thing together.

Garbage in, garbage out

 

In yoga tonight, I had thoughts running through my mind throughout the class. That's rare. Usually, I am able to get rid of everything very quickly and focus on how much pain I'm in. Maybe I am feeling stronger, so am therefore able to let my mind wander, but it got me to thinking. How am I getting rid of the negativity in my life? How am I dealing with the garbage that comes in? Am I doing anything?

I am a firm believer that the brain and body carry everything with them. Your brain remembers everything that has happened to you. It is stored in there somewhere, and someday something that you've never remembered before from 3rd grade will pop up suddenly because something in your environment triggered that particular neurotransmitter to fire (or get fired on?).

So that's all well and good when you work at Clouds-R-Us, where everyone is friendly and happy and no one has an unkind word for anyone else, and nothing bad ever happens to anyone. But for the rest of us who have constant good and bad flowing into our lives, I think it's important to stop and think every once in a while, "How much good am I putting into my life? Is there any way that I can replace some of the bad with some good? Is watching Law and Order a good thing or a bad thing for my overall health and well-being?"

Yoga is part of that for me. Yoga gives me a great deal of good and at the same time reminds me to breathe out the bad, and to let go of the things I try so hard to hold on to. Yoga isn't for everyone, but it is a symbol of what each of us needs in our lives-a time and place, set aside, for the purpose of cleansing and renewal.

I hope you find this space for yourself somehow, and if not, I hope you start to look for it.