Everything Adventurous

the best workout

a voice echoes in a room:

the low hum of a bow

across the body of a cello

the wide wooden chest

of space.

enter through the door.

my life, a series of doors

and rooms

the bodies flow in and out

like the vibrating air.

and i am in the hallway:

soft padding feet rhythm

empty space for walking

hallow, hallow

and echoes.

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions.  I turned a year older last December and decided it was time to work on some goals.  Some things started right away.  I started making myself floss every day.  I started wearing lotion with a little bit of sunscreen in it on my face every morning.

Eventually I knocked out 2 pretty bad habits.

From December until this past week, I managed to raise my credit score from an F to a C+.

Nothing exciting to you, no AMAZING accomplishments, but small proof that I can make shit happen.

I saved the hardest for last and just now started going to the gym.  Twice a week for yoga.  Then, what do you know - I walk out of small, local gym Evolve with a personal trainer.

He rolled with every punch and didn’t mind the sass.

So far, my body is pretty pissed.  First session meant a lot of sweat, awkward footing and getting out of bed the next day took some effort.  I’m not entirely sure what I think yet.  I was expecting to immediately hate it all and keep my money.

Day 1 and I feel reservedly optimistic.  I actually kinda feel bad about making fun of the gym…  More to come.

…because if I’m wrong and there is a heaven, then surely they have the internet.  JC’s voice pops into your head saying, “You’ve got mail, brother!”  And hell is just a room with a TV that plays Fox News 24/7…

But really.

To Stanley, To Ike, To Dzia-Dzia -

I’ve had a week now to contemplate how I feel about you and your death.  It doesn’t feel that different, you’ve been gone for over 20 years.  I feel a slight sting of regret for not visiting you in the hospital when other family members would go.  It wasn’t because I didn’t want to see you.  It was because my life was happening and I had to live it.

My feelings toward you have changed over the years.  I’ve felt angry, disappointed, pity, empathy, sadness and worthlessness.  I see pictures of you holding me as a baby, smiling - and I used to wonder what happened to make that go away.  I hated you for awhile.  I felt that you betrayed Setsuko, that you betrayed Mary and my mother and everyone else.

But I know you suffered.  I know you experienced horrible things.  I wonder, how many people did you see die in front of you?  Your wife.  Your own children.  Your comrades.  I forgave you and the rest of us did as well, but nothing can change the years of our lives that we lived without you.

Sometimes I wonder how my life would be different if certain people were still in it.  I wonder, would I have chosen the straight and narrow path if I had Setsuko with me?  Or you?  Mary?  Would my childhood and teenage years have been easier if Chelsea hadn’t moved away?  How many mistakes could I have avoided if there was more love in my life?

When I was most angry with you it was because I saw how you hurt my mother.  Even as a child I wanted to fix whatever it was that you broke in her.  I wanted to love her enough to make up for your absence.  My teenage years and early 20s are filled with painful regret for the way I treated her and the awful corner that I put myself in.  I suffered, she suffered.  Almost everyone I touched suffered.

But my mother never left me.  And that’s how I know she is stronger than you.  If you did anything, you helped make her strong.  Your part in that was small, though.  You should know that.

I struggle to understand what pain you felt and I wish I could’ve known you.  I wish you could have been there to watch me grow and learn.  I wish you could’ve sucked it up and if anything, done it for Setsuko and Mary - because I know they would’ve loved the opportunity.

But.  In the end, I forgive you because I’m intimately aware of the mistakes we all make as people.  We falter and we disappoint others.  I made the same mistake over and over again for nearly 7 years before I finally got wise.  Did you ever get there?  When you felt the end coming.  Did you say you were sorry?

What upsets me the most is that you chose to suffer alone.  If there is any one thing I know about myself, I know I can love others unconditionally.  I have SO much love to give.  I’ve loved drug addicts and cheaters, liars and discarded, broken people.  I could’ve let you feel that, I really wish you would have given me that chance.  I remember when you used to send us money once a year.  You must have known.  You must have known that we didn’t want the money, we just wanted you.

I would’ve loved to be able to tell you all this when you were alive, but I’ll share the responsibility for dropping that ball.  Perhaps you made me stronger too, and maybe I cherish the people who are in my life just a little bit more.

We love you, I love you - and we carry on.

RIP Maurice Sendak (via rachael-maddux)

(via ljm)

I know, I know, I’m supposed to be signed off and working on any one of the four papers I have due by the end of next week or studying for my Shakespeare final that starts in four hours (Well, let’s be honest.  How does one study for that?).  I can’t seem to focus though, not with everything that’s changing.

David got the job he wanted, an amazing position in Santa Monica working for the game studio that makes Call of Duty (the best-selling video game of like, all time) and it happened incredibly fast.  One minute we’re in limbo, waiting for an answer but carrying on like normal in our old-married couple fashion and then KA-BLAM (anyone remember that show?) he has the job and he’ll be gone on May 22nd.

I’m incredibly happy for him, proud too, but I can see my old shadow-friend Loneliness creeping out of the corner toward me.  If my parent’s divorce did anything to me, it made me apply an extra emphasis to the idea of home.  Mom and dad did a great job raising us, but we inevitably got bounced around between different homes and rentals filled with different pseudo-members of our family unit.  Now, whenever I live somewhere, I LIVE there.  I live the shit out of that place, man!  I nest like crazy to make a comfortable oasis for myself.  For the past 3 years, my nest has been in my current apartment with David.

So, in order to ease my mind, I start making lists.  Organizing.  Cleaning.  Packing and planning (NOT doing my schoolwork….).  But each thing I do seems to leave a gaping hole in my house.  His coats and shoes are no longer in the front closet and I think, what the fuck?  There’s too much space in here.  There’s too much room for sadness.

Then I start to realize that my old friend Loneliness is getting closer and he looks different.  Is that you buddy?  Nope.  This is somebody new, somebody different.  Let me introduce you to my shadow-friend, Change.

You see, I know better now than to think that David moving is the end of the world.  My estranged Grandfather died yesterday and that isn’t the end of the world either (for me at least).  I’m under so much stress that I have rashes on my hands and chest and me, the Princess of Snooze, the Queen of Sleep, is NOT sleeping.  I have summer classes, full time work and graduate school applications to work on.  But NONE of this is the end of days.

These are all things that need to happen.  David has worked his ass off and he deserves the best job he can get.  But also, I have to treat myself the same way.  I have to remember where I was and where I am now and pat myself on the back a little bit.  I have to remind myself that my friends Change and Loneliness don’t necessarily go together.

But again.  Let’s be real here.  Shit is not going to be pretty.  I’m already dreading taking David to the airport on the 22nd because of the Tear-Fest and Throw Shit Festival that will happen afterwards.  I’m scratching at my hand rashes just thinking about it.

I don’t like the way it feels to openly admit that I don’t like change.  I get the same feeling that comes when I tell people that I don’t like traveling.  Or that I don’t like going out.  People look at me like, what the fuck, Sidney?  Why not?  I’m a creature of comfort, I say.

Whatever, whatever, I do what I want.

The biggest comfort to me now is that I’m an adult, I’ve been in this place before.  I have a memory bank now that I can dig around in, until I find something similar to remember and reflect upon.  I’ve seen change, baby.  Hell, I AM change.  If you knew who I was before, you might think, holy shit!  You’re so much cooler now!

So, some changes suck.  I take a breath.  I get up in the morning and take my pills.  I go to yoga.  I eat an apple.  I talk to my therapist.  I clean the bathroom.  I love on my friends and family.  I pet cats.  Breathe.  I cope in healthy ways.  I let things happen - so it goes.

When it rains, it pours. 

My grandfather has passed.

We all love you Dzia-Dzia, we did even when you went a little crazy.  Be filled with peace.

It’s finals time folks, I’m signing off for the next week or two.  In my free moments, I’m gonna daydream about ridin’ on the back of Tommy Flanagan’s bike.

Yes.  OCD is a mental disorder, not something you can use to legitimize your own undesirable qualities.