Where I've Been

This is one of those posts I've been turning around and writing mentally for a couple of months now.

I have always been two things: a voracious reader, and a cautious person who goes through bouts of free-spiritedness.

When I was a child, I would read books faster than my mum could get them for me. I would finish them within a day and then be clambering around looking for something else to read-- anything I could get my hands on, whether it was the same book so many times I had it memorized, or the outdated, incomplete encyclopedias in my grandma's garage, or my mum's EMT book (a personal favorite for the morbidly curious).

I also spent a lot of time around adults-- listening to their conversations and soaking everything in like a sponge. I have said before that I related better to adults than people my own age, so I would overhear their conversations and process them. This gave me an edge intellectually and also gave me empathy and compassion for all people. As I have gotten older, though, I feel like some memories of those conversations about so-and-so who passed or so-and-so who has this or that illness has sort of moved to the forefront of my mind.

The older we get, the more aware we are of our own immortality. This can be a blessing or a curse. Children have no notion of mortality, and they live every moment freely and fully. Adults tend to think of things in terms of safety, regret, and fear.

I have anxiety. I am a hypochondriac. I have always had tendencies in this realm-- doing everything in my power not to throw up, fearing any ache as something permanent and awful, flashing back to the medical books I snuck reading as a kid. As I have gotten older, though, and new randomness develops (who knew 30 would be quite so different from 20-- why are certain amusement park rights actually just kind of unpleasant now, for example?), I find that increases. As I become more aware of things-- in the news, from people I know, or people of people I know-- I have a hard time not jumping to the worst case scenario.

Over the last couple of years, this has gotten worse periodically, and then recently was to the point where I was in my own head about a headache I had for four days and I was convinced I was dying-- turns out I had a pinched nerve. I spent so much time in my own head over the last year or so that I wasn't being fully present in anything, which is unfair to the people I love and to myself. I would be distracted with compulsively checking things and worrying myself into a tizzy.

One day, I was reading this book called Present Over Perfect, with this water in the background and these white Converse in the center. I have been picking it up and putting it down for a while, every time I would go to the bookstore or see it at Target. Finally, I downloaded it and started reading it and felt I found a kindred spirit. This book is one of those books where you read a chapter or two and stop, not because it isn't good enough to plow through in one sitting, but because it feels like a friendship and you want to savor it. That is the highest praise I can give a book. In it, the author talks about being present over perfect-- how we don't allow ourselves the freedom to live because we worry so much about being perfect that we hold back and don't allow ourselves to be fully present in every moment.

Anxiety makes people feel out of control, and that is the issue-- things we cannot or will not ever be able to control plague our thoughts and we get so caught up in that that we aren't living. I listened to a talk by Brene Brown where she said that joy is the ultimate vulnerability (check it out on Netflix-- she is actually funny). We are always afraid of the other shoe dropping, that things are too good to be true, and so we get hung up in worry and don't allow ourselves to be vulnerable and experience true joy without any fear. I was talking to a friend who said once she got married, her anxiety was worse because of love-- she had more to lose-- and that hit me too, because that is how I feel as well. I am so grateful for the people and experiences in my life, and I know I cannot preserve everything as is forever, but damn, I'd like to try.

I have been reading and talking and meditating (trying to, anyway). I have been praying, a lot, and organizing my life. I have been focusing on being present over perfect, which required a bit of a disconnect from blogging or sharing much (or any) of my life, because I didn't feel I had anything worth sharing.

The more I talk to people, though, the more I realize that everyone is experiencing something, and many people are anxious about similar things, and we are not alone in overcoming this. Everyone is here to share a part of themselves, and even though we may feel that we have nothing new or unique to offer, we do because of who we are as individuals.

I am getting back to what makes me ME-- I am a creator, inspired by the ultimate Creator, and I am going to be present, and never perfect, but raw and vulnerable and beautiful because of it. I encourage you to do the same thing.

I am not sure how I want to use this space yet, but I am thinking that the way I initially intended it-- to share causes and places and people I believe in, to be the bright side of this little corner of the internet-- may be the best way.