Try A New Thing And Live In Zealous Ebbs.

try a new thing and live in zealous ebbs.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

i sat in an easy chair in the park. 1.

Oh hi. I stand before you, a little bit lost. I’ve been in a three month long “ebb”. I smell like algae. (Not really. But that’s what it feels like.)

August is a weird month, ya’ll. Sometimes for fun (or torture?) I go back and read old journal entries from a year or three or five years previous to the date that I’m sitting in, just to see what life was like. Without fail, August always contains several entries that feel stuck, frustrated, and generally more pressured to DO something combined with the complete lack of any interest in taking any action of any kind. After a few hour-of-the-wolf 3ams this week, where I am tossing and turning over all of the mistakes and missed opportunities and broken connections and lost strength and lack of motivation and whateverthefuck else the following question came to me:
What causes me to not take action?
Yeah it’s really not a mind blowing question. But it’s a scary one when I decided to be honest with myself about the possible answers.
Fear of failure? Laziness? Boredom? Fear of success? Perceived lack of resources?
Maybe all of them. Eeep. Now what.

Every self important asshole has a blog now, so maybe that’s the first step. Admitting to the internet that I’m stuck.
HEY INTERWEBZ! I’m STUCK OVER HERE!

I’m trying to figure it out. I’m trying to figure out why our hero, an actress-trapeze artist-musician-makeup artist-nanny-personal trainer feels like she has nothing to do and NO desire to do anything. I’m over analyzing and am not sure what the first step is. I feel like it needs to be dramatic but maybe it doesn’t. I want things to happen quickly. And instead they don’t happen at all. I think that one of the reasons that August feels like this (and I know I’m not alone) is that for at least twenty years of our lives, August was seen as a month to ZZOMG-CRAM-IN-THE-LAST-BIT-OF-SUMMER-BEFORE-SCHOOL-STARTS-ARRRGGG!!! And even though most of the people in my circle of friends don’t have the “problem” of going back to school, there is urgency and pressure to Get Stuff Done even though the last thing I want to do is Anything. And then those questions start swirling around in my brain and my thoughts start racing on the things i can control and they dance and bounce around so fast that I can’t even keep track of them and I end up just driving to Whole Foods for a cupcake as a distraction. And it was a gluten free vegan one and it was gross.

I participated in a program called Pathways a few years ago. I hate to call it a “communication seminar”, but I don’t really know how else to describe it other than saying that it took my life, flipped it on its ass, and mended it in such an astonishing way I didn’t even know what to do with myself. In a weekend. No kool-aid or matching scarves involved.
One of the biggest rules/principals/challenges/etc. that I walked away with was “to take a 10 everyday.” Ten being the highest number on a scale of one to ten, and “taking” referred to a risk. It’s sort of a combo of #8-9 in a 12 Step program. Doing something that scares the crap out of you every day. And, of course, the opportunity will not always present itself to do so, and yes, that is also a huge excuse. I took 10’s for a few months, a few times a week, and it was scary and amazing and then I stopped because life got in the way of my life.

What the hell am I waiting for, right?

So, I present to you, the T.A.N.T.A.L.I.Z.E Project. *fanfare*
Try A New Thing And Live In Zealous Ebbs.
Every day I will do something that I have never done before. There will be photographic evidence (wow…photographic and pornographic sure do look like the same word in a quick scan…) of said accomplishment and while they might not all be “10s”, how am I suppose to know what’ll get me pumped up and out of a long ebb unless I try new things? My ebbs will be ZEALOUS damnit! And I’ll learn how to spell “zealous” and “tantalize”! And when I’m flowing, it’s STILL good to try new things! I might be a genius yak tamer! How will I know if I never try?!  

So, I present,
Day 1. I Sat In An Easy Chair In The Park.

When in an ebb, I find that the first thing that happens is I stay at home as much as possible. There is a difference between relaxing at home and hiding at home. I’ve been hiding. So, this evening, I took a walk by myself around the neighborhood. There’s a little playground at the end of one of the one way streets and as I got closer to it I realized that no, my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me…someone had left two (very comfy) easy chairs in the park. Just…sitting there…waiting to be sat…upon. Well why the hell not, right?

who left these here? this is silly.
So today, I sat in an easy chair that was left at a playground. It is the most comfortable seating arrangement I have ever experienced while surrounded by woodchips and old metal.

here's lookin' at you, chair.



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