Thoughts on a lazy day...

September.  Fall has fallen...or has it?  Sure doesn't feel like it here in sunny southern Cali, but at least the temperature has dropped below the triple digits; for the time being.  I don't do well with the heat and lately that's all it's been...heat.  But it's September now...fall is at least technically here and soon the weather will follow.  Hikes, scarves, hot coco...ok, so maybe I'm getting a little ahead of myself.  We're not nearly close enough to those type of cool days yet, but I'm getting excited for them.

Got that uneasy feeling yesterday again, the unsettled-something-is-missing feeling that pulls at the back of my mind and makes me easily irritable.  So here I am...relaxing on a Tuesday morning as September comes to a close and I realize...wow...where has the year gone?  It's almost 2013...life has really slipped by this year...this was supposed to be "THE" year...just as the one before was...and the one before that...and yet...as content as I've been lately, even I know that there's more out there.   There's more to my life that I want to build and yet I get so lazy when I'm content, get so complacent. It's not a bad thing, don't get me wrong...I love being happy and I'm not complaining about how far I've come by any means,  but I know I could be more.  And I know that this unrest in my heart stems from a few different areas.  So again I ask myself...what do I want?  What do I really really want.  Earlier this year I spoke of vision and dreams far far greater than myself...do they still hold true?  And if so how come I've allowed myself to slip backwards back into the comfort of...well...being comfortable?

Easy.  It's just that.  Too easy.  It's too easy to think "life's good" or make excuses about starting tomorrow.  I'm not angry with myself for doing it...I don't let myself get that way anymore.  It's unhelpful...useless to beat yourself up for time wasted...you just waste more time being annoyed creating a wonderfully vicious circle.  I'm also not going to spend all day writing about it because I've done that before and that's no help either.  It's just good to note...and to move forward.

So that's just it.  Forward...to what?  What is it I truly want?  Who do I truly wish to be...what version of myself do I stand in in the future?  Do I still dream of creating my own foundation to bring the media arts and creativity to the remote parts of the world and bring their stories to the forefront of international entertainment?  And what would that look like exactly?  Who would I get to be to have that if so?  And if not....then what is it?  What is it that I can say truly drives me?  What's my motivation for it all?  Being happy is great...but doing something with it is even greater.  So as I go about my day doing my chores, getting ready for work, being out there in the world...I ask myself these greater questions.  I will not stress out about the small things, I will not worry one mindedly about the day to day mechanics...but instead I will live in the future.  I will be my dream...and everything will follow, and I challenge you to do the same.  So now, again, what is my dream?  What is yours?

Just one simple thought, and the rest of my life...

Even as I sit here leaning against the purple velvet of my sofa, my laptop propped on my lap, the battery hot against my legs, Florence + The Machine playing a soundtrack over my thoughts...thoughts that just an hour ago I was certain I must share with the world...I feel the pure exhaustion flood over me muddling the once clear vision of tonight's post.  No, I must not give into my circumstances, I am bigger than them, and I will no longer let them win.  I will not hold myself smaller than my surroundings for I am creator of all that shows up in my life.  And with that my thoughts rearrange and I blink back the last three hours of emotional, physical, and spiritual strife which has left me with nothing but tired mussels and surrender.  

Surrender.  What does it mean exactly?  There are so many ways one can "surrender" but tonight, I am finally beginning to grasp what surrender entails.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines surrender as:

sur·ren·der  transitive verb

1

a : to yield to the power, control, or possession of another upon compulsion or demand <surrendered the fort>b : to give up completely or agree to forgo especially in favor of another

2

a : to give (oneself) up into the power of another especially as a prisonerb : to give (oneself) over to something (as an influence)

I can surrender to my circumstances, surrender to my beliefs, surrender to being in my head, to fitting the world in my neat little box, surrender to what I have told myself society dictates as the "correct" way to act, to be...I can go right back to being the person I've been for the last 20 years of my life pretending to be in control of my life or can I surrender to something greater.  Something much bigger.  Something more powerful.  Something with the potential to transform the world.  Surrender to me.

What's the catch? you may be asking.  I mean it seems so black and white doesn't it?  It truly can't be that simple...or can it?  You're a smart one, you've been told all your life that the right thing to do is not always the easiest...but why can't it be?  Where in the universe does it say that everything must be so hard?  Why is choosing to be my true authentic self and really take a stand in creating my vision so difficult?

The simple answer?   Well...there is none.  I have let myself live in fear.  Fear runs my actions, it runs my life.  Why should I let fear win?  What amazing things will I create if I stay in fear?  The concept is so simple, so transparent, yet words come easy.  I can spit big game, I can say I want to change the world, I can claim to be trying.  I am a master of deception, so good that I have even fooled myself.  But deep down, I know it's all a facade.  I know it, even if I don't want to admit it at first...I know I'm a master at manipulating the situation, of playing victim, of convincing myself that i'm doing the best I can...I go through the motions to appear like I'm out there, but the entire time I'm protecting myself.  I am still living out of fear, and it's time to stop.  I have made progress, I am not discrediting my intentions or what I have created up till this point, but I am finally ready to give in.  To stop fighting to keep my fear, to give myself over to something greater, to a greater calling, to surrender to the person I was meant to be regardless of the costs.  The fear.

Surrender is not to give up, but to give in.  To give into why I am where I am...I have created this moment, I have created tonight, I have created everything in my life for this purpose...for this moment.  For in the end that is all we have...there is no past, no future...all we are given is the now.  And now, at long last, I am ready to surrender to the greatness inside of me.  Surrender to being the leader I am, the source of progress, a pillar of strength and light against the overwhelming darkness.  For if it's to be, it's up to me.  I will lead the way, however hard and lonely the path may seem at times, it is the one I choose.  I choose to be great, I choose to be brilliant, I choose to be the only thing I can be...ME.

And now I surrender to the night.  Tomorrow a new day begins.  A new life begins.  I've surrendered to the fear, for there is nothing to fear but fear itself.

A look at the past and the possibility of the future...

Hello again beautiful world!  How has life been treating you? I know I've been away for some time and this time I am not going to apologize for my lack of commitment to keeping up this stream of consciousnesses into the world, instead I am simply going to look ahead and re-commit to truly telling my story and possibly a couple of stories that are not my own...but more about that later.

So today I sat down to write again, after the urging of a friend (and probably one of my only dedicated followers at this time, you know who you are and thank you!) and a recent renewed excitement in my life, my dreams, my goals, and who I am.  I wasn't sure what I wanted to share with the world wide web first...as there have been a number of impactful and really key moments and discoveries I've made since my last post a few months ago.  My first thought was to look at all the posts I've written over time but never finished and have been marooned in my draft box for god knows how long, because in the past I'd get these spurts of inspiration and motivation and begin to write but stop for one reason or another.

I guess here I must go on a slight tangent for anything from this point on to make sense to you.  Simply stated my outlook on life and myself and my dreams and well...everything has undergone a major shift in the past month and half.  This is due to a transformational workshop series that I am part of.  I don't want to go into too much detail at this very moment for that would take far far too much time and I'm on a slight time crunch with class steadily approaching.  I'm sure many of you are confused and have countless questions and crazy thoughts swirling about in your heads when you hear the words "transformational workship" but all will be revealed in time...I promise.  All you need to know now is that the person I am now is the person I was always meant to be, the person I always was, only now I'm discovering what has held me back and allowing myself to truly step into my brilliance.  Sort of like a diamond in the rough analogy (yeay! another analogy from me...you must be thinking, are you suprised? lol)...the workshop was the mechanism; the machine that polished me so to speak and now I get to see how I shine and share that beauty with the world.  Ok, now that you're thinking I just got out of the loony bin and that there must have been some really strong koolade (which if there was it was delicious and I want more) I'll stop and just let you experience my shift as I have.

So back to the unfinished posts.  So I took a look down the list of posts I've published intermixed with the ones with the little red word in italics reading draft beside the titles and realized that I have a lot of unfinished thoughts just waiting to enter the world.  What better place to start then by giving them wings to fly?  Exactly, and how perfect is it that the oldest one dated over a year ago should be what follows...a post I began but could not finish because it was too open, to vulnerable, and at the time too scary to put out into cyberspace because it in very plain words spelled out a pain and what I had long perceived as a weakness I had struggled with and was constantly carrying around in the back of my mind.

When I began this blog over a year ago my first thoughts were to just write fluff pieces about the day to day of living in LA and the simply road and struggles of an actor.  This was during a time when I protected myself and my feelings and was so caged, and closed off that I didn't even always share my true feelings with my closest friends.  I never feel safe telling people what I was feeling, so I'd write.  In private, where no one would ever come across them.  And even at that most my entries about my feelings were so deeply encrypted with metaphor in the off chance someone my someday stumble over them they only painted a portrait of what I may be going through but never black and white came out with it.  Then I began this blog and there was no way in hell that I was going to share my secrets, my feelings where people WOULD be able to see them.  Yet something inside me was dying to, something was screaming out and here I was finally writing it plainly and I couldn't even finish, my fear was too much.  So here you go world, today is a new day and it's a new me...

2/7/11

So much to write, no motivation to put it down

     So it's now the second week of February, and I'm having that uneasy unsettled feeling I get periodically.  It's this horrible nagging anxiety that I wake up with and carry through my day, one that doesn't dissipate when I close my eyes at the end of the night like often my bad days or moods do.  No, this is the sticking type, the "oh shit, here we go again" feeling where i feel like everything is wrong and all I struggle with the internal battle of let's figure it out, let's fix it, let's be productive and make some changes and force this away again and the I just want to sit in my house, be a hermit, watch tv and do nothing, not even eat a full meal feeling which is so counter productive to living or moving forward or anything good.  I don't know how long I've had these bad spells, but I do know the first time one got bad enough for me to react to them the way I do.  I mean everyone has those days, those days when you don't really want to talk to anyone or do much, when you just feel...off but most of the time they go away as easily as they come, right?
     Well not always.  My worst was when I stopped feeling the urgency of living.  Not to say I wanted to stop living, no not at all, but I just stopped seeing the point in waking up, getting out of bed, doing ANYTHING.  I spent four days in my room in college without the will to make myself get up and go to class, wondering how just a few days before it seemed so easy to get up, to go to the gym, to go to campus, to see people, laugh, talk, go to intermural sport games and cheer on my friends.  I had been feeling anxious, apprehensive, unsettled, just off for a while but I never expected it to go that far.  I knew something was wrong, I knew the way I was feeling was not right, was dangerous, and I didn't want to be that person, feel that way, I wanted to live, I wanted to laugh, I wanted to be able to just get up without thinking about it and go about my day like everyone else could, like I had just the week before...but as much as I willed myself to just do it, to just fix myself, I couldn't.  I couldn't figure out the cause of my downward spiral into this horrible depression, I had a good life, I had so much going for me, so much to be thankful for and I knew it.  I wrote lists, I wrote journal entries trying to figure out what it was that caused it or what it was that would stop it, but mainly I just laid there in bed, listening to the world go on outside my windows, feeling the sun streaming in across my body, and wishing I could be normal again.
     I was willing to try anything to cure myself, to get back to the living, to blissfully and ignorantly go on with my life, to care about the unimportant, to just be, and be happy.  When I had the strength to get up and out of my room I went to a therapist,

Do you see where I stop?  It may mean little to you but to me...it's so telling.  All my life I felt I needed to appear strong, to lean on no one, to be able to figure it out myself, on my own, alone...and you know what I found...what that therapist told me?  She told me that I needed to reach out, to open up to people, to choose one or two people in my life and really share myself with them, to create a deeper connection because relationship is what life is about.  So I did.  At first.  And it helped, I gained my best guy friend during that time who to this day is still my best friend and who I turn to in my best and my worst never afraid of judgement and without whom I don't know if I'd have stayed sane through the last 5 years.  But of course as you can tell from that post it wasn't a solve all because I didn't fully grasp the concept.  So I made a couple new close friends but once I felt "cured" and alive again then I went back to my self protective mode with everyone else and you see how well it served me.  Being open and vulnerable is not a bad thing I have discovered, it's not a weakness to ask for support or to show your emotion.  In fact it is quite the opposite.  It creates connection and intimacy and allows others to feel safe opening up to me as well, and that creates love, joy, openness, honesty, courage, passion, and empowerment.  All things beautiful and good in the world.  The funniest thing is, that unfinished post you just read...it really isn't that bad.  So, I battled depression.  Why should I see that as a weakness...so many millions of people go through the same thing each and every year.  No, if anything I should be proud of it, I battled and won.  I am STRONG and my pain and my courage to conquer are not negatives but really positives.  They create who I am, and I get to see that time in my life as a triumph, a win, not a weakness at all.

And I'm not saying it's easy to see it that way, to be open, to be vulnerable.  No, not at all.  And I'm not saying that I'm always that way, I mean come on, I have 28 years of living my life believing that it was scary and bad to be open, that vulnerability creates pain and only a very short time of realizing that those beliefs are incorrect so yes, I still slip back into the fear but as soon as I feel myself shutting down, the very moment I feel my walls start to go up...I stop, and focus out.  Give rather than take, because I am complete and when I believe I can make a difference I do...in my own life and the lives of those around me.  We are all living in fear, so why not be the one to stand in possibility instead?  If I do...will you follow me?

No excuses.

Today someone asked me two seemingly simple questions.

- What are the excuses you are making that are keeping you from achieving what it is you want?
- If it was easy to go out there and get, what would you do?

Of course my first reaction was to roll my eyes and think oh great, I know how this goes, I know what answers they want to hear but it really IS hard to get what I want...there really ARE obstacles that are not in my power...this is lame but instead I smiled and went along with the game.  Everyone wants an agent I responded to the first, for that truly is how it feels at times.

"Everyone?"  They retorted with, "well I'm not looking for an agent, and there are lots of people with them...so surely not everyone."  Yes, ok, I knew that was coming I thought as internally I once again rolled my eyes...but I nodded outwardly, for I know it is the truth.  Well I would go out and get one, I answered in response to the second question, the obvious answer...the one they clearly wanted to hear.

"Well then what is stopping you?" they unsurprisingly shot back.  Yep, saw that one coming too my cynical and prideful side sarcastically thought while I bit my tongue as to not let any of that pigheadedness escape into the world.  It is true you know.  We make excuses to why we cannot achieve our goals, why it's so impossible that we shouldn't even bother trying and we convince ourselves that there is nothing we can do about it to make us feel better about our inaction.  The biggest thing standing between us and achieving what it is we want whether it be happiness, love, prosperity, growth, is ourselves.  We are so afraid of failure, afraid of rejection, afraid of success that we simply make excuses and don't really, truly, try.  Of course we all aren't like this...there are those who go out there and get what they want.  We call them the go-getters, and envy their drive, their determination, their ultimate success and happiness from our safe little windows in the restrictive boxes we place ourselves.  We convince ourselves that we, unlike them, can't do that.  But why?

For years I've known that I am my biggest enemy, that the thing holding me back most is nothing more than myself and my fears.  I've contemplated why it is that everyone else believes in me more than I believe in myself...and I've come to the determination that in the end I am afraid of success.  Logical right?  Because if I got everything I wanted then what?  What?  I'd be happy?  Heaven forbid!  And yes, I'm being quite sarcastic and self demeaning here...but not without cause.  I've always been the one to sabotage the good things in my life as if subconsciously I wanted to stay miserable, that being unhappy is safe.  I talk about wanting to be happy, I think about it constantly, I read books and articles claiming to have the answers to finding it, but if I am to be entirely honest...there's part of me that knows that I am what is standing in my own way.  It's simple to see, but so hard to truly admit...perfect example is my adolescent reactions to the simple questions that are meant to help me.  My quick defensive responses and smart-alec quips placing the blame off myself where I know it does indeed lie, thinking this is so stupid when I know really...it is not.

I've always been that way...and I don't know when or how it began.  This want and need to not face the truth, to ignore it, to excuse myself from blame when things go wrong.  I mean I know we all do it, and that I'm not among the worst...that even though I feel these urges or think the thoughts I know deep down that I need to suffocate them, hide them; I know that they are not the appropriate responses.  But does that make me better or worse than those who are clueless?  For at least I should know better, knowing better.

So what is standing in my way?  Nothing.  Nothing that should be there, nothing that I do not have the power to change.  What am I going to do?  I'm going to go out there and get what I want, what I need.  I have no more excuses...it's time to stop wallowing in self pity and being sad for what I do not have...it is time to change the game.  Time to change myself.  Time to look forward to success and not fear it...time to achieve.

And I want you, my reader to do the same.  Ask yourself what it is you really want...what is it you are telling yourself is standing in your way...and if it was easy to do...what would you do?  You may be surprised.

**Side note...I have at least 10 old posts that I've begun and yet never finished spanning the last year.  Things I was passionate enough about to sit down and start to write but never write that last word and hit publish...what was stopping me?  Maybe it's time to change that.  Maybe it's time to complete what I've begun in all aspects of my life.  Be on the lookout for the revival of old topics...**

The past...

So I just had my 10 year high school reunion this weekend, and it's a funny thing about reunions...no matter how much you think you won't or try not to be affected by the past and who you were then, you inevitably fall into your same role.  Perhaps just for a brief moment before you realize how utterly ridiculous it is that you have become your teenage self again, or maybe you never notice and end up hanging out with your old friends all night recreating those old high school cliques unwittingly.  Either way, you are not immune to the mysterious power that is and was your adolescence, and I was no exception.  I was excited to go to my reunion, even though the realization that I was really that old was a bit unnerving.  I knew that I was a different person now than I was back then, that I've been one of those who has come into her own after graduation, and I was ready to shine.  Don't get me wrong, I loved my time at RHS, maybe more in memory than in actuality roaming those halls day in and day out, and I was not looking forward to all the "what do you do now?" questions...but I was confident and that right there made all the difference.  To say I was shy back in high school is an understatement, I was really shy, really quiet, really insecure, and yet...I wanted nothing else but to not be. This is not to be mistaken with soft spoken or timid, I had no problem telling you what was on my mind...but only if you talked to me first.  I hated the fact that I gravitated to the corners of the room, that I stood in silence instead of standing in the spotlight making jokes, but what could I do?  I mean still I have those moments of self doubt in social situations but hell, I'm an actor and you'll be damned if I let those rule my life anymore.  I thought I'd go into the reunion confident and strong and ready to talk to people and find out how they too have changed...only to find that none of us really did change...or did we?

Ok, so maybe I'm not being fair.  I know for a fact that some of us did.  Take my friend who I went with for example, a wonderful vibrant confident and undoubtedly gorgeous woman who back in senior high was, believe it or not, quieter than even me.  Seriously, I had to convince her to even go to our prom.  Back then she was the same wonderful sweet and beautiful girl as she is now...just add ten years, a bottle of peroxide, some stilleto heels, and confidence that is unassuming yet sparkling with self assurance and you've got a force to be reckoned with.  You've also got a girl who had no problem working the room and laughed at the end of the night recalling how may people had said they didn't remember her in high school.  Seriously, I admired her and the ease at which she appeared to have shed her 17 year old self.  I wasn't quite so lucky and noticed myself playing it safe most the night, talking to people that I had known at least slightly well (or as well as a quiet shy girl could have) back in High School during the reunion.  I mean to be honest we all knew everyone we graduated regardless of whether or not we had ever actually spoken to them only having a class of around 300...and of the 75 or so that showed up to the event most of them were all people you'd expect to see there...people from roughly the same social circles that overlapped from time to time or had mingled at parties (or shown up to them) back in the day.  There were the leadership crowed, the partiers, the "cool jocks" (because we most definitely had the uncool ones too), the ones that went to the dances and the football games and hung out in the front parking lot for lunch and after school.  The ones that if my High School had been a movie...were the ones the movie would undoubtedly include as the semi cool kids, the ones you'd expect to go off to good colleges and join fraternities and sororities (and I'm pretty certain most of us did just that).  The "ultra" cool kids who cut class and smoked cigarettes, the "mean girls," the "drama freaks," the "nerds," well most of them were mia this Friday night...minus a stray straggler here and there.

This is not to say everyone that was there that night had been part of the same circle because we were not, but generally speaking there were no huge surprise appearances, and no crazy "omg did you see so and so" moments.  Yes.  We all looked pretty much the same...if not better than we had back then.  At least those of us who came, but back to the point.  Sometime in the night I remember looking around and realizing how strange it was.  I saw what I would have considered my group of friends at the photo booth, all getting ready to take photos and contemplated joining them because after all, wasn't I part of their group?  And yet, I stopped, I hesitated, instead of running over and joining in on the fun I told myself no, they were better friends, I was just on the outskirts of that group, quiet and doubtful...and I watched them from afar take a set of group photos that I should have been in.  So strange too, because looking back there is no way that I would have done anything but add to that photo, for those WERE my friends back then...yet I was momentarily frozen with the same insecurities that I had in high school.  The fear of imposing where I was not welcome, where I may not belong in someone else's eyes...that same fear that kept me shy and quiet back then was again holding me back now.  And I realized as I looked at my classmates...I was not alone.  True some of them were off comfortably mingling with people they may not have been friends with back in the day, but most of them were sticking to those friends that they had been the closest too... reminiscing no doubt and reconnecting in some cases...but also staying where they felt most comfortable, back in those social cliques we all stuck to that helped us not feel so alone in those lost years of youth.  By the end of the reunion everyone remaining had either made enough trips to the bar or come to the same realization that I had and begun to loose those old teenage inhibitions and return to their normal adult selves and that's when the fun really began.  That's when you had conversations with people you never talked to before, when you approached your old crush to see who they were now, when you realized that you were missing out on some really awesome people, or that people you thought were awesome really didn't stack up.  And yes, I'm most definitely referring to my own personal experience here.

But in the end, I guess what the moral of the story is, the entire reason for taking you my reader down this rabbit hole of memory lane with me...is that no matter how much we think we've changed, no matter how far we've come in our lives...we really are always who were back then.  And I'm not just talking about High School, but at every point in our lives, the high moments, the lows, and everything in between.  Yes people change, people grow, we are never the exact same person we were just moments before...but we never escape the past, for the past has made us what we are now.  We should embrace it, not run from it, even if we think it did nothing but inhibit us.  It should be a strength within us, not something we cover up and try to hide away.

I am the shy, quiet, horribly insecure girl I was then.  But that is my strength, not my weakness.  I am also a wonderful, confident, strong woman who is not afraid to go after her dreams...and stand here today before you and say...

I'm done running away from my past, done trying to forget things and mistakes I have made.  Perhaps it's easy for me to say, I have not made any giant irreversible stumbles on my path to who I am now...but we all have had our moments.  Regardless, we should not dwell on those times rather look how far we have come, look how much stronger, better, more amazing we are now.  And if you cannot relate...then maybe it is time you looked at your past, and re-evaluated who you are now, who you think you are, and who you want to be.

All in all, I'm glad I went.  It was a lot different than I had expected, though I'm not quite sure what it was that I thought I was going to be experiencing.  I know for one thing though, it was a lot weirder than I had thought it would be, and yet still a lot of fun (granted the multiple trips to the bar to visit my friend Jamie and coke may have helped with that a bit).  I do wish though, that more people had gone, that the people that hung out on the fringes of the student body had proudly walked into that room and been able to do what my friend did so well...and me, well, less well...been comfortable with who we are now, and shown those who we may have looked up to or shied away from, that we are and always were just as amazing as ever.

Be strong, be happy, be wonderful, be you.

Another year...another inspiration

So it's dead midnight on the Monday before thanksgiving and there's a lot of things swimming through my mind.  Some of it old thoughts and ideas stuck swirling for weeks even months and some of it new, fresh, and bright.  These new ideas, these new bursts of light seeping through the cracks of my muddled and cloudy conscious are the important ones, the ones that inspire me and motivate me to sit here before you on my father's computer in the wee hours of the morning almost a week into my much needed escape from the clutches of LA and all that it is.  Yes, I'm home, where I grew up and where I will always feel the most at peace and I'm finally starting to feel refreshed, alive again.  It only took five days.  Seriously LA drains me more and more...and maybe it's not just LA, perhaps I'm only using the city as a scapegoat to blame my increasing unhappiness and restlessness on, but either way I'm so glad to be here, where the air is cleaner, the stars are brighter, and my struggles seem a million miles away...for now.

Also, it's the first time I've been able to sit down at a computer and write for a while now.  Granted I could have used this computer any given day or night that I've been home but of course I had to wait for inspiration, that extra push, the urge to let my fingertips fly across the keyboard and the freedom to let my thoughts spill forth onto the screen.  And I cannot tell you the joy it gives me now to sit down and write, I've been looking forward to this trip with greater anticipation than usual for this reason alone.  You see, I don't know if I've told you before, but I am cursed.  Electronics hate me and I don't say this lightly.  Seriously, they do.  It's a real big pain too, this been the age of technology and I fear it's only going to grow increasingly worse as the years go on.  It's not my choice either as I pride myself on knowing how things work...and how to fix them when they break and it's much to my frustration that I find myself helpless when it comes to technological failure.  And fail, they do.  It's as inevitable, and unavoidable as catching a cold when the weather changes...or in my case, worse.  Seriously, I get sick less often than my electronics fail me or short or just plain refuse to function properly for me.  The best part is no one else can explain my constant and ridiculous bad luck with computers, phones, my wii remotes, stereos, pretty much anything of that nature.  So why am I going on and on about this you may wonder?  Well, I guess what it all comes down to in all relevance to this post is...I've been virtually computer less for about a month now, and let me tell you, that's an awful state to be in if you're me.

Have you tried going without your computer for a month?  I dare you to try it even for a week.  Seriously, pretend your computer refuses to work for you, takes forever (and ten tries) to load properly and then freezes ever time you click on an icon or open a window.  To get to your e-mail it takes you 30 minutes, and just to read one another 10.  Forget about trying to write, with that lag time you are lucky to get 3 sentences down in an hour, and if you make a typo you're screwed.  Seem like a really bad nightmare?  Well that was the hell I was living for the past 5 weeks!  Lucky for me my phone didn't decide to poop out as well, so I was still semi connected to the world...but really, how much can you get done on a smart phone?  I was so disconnected with the world and at a time of such change it couldn't have been worse.  I all of a sudden found myself with more free time having finally quit my job at the bar and having taken this month off from classes at Playhouse West (a tough but in the end logical call seeing as I would be missing two weeks of class for this trip along with an additional class for a commercial I booked that I will write about later), but less social opportunities having been working so much before and so disconnected from everyone due to scheduling and now with no way other than a small two by four screen to reconnect with.  This of course added to my unrest and unhappiness as I became a homebody due to circumstance created a very very unhappy me.  But I'm not here to dive into my misery or the darkness I found myself entering, all I knew was that I was becoming a miserable person that even I didn't like being around, and that I needed a change.

So back to the present, it's three days before Thanksgiving and close to half way through my little vacay from life and I'm ready for a new positive outlook.  I'm ready to be the me that is happy and optimistic and charming and fun to be around, the person that I should be for really, I have so much to be thankful for.  It's kind of sad to thing that it is so easy to loose sight of all that we have going for us, that we need a specific holiday to remind us that our lives are good, that we are lucky in so many ways.  I think about this a lot, even in my moments of the deepest self pity, when all I want to do is wallow around in my own unhappiness (don't judge, you know you have those moments too) I know that I'm being ridiculous.  I know that I'm being stupid because there is so so much that is wonderful in my life, and I am ever grateful for all that is good all that I have regardless of how much self loathing I feel.  Sounds confusing to you?  Believe me it baffles me too.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I want to take a moment to remember the great things in my life, the accomplishments I have achieved however small or large, and to put out there to the universe in black and white with you as my witness what it is I am going to achieve.  The promises I make to myself.

Perhaps this new motivation is a product of my birthday having just passed, since every year I get older I make a new promise that this is the year I achieve greatness, achieve happiness.  Perhaps it's due to my ten year reunion being this week and a subconscious alarm that is triggering some sort of fear that I'm wasting my life away and loosing my youth.  Possibly it's that LA really has been draining the life from me or maybe it's my increasing notion of distaste for the city of dreams, this trip like a ray of sunlight cutting through the dark clouds that were hovering over me for the last month.  Or maybe it simply seems the right thing to do with Thanksgiving on the horizon, either way this is what I'm thankful for...

The love of a family that although they may not like the decisions you make, support you till the end.
That I know I can always pick up the phone and call my mom when I need someone to talk to.
The amazing friends that will be there for me till the end, the ones that don't let me down.
The place in which I grew up, and how hard my parents worked and still work to be able to provide it to me.
My health, it truly astounds me sometimes how rarely I get sick (knock on wood!).
My logic...even if it is to a fault.
My morals and way in which I look at the world.  I'm a thinker and I wouldn't know how else to be.
Being lucky enough to be of mixed race, we are the future :)
Being self sufficient, and independent.
My apartment, and the fact that I can provide myself a home that is truly mine.
My job, it may not be the most lucrative but it's a job, and I like it.
That I am chasing my dreams, no matter how rough the road may be at times.
That I have people that believe in me, sometimes even more than I believe in myself.
That I am a free thinker, in a nation that allows me to be so.
That I live on a coast...in California...where people are more open minded and the weather is nice.
That I've had a chance to see the world, even if it was only a small chance...for now.
That I'm never quite satisfied, always looking for ways to grow and improve and learn.
That there is food on my table, and that I have never known true hunger.
That I know no matter what happens, I will be ok.
The faith in the universe, and the knowledge that life is a gift.
That I'm alive, and that I have this adventure to live.

Of course there are so many more things that I have to be thankful for, the list can truly go on forever.  Even things that we see as negatives can often be positives if seen from a different light, but at the end of the day we must simply be thankful for that day.  For the gift of life, of waking up in the morning, of the world around us, of who we are and the people and things that have made us that way.  We will never know the true meaning to life so what is the use of doing anything but living it to the best of our ability?  And that's what I'm trying to do, I may stumble, I may fall along the way, but in the end I'll always get back up.  I'll always find a new reason to be inspired, a new angle in which to turn things around...and I'm ready to fight for my life, for happiness, for the joy that this great adventure can bring...again.

The struggle that makes us stronger...

They said this would happen, they said this time would come...and I don't fool myself into believing that this will be the only point on my journey where I feel defeated, lost, frustrated.  The roads we choose to follow...the ones that mean something to us, the ones we feel passionate about...those are the ones that will cut us down, trip us up, make us doubt ourselves and our path and it is up to us and us alone to pick ourselves up, clean our scrapes and stand strong.  We have two choices when things get rough...push on or give up.  It is at those junctures, at those moments that we find out what is really important to us...and how stubborn or strong willed we are.  Maybe it's a mistake, maybe it won't amount to anything...but on the slight chance that we do make it, that we do achieve the impossible, that we do make our dreams come true...well...is that worth it to you?

So here I stand, questioning myself, questioning if this is really the path to my happiness, if this is right for me...questions that I cannot hope to answer, that only time will tell.  Everything in the past is 20/20...the future is a great unknown, like walking through a thick fog...we can only see what is right in front of us at the time, all the squinting and straining our eyes will not prove to clear the mist any more than charging right at it will...so might as well take that leap of faith.  At least this is what I tell myself, I don't think I'm half as brave as I claim to be...all the motivational things I say and subscribe to, they are just as much to convince myself as they are to convince others.  It will be ok.  Things will turn out how they should.  We will end up happy.  Faith, faith in the unknown, faith in the journey, faith in yourself and the world.  Say it enough and you'll believe it, right?  That's how I've become who I am...that's how I conquered shyness, that's how I forgot about what others may think of me with their judging eyes and unkind words through school, that's how I get through each day...I have to believe, I have to hold onto that hope that my words are true.  We are nothing without hope, without faith, and no, not the faith in heaven or hell or god or whatever it is you may believe...simply faith that one day we'll all be able to look back on our struggles, on our dark moments and know that it was all just part of the journey.  The adventure.  And it was not, all for nothing.

Strength, we must have strength to pull us through.  We must shut out our doubts, our worries, our insecurities and stay strong.  Some may call it pig-headed, I prefer stubborn.  Stubborn isn't always a bad thing, as my parents would have had me believe growing up...and yes, I've been accused of being stubborn to a fault in my past, but if you can use that perseverance in a productive way...well...you can achieve the impossible.  Thank goodness I'm a little stubborn, what doesn't kill me only makes me stronger.  Criticism keeps me hungry...pushes me forward, no one likes to feel like they are failing, and loosing is not something I easily accept.  I'm competitive to a fault, this I will admit.  I've spent years avoiding activities that may result in defeat, playing it safe, never letting myself hope or strive for what it is I really want...for fear that the defeat will be too much.  I wish I could loose gracefully, I wish I could stop that need to "win" to be good at everything because we all know that's impossible.  Perfection is not achievable and we must learn to be satisfied with ourselves...yet never loose the drive to be better.  It's a thin line we walk...and I'm learning how to fight again, to channel that competitiveness, that stubborn child I used to be, to have it be a positive and not the negative it once was.

Which brings us back to today, and the reason I'm writing this post.  Well, today after class I cried.  Not a long crazy world crashing down sort of cry...no.  Not a self pitying break down, or a wounded feelings pouting cry either.  No, that's not my style...and if you know me, you know crying is so not my thing.  It was simply an accumulation of the growing frustration and aggravation that I've been dismissing week after week after being told over and over that my work was sub par.  Of course, they don't say it in those exact words, and we are not supposed to take their criticism personally...even though they are tying to teach us to take everything else personally...but in the end that is what they are saying.  And I'm not fighting them, I'm not denying that everything they are saying is not true...because quite honestly it is.  I've been struggling, I've been frustrated with myself, annoyed that something so seemingly simple is proving to be so ridiculously hard.  If I could only get it...if I could only bring in an activity that they approve of, that they like, then maybe I won't be told once again that my activity is not good...and perhaps then I can get feedback on what it is I'm there for...my acting, my truthfulness.  Of course, I'm sure I'm going about it the wrong way.  So afraid to fail again I'm focusing on pleasing the teacher instead of finding something that is truthful and meaningful to me, and each class, each week, I become more panicked more afraid that I'm starting to dread those early Tuesday and Friday mornings.  So today, I gave in.  I let go of the need to stay strong outwardly and let my emotions sweep over me, let the frustration and defeat in and the tears well up in my eyes and be ok with it.  To cry, but just for a moment and only because I know that in that moment, when I questioned everything, when I wanted to simply give up, when I wished nothing more than to let go of my dream...that I wouldn't.  That I would return again on Friday with a new activity ready for new criticism, that this was just one of many countless more times when I'd wish nothing more than to give up, to throw in the towel and take the safer more traveled road, just one time that I'd stumble hard and have to brush myself off...to ignore the scrapes and bruises and the temptation to turn around.  I've come too far, and I'm far far too stubborn to let this deter me from what it is I want.

I simply must work harder.  Stand stronger.  Believe more diligently.  Have more faith.

Sometimes I just want a hug and to be told it all will work out in the end, that it's ok...but sometimes no one is there, we cannot rely on others to always pick us up when we fall.  We must learn to stand on our own two feet and achieve.  To smile and remember that my life is wonderful...now I just have to make it what I want it to be.