Set down your fear
take a deep breath, then simply
Set down your fear.
Fear only has value when you're holding it;
Set down your fear.
Facing a possible consequence is far easier
than managing a life with fear.



Everything will fall just the way it should

Ask Yourself

What do you really want out of life?
Don't get lost in the idea that you can do anything and decide
it's easier to be indifferent.
What do you really want out of it? 

Your life in five years:
-What do you want to have accomplished?
-How do you want to be able to respond to the questions:
"What do you do in your free time?"
"What do you do for a living?"
"Do you get paid for the service or the skill?"

If you chose the go for the American Dream and get married and have kids,
what do you want to have done for yourself before then? 

Most importantly, in five years,
you will be most disappointed in yourself if you don't accomplish what goal?

Who are you wanting to be proud of you? 

Do you want to go out alone or with someone?

Say you live in a house and have a steady relationship; life is good,
what do you want to be doing for a living? 

How important is it to be geographically close to your family?

Do you want to be recognized by your own name or by who you know?

How do you want the elderly person on the bus to feel about you, or the pedestrian
crossing the street in front of your car? 

At the end of the day, are you going to want to go out or stay in?

When you die, what more than who you were related to, do you want your obituary to say? 

In five years do you want to be depending on someone else or 
depending on yourself to make ends meet?

How many friends do you imagine in your circle of friends? Do you want to have a circle? 

Do you want to be fit or deteriorating at sixty?

Is money important?

Must you have kids?
And if you don't, will it bother you that there's no one to carry on your legacy?

What do you really want out of life? 
Start living your life today.

where are you going and what are you doing?

at this point it's just going to be random thoughts and unsaid buzzed rambles...

I mean, where are you really going if you still don't know? 
Are you sure that's the direction you want to be headed? 

My thoughts aren't BIG enough right now.
I'm just thinking journal-like thoughts, about facebook posts and sex and who I'm dating.

I keep getting lost in the now. And I know they say that's what you're supposed to do,
but it's really not because you wind up unprepared and clueless.
It's definitely worth it if you make it so,
but sometimes, infact often, you make a much larger mess than any positive value.
And sure you definitely learn from that gigantic mess but I'm honestly over the humongous life lessons.
I know I need many more, but if there's a way to prevent the mistake ahead of time,
count me in.

Sometimes I feel like I'm going no where.
Sometimes I feel like I'm just not on the same ladder as everyone else.
Sometimes it feels like nothing I do will ever be recognized or good enough.
Maybe that's because I so often take care of those around me instead of just insisting on my many passions.

cabernet is fabulous for deep thoughts...i'm sure of it

1)
...maybe when it all boils down we are all just trying to impress ourselves.

i mean, when you reach "good,"
you have personal boundaries and physical space to expand your random thoughts.

2)
i don't always know what i want...
but then again, i so often know what i don't like.
using reverse logic, shouldn't i then know what i want?
<<i forget to think this way, most often.

3)
you know how when you pot a plant in a small planter and place it in the sun and water it,
how the roots grow out so far that you need to move it to bigger planter?
so do i (need that space).
i've been doing a lot of growing, but since no one potted me
and apparently i'm not looking in the right mirror,
i need more space to be creative and random
--without necessarily having another person there to inspire me.

4)
i can take criticism.
i can even take insults.
what i can't take is edge remarks
(you know, the kind of remarks you make passive aggressively and can't just man-up and explain the real problem, only the outskirts of the problem).
these comments dig into my skin and burn.
i end up wanting to fight.
...i really try to be real--to be straight up.
i figure we all have to deal with life eventually so why not now?
and then i dwell. (this is the part that ends up getting me in trouble)
i wish i could learn to have "thick skin" and let life "roll off my shoulders" and just "ignore it"
but it's like touching a hot kettle for me, i wanna quickly pull away from it.
i just focus so much on what other people like, and how to get along with them best.
i'm sure most people don't even think like that at all, but i care.
i think about it;
what's easy? 
how can we learn to communicate?
is there a way i should behave that would make things easier?
and then i learn from the results and change accordingly unless the results piss me off.
(then i stand up for myself)
...but more often than not, i really only want to give you what you want
(and maybe enough extra that you'll return for more).

5)
today i said aloud (and realized for the first time) that i will generally never turn down indirect attention.
i'm not quite sure why i need it so much, but when someone gives me attention...
i guess i wonder why and feel the need to further investigate
(which usually leads to me leaving a door open much longer than it should have been open).

ok, i'm at rambling point i think.

I can't find the leak

I suspect it's normal in life to feel like you're struggling to survive;
like you dropped a penny in the ocean and now you're trying to find it,
like you cross a bridge in stop-and-go traffic and in the middle your car breaks down

I'm not exactly sure why life takes us down a dark windy road with few patches of daylight

I feel like I'm just falling down a cliff
and every time I catch hold of a tree branch
the branch holds for one second and then snaps. False hope.
I feel like I've been on this track for years, but just now realized I was racing.

Where am I going?

How will I get there?

Who will I be if I leave here?

What is going to stay the same?

I mean, I'm well aware that life's whole story is about learning to
clean it, put neonsporin on it, then cover it with a bandage and
go back at it. Courage then determination.

I see how one with pain and misery one can understand happiness more than those who have it. Humility.

What I don't understand is why random bad things happen and it causes a bunch of little worlds to unravel. Sure, some of it is for the better, but some of its not. Some of it is so awful you don't want to look at it. But it's still going to be there.

I absolutely believe in positivity. The idea that what you said aloud, what you call out into the world, happens. So the more positive your message, the fewer negative things that happen around you. But sometimes it still just doesn't make sense.

I guess I just want there to be some sort of pattern I can follow or figure out. There's no such thing.


I guess I'm just rambling...oh well.

This should be a rough draft but its not

I don't really know where to begin, today.

I feel like for the first time in at least five years
I'm finally getting to know who I am again.
I'm not letting a damn thing or soul control who I am, except me.
I'm ready to set sail on a long voyage; a self discovery.

I'm doing this in a matter of ways,
writing, reading, calling old friends, taking my cat on walks...
I've been allowing myself to go back to pieces in my past and take a step back.
Maybe I even take the time to heal the image.
It's not that it's particularly working perfectly.
But it's certainly doing something.

I have my sights higher.
I have goals and hopes.
Now the world isn't just dark and dreary, but there are people along the way to
pick me back up when I fall.
This is life.

So who am I?
Recently people at random will actually genuinely tell me what I should be doing.
I think they may have a point;
Nine years of photography...seems to me, that's a fairly consistent hobby.
But even if I've figured out what to do, there's more to life than that, too.
What am I doing with it?
Currently, nothing. I feel like a waste.
This often depresses me and digs me a deeper hole.
But I've also been spending time alone, collecting, organizing,
making sure to be true to myself! Always.

I know I'm slightly emotionally overwhelming,
passionate,
extremely compassionate,
anxious, scattered yet organized, and driven.
But are these characteristics who I am?
Nah, I think it's more the girl in me who wants to fix problems for the people I love,
that makes me who I am.
I'm responsible, stubborn, and very independent.
I'm afraid of many things, but recently, I've been facing my fears one by one.

I think it's this random jumble of things that define me.
It's hard to take a step back and see exactly who I am.
I haven't seen this woman, well, ever so it's a gigantic wake up call.
"Here's Reality!" the wake up call seems to say.

It's funny how reality changes. You can be so stuck in a picture that you forget there's stuff outside.
I certainly let all the windows fog over and I never cleared the fog and looked outside.
I am now. I see the world.
It's mine.
And I'm coming to get it.

One sad bird

For awhile I was locked in someone else's cage they'd made.
And I escaped.
But they got locked inside their own cage and cannot seem to find the key.
I'm flying around, happy to be free
but so hurt inside because I don't have the key to let them out either.
I want to just fly away and build a nest instead of a cage.
But it feels entirely shitty to just fly away from a trapped friend (whether old or new).
I can go pick out worms and bugs and drop them in the cage,
but in the end that's essentially taunting.
What to do, what to do.
I guess I'll just flutter around a bit more.