She Wanted to Run to Bali, But Instead, She Set Her Jaw and Stayed

“Supposing you have tried and failed again and again. You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call "Failure" is not the falling down, but the staying down”
~ Mary Pickford

I'm currently seeing the world in a bright shade of dull.

As much as I believe we make our own mood, our own happiness, I'm fully aware that sometimes life just...goes. There doesn't seem to be anything to really look forward to. Waking up every morning, staring at the ceiling, wondering what would happen if you just quit your job and took off to Bali or Barbados or, at the very least, the Bahamas.

While plans for the future remain bubbly, the Here and Now is kind of suffocating. And when this happens, every single time this happens, I get sensitive. I daydream, I meditate for more than 45 minutes at a time, I look over my shoulder and I most certainly listen.

I tune in to other people, hoping to glean something from our interaction that will point me in the right direction, or at least point to what I'm doing wrong. It's like my cells get bigger, my already sensitive sensitivity increases and every little word, every breeze, every sad dog commercial (why are those things so long?!) hit me at my core, forcing me to feel, pause, ask: what's going on here? Is this where I'm supposed to be? What is this all about, anyway?

Conflict - if and when it arises, sits on my chest even harder during these uninspired days. It sinks a little farther under my skin because there's no But-It'll-All-Get-Better-Soon! protective covering. In other words, I ruminate like a champ.


The other day at work I did a slightly stupid thing. One of those underpaid and overworked decisions that isn't a super big deal in the real world, but when you're dealing with people who make millions of dollars a year, suddenly it's kind of like you firebombed the building. So I made one of those and got a lashing from someone I had considered a friend. I hate being yelled at, castrated in front of other people (my pride is the biggest part of my body), and when you add in the element of someone you like kicking your ass, it just sucks. It sucked all day, in fact. Into the evening.

At a certain point my rational mind had had enough, so I sat down with my shivering, sensitive self and worked shit out. What I realized, huddled in a sweatshirt pulled down over my feet, was that I actually didn't care as much as I thought I did. I was feeling the memory, not the real sensation, of caring about this person's random freak-out. Holy hell, I thought. Has the day really come when other people's shit isn't absorbed straight through my pores and into my heart?

It had.

Even in my ultra-delicate state, the fact glowed a neon red: I was over it.

Because I had never expected to not feel such a thing in my lifetime, the realization took a little time to settle, but once it did, I was more relieved than when I realized my parents had given up their quest to scan all the "chubby stage" pictures from my childhood and post them on Facebook.

I don't know when the inspiration will come back, when I'll figure out how to release the pause button on my life, but at least I know that even during these dim moments, these weeks that feel so automatic pilot and repetitive, progress can be made. Progress can always be made, I think. Even when life doesn't seem to be going anywhere, our minds soak up and our bodies process and our subconscious learns. We can ignore it, of course. But what's the point in that?

...And, wouldn't you know, a day after this particular person who freaked their shit, they sent me an email of Michelle Bachman going after a corn dog like she was about to give the best blow job she had ever given.  Enemies don't send each other photos of crazy politicians about to perform oral sex on a slab of meat - that's a friend's job.

"I'm going to have nightmares," I typed. "You asked for it," they typed back.

And I guess I did.