mantras

I'm home today, sick. Not horribly gross sick, but more like "I sound sick enough that people would be telling me to go home all day, and I have a month + a week of vacation time accrued anyway, so, what the hell" sick. You know what? Being home during the day when you aren't really sick is boring.

I took a long, cold shower in the dark, though, which is one of my very favorite things to do. Not sure why, but it's always been even more soothing than the average shower for me. And it was just that - soothing, and highly contemplative.

[Background Music: "F*cking Boyfriend" {the bird and the bee}]

I was thinking about my tattoos and piercings. Y'all know about the tattoos, of course, since I cannot stop yapping about them. (See here for the proof of which I am so proud.) Each of my ears is pierced twice (lobes only), which is wild and radical in my extended family but in the world in general it's nothing to blink about.

["Girl All the Bad Guys Want" {Bowling for Soup}]

When I look at myself in the mirror, those holes in my head make me smile. When I'm in the shower and I see that symbol on my hip, I feel pride. When I'm wearing a skirt to work and outrageously dress it up with hose & heels, but that little sunburst peeks out through the silk of the hose, I smirk and giggle. I'm not "a librarian", both literally (I do not hold the degree) and figuratively (I just don't think of myself that way). Some of my best friends are exactly that, though, in one or the other manner or both.

["Miami" {Counting Crows}]

It's not that I hold it in general disdain, but for me, it doesn't fit. It's like a red ribbed turtleneck that I tried on at the insistence of a shopgirl once. I knew it would look pathetic on me, but, oh my God it was bad. I looked like a badly (i.e. asymmetrically) stuffed, uncooked snausage. All red and bloated and squishy.

So. Yeah. That's what it feels like when I think of myself that way.

"Lawyer" doesn't work any better.

What this all gets down to is making the inside match the outside, and vice versa. That's something that my therapist-substitute said to me while I was at the very end of working through leaving my ex. There were other things that she said which were remarkably helpful, but "outside matches inside" is the one that stuck the hardest.

["Like I Do" {Live}]

What does it mean, though? How far do I go to feel intellectually, spiritually, emotionally symmetrical?

Doesn't the work that requires make me simply selfish?

Around that time, I started writing these pithy little phrases in a notebook that I kept on my desk.

["Firefly" {Sister Hazel}]

I don't know why, really. Some barely made any sense to me as I wrote them. I think there was just this vague hope that they would help, somehow.

Don't brood on what's past, but never forget it, either.

Don't get attached to the plan.

Mind like water.

Sometimes you need someone to put down the visor.

The sober realization that a false dream has run its course can, in itself, be a sign of a fresh beginning.
["Beat a Drum" {REM}]

Plants need air, water and sunlight to grow. What are three essential items that your mind, body and spirit need to do the same?

The universe has a plan. So do you. The question is, where do they coincide and where do they diverge? The truth is that the more you're aligned with your true purpose, the more the universe will support you.

Ask yourself how you would feel if you wishes were granted, and then allow yourself to internalize that emotional state.

Just because you like the salesperson doesn't mean you should pay more than a service or product is worth.

Try not to want it. Your life would be a lot happier if you could convince yourself not to want it.

You create your opportunities by asking for them.
What does it all mean?

["Better After All" {Jonatha Brooke}]