Why hello again world!

So everyone has their coping mechanisms, some people like to face their problems head on and loudly announcing to the world and anyone within hearing distance here I am!  You can't get me down!  Others pretend they don't exist, shoving them far back in their minds in hopes that the issue will simply fade and dissipate on it's own accord.  Some will have very public mental breakdowns or call up everyone and their mother to gripe about it, and others disappear from the world to silently fight the demons alone.

Me?  Well I kinda do a combination.  I cycle through the different modes, trying on each for size before finally giving up and letting myself do what's hardest...wait.  You see, I've been the quiet solo fighter who retreats from the world most my life.  I think maybe when I was younger it seemed the most noble, to fight the silent battle internally, to be at war inside but at peace on the exterior.  I mean that's what the tormented hero is like right?  She smiles but her eyes are filled with eternal sorrow.  Yet what they don't tell you is fighting alone is tiresome and treacherous, and when you're the type of person who takes on the burden of life silently and secretly, it can also be crushing.  I found that out a number of years back, discovered what it felt like to be drowning in your own secret sea of misery, helplessly treading in the deepest darkest pool hidden in a cave where no one can see you.  This is the point in which many grow tired, just give up, let the pool drown them and stop seeing the glimmer of light that is hope, that is life, that is the joy of living, the beauty of this miracle that somehow and for some unknown reason carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen molecules bound together to create this amazing phenomena.  Luckily for me, I can be a little too sane, too rational for my own good (and yes, at times I am still crazier than I'd like to admit...I am still a double X chromosome and we're prone to craziness) and succumbing to the black waters was not an option.

I found my life raft, my dangling rope with which I managed to hoist myself back from the dead, back to the land of the living and I've never wanted to fall into that cave again.  Granted I still fight my own secret battles (old habits die hard), but as soon as I feel myself slipping I remember those desolate days and I reach out desperately trying to cling to the rocks and branches around me, to remind myself that I don't have to fall in the hole.  That there are these things to support me, to help me carry the weight on my shoulders.  And I cycle, I look outwards rather than inwards for strength.  I post inspirational sayings, read articles about what it takes to be happy, I push it away, I pretend it's not there, I retreat from the world...but only a little.  I allow myself to stay home in pajamas all day, to watch hulu, to (as much as it kills me) be unproductive, to ignore phone calls and texts, to have the mental meltdowns but only to a point.  I'm almost hypersensitive to the warning signs, though the causes are often buried so deep in my subconscious that I can never really figure out what it is that caused it.  I just wake one day with that feeling in my gut and dread in my heart, knowing that it's begun again and not knowing why or when it'll leave.

Opening up.  Opening up to the world is important, I will never be an open book, I will never fully wear my heart on my sleeve, I will never just let you in without question.  I'm guarded, jaded, pessimistic, and I pride myself in at least believing I'm fully self sufficient.  These are things I know, I also know I don't want these to be things that define me, and I also know that behind each one, there's another thing I am but may not want you to know.  I am hopeful, I'm a secret romantic, I don't like being so uptight and structured, and I want more than anything to be simply happy.  So when I've let myself dwell over, waste time and energy over, and cut myself off from the world for long enough, I do what never seems to get easier.  I reach out.  I make phone calls, I admit to the world and those few my guarded self has carefully chosen, that things aren't ok.  That I'm not the strong, happy, optimistic person I try to be, that I want to be.  That yes, I too have bad days, and yes, I'm vulnerable, weak, and human.  You may be thinking "well duh, of course you are" but in my twisted and semi delusional mind I'd like to think I'm not, or don't come across as such.  But I have to remember it's ok, it's ok to not be the perfect person I want to be, that if I'm not careful I will kill myself trying and that in the end, it doesn't matter.  In the end we are only happy when we can accept ourselves and simply live our lives, when we realize we don't HAVE to be a certain way, and our lives will never travel that straight path we think they should.  And it's OK, all we have to do is remember to live.

Sounds simple, right?  Yeah, right.  As much as I think I've got it figured out, as much as I think I know the right way to think, to live, I'm just as blind and clueless as anyone else. As much as I know these simple truths, I am still too suborn to just accept them.  So what's the point of this post?  Well, I haven't written in a bit, breaking my two posts a week goal...or rather I should say I haven't posted in a while.  I've written...but they've remained as unfinished drafts still sitting in cyberspace purgatory if you will.

Yes, I've been a recent refugee in my own apartment, hiding from the world and the ever persistent problems that I pretend don't exist.  They do, and I shut down, and I become afraid.  I retreat into my own mind, which we all know how powerful a thing a mind can be, and I start obsessing over things I shouldn't.  I start pulling away from the living and opening up to people, the world, becomes increasingly difficult.  So I caught up on my TV shows, spent plenty of time in my pj's, stared at my dishes and messy room, and I've written posts, or started to, and when almost done I've paused, and suddenly and irrationally I've become afraid to finish, to hit that "publish post" button, to expose myself and my feelings to the world...and why?  Why do I have this crippling fear of putting myself out there?  It's retarded, and I can recognize it, and I fight it constantly, sometimes I win, sometimes it wins.  In the end though, I must win, I must move forward, pull myself back up and out of the web of insecurities, I'm an actress after all, and the most powerful tool an actor can have is the ability to be vulnerable.  To put themselves out there, to fall to fail, to break those ridiculous walls that we all put up around us, so here I am.  Step 1 of a infinitely long 12+ step plan to become a better artist, a better person, and well, life fully and happily.  I must first conquer myself, and break this stupid cycle of feeling like my life isn't progressing at the speed that I for some ridiculous reason think it should (when I absolutely know there is no "correct" speed) therefore becoming depressed therefore loosing motivation to push forward therefore not progressing at all, and shooting myself in the foot.

Retarded, but so true.  It ends now, I've cleaned my apartment, I've re-budgeted and rearranged my goals and now I'm back... apologizing to the world for abandoning it...and for the time being, determined to take two steps forward before once again stumbling one back.

Speed...

I should have been a race car driver.

So I was making the usual drive home from work tonight, and like I often do, I started to wonder why car speedometers go up so high.  I mean we cannot hope to test out the theory that our cars can  reach the maximum velocity posted on those little dials without running the risk of a very pricey ticket and possibly a license suspension and car impoundment...so why tempt us?  Seriously.  It's quite unfair and misleading to say the least.  most cars can't even reach the speeds in which they claim to on those little dashboard lit monitors that sit there staring back at us, tauntingly.  I'll be the first to admit I love speed.  And, no, not the inject into your veins, twitching on edge type of speed, but the sheer joy of passing though space and time at a velocity that we as humans aren't really meant to experience if not for our amazing advancements in machinery.

I don't drive nearly as fast as I used to, and that's saying a lot.  Granted I used to drive a little 4 cylinder pickup truck, and man did I love that little ford ranger even if it topped off at 103 though it's speedometer claimed 120.  Even if I had to floor it to make it up the first hill on the freeway on my way to school each cold morning without being passed up by everyone else on the freeway.  I even managed to get my first speeding ticket, which I'm not proud of since getting caught always ruins the fun, in that little gutless ranger.  Ah yes, those were some good times...so you can imagine how disappointed I was to recently, eight years later, get my second speeding ticket in the long history of my driving career.  Needless to say, when now my average speed topples around 75 or at least has in the last 6 months.  Of course, when the cop paced me I was a good 11 mph faster than that, but I had been driving at 65 for most the week.  I'm not saying driving fast is ok, or safe, or good, for most people in fact it is a very bad idea...and I'm not claiming to be above the law or a superb driver who should be allowed to drive recklessly, but I am saying that getting a ticket for going 86 (and luckily being cited at 79 since I didn't try to cry or lie my way out of it...I knew I was going faster than appropriate according to posted signs and I'm not one to deny when I am in the wrong) when my car's speedometer goes well into the later half of the 100's kinda sucks.  Granted I've never really had the guts to test it out above 120, and even then it was only for a couple seconds on the deserted highway late at night on my way to Vegas or whatnot, but it's such a tease is it not?  I mean with the truck I could only go 103 before it hit it's automatic shut down valve and slowed me to the 90's, a fact again I discovered on a 4 am trip to Vegas back in college, but with my present ride...who knows.  Shit, the speedometer boasts 150, and even if, like the truck, it has an automatic shut off about 20 mph less than that...that's still 130.  A speed I'd love to experience but am no longer, nor ever was, reckless enough to attempt.  Not that I think it'd be dangerous to myself or those around me, I'm not stupid, I wouldn't get close to those speeds if there were other cars around who may make sudden lane changes or whatnot, but because there is no way in hell I'd make it to that speed without getting a ticket.  Not at all, not with my luck.  I was lucky enough to go the last 8 years with nothing more than a rolling the stop sign and a traffic light ticket.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a very safe driver.  As my friends, yes, they might tell you I tend to scare them or drive a little too fast, mostly because they remember my college days, but at the same time they will, for the most part, vouch for my control.  I drive fast, and am on the aggressive side (have you ever driven in LA??  Aggressiveness is an absolute must!), but I also enjoy driving, I like the speed, the judging timing and distance when passing cars, the slipping in and out of lanes, the sensation that your're going fast yet are so relaxed, so controlled, so calculated.  Did I mention I should have been a race car driver?

So when it comes down to it...why do they make cars that can go 0 to 60 in 5.4, or 3.3, or better yet 1.97!?  Seriously, and I don't even drive a car that amazing and I feel cheated.  Here I am driving around a beast of american metal and horsepower, a gas guzzling v8 that boasts a 0 to 60 of 5.5 according to sources, and driving home from work at 1:30 am going a steady 80 mph wondering why on earth we can't go the speed that our cars can take us...and what the point of tempting us with such notions of glory is.  Good thing I recently purchased pilot lessons, which both excite and scare me.  Granted I didn't enroll in an actual pilot school rather purchased the discounted voucher for amateur lessons which probably are the most basic and least exciting yet, but still, perhaps it'll quench my ever present itch to push my car to it's limits...or perhaps I'll just have to enroll in NASCAR school, or a street driving course in which I'm allowed to drive as fast as I please, letting the speed take over and reveling in the glory and power of such a simple thing as 8, or 10, or maybe even 12 cylinders and the ignited gas compressed within them.