i will give you a topic... discuss:
artichoke hearts are not the same as hearts of palm.

~VS~

just another manic monday

in leu of the slightly uneventful life of the unemployed, i don't have much to offer.
yesterday i made a sock monkey.
crossed that off my to-do list. yes, make a sock monkey was actually on my to-do list.
you know what wasn't on my to-do list? look up people [online] who are no longer in my life.
what the f was i thinking?
just another manic monday. i wish it were a sunday. that's my funday. my make sock monkeys day.
it agitated me and i'm a bit unnerved.
why do i torture myself?
why do i constantly look back?
i may turn to salt if i keep it up.

maybe i do this because i suffer from a severe case of the grass is always greener...
maybe i am actually an ungrateful person inside, falsely masked by a grateful person's face.
so now, to undo this mess i have enmeshed myself in, i have to get positive, and change the scenario.
what and how?
i have noticed myself eating more than usual- as a method of self-soothing, especially since i quit smoking over 4 months ago. as a result i have gained maybe 20 yucky fat pounds. i don't feel good about the extra padding, and i huff and puff as much now while walking up the 3 flights of stairs to my apartment as when i was a smoker- and i smoked hand-rolled unfiltered ciggs.
so, yes, being out of work can be a great opportunity for me to do some things i may not have had the time for before, but idle hands are the devil's playground.

and i have no business on that playground.
the things i have scheduled for myself today aren't anything more than things i have to do. yes, such is life, i get it, but it doesn't have to be... i believe that we can also experience joy around every corner.
what can i do to bring joy [or even meaning] into my life today?

that's my homework assignment-
to find joy and report back.

who's the lucky bastard now?

i'm not the type of bursting forth go-for-it person who just makes big things happen. i am rarely impulsive- unless i need to be, which has not been often. i have abruptly left jobs that weren't a good fit. oh- and a long-term relationship. that was a biggie. and although it appeared, on the surface, to be impulsive, it was actually an event in the works inside of me. i could feel it brewing. immense inevitable change, no mere shift. turned my entire world upside-down. i've not yet found a solid foothold.
now this...
i have this floating suspicion that something big is (again) about to change in my life. change is always for the better, regardless of it's ease or appearing otherwise. a valid lesson always lurks closely behind change. like it or not. i decided to not fight change. resistance creates pauses or reverses the energy flowing in a forward motion. i don't want to have to re-learn all the lessons i struggled to attain thus far- yet somehow i find myself visiting incarnations of them or parts of them at times.
oh- here i go again. great. buckle up.
then it's time to re-evaluate whatever is going on, or more aptly- not going on. jees, that's alot of (self) analysis. does everyone do this? i don't think so. lucky bastards. i have always admired people who just go with the flow, myself being the type of person who consistently dissects the goings-on inside and around me. i always wanted to know why things were as they were. always wanted to know what it was that drives people to speak and behave as they do- myself included. but i have also found that all that thinking about life and such in that way actually got in the way of experiencing that which i was analyzing:
life.
there has to be a balance.
i have to let go.
strangely enough, faith and forgiveness have been the catalyst for the biggest shifts in my life. there was a time in my not-so-distant past when i was completely oblivious to my having faith or even what forgiveness meant. i needed to find out. after having mentioned to a dear friend, when i was severely depressed, that i had no faith, and was in the dark about what it entailed, she corrected me, telling me that was b.s., and if i searched within, i would find and define it for myself. she told me to call it whatever i wanted: god, goddess, she, he, it, the flying spaghetti monster,

who cares what title i choose... get to praying*, wait and listen. so i did. it took me an entire summer to find (a personal) faith. that was a few years ago. then a year later, after the faith thing took root inside me, i needed to know what this forgiveness thing was. intellectually, i understood the concept of forgiveness, but internally, it was as elusive to me as the holy grail.
i asked friends, i asked strangers, i asked my cats... to no avail. nobody had anything to say that was enlightening. what i did was- again- pray, and ask the whoever/whatever to open my eyes and heart to understand what forgiveness means. and wait.
what i came up with was astounding. whereas the faith thing was like a revisiting of past knowledge, forgiveness was venturing into new territory. discovering new territory can be as strange and dangerous as it is exciting. strange because it's foreign, dangerous, because one cannot un-learn that which changes them.
taking a proverbial bite of the ol' apple. i ate the entire thing. seeds and all.  want some?

it was the catalyst for more change. necessary and earth-shattering change.
yet to say that i am still working on the forgiveness thing would be the biggest understatement i have ever uttered. i struggle most with self-forgiveness. whereas some people find it easy to live oblivious to the effects they have on others, i suffer from a severe case of empath-y to the point of being a sponge to their feelings- mostly their pain. painful emotions resonate the loudest. ouch. to be psychically (and emotively) sensitive is a big responsibility. many with the gift shirk it in their youth being told it's not real, or they simply fear it. use it or loose it.
so how can i use it to help myself heal and forgive myself from the hurts i have caused others?
i don't know.
my late great friend lily told me that if we inadvertently hurt someone, yet didn't intend them an iota of harm, it's instantly absolved by god and on the karmic level- once we are aware of doing it. she said that only when we get caught up in the blame/shame cycle does it become a deep human pain.
our need to "suffer for our sins" is an outdated human concept to strike guilt within anyone who has the capacity for feeling it. maybe it was a necessary tool when people were animalistic, who knows... so, unless you are some type of sociopath or worse, you may have a real capacity for guilt, or- alas, even actively feel guilt.
who's the lucky bastard now?
do i hold on to feelings of guilt to punish myself in this incarnation and berate myself for hurting others because it's going to enlighten me or gain me those coveted brownie points in the afterlife? it sure isn't doing me any good now- actually, the opposite is true.
i suffer for hurting others who are subsequently suffering.
what the?
there has to be a better way to live on this spinning orb.
i just don't know what that is yet.
what can i do today to hurt less until i find out, first-hand- about truly forgiving myself?
i can live honestly.
i can be present.
i can love generously.
i can create openly.
and take each day- moment by moment- for the gift that it is.
not that i will never again look back at my life analytically, come on- but holding on so strongly to the past has warped my identity and created a glitch in my flow. i've got to get back into the flow, or find a new flow. ironing out the kinks is a life-long endeavor, yet is well worth the work. i welcome the change... whatever that may be.

i'm thinking that it's me-
lucky bastard.



*praying- see also: meditating, emptying the mind, opening up space within to receive universal wisdom and grace. not a churchy thing for me.