This Blog

My aspirations are always ambitious. This blog, I hoped, would chronicle this year, my growth, my success. Obviously, it didn't happen that way. I could extrapolate about the cause of that, but it would take hours, I'm sure, and I'd probably still come to the wrong conclusion. So, why bother? I have more interesting things to blog about, I think. So, what dragged me away from editing my manuscript and brought me back to the blank page? Humanity.

By definition, humanity is the quality or state of being kind to other people. It's what sets us apart from every other species on the planet. Yet, many of us have lost that, or lose it sometimes, anyway. And, when I say us, I'm including myself. We tell ourselves we're just telling the truth. And, maybe it is the truth. Maybe your co-worker's breath smells like garlic marinated in butt juice. You don't want to be mean, but maybe they can't smell it. So, you say, "Dude, you need some gum or a breath mint or something! My nose hairs are crawling up into my brain, you're breath is so hot!"

Is the smell foul? Yes. Is what you said the truth? Not according to Khalil Gibran who said, "Truth is a deep kindness that teaches us to be content in our everyday life and share with the people the same happiness." If Khalil is right, then what you said wasn't the truth. What's more, not saying anything at all would have been a lie. The truth, by this definition, must be tempered by our humanity. Otherwise, you're just being mean.

We make up any number of excuses to defend our rudeness, our inhumanity. "I'm only saying it because I love you." Bull! When you love someone, your words to them are seasoned with kindness and patience, so they can taste the flavor of your love in what you say. "I'm entitled to my opinion." Yes, to have one of your own. That doesn't mean the rest of us need to be subjected to it. Feel free to keep it to yourself if it's not going to be gracious and/or helpful. And the least humane of them all-- "Oh, well." That's when you know someone is truly broken, or when you've truly broken someone. When they've reached a point where they just aren't capable of caring about your feelings. Sometimes those people get fixed, they heal. But, most times, they just stay broken.

I've learned a lot of things in my thirties, but few as important as this: If you can't say it nice, if you can't say it with love, if you can't say it in a way that the person you're speaking to is assured of your humanity, then shut the fuck up! That is the least you can do. It takes only the smallest amount of your humanity to just keep your mouth closed when your words taste bitter even on your own tongue. It was a hard lesson to learn. I lost people, people who enriched my life in meaningful ways, but I understand now, and I'm not broken anymore. I was healed. I was healed by the only thing capable of healing you after something like that, love. When I finally loved someone, really and truly loved someone with every part of me, I was healed. And, the funny thing is, I didn't even know I was broken until I'd been put back together.

I still get tested, of course, and sometimes I fail. That's just a part of life. That's what brought me back to my blog. I blog for a lot of reasons but, mostly, I do it to remind myself of who I really am. It reminds me of who I want to be. And it helps keep me on track toward that goal. This blog, and loving a Little.

Accountability

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about accountability. I wanted to write about how no one seems to accept responsibility for their actions. I have any number of examples of people wanting to blame others for whatever trying circumstances they're experiencing. Then, I thought I'd approach it from another angle, gay marriage and religion. Yes, I went that deep with it. The deterioration of cultural moralities, politics, religion; these are a bit heavy for my little blog. Especially when, what I really want to say is, I have managed to royally fuck up my life, and I'm just now beginning to see that.

Those are some tough words to write. Maybe that's why it's taken me so long to get this post out. It's not easy, even for me, to look too closely at my shortcomings, to expose them for all the world to see. When you consider some of the things I've blogged about before, that's really saying something. But I feel especially vulnerable right now.

Over the years, I've come up with any number of excuses, but what it all boils down to is that I've made a lot of bad decisions. Everything I hate about my life right now, which is just about everything, can be traced directly back to some poor choice(s) of my own design. Good intentions don't count for much when you wake up every morning, trying to sort out just where you went wrong. Sure, I was misguided at times. Misinformed. Even led astray. I can be naive when it comes to some things. But the choices were always mine to make. And I made the wrong ones. It's as simple, and as complicated, as that.

Of course, it's all well and good to mope around, feeling sorry for myself, even while acknowledging I have no one to blame but myself. The pity party is over now, though. I have to put on my big girl panties and climb back up onto my high horse. While, in the past, I may not have always selected the path that best served me, I'm going down a new road now. Whatever regrets I leave behind, have to stay behind. I've always thought accountability meant you had to find a way to right your wrongs. I'm coming to realize, though, that some things just can be fixed. At thirty-three, I can accept that I've made some mistakes, I can own them and not make them anymore, but I can't undo what's been done. And, for the first time in my life, I'm okay with that.

Warm Bodies

"I am dead, but it's not so bad. I've learned to live with it. I'm sorry I can't properly introduce myself, but I don't have a name anymore. Hardly any of us do. We lose them like car keys, forget them like anniversaries. Mine might have started with an 'R', but that's all I have now. That's funny because back when I was alive, I was always forgetting other people's names. My friend 'M' says the irony of being a zombie is that everything is funny, but you can't smile, because your lips are rotted off."

With an opening like that, it's hard not to get pulled into Warm Bodies. A zombie love story is right up my alley. As soon as I heard the movie was based on a book, I knew I would read it. Issac Marion brings to life a lovable character in "R", a zombie haunted by the memories of a young man whose brain he consumed. It is through these stolen moments that "R" first meets Julie, a beacon of light in a very dark world. Not exactly the kind of meet-cute we've grown accustomed to in modern literature, but that's what makes it so captivating.

"I want to do something impossible. Something astounding and unheard of. I want to scrub the moss off the space shuttle and fly Julie to the moon and colonize it, or float a capsized cruise ship to some distant island where no one will protest us, or just harness the magic that brings me into the brains of the Living and use it to bring Julie into mine, because it's warm in here, it's quiet and lovely, and in here we aren't an absurd juxtaposition, we are perfect."

Part romance, part morality tale, Marion's unlikely lovers share a bond so powerful, it could change the world. But change is hard, for the Living and the deadest of the Dead, leaving "R" and Julie trapped between the two.

"But it does make me sad that we've forgotten our names. Out of everything, this seems to me the most tragic. I miss my own and I mourn for everyone else's, because I'd like to love them, but I don't know who they are."

Warm bodies is diamond mine of rough, uncut stones in dire need of a good polish. Occasionally, though, a perfectly clear and radiant gem will sparkle up at you from the page and those moments are priceless.

"It's still night, and I can hear my wife having sex with her new lover behind the door of a nearby staff room. I try to ignore them. I already walked in on them once today. I heard noises, the door was wide open, so I walked in. There they were, naked, awkwardly slamming their bodies together, grunting and groping each other's pale flesh. He was limp. She was dry. They watched each other with puzzled expressions, as if some unknown force had shoved them together into this moist tangle of limbs. Their eyes seemed to ask each other, "Who the hell are you?" as they jiggled and jerked like meat marionettes." 

As you might imagine, given the premise of the story, this is no saccharine sweet love story. There's blood, guts, gore, cussing and, yes, even zombie sex. It's not overdone, though. There's just enough to keep you turning the pages. The movie is PG-13, but the book is, rather appropriately, rated "R" and I'd give it a B grade. It's a fun and frightfully entertaining read, but it would have benefited greatly from an extra edit or two.

Friends

A year ago, I proudly counted nearly four-hundred Facebook friends. My wall, littered with game invites, pictures I didn't recognize and information I found terribly uninteresting, moved so quickly, I couldn't keep up with the people who mattered to me. Worse, it seemed as though I surrounded myself with people who didn't think I mattered. Slowly, but surely, I unfriended most of them; many of whom I didn't really know. Some never commented on or liked any of my posts, so I figure they didn't care to read about what went on in my life. A few just seemed so negative all the time, I found myself rolling my eyes whenever they posted something. That includes a handful I found downright offensive. Today, I have eighty-two Facebook friends. Twenty-nine of those are actually family, by blood or marriage. Nine are the family I'm related to by circumstance, by choice. Of the forty-four remaining, there are only five I've never met in real life. And I'm happier than ever with my friends list.

Now, my wall is a mural. An artistic array of the adorable idiosyncrasies and potent personalities of people I love, respect and/or admire. I watch their family videos, listen to the songs they like and read the articles they post about the things that inspire their passions, and I feel like a part of their lives. Only nine of those eighty-two live near enough for me to actually spend time with, and I work or live, at least part-time, with all nine of them. Some of my most supportive friends --the ones who give me strength when I'm battling meat cravings, who wish me luck on race day, who post superhero pictures on my timeline and read my blog, even the most  face-palm-inducing posts about the absurdity that is my life-- are miles away. We might not be able to hang out on Sundays or swing by for dinner on a random Tuesday, but they're some of the best friends I've ever had and I cherish them. I feel like I matter to them and it's the best feeling in the world. Those three hundred didn't deserve to be in the same category with these eighty-two.

So, if you haven't done it in a while, maybe it's time to go through your friends list and figure out who really deserves to be on that list.

Home

Home is where you'd go if you didn't have to be where you are.

Yesterday, I drove to Carolina Beach with the Littles. After three years of high rises and sprawling suburbia, I found the waves rushing ashore to welcome me back. I walked out onto the sand, felt it shift beneath my feet. The wind whipped my hair back, tugging and tangling my long, dark curls and, through my nose, I sucked in the salty sea air. It washed through my lungs, scrubbing away the smog and fumes of the big city. From way up in the sky, the afternoon sun warmed my face and arms, and a place in my soul I hadn't noticed freezing over. 

I stood there on the coast, listening to the Littles giggle and squeal as the icy, Atlantic waters chased them away from the shoreline, and there was no where else I wanted to be.

I often feel this way around the Littles. A child's heart is a dubious place to call home, of course. Most days, it offers less shelter than a rickety, old shack clinging to a windy mountain bluff. In my sister's children, though, I've found the only place I ever truly belonged. So, I patch the leaky roof with love and affection, hang memories over the holes in the walls and cover the floor with all the patience I can find. Some days we tear it all down, then build it back up with the same tattered pieces, but we're invested. We'll be paying on this mortgage for the rest of our lives and it's worth it to keep the place up, even if it does take a lot of work. 

Our little day trip put some dents in the drywall, for sure. The ride there was frustrating. Coming back, it got worse. But while we played at the edge of the ocean, our shack was a grand palace on a pristine beach with sunny skies overhead. So, that night, I collected their sloppy kisses and tucked them into bed, hanging a new memory over the few rough spots. In a palace or a housing project, the Littles are home to me.

A Blank Page

I didn't always know I was a writer. Even after I finished my manuscript, I had a hard time labeling myself as such. It wasn't until just recently that I found myself able to embrace the term. I think what makes me a writer is that I'm not afraid of a blank page.

It seems obvious in retrospect. I've been writing in my head my whole life. Stories. Poems. Songs. Random phrases that don't mean much of anything at first, but later blossom into whole new worlds with vivid characters in dazzling places, doing amazing things. They all putter around in my mind, waiting their turn to cover that bright, white emptiness. It's the blank page that should fear me.

My approach to writing is much the same as my approach to life. I rush through the process, yearning for something tangible and compelling but, mostly, it's just a hot mess. So, I go back over it. Again and again. For years, sometimes, trying to get it right, but never quite managing to pull all the pieces into place. Then, one day, out of the blue, magic happens and, with the turn of a phrase, it comes together more beautifully than anything I ever imagined.

So, I just keep living and, at thirty-three, I'm still doing it all wrong. Still rushing. Still in a constant state of change. Never really sure of myself, what I want or where I'll go next. Still waiting for that sparkling moment of clarity when everything will finally make sense. It used to bother me, that wrongness. I guess that's why I kept trying to edit who I am. 

I see now, though, that while the hot mess might not make a best selling novel, it makes for a most extraordinary life. I can stop trying to change the past. There doesn't have to be a moral to the story. Perfect or not, the ending will write itself. Every day is just another blank page, waiting to be filled, to be lived. And I'm not afraid of a blank page.

I enjoy the freedom of the blank page. ~ Irvine Welsh