Blessings and Curses

We have become such a nation of idealists. We are hopeless romantics. We are helpless when things don't fit into our imaginary hollywood-induced expectations.

With EVERY blessing, there is always a balance of negativity that comes with it.

We ask for a job. Oh PLEASE, we need a job and we would be ever so grateful! Because we'll work our asses off. Anything is better than nothing when we need money! We'll be SO GOOD at it, we promise! We get this job and after about a month, we realize. We're trapped again. We don't like this. We dream of greener pastures, thinking the next thing will rescue us from this horror.

We have relationships with people - friends, lovers, family - we expect them to always make us happy, and when they don't, we expect them to be sad, too. It doesn't work like that. People are HUMAN and there is nothing at all perfect about those little fuckers.

We dream of being in a band, a play, a whatever... and the reality is quite different than the picture in our heads.

It pains me to watch my friends struggling with the natural flow of things. It's even worse when I realize I'm also flailing about in the winds of change. :-p

Acceptance. This is part of my journey to that idea. Accepting the bad with the good. Weighing the benefits and accepting the price they come with. Everything has one.

Detach

It occurred to me why I'm burned out at my job. Other than the obvious nature of the overworked, underpaid and unappreciated state of corporate employment, it's the inability to detach from my work. Maybe more like feeling that I have to be attached, worrying, thinking, planning, putting every waking ounce of energy into it so much that I become it and lose my own identity.

This is what makes us emotionally sick as a society. The American culture is becoming this. And I want no part of it.

Today, I came in to a shit storm of annoyances. I found myself wishing my week away again. Dreading the day ahead. Dreading tomorrow. Dreading life. And it dawned on me. So I took my break. I detached my mind from work, hence a break being an actual break. I left my phone, iPod, concerns and I enjoyed the warm sun I my arms. I smelled the air. I watched the clouds. I made the choice to adopt a more European mindset about it all. If I don't, my life will suffer and so will my work momentum.

I feel refreshed. Detach your soul from the jobs we must all maintain to get money. Use your brain to do a damn good job, but liberate your mind from feeling chained.

That damn acceptance bullshit

Yeah. I get that this is a theme for me. I have to thank Grey for listening to my ramblings at the gym as of late. There are really only 2 or 3 people I can talk to about some of the shit in my head that i refuse to accept. And that I refuse to admit that I refuse to accept. Funny, right?

So I think I figured out an essential vein of this refusal of acceptance. I meditated and pondered and decided that I will just be letting go of the fear attached to such intangible ideas. Fighting these ideas hasn't been fruitful. I KNOW this. I've KNOWN this. But the acceptance part is what I haven't done.

Now I know.

There are a lot of things in this life we can change. There are some things we will always need to work with to maintain our courses. But some things are just fucking inherently who we are, what we are, what we will be. And this is my big secret fear. (for those who know me, it's not really a secret. But what good friends they are to humor me in such fantasies!)

I feel freer. Thanks, Grey, for listening without judgement and for helping me to sort through this aloud. And for being one of the best friends I've known.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get a little drink after all that.

Do emotional warriors get props for Memorial Day? hmm... I think they should. :-p

The unbeliever

I became too jaded in my belief systems, somewhere between 20 and 35. I have wondered if it was due to the fear of being "wrong" or if it was due to the fear that other people had for my belief system. I may have tucked it inside for convenience's sake. Thank gawd I'm not that self conscious anymore. Because being an unbeliever is DULL. It doesn't produce creativity. It stagnates and gives no hope.

I grew up in a Methodist household. I wouldn't say my parents were bible-beaters, necessarily. They were strict, southern christians. And when I ran away from home, I had the unique fortune of landing in a home with two wiccan ladies. I finished growing up in a home that was nurturing and connected, animal loving and nature revering. Beltane festivals, Samhain, herbal remedies and tarot readings. At breakfast, they would bring up conversations about dreams and try to take meaning from it, as we should all. They discussed seeing signs that they were on the right or wrong paths... they felt instant connections with some people and instant ill feelings for some, and took it to mean something deeper than a "sense".

I miss this. I don't know where I lost it. But we humans have the need to have ritual in our lives. We need to feel a purpose. We need to send and receive energies from each other.

Believing is more than just fun, it's therapeutic. It's a power. I've chosen my beliefs, as I believe everyone has the right to do, from a variety of teachings ranging from Christianity, Wicca, Druidry, Buddhism, Hinduism,  various Native American beliefs, science and quantum physics. So it just FLOORS me when I come in contact with someone who has similar beliefs to me. And it's happened quite a bit lately.

The world IS mysterious and we DON'T know half of it. I'm gonna hold onto that this time.

Gender and music

I've always called myself an "awkwardly gendered girl". This, to me, is similar to the term "queer", but slightly more descriptive. By this, I don't mean that I'd ever want to change my sex. It also has nothing to do with sexual orientation either. It means that I don't feel like socitety's definition of a woman or a man, but that I accept my female body, for the most part. There are things I wish I could waive a magic wand and change, but nothing I'd go under the knife to correct.

Growing up, I had a harder time with it. I thought about being a boy a lot back then. But that's before I knew that you could choose to be neither. Or both. That's before I realized that gender isn't a real thing. It's a control mechanism put in place by society to make the majority of people feel comfortable.

 “The first question we usually ask new parents is : “Is it a boy or a girl ?”. There is a great answer to that one going around : “We don’t know ; it hasn’t told us yet.” Personally, I think no question containing “either/or” deserves a serious answer, and that includes the question of gender.” - Kate Bornstein, Gender Outlaw

Sex and gender are different. My sex is obviously female; that's what I've got goin' on 'down there'. Gender is something a lot less tangible.  It's subtle, yet it's noticeable. And it makes people feel uncomfortable when they don't recognize that your gender output fits your sex and your assumed sexual orientation.

Then you get slapped with those labels: butch, femme, tom boy, androgynous, dyke, queer, faggot, yadda yadda yadda. There are SO many labels. Just more proof that things are more fluid than we're taught to believe.

It's hard to express words to a fluid concept in our language. By its very nature, it must define. And by our very nature, humans have this need to feel part of something! So where do we look?

“We have looked for myths that include us in great novels, music, the latest comic book, or even some stupid advertising campaign. We'll look *anywhere* for a mythology that embraces people like ourselves.”  - Kate Bornstein - Gender Outlaw

I didn't find anyone who seemed to be remotely as awkwardly gendered as I considered myself to be as a kid. I got picked on for being unfashionable. I got ostracized for being tomboyish, playing electric guitar -in those days I knew NO females except Lita Ford who played. I had no interest in even looking at her. She represented everything I wasn't and couldn't be in a woman. I hated her for it. I felt okay until i compared myself to other women.

"You're not a typical girl", I would get - and still get. I love hearing that now. I love my awkwardness. I don't have the desire to be a guy. I'd hate that box just as much. I just have both feminine and masculine energies. And a female body. And I'm so okay with that these days. If it wasn't for Kate Bornstein, I'd have been so sad and lonely. There were other gender authors and activists, but she's the one who made sense to me.

I started reading Gender Outlaw again today. I get something new as I re-read throughout my evolutionary process. She is very sick right now. She has lung cancer and it's curable, if she can afford it. If I won the lottery today, I'd honestly consider giving it to her cause. She gave me the language and knowledge to live my life with a sense of peace, knowing I'm not alone! So why wouldn't I?

I have to play the lottery to win it. But perhaps a benefit show. :-)

This all came up with my recent ventures. I remembered all these feelings when I started this tribute band. Somethings I'd buried long ago or things I'd run from. Now that I've turned, faced and confronted my fears, I feel ME again. And this stirred around a bit.... there was only one woman I found that seemed awkwardly gendered like me. And I was relieved as hell when I saw her with my own two eyes. I hope one day, I can do this for other girls like me.