Archive for the ‘Epiphanies & Revelations’ Category
We only got 86,400 seconds in a day
To turn it all around or throw it all away
Gotta tell ‘em that we love ‘em while we got the chance to say
Gotta live like we’re dying
-Kris Allen, Live Like We’re Dying
I have heard the words, “Don’t rush, be patient, there’s plenty of time,” more times in my life than I can count. I hear it often because I am impulsive and I am impetuous, traits considered to be faults by many people.
I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine about his Bucket List and his decision to begin actively checking items off it. I’ve never felt a need to make one for myself; I generally decide I want to experience something – skydive, visit Hawaii, spend a month traveling Europe – and just make it happen.
Lately, however, I’ve been waiting, being patient, fighting my own nature, not developing ideas about new places I want to see or experiences I want to have, not setting goals for myself or my business.
Cooper and I have stayed pretty close to home, sad about all the big life changes that have shaken us up. And it’s been making me miserable, because I’m going against my nature, heading upstream in a life that is much better suited to going where the current leads it.
My “live like it’s your last day” lifestyle has roots planted deep in my past, stemming from a need to fully experience every day I’ve been given. My dad died when he was 38, sixteen days after I was born. This is a fact that stays with me, haunts me, scares me away from patience the way many people stay away from the cliffs I so willingly jump off.
If I avoid major disaster or illness and am given the same amount of time my father had on this earth, that leaves me with ten years, five months and six days left to live. Barely a decade. If I knew for sure that was all I’d get, then that’s not a lot of time to fit in all the living I want to do.
So, armed with this knowledge, I follow my heart the best I can. I try to live as good an existence as possible, love when I love, cry when I cry, fold when my heart says it’s time. And always, I hear the echoes of, “Be patient, don’t rush, you’ve got plenty of time.”
I’ve been listening to those voices too much lately, staying away from the cliffs that have always brought me joy. I’ve had plenty of time and I’ve wasted unbelievable amounts of it. I’ve been doing it the past several weeks, drifting because I failed, I got burned, I was on the losing side of something I gave my whole heart and soul to, forced to admit defeat after throwing caution to the wind.
And yet, the beauty of leaping is sometimes the fall. Once I land, hopefully on my feet and not my face, I reassemble myself, and I’m always pleasantly surprised to find that while the rough landing might have damaged some pieces that weren’t securely attached, everything else seems to have been rearranged to fit a little more snugly, strengthening my foundation.
Life is meant to be lived. Hearts are meant to love. Sometimes hearts break, and sometimes life goes off track, and that’s the price you pay for the privilege of waking up on the right side of the grass. I’m so grateful for the opportunity to live and love and fail and have my heart broken, pick the pieces up and do it all again.
…I’ve never met a cliff that wasn’t worth the leap.
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I lead a magical life.
I, Little Miss “I hike in sneakers!” scaled a 4,340ft, heavily iced-over mountain yesterday, completely by accident.
I see that questioning look – “By accident, Carlene?” To which I respond, “How long have you known me?” Read the rest of this entry »
Today, without even realizing I was overly upset, I reached a realization of just how very, very upset and full of grief I am.
I haven’t blogged much about this sudden and new chapter of my life. I haven’t known how to say the things I’ve thought and felt without hurting people I know will read my words and take them very seriously.
And so, I haven’t blogged and haven’t really organized my thoughts and feelings in the ways I normally do. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve had a flood of requests to read the rest of the story, so if anyone is interested, here is the piece in full. If you’ve been reading for a while, you’ll recognize it from some of the older entries. This was submitted several months ago.
After I wrote my last entry I ended up getting quite a bit of feedback from my friends, and one email in particular stuck out to me.
One of my friends wrote me about how she likes reading my blog because she can relate to a lot of it. In my last entry I talked about my own experience with sexual and physical abuse, and she shared some of her own experiences with me, quickly followed up with, “But I’m not saying my experiences were anywhere near as bad as yours…”
I have come across emails very similar to this enough that it’s become a pattern, and I wanted to share my view on something.
I firmly believe that the worst thing that’s ever happened to me is no worse than the worst thing that’s ever happened to anyone else. We all feel the same emotions, and feel them equally as intensely.
The “worst thing that happened to me” may have been psychologically harder to deal with “the worst thing that happened” to another person, but the emotional scars are the same – it’s just that it’s easier to categorize and put away the death of a grandfather than, in my case, an ex-stepfather forcing horrid sexual things on you, especially in a society like ours where “we don’t talk about THAT.”
It seems like there’s a fight to own the “Victim’s Seat” amongst people who have lived hard-knock lives, and I just leave it to them. If I wrote out my biography and submitted it to the “who’s had the worst life” contest I might get an honorable mention, but then again I grew up in the United States of America with vaccines, trash disposal, and shoes, so I think even with the bad stuff I’ve had it fairly good. Read the rest of this entry »
I get “notes from The Universe” in my inbox each day courtesy of tut.com. Sometimes the notes are fantastic, sometimes they’re stupid, sometimes they’re so far off in left field that I have to wonder what The Universe was drinking when it typed up a particular gem.
Today’s, however, was great; I loved it because it exactly matched my personal ideology (and who doesn’t feel a little more self-important when they hear their opinions spit back at them):
When “bad” things happen to “good” people, Carlene, it’s often because they want to become even better teachers, guides, and helpers to those precious souls who will one day need them to be their rock.
Which kind of means, Carlene, that only good things happen to people….
Having lived through a decade of sexual and physical abuse, having survived the normal cuts to the heart that come from being in relationships that eventually end, having lived life, I have always believed that every bump in the road has turned out to be a positive in the end.
People are often shocked when I’m so nonchalant about being abused; to me, it’s something that’s made me smarter, stronger, and has given me something akin to a sixth sense when it comes to testing situations or new people.
To me, the bad has given me too much in the way of good for me to regret it. Read the rest of this entry »
Seth Godin had the greatest article today about a different view on poverty and “charity.”
This morning, I donated a little bit of money to a food pantry called New Horizons in Manchester, NH; apparently I’m all about the charity this week, which is great – give what you can, when you can, I always say.
Seth Godin’s article made me think about “charity,” such as it is, and made me wonder if there isn’t a bigger way to go about all this.
Here’s a quote from the article that I feel sums the idea up pretty well:
How to prime the pump of the system … enough that things get better?
Markets.
When two people trade, both win. No one buys a bar of soap unless the money they’re spending is worth less to them than the soap itself.
When someone in poverty buys a device that improves productivity, the device pays for itself (if it didn’t, they wouldn’t buy it.) So a drip irrigation system, for example, may pay off by creating two or three harvests a year instead of one.
What does that do for the family that buys it? Well, if you have one harvest a year and you’re living at subsistence, it means your income is zero, or probably just a little below.
If you can irrigate and get two or three harvests a year, though, your income goes up by infinity. Now, instead of making -1 pennies a day, you’re making 100 or 200 pennies a day. That’s a surplus of $700 a year. That’s enough to participate in other productivity or life-enhancing investments, like a well, or a roof, or health care. Now, the edge is a lot further away.
Read the rest of the article here.
The article then goes on to explain that a fund called the Acumen Fund is basically providing the funds for people in third-world countries to buy these small but life-changing devices. These are devices that let them help the people around them have a better quality of life (awesome), and then provide income for their own families (bonus awesome). It’s the old “Givers gain” philosophy.
When I’m rich enough to let my money make itself, I want to create a local program – either fund it myself, or get together a little brain trust to help with seed money – to grow food specifically for our Food Bank and help make it at least partially self-sustainable.
I had the funniest thing happen to me today. In case you wondered, by “funny” I mean a typical and annoying situation that I found the bright side to.
I was hired by an agent from a popular insurance company to take headshots for him and a colleague. The company he works for has hired me extensively for company headshots in the past, so I’m no stranger to them or their policies. This particular agent failed to show up for his appointment, and then left a message trying to lowball my already discounted price. I offer this company 25% off all headshots.
Here was the message: “Oh hi, Carlene, this is Doucheface from Blankety Blank Insurance. Sooo, [in an Office Space voice] I’m gonna have to reschedule because I talked to our boss [no, you didn't], and she thinks $75 is a little steep for a headshot [no, it's lower than industry standard]. She’s only willing to pay $40 apiece [good luck with that], so unless you can work with that price, my hands are tied….”
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Two of my guy friends are roommates, and as roommates often do, they had an argument.
To sum up the cause of the fight, one roommate decided spur-of-the-moment to buy a vacuum cleaner to clean their disgusting apartment. He popped into his roommate’s bank job unannounced to tell him he needed $25 to cover half the cost.
The other roommate was angry to be asked for money he wasn’t planning on spending and refused to pay. Instead of heading home after work to face his friend, he went to a bar to cool off and spent at least $25 on angry beers.
This is familiar to most of us, I’m willing to bet. I have stood on the sidelines and watched my pride ruin friendships and relationships, all over being unwilling to say the two-worded phrases in the following variations: “You’re right,” “I’m wrong,” or “I’m sorry.”
Once I figured out how to admit my 50% of fault in an argument, I started to become better at admitting the real reasons behind the angry emotions – “I’m scared,” “I’m insecure,” “I’m lazy,” “I’m selfish.” It was like waving a magic wand over my relationships, particularly my relationship with Ian. Read the rest of this entry »
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