On my 100th consecutive day of writing

Things are going to look a little different around here from now on...or at least for a while.  No, I'm not talking about the fact that my place of residence, school, and home are going to be different than they have been.  That's a given--my personal life is in upheaval.  What I'm talking about though is the fact that from now on I won't be writing on this blog every day...or at least I don't think so.

The entry you are now reading marks my 100th consecutive day of writing.  This whole "write something everyday" thing started as a personal challenge.  It was my attempt to convince myself that I could make a plan and stick to it.  I make lots of plans and stick to them, but they're never plans that are exclusively intended to enrich my personal life.  Most of the time they're professional in nature.  Deadlines to meet.  Papers due.  Grades to make.  I'm good at that.  But when it comes to my personal life I stink at sticking to goals.

But this time I did it. I wrote something everyday.  I did it for me.  I didn't miss a day, even on the days when I couldn't think of anything to write or on the days when I couldn't find internet or really would have preferred to do something else.  I did it.   And I feel great about it.   I stuck to my goal and I did it for me.  Only me.

But also for me,  I need to not write everyday.  What started as a way of enriching my life and doing something relaxing and good for me, is verging on being a daily chore.  It's not there yet, but it's verging on it.  And, like Michael Phelps, I want to end on a good note (but will also likely reprise my career--fair warning).   So now, in line with my original goal to do something good for myself, I'm going to stop writing everyday.  I'm still planning to write regularly, but for my stress levels, sleep schedule, and all around well-being, it won't be daily.  I need a break.  I need some days off. For me.

For those of you who have been reading along for the past 100 days of adventure, I thank you so very much.  I love that you've taken the time to read my thoughts and am so appreciative.  For those who haven't, welcome along on the ride.  A slightly less consistent ride, but hopefully a long, leisurely one.

So remember, do things for yourself. And if the things you're doing for yourself turn into things that aren't for you anymore, stop doing them.

Keep on thinking,
Josie

On a poem (a la 5 year old Josie living today)

A poem (a la 5 year old Josie living today):

I am exhausted.

I am about to pass out.

It is 11:17 PM and I just ate dinner.

Dinner was just purchased in fully prepared form at a grocery store.  Nothing else was open.

I packed my entire life into a truck today.

I watched my father pack my entire life into a truck today

I drove 500 miles.

I drove 500 miles with my mother in the car.

My mother rants.

My mother tells great stories.

Trucks are evil.

Beds are good.

I will sleep.

Keep on thinking,
Josie

On honesty with ourselves

The recent death of Robin Williams has brought the disease of depression to the forefront of our collective awareness.  According to reports, he was suffering from depression when he died by suicide.  Depression, as I have seen in many of my friends, family, and clients, is a terrifying, slow-working, and highly pervasive disorder.  It's painful for those suffering and for those who love the sufferers.

That being said, the interesting thing about depression is that all it is (and I don't mean this as a minimization of the disease, I mean it as a normalization) is an extreme expression of feelings we all have.  We all feel sad, down, unmotivated, distressed, unloved, and unworthy, from time to time.  If you're not feeling one of those things at least once a day you're definitely in the minority.

The other thing about depression is that it does not discriminate.  It can affect anyone, including the people who we see as the happiest and funniest.  In fact, it's the people who come off as funny, happy, lively, jovial (like Robin Williams) who are often covering up feelings of sadness and depression.  We all do that to an extent--cover our true feelings with a facade or with jokes.  But the problem with that is that then we're all walking around with facades of ourselves shown to the world instead of our true selves.  We cover our feelings and thoughts, the true ones, with joking, sarcasm, and pleasing others.  And that means we're keeping all of that bad stuff, the negative feelings we have, inside.  We never release them.  And that's unhealthy for us.  That leaves us simmering in that negativity.  And negativity is poison.

So I challenge you, whoever you are reading this, to be honest with yourself and others.  Don't cover up your true self, your opinions, your feelings (negative or positive), with a facade.  Be you.  And be you for you.  Not for the pleasure of others. You deserve it.

Keep on thinking,
Josie

On my thoughts before change

A  few words on the eve of my departure for my new home.

I'm having more mixed feelings about this move than any other experience I've had in my relatively short life.  With all of my previous major life transitions-- first day of kindergarten, first day of high school, graduation from college, first job, summer away on internship, high school graduation, college graduation-- I've taken part in mass movements, whether they be exodus or arrival, in unison with my peers.  All major changes were, yes, big life events, but completely scheduled and expected.  You anticipate that when you go to college you will graduate in 4 years, so when you do, yeah it's sad and slightly earthquake-like but you were prepared. You knew it was coming. You were just one of many before and to later come.

So, for the first time in my life, a major life event of mine is not only unscheduled, but also completely independent.  I was supposed to be in my previous program, where my former cohort-mates remain, for another 3 years.  I was supposed to walk the stage to be hooded in unison with them.  As a member of a group.  Now I'm a bit out of sync.  I'm not going to graduate with that cohort and I'm not going to graduate with my new one (I'm entering with credits) so I'm really a lone wolf here. I'm going to have to tread my own path.  Find my own way. Be my own person.  An exodus and arival of one.

That's a little daunting, but it's also really exciting. I have the opportunity to be special.  To be different.  To be a trailblazer. To be a role model. To do things in an unexpected and unique way.

I may be a party of one, but also get the chance to be one unique party.

Keep on thinking,
Josie

On baby fever

I attended a baptism today and in doing so came to a realization.  I came to the realization that everyone loves babies.  Not a groundbreaking realization.  And really something that I cognitively understood already.  But today, instead of just knowing it, I saw it...you know, seeing is believing and all.

So there I sat in a church with 40 or so other adults and no children except the one to-be-baptized infant.  For the entire 45 minute ceremony all 40 adults' attentions were focused on that one infant.  When I say that our attentions were focused, I do not mean that our attentions were focused on him indirectly via the ceremony in his honor.  No, I mean that every single adult was watching the child, "awwwing" at the child, whispering under his/her breath that the child is "so adorable," giggling at the child's rambunctiousness. For 45 minutes.  The poor pastor was speaking for those 45 minutes but may as well have been speaking to a wall.

And then, after the baptism was complete we first applauded, and then (in unison) did that strange baby-voiced "yaaaay" accompanied by exaggerated and stiff baby-like clapping.  It was terrifying to see a bunch of grown adults cater to this one child, all at one time, as if their lives depended on his every move.  As if him toddling up and down the stairs of the altar was akin to Marie Curie's discovery of Radioactivity.  As if, if we missed it, the entirety of the future world would completely reform.

Anyways, all of this creepy attention and baby-talk made me wonder why it is that adults are so fascinated and laser-focused on infants.  Perhaps it's an evolutionary response.  Everyone loves babies because if we didn't they wouldn't be cared for and humans would become extinct.  Perhaps its a fascination with the infant mind which is so vastly different from the adult mind.  A fascination with what we all once were and how we all once thought and behaved. A selfish interest if you will. Perhaps it's the Peter Pan syndrome piece of us all that is jealous of the youthfulness that infants exude.  Jealousy of the possibility and potential that exists within an infant.  Potential that is long gone for most adults.  Or perhaps it's everyone's need to feel needed.  Infants are the most needy kinds of humans out there, and thus fulfill that need by simply existing.

Whatever it is, it's something.  There's something about babies that makes them irresistible to adults.  That fulfills some sort of need in adults.

It's fascinating to watch...the babies and the adults.

Keep on thinking,
Josie

On some more random thoughts of the day

It's a random thoughts of the day post!  You're welcome.

1.  My family really values their sleep.  My brother slept until 2 pm and is in bed already at 11:00 pm.  My sister came home for the day from med school and proceeded to sleep on the couch for 2 of the 3 hours she was home.  My father was also passed out on the chair near her for a large portion of her nap time.  None of these individuals have earned their excessive amounts of sleep with any sort of physical or mental exertion.  The closest they have come is lifting a coffee cup to their mouths.

2.  Golf is both highly fascinating and highly boring.  I think the game itself is pretty darn boring to watch, but somehow, the media turns a tournament into a fascinating event complete with special interest stories, high drama, and way too much discussion about Tiger Woods, who, in my opinion can go suck and egg.

3.  When people judge the concept of "fandom" and "fan culture" (which usually includes close watching of television shows, fan fiction, and excessive amounts of tumbling, and is generally participated in by females) they lose their right to watch half-time shows, participate in fantasy football, watch post-game shows (or Sports Center), read the Sports section of a newspaper, or really do anything relating to sports aside from playing them and watching the games themselves.  Those who disagree can go suck an egg with Tiger Woods.

4. My mother and I drove the .1 miles to the ice cream stand on the corner in order to make it in time for their 10pm closing.  We barely made it.  We are also pathetically desperate for sweets and completely bad influences on each other.  But the Peanut-butter Cup flurry was sooooo good.

5.  The neighbors down the street host a big party every year (to which I am never invited).  It seems to get fancier every year.  This year, I kid not, it was sponsored by SKYY vodka.  SKYY's logo was prominently displayed on a step-and-repeat banner stationed behind a large amount of camera equipment in the driveway.  I live in suburbia, USA.  How does that happen?  And more importantly, why am I never invited?

6. My parents have a pool that I just swam in for the first time in a year.  I am fairly certain that my swimming in it also marked the first time anyone has swam in it all summer.  It's August.  That's just a waste.  A waste of time, money, effort, and especially of the chipmunk lives lost by kamikazi jump into the pool.

7. The 20 minutes that both of my siblings and I were in the same place today (and all conscious), were the best 20 minutes of my month.  No lie.  I love them a whole lot.

8. When each of my siblings and I were seniors in high school we began getting short lectures from my mother about how to be an adult.  The importance of paying bills on time.  The importance of cleaning dishes.  The importance of returning calls.  Today I realized that these short lectures, which we then called "ten second life lessons,"  have recently become much longer.  Ten seconds is now ten minutes.  When I shared this thought with her her response was, "that's because you've all failed."

9. My siblings and I were very strange, and apparently under-entertained as children, because we came up with some of the stupidest "games" I can imagine.  A list of names should suffice for elaboration.  Titles included:  Sunny and Precious, Ching Chong Chong is coming to get you, QB Sack, Beanie Baby football, and Toota Butt. Yes, pronounced "toot a butt."

10.  It's going to be really hard work keeping in contact with my friends from my old program.  I'm really bad at keeping in contact, but today I made my first "just calling to catch up" phone call to my best friend from there and it went well.  I may be able to handle this this time.

Keep on thinking,
Josie

On perspective and junk

I've got a lot of junk.  I have no idea where it all came from.  Well, actually, that's a lie.  I know exactly where it all came from, and that's precisely the problem.  You see, I have collected things of various sorts throughout my life:  a teddy bear from the day I was born, ballet slippers I wore as a toddler, participation ribbons and trophies from elementary school, advertisements for shows I was in in high school, news paper articles I was featured in in college, and materials, lots and lots of materials, from my first two years of grad school.  I've been collecting stuff since the day I was born and I have been neglecting to throw things away since that same day, because everything seems to have an attachment to a time in my life that I can clearly remember and, apparently, that I would like to continue to remember.

And that brings me to this very day.  Today.  Three days before I am set to move away from my parents home (again) and to an apartment even further away than the one I just left.  I've been living away from home for about two years now, but I certainly didn't take everything with me when I left.  A ton of stuff stayed.  A ton of stuff that I'm now having to sort through for fear that if I do not, my parents will become so fed up with the stuff that they will take it upon themselves to chuck it all in one giant dumpster.  And I don't want that because despite the fact that most of this stuff is completely disposable, there are a lot of things that have a lot of meaning.  I've got photographs of friends, recordings of performances I was in, my first CD, posters of boy bands long forgotten. These are the things that matter to me.

But the interesting thing is that had you asked me two years ago I would have said that all of it mattered to me. Now, aside from the select few things, I really wonder why I kept most of this stuff.

It's amazing what a bit of distance and time will do because  now looking at it all I realize that there's more junk than matter.   With the distance and time has come perspective.  I've lived more.  I've experienced more.  I've realized that while I thought in 8th grade that a plastic cross necklace, prominently printed with "Jesus Loves You," was something important, to be saved and displayed on my dresser, now it's just a meaningless eyesore.  While the senior photo of a high-school acquaintance was a keepsake then, it's now just a nice image that I can access on Facebook.  While a screen-print fitted t-shirt from sixth grade was my very favorite in elementary school, now it's just a reminder of a fashion statement that I'm happy to have seen disappear.

Distance and time bring perspective, and apparently perspective brings full trash bags...and fresh starts.

Keep on thinking,
Josie