Black and White

Ok, so I’ve semi-started a bunch of blogs in the last week. Started and never finished. Couldn’t really come up with a coherent thought though I knew something was brewing in this crazy, analytical head of mine. So, I put the blogs away and decided to wait for whatever I’ve been chewing on to make a little sense.

Most of the blogs have been about how different I feel and not in a good way; about how I feel like I’ve lost major pieces of myself in the last couple years (but mainly the last year for sure). I’m just not the same person that I was. I feel like that person was more fun. I was super creative. I had these wild adventures and stories and I didn’t stop putting myself out in the world, travelling back roads and dusty bars and having long conversations with hippies and ranchers I’d meet on the road somewhere. That girl sustained me when I had shitty jobs and non-relationships with strangers. I was spunky. Feisty. Fiery. I didn’t care about things like commitment and the straight and narrow. Everything I did was with one purpose:

To not be ordinary.
To keep searching.
And to always tell a story…

When I had a bad date or (perhaps) slept with the wrong kind of men, I didn’t stew. I walked it off and moved onto the next one. A little hopeful. A little closed off probably but hopeful just the same. There wasn’t much that could tie me down. Not really. I never allowed myself to care about anything enough to do that.

That’s not to say it was all smooth sailing for me back then. Whether I wanted to admit it or not, I was pretty lonely. I hid it well, even from myself, but I was and probably only those closest to me really knew how lonely I could get some days.

I was also restless. I felt like restlessness was a curse I carried around… I would wake up and totally want to not only run but completely BAIL on every aspect of my life. I would daydream for days on end about packing up what little things I had in my car and disappearing for good, where no one could fine me. EVER.

Maybe I’d hop from town to town. Maybe I’d go up to Maine and catch lobsters for a living or get my Outward Bound certificate and teach people like me to go on crazy adventures or live on the beach in LA in an airstream trailer and make out with lots of surfers and artists just for fun or travel with my favorite bands across the country and sell merchandise for them…. You name it. I thought of it. I researched it. I talked about it….and just like that…I’d be onto the next thing.

The dreaming was the easy part for me. It was having those ideas and that pull nagging at me and having to still get up and go to whatever office I was working in that day and be ‘ugh’ normal. I had a really hard time with normal. Some days it was a war of words in my head. I’d get moody and distant and then after a while of that, I’d shut myself in and write, and write, and write.

And somehow after a creative burst, I’d feel a little better.

The last year though, I feel like so much has changed. I remember actually when it started to happen. It started when I didn’t go to LA for the last time. I lost my job for the 2nd time. And I finally had to move in with family which was a swift, sorry kick in gut for me (I had been somehow living on my own in one way or another for a long time).

Suddenly, I started to question everything about my life, about why this was happening to me, why I seemed to be losing everything that meant anything to me. Why my friends were suddenly all extremely settled down, getting married, having babies (which meant they could spend less time being crazy with me). Why I kept losing work and money (which meant no more concerts and long trips). Why I never got the chance to pack up and go to California like I’d planned over and over and over again (which meant I’d have to somehow make being in CT ok when it was never ok before).

Why was it all gone?

Why’d I have to watch my baby sister meet the man of her dreams, pack up, and go to Texas when I was stuck here? Why did everyone seem to have a purpose in this life but me?

Ok. I know. Pity party. But it’s what was going through my head for sure.

I tried to reassess; like maybe it was that I had been living wrong and that’s why the world crashed in on me the way it did.

I rationalized that I wasn’t supposed to be in California because I kept trying and trying and something always seemed to get in the way. So I made a decision to try to make life in CT the best I could and be happy with that decision once and for all.

I rationalized that being alone all this time was a mistake and that I was missing out on things by floating around so non-committal. So I made the decision that I would start looking for ‘gasp’ a relationship; that I’d open my heart up again and give it a real shot because everyone around me was doing it so maybe I should too.

And probably the biggest rationalization I made the last year… Letting go of my fantasy world. Let’s face it folks, I’ve got a very, very active imagination and it’s carried me through so many dark times. Here’s what I believed was happening (and on some level I was right), my fantasy world was such an important part of my life that I didn’t need relationships with people, I was writing about them and that was enough. I didn’t need to ever settle down because I was writing about it instead. I didn’t need anyone. I had it all safely tucked away inside. And because of that world, I could get through anything as long as I could keep writing.

People worried about that side of me. I knew because they would tell me. My mom worried that I lived too much in my head, that I’d never let anyone real in. My friends quietly thought I maybe gave too much of myself to that side and that I was behind the rest of them when it came to actual ‘life’ stuff. I was the drifter of the group…the wanderer. I moved about 6 times in the last year and a half. I sold almost all my stuff and threw away the rest.

In my time of reassessing, I started to think that it was all true too. So, I cut it out. I took down the photos that kept me pining for dreamy men that don’t really exist. I stopped researching my crazy whims online for hours and calculating how much it would cost to live in hotels for months or drive cross country the cheapest. I called old ‘friends’ trying to see if I could restart relationships that I had casually tossed away because I didn’t need them or want them in the past.

I started to act like everyone else.
I found another corporate job. Tried to come up with a plan while I lived at Mom’s so I could get a real apartment for myself again. I started dating.

Normal.
Right?

Lately though, I feel like the world is just closing in on me. And the funny thing is, people are asking me now “why aren’t you writing?” My mom cornered me the other day and wanted to know why I seemed to have dropped so much of what made me…well, me. ‘Get back on your plan’, she said.

And I just looked at her and shook my head. WHAT PLAN?! The plan that blew up in my face?! I don’t have a plan. My plan right now is to get up every day and try to be happy. That’s the only plan I have.

I haven’t wanted to write in months. MONTHS. And I’ve gone through times like that before. I mean, that stuff comes in waves for me. Creativity is a tricky thing. It’s not just some button you can turn on and off when you want it. But I literally have 5 book ideas sitting there in my notes, some of which I’ve already started and I haven’t even wanted to touch them.

So, last night I was hanging with my best friend and I started to open up about it. And I realized that maybe that fantasy world I so decidedly thought was necessary for my survival to kill off, maybe I needed that to keep those juices flowing?!

The thing is…the thing that I figured out last night…
I’m not normal.
I’ve never been normal!
And actually, that’s kind of cool.

I’m a very creative person who needs to dream big or it starts to feel like a part of me is dying. Which is TOTALLY dramatic but kind of true.

So here’s the new conclusion that I’ve come to. Life isn’t about being one way or being another, black and white, total extremes. Why can’t I be both?

I can have relationships and a life and still be creative and dream big. Those things aren’t mutually exclusive. I’ve just made them that way.

I am a person that has to have a bit of adventure in her life. I have to stand apart just enough to make life interesting.

But the cool part of opening yourself up to relationships on the same token is I have a boyfriend who hears me say things like that who can say to me, “When are you going to realize that’s not all that you are? You are so much more than that.”

And he’s right about that too.

So, I’m going to try to embrace both; like some kind of crazy experiment. Let’s see how it goes….

Call it an adventure!
We all could use a bit more of those, couldn’t we?