More tragic, less hip

I taught my nephew to use an empty shampoo bottle as an impromptu water gun as he was having a bath at my place last night. He is a head thrown back laugh out loud guy. Due to being a micro-preemie, his laughter is often silent due to damaged vocal cords but his whole being shouts with joy.
Me saying SQUEEZE in a high pitched voice was enough to make his body shake as he tried his best with tiny hands to make a half full bottle of bathwater spray everywhere. It did get everywhere and if I had walked in after a guest and my bathroom was a soppy mess, I'd have seethed. But since it was one of the loves of my life, I smiled as picturing him on a loop in my mind filled me with happiness.
It's funny the exceptions we are willing to make for people and scenarios that are familiar or make sense to  us. It's a lifelong goal to keep widening my lens and see things with less of myself and my judgment in it. I really do give myself a pat on the back for my allyship though so the stomping down of the ego, also a lifelong goal.
It's also an exercise in growth for me to see where people are coming from when we are diametrically opposed on a subject. To know that someone is equally firm in their beliefs, believe them to be truth and have collected evidence from their life to support said 'truth' is something not to be rejected out of hand. This has proven a block to dialogue in the past as my default mode has been well, you're stupid and you're wrong or just shutting them out and disengaging. However, no one moves on (period) and certainly doesn't feel heard.
When I look at Trump supporters the first thought is what a bunch of idiots, they must be all terrible people. That's not true and that attitude would never get me heard, which is my selfish primary goal, nor would it create an opportunity for either of us to be expanded by new possibilities or at least go away with the feeling that disagreeing doesn't mean abandoning respect or kindness. It's hella hard though when someone is in my (digital) face saying something against the things I believe to be true.
I went on a date with a gentleman who finds it 'hard' to remove the word 'retard' from his vocabulary. I think this guy is genuinely awesome, outside of this one moment he's hilarious, considerate, attractive to me which makes me forgive a whole lot (still am superficial, not really working on that) but I 'win' nothing by making him wrong about it. If he's anything like me, being told what to do, regardless of where it hits on a moral ethical scale, is going to put his back up and entrench the moment with anyone else who tries to address it as them being pushy and judgmental and the back will get even higher/walls firmer. I'm not saying these observations have made me better at having difficult conversations nor that I engage in dialogue regularly with people I disagree on subjects with. I am more so putting it out to keep it locked in my own mind. Both the instances where I misjudged a situation/person only to have further information/clarity re-contextualize a previous situation but also keep in mind I am playing a long con where the goal is that people feel better about themselves around me.
I want to make a vision board as I have trouble writing down how I feel. I don't know how I started the habit of burying emotions and desires nor how I got the idea entrenched that changing those ways would result in personal danger but here we are. I also need to get myself to a mental health professional who's adept at seeing the blinders people limit themselves with. I should be the rockstar everyone else sees in my own mind. Kicking ass and taking names. I need to look that up...possibly found it:

This is from John Oliver Killens' 1954 novelYoungblood:

Man ain't you heard? After Joe Louis whupped that cracker, some crackers came down here wanted to turn Harlem Avenue out. Boy, some young Negroes started kicking asses and taking names. Some Negroes tried to get on the bus to Pleasant Grove and the bus driver wouldn't let them on, and they turned the damn bus over and upside down.

I love etymology. If I had all the money in the world (I may be repeating myself) I would become a low-level Indiana Jones with word research on the side. 

People often comment on the extent and usage of my vocabulary but I love knowing new words. I do also need to continue my work on other languages. And get rid of the mental block I have around my speed of speech. I get back into learning French etc but then shy away as in English, I'm the micro machines guy and in anything else I am a sloth. 

It's Friday as I post this - may yours knock your socks off with unbridled, ribald pleasure. 

A haiku:

Blowing off some steam
To propel me ever on
unexpected joys

xo

Ready? Okay!

In addition to being a world famous drag queen, I would also have liked to have been an amazing cheerleader. Important components missing in both instances namely, penis/talent and athletic ability/talent. It's that I love costumes, in an over the top way. I have/had zero desire to be an actress but to be belting out Beyonce with inch long eyelashes. A real dream. I realized long ago that I shouldn't even harbour a small desire to sing. Let's all pour one out for my neighbours over the years who've had off key, enthusiastic concerts through our shared paper thin walls. I can feel the glares Superman styles. Long hair, don't care.

I have a bamboo back scratcher and it's the best. I feel great after a little respite from clothes on nerves. Regardless of which piece of clothing it is eventually a little scritch is Utopic. I may have made that word up but it's a good one.

I'm listening to Disney tunes in this random mix and 'Bare Necessities' came on. There's a life lesson in there. Also, hakuna matata. In part - I mean, you can't genuinely be happy with just food and water and not caring. I mean, someone can, I cannot. I want things. I should want less things and have read endless articles on being at peace in the present. I'm not in too much of a rush for that one. It's something I'm working on everyday. And more that I know it's going to be lifelong up and down in the being content in the moment.

I do feel like I want a new way to express my gratitude for my life in a way that isn't the showy hashtag way it feels like it has become. (Judgy Wudgy was a bear) I love hashtags, no mistake. I feel a measure of gratitude is a quiet peace with the way things are but I'm not going to lie, sometimes I need someone to be aware that things are tickity boo in my life. It's just run through my personal filter the expression of gratitude at times feels a bit braggy. Shine your light, for sure! I am muddling up what I want to say. Separating out the ego from life is, most likely, a lifetime endeavour. Meh, even if it's not 'authentic' it's still an expression of joy. Which there could always be more of.

I was chatting with a friend about our lack of love lives and why we tend towards the douchebags. We say we want a nice guy, meet one but railroad and dump them. After the convo, I'm sure it's a little more honest to say I am calling into my life what I feel I deserve. If I truly felt I deserved a guy who lit me up/challenged me (that one is more complex)/helped free me from fear in a way that knowing someone has your back no matter what does - he'd probably show up. That could be said for all aspects of life though, in my experience. There have been countless times, some of which mentioned on this blog, where in hindsight I see I got exactly what I asked for.

Every day a little more, I feel I am asking myself for love directed inward. It sounds so trite as I write it out and I cannot point out where the story of me as bad and wrong started but I live into it. I have all the evidence in the world that I am good. Human with failings but that the failings I also run through the filter of how terrible I am. My failings, I know, in comparison to my fellow fallible people around the world, are not indicators of pariah status. I have been filling my iPod with songs that make me feel rad and I watched Rihanna accept an award recently for being awesome (#blackgirlmagic - it's amazing) and towards the end of her speech she, so heartfelt, says, "the minute you start to love yourself, you wouldn't want to be anyone else." She goes on to say that if her example could help another woman feel inspired to be themselves, she would be proud of being a role model. She's taken a lot of flack for not being a good girl but remained steadfast in staying firm in her truth, which I'm sure wasn't easy! I'm sure there were a million moments of doubt but keeping going is all you have to do.

I feel very guilty about not living up to my potential which could be another story I tell myself, as my sweet best friend notes, I've not been the quickest to acknowledge any of my accomplishments more often denigrating them not as such. However, I do know I am capable of being great. Great to me though. I am reading a book called the Happiness Equation and there is a little chart in it about how internal versus external motivators are effective. The author suggests from looking at various studies, that External are so motivating. You can offer someone more money but if they are not happy for whatever reason, it doesn't produce more results. I have often said I'll do anything for someone who appreciates it. I also have a low level fear that each of my relationships is running a balance and if I don't make sure that I am heavy in the giving/pro column, they'll decide I'm not worth it.

So, I want to start treating myself as someone who appreciates me. That I will have the gumption and zest to throw myself into the fray just to see myself win. I need help. It will take me a nudge to flip the switch into laughing at the dumb stories I create about me but I'm ready to be stronger. I'm ready to live in full awareness that the problem is not the problem. My attitude about the problem is the problem.

It is possible that I am dreaming too small and that it's all possible.

I love Moubebe

a haiku:

So, go try it again
if the future's unwritten
your version of win

xo