MATCH

Man, the things that can rattle around in your head. Get up under your skin, make you worry and second guess. For me, liking myself seems to be one of the chief challenges in my life and it may be because I want perfection -- that my expectations for myself are so high -- that I think I can do anything if I try to, and that pressure of "anything" is excruciating sometimes -- but it has driven me often over the last few years to compound natural parts of my personality like being shy sometimes (a common thing) and feeling intimidated sometimes (another common thing) into this never-ending back-and-forth of "you're not good enough to be in this conversation," "you're not smart enough to have this job," "you're not the kind of person who can make a loving relationship work."

And recently, it's clicked.

It's not that everything goes away -- it's not that the shyness or intimidation suddenly disappears from my personality -- it's just that the bouncing back and forth quiets down. And quiets down significantly. And quiets down because you see suddenly how you are good enough to be in the conversation and have the job and make a loving relationship work. Maybe not all conversations, jobs and loving relationships, but the ones that are the right match for you. 

Finding your life's "right matches" is the pathway to reconciling expectations with reality and destination with journey -- it's the way to actually being happy with yourself. Being at peace with yourself. Loving and accepting of yourself. The more you let yourself explore, the better you are at finding your match because the more criteria you have to check it against your own personality. The thought here: 1) like yourself, 2) let yourself be open to trying a match out and learning it's not a match, and finally,  3) once you discover a match, run don't walk to weave it into every part of your life cause you know how important a discovery you just made.

FORGIVE

To the voices in my head who give credence to the suggestion that in "the cesspool of human waste and emotional immaturity that is New York City," mine is a "marketing-selling-your-soul job," I say: I forgive you.

"When I began my career, I found the work challenging, rewarding, and something of an ego boost. Today, the feelings are far less personal. In 1994, I was fortunate to meet and be a consultant for a remarkable man, Barney Simon, who created the most important theater in South Africa, the Market Theatre. Barney used theater to teach the world about the horrors of apartheid. Barney taught me the difference between producing art and producing change. He believed fervently that those of us who are fortunate enough to be a part of the arts world have an obligation to see past our own successes and to look to the needs of society. He made me understand that my work had less to do with putting another feather in my own cap than with making sure the world was a better place."

-Michael Kaiser, Author of The Art of the Turnaround - Creating and Maintaining Healthy Arts Organizations

LOVE

What happens when love fills your heart? You see stronger connections to the people in your life. You see beauty in simple pleasures. You look forward to listening to a new song or watching a new tv show or meeting a new person or taking a trip. The key is you letting love fill your heart as much as possible and not being afraid of letting it happen -- no matter how scary it is. No matter when it happens to you. From Eat Pray Love, "So that's the final lesson, isn't it? When you set out in the world to heal yourself you inevitably end up helping... tutti (Italian for everyone)." Yes. It is. Love heals you when you need healing and inevitably ends up helping everyone. Put love in your heart, approach life with love, and it will pay itself forward.

TIL I CAN STAND ON THE WATER

Premature happiness is a surreal feeling. With the current state of things in my life, my premature happiness and the premature happiness of the person who I must come to terms with makes me feel unsettled. I feel like I'm in the nether-land or something -- a nether-land where you get in trouble for being happy before it's your time to feel happy; where when I feel peace about things, I'm zapped by guilt or conscience so as to prevent me from being there quite yet. Weird? 

I've been using this metaphor of water skiing... When you're in the water waiting for the boat to start, everything is calm, but there's this anticipation and patience that you have to have while you're crouching in the "ready position" waiting. I've been in that position for too long and now I have finally moved past it, but....

Then, when the boat starts, water is spraying in your face, you're holding on for dear life so that the boat in front of you can pull you out of the turbulence and on top of the water. Finally, when you're ready, you try and stand up. You stand on top of the water. And you are riding in the smooth wake of the boat in front of you. It takes little work to navigate over the wake into the rougher water and then back to the comfort of the smooth wake. Once you're up and out of the spray, it's an adventure. Fun even. You can wave at the people in the boat. You can adjust your swimming trunks. You can look around at the shore, bend down and touch the water, or put the handle bar in your teeth if you want to live dangerously. But you can choose. You have the freedom to choose your fun adventure.

The metaphor seems fitting right now because I feel like I am in the middle of getting water sprayed in my face and standing on top of it. I've stood on top this weekend and then gone back to the turbulence tonight. I imagine that I will continue oscillating between these two places until eventually, I'll feel ready, and I'll stand on top of the water. I'll look around. And choose the adventure that I want to take. And I'll have fun. I'll be able to look around and enjoy myself.

Really though, I can't wait.

COMFORT

Home should be a comfort. It should be where you return and recharge your battery. If you think about it like that -- like a phone or something -- then, you realize that home is something that you might be able to take with you. I will always feel at home in my parents house in MD, but I can also feel at home under the right conditions anywhere -- just like one can take a cell phone charger away from their childhood home and still be able to have a phone battery in a week.

I have noticed that it is a combination of things that make me feel "home." One is smell. I love candles, specifically in the cinnamon or pumpkin spice variety. I love warm colors like burgundy, burnt orange, hunter green, and seeing those colors next to dark stained wood. I love having electronic equipment logically hooked up so that cords look clean and not tangled. I love lamps. I love seeing books. I love cozy arrangements of furniture (what some might call 'cluttered'). And I love good systems like an orderly closet, a series of labeled files, logical placements of recording equipment and office supplies. Even though those systems might not always be maintained perfectly, I take comfort in knowing that there is something to work back towards when they fall into disarray. But most importantly, I love feeling all the possibilities of communication methods -- whether face-to-face, phone, text, email, IM, thoughts, music, candles or other -- that can connect me to my friends and family emotionally, spiritually or practically.

This all might seem like I have OCD or something -- who knows, maybe I do -- but sitting in a new room of my apartment and feeling a new sense of home is comforting and comfortable. It's also reassuring to know that even in the same apartment, new beginnings and perspectives are possible. Home is always with you if you want it to be and if you give yourself the tools to make it work. And tonight, my home has recharged me -- just like it should.

Hooray for tomorrow!

RENEWAL

It's safe to say that Easter has never resonated within me as much as it has this year and for someone like me who reads into the meaning of things, looking back, today was a whopper.

After sharing a particularly spiritual experience at church with close friends who came to support, re-visiting after a year a part of the city where I once lived that represents an important and relevant time in my life, enjoying an easy-paced day of home-cooked food and wine with friends, and speaking honestly with someone who understands me completely -- I feel at peace with the journey ahead and confident that greater peace is still to come. 

Easter is about renewal -- recognizing it in your own life and loving how beautiful the process can be.

TIMELY

My fortune at The Cottage - the great $7.95 chinese food lunch special place across the street from my office - the other day was "Over-prepare and then go with the flow." 

And really, I do know that sometimes the flow sucks, but when you know that you're prepared to deal with what's to come, it is a constant, and wonderful reminder of how precious life is and how it cannot be wasted. Not one day of it. 

A timely message with Good Friday, Easter Vigil, and Easter Sunday this weekend.

I'm looking forward to thinking about it in the days to come.

ANGER

One of the things that I try more than anything to control is anger. Showing it, acting on it, provoking it, or giving attention to it. I had a relationship once with someone who I would characterize as an "angry" person - whose first emotion was rage; whose first communication after a disagreement was a raised voice and a heated argument. After a while, I found myself having trouble giving attention (or power) to it and I developed this ability to listen, channel, and respond as if I hadn't noticed the tone with which I was just addressed. This of course made her more angry because how could I not care about "insert whatever it was she was yelling about." 

The problem with anger - and when it gets the better of me, I learn this every time - is that you tend to say things that you can't take back. Things that aren't quite thought through. And you are motivated by hate instead of love and understanding. Why is it that so many feel the need to push someone else's - especially a loved one's - face into the ground, piss on it, and then smoosh it around to make themselves feel better? The only thing anger does is create more anger. Hate creates more hate. And the thing that you're hoping makes you feel better after you've had your angry rant - the "if I can just get it off my chest so I can move on" mentality - can lead you down a dangerous road of things that can never be unsaid.

So, choose your anger wisely. You ALWAYS have the choice.

FRIENDS

Another day, another emotional process to go through in the wake of my recent life decisions... another John Mayer song to frame why I appreciate the people in my life. And why I am able to continually have faith that things will be brighter tomorrow.

You know it's nothing new
Bad news never had good timing
Then the circle of your friends
Will defend the silver lining

Pain throws your heart to the ground
Love turns the whole thing around
No, it won't all go the way, it should
But I know the heart of life is good

TOUGH

Why is it that a little show like Friday Night Lights is so good at reminding me of what I want in life. The values I want to uphold. Why the dreams I define for myself are so important to pursue and believe in. Why the right thing is normally the hard thing and as Buddy Garrity so eloquently explains in last week's episode Underdogs, "When the going gets tough, the tough get going."

And this from Tyra - the blond bombshell who's trying desperately to make something of her life despite all of the obstacles to the contrary. All episode, she has been trying to write an effective college essay, but is unable to until her good friend (and love), Landry, pulls the essay out of her. She reads it out loud:

Two years ago, I was afraid of wanting anything. I figured wanting would lead to trying and trying would lead to failure. But now I find I can't stop wanting. I want to fly somewhere in first class. I want to travel to Europe on a business trip. I want to get invited to the White House. I want to learn about the world. I want to surprise myself. I want to be important. I want to be the best person I can be. I want to define myself instead of having others define me. I want to win and have people be happy for me. I want to lose and get over it. I want to not be afraid of the unknown. I want to grow up to be generous and big-hearted -- the way that people have been with me. I want an interesting surprising life. It's not that I think I'm going to get all these things, I just want the possibility of getting them.

It's important to remember things like this about yourself every now and then.

FAMILY

Family's a gift

Family can lift

Together

The weight of the world

LESSON

I argued with a friend of mine a while ago about John Mayer being the voice of our generation - maybe not the person that everyone listens to for perspective, but one who I believe is able to point out truths in life. This one's for later:

He broke my heart
And now it's raining just to rub it in
I'm at your door
I feel so crazy about it
You'll say I told you so
You saw it long ago
You knew he had to go
I finally came 'round
I'm back on solid ground
Can't let it get me down

It's alright, It's alright, It's alright

Yes I was burned but I called it a lesson learned
Mistake overturned, so I call it a lesson learned
My soul has returned, so I call it a lesson learned
Another lesson learned

Sometimes, some lies
Can take a minute to fully realize
His tears, your eyes
Thirty seconds to apologize
You give it one more chance
Just like the time before
But he already know you'd give a hundred more
Until that night in bed
You wake up in a sweat
You're racing to the door
Can't take it anymore

I was burned but I called it a lesson learned
Mistake overturned, so I call it a lesson learned
My soul has returned, so I call it a lesson learned
Another lesson learned

Life perfect
Ain't perfect
If you don't know what the struggle's for
Falling down ain't falling down
If you don't cry when you hit the floor
It's called the past cause I'm getting past
And I ain't nothing like I was before
You ought to see me now

Yes I was burned but I called it a lesson learned
Mistake overturned, so I call it a lesson learned
My soul has returned, so I call it a lesson learned
Another lesson learned