Stumbling over ruins along the way

Lately, I've been feeling a bit like a flame in the wind. Furious and turning against the forces that push me in every direction. It's so hard for me to focus on an intention when I find myself in this place. So I've continually tried to bring myself back to my foundation by reminding myself how far I've come... Though I find myself in a storm, I'm not a fire that can easily be put out. I can only grow stronger by taking on the strength of the very forces that seem to work against me.

Since the day I got my driver's license I've had a habit of driving around aimlessly with the radio cranked up to relieve stress. In Colorado, this was wonderfully easy to do as there was never a lack of scenic roads that meandered into a beautiful wilderness. Here, in the concrete wasteland that is DC, I've found it much harder to get the same pleasure out of driving. But when I'm called to drive, I drive, and today I was definitely called to drive!

I got on a random highway and decided to point myself in a direction I'd never gone before. I found myself in Maryland, and felt at ease just taking left and right turns as I felt them come to me. I'm so glad I trusted my intuition on all those turns because they led me straight to Fort Washington, a fort that was originally built over 200 years ago to defend DC from enemies approaching on the Potomac river.

I pulled up to the entrance and prepared to pull out my wallet to pay the national park fee, but as I approached I saw that the gates were lifted and a small sign hung saying that the park was free in the off-season. So I pulled through, and as my eyes scanned the fort and numerous shuttered, crumbling colonial buildings I felt exhilarated to discover that I was the only soul in sight. In fact, I was so exhilarated that I decided to park my car in the middle of the road. Right in front a beautifully dilapidated mansion.

Well, a modest mansion. But I was completely enchanted. I felt like I was in wonderland having this whole park of historic buildings to myself. I was practically skipping around this building as I greedily took pictures from every cool angle I could manage.

As I came around the back of the house I saw an odd little tree that had completely engulfed an old cement block. As I traipsed on over to snap some clever shots I had absolutely no idea that I was being closely watched. I was most definitely not the only soul amongst the overgrown ruins. And when I turned to face the house again my heart lept into my throat as I found myself staring into two pairs of black shiny eyes. Two giant buzzards, so black they melted with the shadows of the house behind them, were curiously guarding me as I snapped my photos. I grasped my chest as if to keep myself from breathing. I had been incredibly close to them without realizing it -- so distracted by own excitement to even notice the two open windows in the mansion where the birds were housing themselves.

I must have stood stock-still, staring into those eyes for about 5 minutes, before I finally became disenchanted by their spell. There was something about them that seemed incredibly familiar, almost friendly to me. It was one of those moments that pulled up so many mixed emotions at once that it's difficult now to even describe the scene properly. I had never seen buzzards before. Only from old cartoons had I gained any impression of them. (That being that they usually hung around in mean gangs and made fun of poor elephants like Dumbo...) But these birds seemed oddly calm, majestic and quiet against what looked like a horror scene. As the wind picked up and pulled my hair towards the sky I felt awakened, seen, and profound loneliness all at the same time.

I shook my own feathers as I realized how long I'd just left my car stranded in the middle of a road while I'd been making eyes with buzzards. (How often do you get to write a sentence like that?) So I ran back and was relieved to discover that, as far as I could tell, I was still the only human life in this place.

I made my way through the other abandoned places. One of which had clearly been a popular spot for debauchery as beer cans, condoms and freshly broken glass littered the once upstanding Army institution. It made me think about abandonment. About how those who feel abandoned are always the ones most drawn to these kinds of ruins. As if being inside these broken places were a physical manifestation of their inner world.

It wasn't until I made it to the fort itself that I encountered another human. A park ranger, a smiley little woman, who stood outside the gate as the fort's lone protector. (A far cry from the staff in centuries past.) I asked if it was okay to go inside and she encouraged me with exuberance. The fort was amazingly cool. But as usual, I had the most fun exploring the little nooks where people had actually been living.

Ruins are the greatest physical reminder of far we've come, of the powers of time, and of the resilience of the human heart. The perspective I gain from every encounter with abandoned places reminds me that there are parts of me, almost like scars, that are a lot like this old fortress. Still there yet no longer necessary for historic battles of the past. But useful in a new way, ready to be integrated into a wise foundation for future lessons.

Sometimes I have no idea if I'm doing the right thing or just holding onto a beautiful, yet irrelevant, beacon of the past. For now I'm just going to keep being that flame in the wind... Seeing it more as a dance and not a struggle.

Honey, there is no right way...

It was only about 7 months ago that I found myself sitting cross-legged on a bamboo floor, wearing what looked like a karate uniform, listening intently to a small, animated woman tell me about my energy. DC got to you, didn't it?! Her words have continually echoed in my memory. DC got to me. This city got to me with a swift ease that was so sly it went almost completely unnoticed until it was entirely too late. Then I was so desperate for a release that I had found myself paying hundreds of dollars to a yogic energy worker to retrain me on how to function in society without feeling so... Lost.

By that point I had only been living in Washington, DC for a few months. At the time, I chalked my feelings up to extreme homesickness and the residual stress from adapting to not only a new job but a new city. Since that time of sitting bare-footed and robed on a bamboo floor, I've been through much harder struggles than simply adapting to a new work environment, and through it all I've chosen to remain.

Now, I've lived in this city for almost a year. In that short (or long?) time I've met some incredible people, many of whom have served as not only friends but mentors. I've had some amazing experiences that I wouldn't trade for the world. I've grown attached to this city (that still gets to me) for that reason. And not only that, but I'm continually seduced by the power and education that this city wields... So what's the problem?

Something has always been missing from my life in DC and I'm getting tired of searching for that puzzle piece. My heart is aching, and even through all the wisdom I've gained I don't know how to comfort myself anymore. So is it time to move on? My mind thinks up a new answer to this question almost everyday. So for once I don't have any advice to offer. I'm the one who needs it.

Don't Define Yourself by People's Reactions, They Can't See Much More than Themselves

People are disappointing. I find myself being reminded of that frequently, and up until now I've let it sour my heart with resentment. On the surface I blame others for being inadequate, but with each pang of disappointment, what I really feel is the scar of my own insecurity being rubbed raw. It's a hallmark of the millennial generation. We have such high standards for ourselves to be the heroes that we deeply want to become, and yet the height of those standards leaves so little room for compassion that we end up blaming ourselves and others for things no one person could possibly control. So we turn on ourselves and our backs to world as we, ironically, move even farther away from being the true brave hearts we want to be.

So when I find myself in the throes of disappointment, I eat peanut butter M&Ms until I forget the pain. No. I mean, yes, sometimes. But what I really try to do is remember that everyone is doing the best they can with what they have in each moment. Myself included! And a lot of the time, people aren't equipped to be selfless, pious, accommodating, attractive or even nice all the time. There are things going on in their own special experiences that could be overwhelming them, and most of those things can't be seen with the naked eye.

When you hold your reality to such a high standard that you guilt yourself and everybody else for not being good enough, nice enough, etc all you're doing is adding to the problem. That girl didn't smile back at you not because you're an unclean fledgling, but because she has a zillion stressors buzzing around her head and one of them is probably the feeling that she might also fear herself to be an unclean fledgling. Your resentment towards her does nothing but keep you both on that downward spiral.

When I feel most alone because of the decisions others have made I remind myself that I have a choice about my reaction to them. I can further isolate myself and perpetuate the problem or I can try to compassionately offer the best I can to those around me. Sometimes that's not very much, but that really is okay. If we keep reminding ourselves that not everyone's best is pleasing all the time, magic can flow through us with even the smallest crumb of compassion that we spare. Allow yourself that subtle softness... And peanut butter M&Ms. Seriously.

“We are all failures - at least the best of us are.” - J.M. Barrie

Do you ever feel like you're constantly trying to start over? You find yourself chasing your proverbial tail around in circles and promising yourself that tomorrow will be the day it all changes. But somehow it never really does change, and you're not sure what's gone wrong with you. Really, you're desperately trying to make up for something in your life that you perceive as a gigantic failure.

We all carry our failures around with us. We don't want to let them go because they feel like solid, safe places to point back to as we try to navigate in a chaotic and constantly changing world. But our past "failures" are only as solid as our attitudes about them. Because contrary to how tangible you believe your personal failure to be, it is completely abstract, inconstant and adjustable. Yes, events happened in the past and yes, you were lucky enough to have been apart of those irrevocable histories. But at this moment they no longer exist except as perceptions of your memory. You can't change the event because it doesn't exist anymore. But you can change how your perception will affect your future.

First, it is imperative to decipher the difference between what truly is a personal failure and what is something out of your control. Because everyday we are pulled backwards by the ownership of about 16,459 "failures" that were never truly ours. It is amazing the amount of things we kind, empathetic humans will take complete credit for just because we saw it happen. Or because it happened to us. Or because we feel responsible to fix something. Or because we want to feel important. (Yes, failure makes us feel important.)

Your parents divorce isn't your fault. The death of a loved one isn't your fault. Homelessness isn't your fault. Being single isn't your fault. Your body-type isn't your fault. Your sexuality isn't your fault. Being abused isn't your fault. Your partner's cheating isn't your fault. Cancer isn't your fault. People being rude to you isn't your fault. Your sister's life decisions aren't your fault. Heck, anyone's life decisions aren't your fault. Your dad's embarrassing sense of humor isn't your fault. Your embarrassing sense of humor isn't your fault. Having a differing opinion or perception isn't your fault. Changing your mind isn't your fault. Being discriminated isn't your fault. Feeling hurt without knowing why isn't your fault. Being afraid isn't your fault.

To be honest, the list of common non failures could fill a Webster dictionary. And the list of uncommon, personalized non failures we've created for ourselves could stretch to the moon and back. We're addicted to them. And maybe that means we're a little addicted to the idea of failure?

What if in reality it was so impossible to truly fail that even the most successful and intelligent people barely touched on it in their lifetimes? Because the older I get, the more I see the concept of failure as starkly debatable, even cartoonish, in the face of such a complicated and ineffable current that is life. We all have our own personal responsibilities in this world (that are individually quite small in the grand scheme of things) and I am positive that learning by making mistakes is one of those responsibilities. So how can failure mean anything about your worth, your intelligence or your right to happiness if failure is only a figment of your imagination?

You don't need to start over. You don't need to make up for anything in your past. You don't even need to apologize. Your perception of your personal history can be your source of pain or your most powerful tool to not only to move forward confidently, but to appreciate all that life has exposed you to. Being thankful and awestruck by your failures, mistakes, learning is the nicest thing you could ever do for yourself.

Like Jesus does...

When I hear my alarm go off in the pitch blackness of 6am (I know, right. Summer's ghost haunts me every morning I wake up and see the sky a little bit darker and darker...) I usually try to wake my brain up with some good old fashion phone time. Honestly, I know we all do it, and I also know it's probably not the best way to wake up by teaching my brain that the thing it really needs to be functional again is to stare at a screen -- but that's for another post!

This morning during my half-conscious facebook browsing I came across an article that was posted. A typical bullet-style piece detailing the "3 Ways We Can End Fake Relationships Forever." From the title alone, it looks like this article has every cure we've ever dreamed of for our relationship ails! And on the whole, I think the article is right in a lot of ways. As I read through it with bleary eyes I felt comforted by the truths I couldn't yet articulate so well. And for those of you who have not stopped to read the article yet, or if you simply don't plan to, I can sum up the piece by saying that, basically, this "truth" is that true love is not selfish and self-serving. And if you find yourself being in a relationship simply for your own comfort or sense of status, then you should reevaluate your feelings and motives.

I like that. But what I don't like is how impossible this translates into the hearts of humans. I have yet to meet a single person in my life that has come anywhere close to mastering pure, selfless, Godly love. So screw you, easy bullet points of truth, because you've only told me what the unattainable ideal is without acknowledging how hard it is to get there! And not only that, but part of me is attached to the juiciness of life that comes from the messy, selfish, angry bits of love. It would be pretty damn boring to just go along with everything that your love "thought was right for them" because you loved them in a truly selfless way. In fact, it'd only be boring on a good day, on most days it'd be excruciating to put up with.

Love is a partnership, a bond together, an ethereal agreement. Even the love that you have for yourself is this way. Who is loving whom when you show love to yourself? As singular as one mind in one body looks in the physical form, inwardly there is a constant watching and examining of seemingly separate parts working as one. So even with self-love, there is a natural give and take, maybe even a bit of darkness and a bit of light.

So how can two people agree to love each other completely selflessly without also hurting themselves in the process? ... Maybe hurt just is the process? The hurt your ego feels through being exposed to the unpredictable will of another person might be just the thing you need to wake up and realize that it's not really about you in the love agreement. Your personal comfort and fear of losing [fill in the blank] are not what's important to the love you create outside of yourself that is much bigger than you. (And not only is it bigger than you, but it's stronger than you, can outrun you and will most certainly outlast your mental will even when you've cursed love to die in your most dark and sinful moments.) Love agreements are amazing because despite seeming irrational to the human mind at times, we adopt them anyway and are taken in crazy directions that we never knew we'd go, all for the sake of experiencing much more growth and adventure than the love we harbor for ourselves could provide.

Anyway, I have no idea what I'm doing in relationships, really. But it's only very recently that I'd be willing to admit that. I think allowing ourselves to get entangled in deep love that's messy, unpredictable and oftentimes painful is possibly the first step, a test if you will, towards being truly selfless. For me it is anyway. Because when I take the pressure off of myself to be so perfect with love in every way (just in order to feel deserving of love) I allow others to do the same.

"Do the Thing that You are Afraid to Do"

A few months ago I found myself as a new resident of Washington, D.C. on my birthday. I was so new to the city, in fact, that I found myself unable to make social plans for the occasion because I felt I hadn't yet created many strong social bonds. My go-to remedy for this dilemma? Go on a solo adventure to Ocean City, Maryland.

I've been doing this forever. As a little girl, I would spend hours daydreaming in the trees and wilderness of Colorado on my own – dancing with the endless imagination in my head. As a child it was simply natural, uninhibited, and a welcomed response for escaping the boredom of having no one to play with. I can honestly say that those years of exercising my need for adventure while on my lonesome successfully primed me to be an adult individual who's not afraid of participating in any activity on her own. But as I left adolescence, and felt the presence of intellect and self-consciousness creep in, another unwanted component became something of a parasite on my adventures alone: A sense of loneliness, and the realization that maybe being alone wasn't completely fulfilling.

Not that this feeling stopped me from doing all and everything that I wanted to do. In a lot of ways, this new little cloud that hung over my exuberant plans served as fuel to push myself even harder to prove that young women could do anything they wanted, especially on their own. Don't have a man? Fuck it, go to Barcelona on your own and drink flaming shots with a handsome Spaniard who doesn't speak English. Don't have any good friends around to have a girl's night with? Put on a black dress, grab your red lipstick, and treat yourself to wine and oysters anyway.

I definitely find the idea of “dating yourself” (I know, it has become silly and cliché to say but it still rings true) as honorable, and even necessary in some ways, to a 21^st century woman's sense of accomplishment and self-esteem. I'm also a strong believer in Eleanor Roosevelt's words: Do the thing you're afraid to do. And for most young women who are just coming into themselves, the thing that they are afraid to do is own their power and ability to enjoy their own company, in public, completely on their own.

But in my case, I was beginning to deceive myself. I hadn't realized that I had become a master at what so many other young people were still just discovering in themselves. And not only was I blind to my own mastery, I was using my skills to escape my true fears by pretending I was afraid of something that in reality I was quite comfortable with. I had become so good at empowering myself to be alone, that I neglected ever developing my ability to express vulnerability with other people.

My solo birthday trip to Ocean City came up just a hair short of being a complete emotional disaster. I had booked myself a hotel just outside the beach, and as I pulled up after my three-hour drive from D.C., I opened my room to see a big, beautiful bed waiting for me – but I was not met with the expected feeling of self-indulgence and pampering that I longed for. In that doorway, I felt myself standing at the dark precipice of loneliness. And this, my friends, annoyed me to no end. I was determined to fight off the feeling with a long bubble bath, salty snacks, and as much “So You Think You Can Dance” as I could get. As usual, I was using the feeling of loneliness to fuel myself to be even more alone, and to like it, damn it!

But no matter what I did for myself, I only felt worse as my birthday dragged on. I was beginning to feel sorry for myself. I was beginning to feel unloved, and even worse, unlovable, because I was starting to believe the tragic story that was creating itself in my mind about how pathetic it was to be young, beautiful, and utterly alone on your 27^th birthday. And it really was pathetic – not because it was true, but because I was leaving out the minor detail that it was entirely my choice to be alone on my birthday. No one told me to go to the island of lost, young and beautiful 27-year-olds because nobody loved me. I chose to go there.

I didn't dare ask a single friendly face or acquaintance if they'd like to join me. I didn't even realize, until after it was all said and done, that there was no way that I would have put myself into that kind of vulnerable position to get rejected. I was so good at making plans on my own that I once again decided to forgo the chance to get what I really craved - connection, intimacy, trust, community, fun! – in order to protect myself from the fact that I might not get it even if I asked for it.

I was back at work after my birthday weekend had passed and coworkers casually chatted about how their weekends had gone. When I was asked I'd tell them that it was my birthday over the weekend and I'd spent it in Ocean City. Without mentioning that I'd gone alone, I'd go on about how nice it was to lay on the beach again but how terrible the traffic was coming back into D.C., and they would knowingly nod in agreement and then shuffle back to their desks. But I had one coworker who was particularly thoughtful and intuitive. After I told him about my weekend adventure, he leaned in and quietly said You went there alone, didn't you... I was taken aback by his insight, and felt a pang of emotion in the place where the loneliness had been. Everyone else had assumed I'd gone with some gaggle of anonymous, smiling friends; but his comment about the reality of my situation created the moment of intimacy that I'd been too afraid to conjure up on my own. That's really brave, you know. Not a lot of people could do that, he continued. I simply smiled, and said I know. I was distracted by the odd burning my behind my eyes.

There's a lot of fine lines in life. (Seriously, people are throwing out “fine lines” like they're going out of style. We're basically living in a spider's web with all these fine lines.) But unfortunately I've found another one. There's a fine line between doing what you're afraid to do just to save face and doing what you're really afraid to do to save your soul. Women (no, everyone!) should be comfortable spending time doing exciting/challenging things on their own. Not just simple things like getting a pedicure without your usual buddy; but doing big, important things on their own so that they feel empowered to take on any situation life throws at them knowing full well that they can handle whatever, come what may.

But don't confuse self-empowerment as a replacement for the social intimacy that we all need to survive. That's exactly where I found myself on my birthday when I deceived myself into thinking that it was easier to go it alone than to risk getting my sensitive heart trampled on by a rejection or two. But in life, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. And even if I had taken a shot and missed on that birthday adventure, at least I would have had built some strength and character behind the attempt.

Don't think that because I've recently had this insight that I've suddenly changed my fearful ways overnight. I still do a lot of things alone that I secretly wish I could be doing with fellow awesome people. I'm not yet sure how to share my vulnerability, my desire to connect, to openly express my true feelings with the people around me that I like or am attracted to – I'm working on it. Now that I recognize the avoidance I was creating in my life by hiding behind a false sense of empowerment, I'm certainly in a better place to discredit the story of being on the island of lost, young and beautiful 27-year-olds... That sounds like it could be a really great reality TV show though!