Sometimes...

Sometimes things change.

...Shocking, I know. Even more shocking:

Sometimes they change in ways we are not happy with. 

Sometimes the changes make it seem like new-chunk-of-life-you're-entering won't feel normal. Sometimes the anticipation of that impending lack of normality will fill the pit of your stomach with a nasty feeling that can only be called dread. Sometimes you will want to stick your head in the sand and hide from that feeling...that will never make it actually go away. (It knows you're under there.) Sometimes you will sit at "work" for hours trying to imagine ways to make this new-chunk-of-life-you're-entering feel more like the old/current-chunk-of-life-you've-come-to-adore , what can be done to approximate that comfortable sense of normality you don't want to part with under any circumstances. Sometimes you will become exceedingly frustrated as that seems less and less possible the more you think about it. Sometimes you will overanalyze and become unnecessarily worried about things that will not matter in the long run, even if the short run seems so overwhelmingly significant right now. 

...Sometimes you need to just breathe. Sometimes you need to calm yourself down and take a moment to remember who and what you are and note that if you've made it through x, y, and z, then this isn't going to kill you. And look back over your life and realize that whoever said that what doesn't kill us makes us stronger had a point. And remember that things that don't accept change don't last long--we must accommodate when accommodation is due. So if the old normal has to go, let it. Don't think of the change as a change, think of it as a new normal. Get just as comfortable in it. Love it the same way. It's the only way every moment of a less-than-ideal situation won't be the worst thing ever. And honey, your life can't be the worst thing ever--it's far too fabulous. 

<3

I went to New York to see a show last fall

and had to purchase a MetroCard to get around, obviously. This was the card I got:

 I still have this card. It sits in my wallet with my Visa Check card and my photo IDs and my CVS card and my U-Store Membership card and my insurance card and when I find it in the midst of looking for one of those zillion cards, I pause for a split second and I have to smile. It says in tiny letters that it's part of an Arts for Transit project, and mentions the artist's name. I think this card is fantastic. I hope that the small moment of joy it continually brings me is what the artist--and New York City as a governmental figure?--wanted me to feel, and I want to do all in my power to ensure that I have this card until I am old and grey.

My friend K who I talk about, he told me today that optimism is his new plan for the next few months forever. It made me so happy, because I am always so worried about him putting too much pressure on himself and forgetting to have fun and remember that no matter what happens, the big picture is BIGGER than this and in it, he's a wonderful individual. But it also got me thinking...

People constantly tell me that I'm a bright, bubbly, cheerful person. This afternoon a friend told me she can never imagine anyone saying I'm a mean person. Part of me (the you're-your-own-worst-critic part) gives them a look like, Whatchu talkin bout, Willis?! but the bigger part of me recognizes the truth in what they're saying. I think about how I talk to K, or to F or to T, I think about the feelings I try to leave in my wake wherever I go in daily life, the impression I try to impart on my friends and acquaintances, the beauty and growth I try to see in the trials of life, and the care and warmth I try to give to everyone who matters to me in some small degree and realize that I am a bright, bubbly, and cheerful person the vast majority of the time...to most people, but not always to myself.


It's time for that to go. It's not necessary that I don't want to worry about shit, but just that I want to be confident in my abilities and assured in the fact that I can handle my life, and stop stressing over shit that doesn't matter. There's just no damn sense in being your own worst enemy, under any circumstances. Optimism. Live life limitlessly.