In Which I Dissect Living vs. Existing

I'm not having a good day.

I'm just going through a rough patch. 

Cliche? Perhaps. But you know what? That's okay. Mountain ranges are bordered by valleys. Plains even. And in the case of this country, the Great Plains seems to go on forever. Believe me I know, I've driven through Iowa and Nebraska. (Nothing against those particular states they are very lovely states) Flat, yes. But that's okay too. There's beauty everywhere if you open your eyes to see it. And you may ask yourself, "Well, how did I get here?" In the valleys of life we, or at least I, get pensive. It opens new perspectives. Granted, not being a perfect person I also get apprehensive and impatient and "grumpy af" in those valleys, but there is a time to be pensive in those valleys. This would happen to be one of those times.

Right now, if you were to ask me, in relation to the aforementioned Great Plains reference, where I am at this point, should I "find myself behind the wheel of a large automobile", I would say I am on I-80 just as you enter Colorado from Nebraska. I can see the Rocky Mountains in the distance, it's a ways off yet, but it's there, becoming more and more tangible the closer I get. Yet somehow...something seems to keep pushing me back eastward on the interstate, as it were.

And so the days go by, (insert subtle Talking Heads reference to Once in a Lifetime here), day after day equating hour after hour of driving through the flat plains states because you really just want to go to the mountains. You take a rest stop, see the World's Biggest Ball of Yarn, and that gives you a bit of excitement, you stop at a restaurant in Omaha that you've never heard of, and not one of those generic "Family Restaurants", I mean a greasy spoon truck stop where you leave almost wishing you hadn't eaten so much but it was so damn good you'd do it again. You stop at the Corn Palace if you happen to find yourself in South Dakota. Wall Drug even. You just do it.

There's beauty everywhere if you open your eyes to see it. Sometimes you have to force your eyes open and look, even if you don't want to look, because if you don't, you will be consumed by the valley. For the sake of one's sanity, one must tryto find the beauty. (I feel the need to apologize to Iowa and Nebraska again, for what could be inferred as you having to try to find beauty in those states. Again, they're very lovely states.)

A moment of clarity, enlightenment even, and you can visualize the road you must take to get where you want to go. I know I've made map/driving references before, but I can just relate that way. You realize that you are on I-80. And before long you will be on I-76 heading down into Denver. The Rocky Mountains are within your grasp. You are heading in the right direction. You really just have to be patient as you coast across the plains (OK I REALLY HAVE TO STOP WITH THIS METAPHOR OR IOWA AND NEBRASKA ARE REALLY GOING TO THINK I HATE THEM SECRETLY).

Same as it ever was. Nothing's changed, nothing's changing, I'm not really living but merely existing...no matter how you say it, this is the time where if you allow yourself to dwell on those thoughts your car will simply stall out and you'll be in the middle of nowhere (literally). Not only will you feel lost, you'll be lost, in that you know where you are and where you're going, but simply cannot get to your destination. You have to turn your head back and notice how far you've come. You may not feel like you've made it far at all. But you've just driven for a frickin day and a half, man. Some people go their entire lives and never leave their home state. You're two or three states over. You'll get to the mountains.

Look for the beauty where you are. In those corn fields in Iowa, you'll never see fields so green. Look at how deeply green they are against the blue sky dotted with cotton ball clouds.

It's not so easy to do. But if it takes celebrating the small victories along the way, as in "Yay I made it through Omaha!", "Yay, I'm halfway through this state!", "Yay, I'm straddling the Platte River!"...whatever the case may be, by celebrating those small victories you are acknowledging that you are getting somewhere. You are far from your initial starting point where you went "Okay, here we go...two days of driving and we're off."..........not much excitement there. This obviously can lead to bouts of impatience, "When the f*** are we gonna get there?!??" ....but even that, when you look back at your initial starting point, is tangible evidence of just how far you've come.

Indifference

This page used to contain a paper I was proud to have written and received rave reviews on, but because two or more fuckers decided to blatantly plagiarize me, I am now taking it down. 

Shaking Fists at the Teacher's Silence

So here we are, 2016. And amidst all the "New year, new me" nonsense, I find myself in the same doldrums as I was in 2015. I still don't have a roof of my own, rented or mortgaged. I still find myself a level 2 with the hope of getting a promotion to level 3 this month. I still only have 27 of 120 college credits with a total of 40 by the time I finish the assignments I've been rescheduling since October. And yet, there is hope. Patience still needs to be exercised, and yet it seems easier. Everything is still as up in the air as it was a week ago, but the outlook is not so dreary.

Let me just state that Facebook and Vine are thieves of time! Thinking about what I do with my evenings...all I can come up is Facebook and Vine. Then I think to myself no, that can't be it. And then I realize that yes, it really is. Why do I really not read much anymore? Why have I not done anything school related for a couple months? Well, Christmas is one reason. But other than that, Facebook and Vine. For that matter so is blogging but for one, I didn't do that very often but for two, it's different because I get to tell a story. So I'm not counting blogging. So okay, now my challenge is to work on spending less time on them.

The teacher is always silent during the test.

I'm trying to redirect my impatience into Hope. While my current situation leaves a lot to be desired, we've come a long way from where we were a year ago. Two years ago even. I tend to lose sight of that fact more often than I should. Lately I've been focusing on what is happening now versus how far we've come. And I've taken steps already three days into the new year to make some necessary changes to how I do things. I've started reading The Hunger Games, I've begun work on one of my overdue assignments, and I'm writing this blog post, as well as brainstorming ideas for my children's series. And really, why should I care about Facebook anyway? Nobody pays attention to my posts anymore, and I'm tiring of seeing all these dog posts anyways.

Time management has never been one of my strong suits. Neither has organization.

So I'll take it week by week. I'll set little weekly goals as long as my attention span allows. Then revisit on Sunday, reassess and reassign as needed. Why does something so obvious seem like the greatest idea no one ever came up with before? Duh moment. (Spoiler Alert - since writing that, I have put it into play, and it has truly worked wonders for me. Out of the 5 acheivable goals I've set for myself, I've already done 3 and it's only midweek.)

"Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset." St. Francis de Sales

So I'm talking to one of my best friends while walking on my lunch break, and mind you, he is a dairy farmer. So we're talking, and I can't even remember what it was about when all of a sudden I hear on the other end a noose, followed by him saying "Ugh, thanks for Crappin' in the foot bath, Wanda." That will now never not be a thing.

I've been told recently that I have an "elegant and sophisticated writing style"...on a college paper I wrote that I got back to make revisions on because it just wasn't quite ready to be considered "mastered". I believe I will share that in an upcoming blog post. It's one thing to hear from your friends and colleagues, but from a complete and total stranger who doesn't even know what I look like, it just blew me away.

And really here's some insight I've just now gathered regarding Facebook. I'll go through my "on this day" section and yeah for the most part it's a trip down memory lane right? Then you come to this far out post that you made years ago about something big at the time. My example, my getting-fired-slash-quitting the bank. One comment. You open it up and apparently that person has blocked you. Dafuq?! So you spend all this time creating this life--sometimes pseudo life--on Facebook when clearly who are you really out there to impress!? People don't give a shit as much as you think they do. You really want to diary your life? Make a blog or YouTube videos. For me, that's my scrapbook of My Life as I Know It. A video scrapbook is even better. A blog will capture your inner feelings, your true insights on life, way better than a stupid flash-in-the-pan-Facebook-post or share will ever do. A video brings that person to life, as if they're right beside you as you remember them.
That's what I'm going to focus on this year social media speaking. Thanks for crappin in my foot bath of life, Facebook. (Ironically enough I will share this post via Facebook.)