"Fuck It, It's Showtime."

"Fuck it, it's showtime." 

... is my new life motto. Thanks, Deadpool. 

(P.S. Peter "I just saw the ad" is my new hero.) 

My usual brand of cinematic escapism tends toward cartoon animals, love stories, or inspirational odds-beating, but every so often I like a good (anti) superhero. I just cover my eyes whenever there's blood. 

It may be because a friend once called me a warrior. He was referring to me and dating, because I am all too willing to stride out into the arena to get the shit kicked out of me, but sometimes I think that the creator of Wonder Woman was really tapped into something. A lasso of light? Deflector arm bands? Pretty sure there are dimensions where such things are 100% real life and I'm pretty sure I've spent time there. 

Or I just have an extra good imagination. Does it even matter which? 

I feel like there are a lot of things I'm here to do, and I think I've been holding back more than I thought I was. So much is welling up in me daily and I don't write it down or put it on video or otherwise unleash it. 

Malaise, depression, insecurity, and anxiety ensues. I'm pretty goddamn sure most of my downward spirals into such gloom can be traced back to the moment something wanted to bubble out and I stuffed it back down. Because I didn't have time. (Or it was scary.) Or I've already posted today. (Or what will people think?) Or I should put the effort into things that will pay the bills. (Homelessness is clearly the result of doing things you love.)

In other words, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. And not just because - let's face it - I always have time. Because nobody cares how often I post or don't post. And I always have so much more energy for paid work when I've put out what wants to come through me on any particular day. 

I HAVE SO MANY WORDS IN ME AND MOST OF THEM HAVE BEEN STIFLED NO WONDER MY BRAIN IS BASICALLY MADE OF STATIC ELECTRICITY AND PASTA. Also otters. 

A lot of my attention has gone to where my feelings have been stifled - and I think that was time well-spent - but it's really time to start paying attention to the words too. So many thoughts, so many stories, so many projects. And I have all the time in the world. 

So.

Fuck it. It's showtime. 

Another tick in the "all my excuses are bullshit" column? I CAN DO BASICALLY EVERYTHING ON MY PHONE. Whether I have good hair that day or not. 

The Life-Changing Magic of Good Hair

Stop wanting, stop expecting, let it look entirely different ... and you end up eating free fried chicken in the fancy seats.

Since all that kicking and screaming I did earlier this week, I've managed a new level of surrender. Surrender is one of my big lessons in life - meaning, I'm absolutely terrible at it and despise the very thought.

Sure enough, the second I give up and offer up a big fat FUCK IT, life decides to reward me.

When Lan and I met up in San Francisco on Wednesday, it turned into one of those magical days that only ever happen in movie montages.

Cinematic hair! (Mainly because someone spent forty-five minutes aiming a blow-dryer at my head which, I can assure you, has never before happened in my life.) Stunning scenery! Amazing sushi! Random invitation to a ballgame in, get this, the fanciest seats they have!

You know what they have in the fancy seats? Free beer! And fried chicken and chocolate chip cookies! Our seats had cushions! No wait in the bathroom line! There simply aren’t enough exclamation points to properly convey the experience.

This, apparently, is the true power of surrender - and great hair.

Thanks, Lanny. Thanks, hair. Thanks, magical day. Two thumbs up, would surrender again.

Trading Dreams For Joy

Turns out, telling your truth in the moment clears out so much space.

Truth really does go moment by moment. Just because something feels like the truth today doesn’t mean it will feel like the truth tomorrow. This is really important for me to remember. 

While I was embarrassed about sharing all those Disenfranchised Dreams last night, I’m so glad I did - and not just because people are so dang kind. I feel so much more hopeful today.

Being an empath who’s still learning good boundaries is like having to vacuum up after the world, because half of it just tramped muddy footprints through your kitchen as it tossed used sandwich wrappers on the floor.

I spend a lot of my time clearing space.

(“Clearing space” is my vaguely obnoxious term for shuffling through all the emotions and feelings and thoughts that I pick up from other people and finding room in my head for me.)

Anyway, saying "HI I’M SO SAD THAT NONE OF THIS HAS HAPPENED, ALSO A BIT HUMILIATED, LIKE IT SAYS SOMETHING ABOUT HOW UNWORTHY I AM (it doesn’t) AND LIKE PEOPLE WILL JUDGE ME (you won’t) FOR IT"… is actually a huge goddamn relief.

Because saying the sticky painful things without staying in the painful sticky things is so crucial for me. Me, the relentless queen of cantankerous melodrama. 

Here was my Blab All Over The Internet process for feeling better about disenchanted dreams, if you're curious:

• Think a thing about hopeless dreams, start writing the thing, keep writing the thing because it helps me understand my feelings about the thing.
• Feel vaguely queasy but share the thing anyway.
• Read kind things and let them soothe me to sleep, hand clutching the phone precisely the way you're not supposed to do.
• Get out of bed the next morning, pretend to exercise (hand up if this is a thing you do), and realize “Hey, that doesn’t feel so much like my truth anymore.”
• Sure, I’m almost forty and that baby thing feels a little pressing (which means the relationship and the money thing definitely feels pressing), but all that could shift tomorrow.
• Or not. It doesn't matter.
• Realize that stating my truth in the moment cleared space in my head, heart, and feels. Enough to realize that it was just that moment. I'm not even 40 yet. My life is not over.
• Maybe I just need to do my thing and enjoy all the many things there are to enjoy in the everyday.

Being careful to distinguish my own feelings and energy and thoughts from whatever I just picked up at the grocery store from random strangers or when on the phone with a friend is an ongoing process - and crucial to dreams.

More than that, clearing out my own space has the unintended but welcome effect of making some goddamn room for joy. I feel joy so much more powerfully than I did a few years ago.

Joy is a pretty good trade for dreams. So maybe I should just surrender to that and let my dreams do whatever the fuck they want to do. They can tag along, they can fall into the abyss, they can tap me on the shoulder. Whatever.

You do you, dreams. I’ll do me. Maybe we’ll meet again sometime.

In the meantime, there are so many things that make me happy. Make my wizened little soul feel joy.

Giraffes. Cartwheels on beaches. Road trips with Sally. Toasted rice tea. Dance class. Wearing my unicorn horn. My little cottage. My hippie weird. Giraffes.

If you want to share some of the things that make you happy, I would love that. 

Or Maybe I'll Just Delete This Whole Thing Because I'm a 39-Year-Old Woman Whose Primary Relationship is With a Stuffed Otter and That's Embarrassing Enough, Thanks

At what point to you relinquish the desiccated ghost of your hopes and say, “Okay, this dream is dead”?

I’m not super good at giving up. If I want something, I will fight for it until the undertaker has to pry the dream from my cold, lifeless fingers.

But at what point is it just too exhausting to keep clinging?

One of my great lessons in this life is surrender. Going with the flow.

I am fucking terrible at going with the flow. I’m even worse at surrendering. I will grip the steering wheel and attempt to control the direction until all hope is lost, along with its extended family and pet hamster.  

But, oh my god, I’m so tired. It takes a lot of energy to want something for years and years and years and not get it - and I don’t have a whole lot of energy to spare. One of the reasons I cobbled together this weird unicorn career is that I literally can’t have a full-time job. Or any kind of situation that would regularly require me to be in a room with other humans and get things done.

(I adore humans but I find them so exhausting. Humans have so many thoughts and worries and feelings and I take them all on until I have no idea where your thoughts and feelings end and mine begin. Navigating life in a swirling vortex of ceaseless emotion will certainly tire a person out.)

Obviously, nobody but me can decide when to surrender my dreams, so I’m not really asking for advice here. It feels more like I'm taking the first step of admitting that most of my dreams have gone direly unfulfilled, and that’s pretty embarrassing. I literally had every advantage in the box and somehow managed to squander all of them. Whoops?

Now that we’re here and I’ve typed for long enough that this is happening, I’m trying to think of one dream I’ve let myself accomplish.

(Sally's making the crickets noise. I don't mind telling you that I find it quite obnoxious. Someone won't be getting any sardines this week.)

No long-term relationship / husband-type person, no babies, no dog, no books published, no comfortable nest egg accrued. I did some traveling but it was always sort of accidental. My big travel dreams - Kenya to go to the giraffe hotel, Iceland to see the Northern lights - those haven’t happened. I haven’t even done that road trip through the south I keep talking about.

Now that I look at it, it sounds rather pathological. Like, come on, you couldn’t even get a dog? You’d think a dog would be do-able.

Unless you live in the Bay Area and every place that you could both avoid people and have a dog requires quadrupling your income.

But I could offer up an excuse for every single one of those dreams, and I’m not really sure I want my legacy in this world to be excuses.

(Yes, I have this bizarre channeling business and I love doing it. But it was never a dream. If it were up to me, I would’ve aimed for some fancy Silicon Valley job with really good health insurance. But I haven’t been employable since 2009. And if you asked my last boss how many times I cried at my desk, she'd say "an awful lot.")

I’ve never been very good at finding the balance between “Hi, I want to be vulnerable about this thing that's kinda humiliating” and relentless complaining.

I honestly don't mean to complain. My life is pretty damn good.  I live in one of the most beautiful places on earth, I work with incredible people, and I have a very supportive (except for the cricket chirping thing) stuffed otter named Sally. I have my health, a good brain, limbs in working order, and I always manage to feed myself, even if “feed myself” mostly means “existing entirely on string cheese because I'm an adult.”

I’m finding myself panicking a little bit. Perilously close to sticking my head out the window and shrieking “ONE OF THESE DREAMS HAS TO HAPPEN THIS YEAR OR I HAVE TO GIVE UP ON ALL OF THEM BEFORE I TORTURE MYSELF FOR ANOTHER DECADE” into the Mill Valley void.

Now, I could just go to the pound and get a dog and trust that the universe will provide another home when my landlord kicks me out of mine. I could just climb in my car and start driving toward Tennessee and trust that everything works out and that Kristin and Scott will be willing to feed me when I get there, because I’ll have been eating string cheese for 2300 miles.

But the thought of surrendering to that extent, when I'm clinging to the edge in a few crucial ways, feels a bit hard to swallow.

I don't know. Obviously, I have zero answers. But I'm sick of beating myself up over the things that haven't happened for me, that maybe would have happened if I'd done things differently. But maybe there was no differently. Maybe I genuinely did the best I could in every moment and I ended up exactly where I'm supposed to be, even if it doesn't look anything like I hoped.

Maybe on my fortieth birthday this year, I’ll have a bonfire for my dreams. I’ll write them all on little pieces of paper, hike out to the beach, and set them all alight and watch the ashes drift toward the sky.

Or maybe I'll just get in my car and start driving. 

Happy Birthday, Dad. Sorry I Have No Idea When You Were Actually Born.

My dad's birthday may be coming up. But I don't know for sure.

I'm embarrassed by this, obviously. Like, thanks for feeding and singing the ABCs when I was panicking and putting me through college, dad! Sorry I forgot your birthday for over thirty years!

It's less awkward now that he won't notice if I don't call or write. But guilt is an emotion that transcends death.

Other birthdays stick in my head just fine. I can rattle off my mom and brother's birth dates, zodiac signs, and preferred method of celebratory communication at a moment's notice. But no matter how often I put it in my calendar or asked my mom what it was, I could never remember my father's. 

After dad's death, I handled all the paperwork. I must have seen and written out his birth date dozens of times. On the hospital and insurance paperwork, relaying the information to the social security office and to the undertaker for his death certificate. But I can't for the life of me remember the date. I'm not even one-hundred percent certain it's in April. 

On the surface it doesn't make any sense. I'm not the high priestess of details, but I do all right in life. I'm not the best daughter, but I'm not a terrible one. 

But since he passed away, I've learned that people can make themselves invisible. 

In fact, I used to be one of them. In high school, I could waltz into class thirty-five minutes late, carrying a takeout cup of coffee, and the teacher didn't even pause his lecture. I once napped through most of my economics class, head down on the desk, and the teacher didn't say a word. I always assumed it was because I was generally a good, quiet student, and didn't abuse the privilege of napping or caffeinating. But now I'm not so sure. 

Once I deeply distressed a date when I told him I was walking home through San Francisco, all the way from the Mission to the Lower Haight, at eleven at night. It didn't even occur to me to be worried. It's like I went through life with Harry Potter's cloak of invisibility. Or stupidity, which is an argument I probably can't deny. But I honestly felt one-hundred percent safe. 

My only defense against stupidity is that you can't sneak up on me. A friend once saw me from a block away and was going to yell out my name but decided not to, because I was with a date. He told me later that, as he was deciding whether or not to shout my name, he saw me turn and look over my shoulder in his direction, like I was looking for something. 

(I also know when people are mad at me or thinking unkind things about me - even if they never say anything, even if they're thousands of miles away. This is a less fun psychic power, but it's been confirmed often enough that I've stopped thinking I'm paranoid.) 

Superpowers are great, unless you unconsciously use them to block off the world and then wonder why no one ever sees you.

I think my father was in hiding - and it affected most everything in his life, from work to relationships to his goddamn birthday that I can never remember. 

Why are some of us so scared of being seen? Being recognized? Being loved? Wounds can run deep and we are so powerful at protecting ourselves, even when it means walling ourselves off from everything we actually want.

As an empath, I have a deeply aggravating habit of bringing thoughts, emotions, and wounds onboard that aren't my own. Sometimes I wonder how much of my invisibility is mine and how much of it I took on from my father.

Trying to sort out what's mine and what's someone else's is like trying to file sand. Each grain is questionable, convincing it to stay happily in its assigned folder is basically impossible, and there's just so damn much of it. 

Sometimes you can heal something in an instant, sometimes it feels like swimming through quicksand for an eon or two. I'm tired of swimming through quicksand. It's exhausting and fruitless. So I think I'm just going to let myself off the hook about my father's birthday. I know he doesn't care. He's good, he knows I love him. He just wants me to move on, to find and do the things he didn't, and finally let all those wounds heal. 

Maybe I don't have to file the sand. Maybe I just have to run across it, chasing seagulls and dancing just out of reach of the waves. Shake it out of my shoes, before I get back in my car and drive home.

[EDIT: My mom just informed me that his birthday is April 7th. As in, yesterday. Guess you can still be an asshole to your dad even after he's dead! WHAT A RELIEF.]