Questions: #4

If you're not familiar with this series of posts, and you want to catch up, the introduction is here.

Question #4: When it's all said and done, will you have said more than you've done?
Sadly, the answer is I will have said more than I have done.

The only consistent feedback in my professional career has always been "you talk way too much." Over the years, I'm way better but I'll never be a woman of few words.

My dad used to say "don't worry about them. If you have something to say, say it."

I'm finally ok with that. Action is important but I'm always talking more than I'm doing.

Questions: #3

If you're not familiar with this series of posts, and you want to catch up, the introduction is here.

Question #3: If life is so short, why do we do many things we don't like like and like so many things we don't do?

I think there are a lot of reasons why this happens, but the major reason is pretty simple: we learn it from our parents. I'm sure you'll identify with any number of statements in the list below:

-"Be a grown up."
-"I don't have a choice. Neither do you."
-"Life isn't fair."
-"Don't cry; be a wo(man)."
-"You're not a baby anymore."
-"We all have to do things we don't like."
-"You have to be responsible."

Who hasn't heard all or most of those things? And how old were you when you started hearing them? No wonder we spend our lives learning to put the things we love at the bottom of the list.

But that's just my perspective. Why do you do so many things you don't like? And why don't you do more of what you do like?

Questions: #2

If you're not familiar with this series of posts, and you want to catch up, the introduction is here.

Question #2: Which is worse, failing or never trying?

I find this question particularly difficult, and different than the other 49 (of which you have only seen 1) because I feel like there is a right answer implied. Perhaps that is because I wish my answer were the other one. Since the objective is for me to be introspective (and maybe retrospective too), I'll be honest and give you my real answer.

Failing. Failing is much much worse than never trying. To me, anyway.

No one likes to fail, or not most people that I know, but I can only speak for myself. Failure shatters me. It's so much easier to give in, give up, give less and expect nothing than to try with all my might only to find it didn't work afterall.

I want to tell you that trying is more important. That if I reached for the moon but hit the stars, that's ok. That applying to graduate school but not being accepted is character building. That being turned down for a new job just means good experience with interviewing. But the reality is, that's just now how I see it.

I can't be disappointed if I don't try. I might be unhappy, unfulfilled, unstable - but not disappointed. The only risk is the risk of never finding something new.

All the time, I think I should reach for something, look for it, find it, and who cares if it doesn't work out? In 2013, I've started it, and some things haven't worked out; maybe other's will and so maybe someday, if you ask me this question again, I'll finally be able to tell you that never trying is worse. I just can't tell you that today.

So, what do you think is worse? Not trying or failing?

Questions: #1

If you're not familiar with this series of posts, and you want to catch up, the introduction is here.

#1: How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?

Is it a non-answer if I say that not knowing how old I am would cause me to believe that such a determination is irrelevant?

As long as I can remember, people have called me "an old soul". When I was young, I didn't really know what that meant, but I thought I should be proud of it. People would tell me, and I'd puff my chest out and beam. 

I'm not sure if us "old souls" have one solid definition, but for me, I think of it as something allowing me to identify with something bigger than I am. Sometimes it seems like I feel things I never experienced. I know things no one has told me. I ask questions that no one can answer. Sometimes I think "maybe I learned that in some other life."

I'm not suggesting that reincarnation exists, or that I even believe in it, but I do find that some people, me, my rogue eleven year olds, TresPageJr and TF, Queen's daughter, Jip, my father, and his father (and probably his father too) all have some sort of knowledge, experience, understanding that is far beyond our own years.

Age is a measure of time, and time may not be manipulated. By contrast, how old or young someone is measures something else that isn't tangible. For that reason, I reject the idea of chronology, and instead prefer to think of "how old" people are by wisdom that's inexplicable.

And so I ask, how old would YOU be if you didn't know how old you are?

Questions

Have you ever asked yourself "who I am?" Do you know? Do you care?
Do you think other people know who you are? Do you think they know you more than you do? Could that be possible?

Can you be yourself with other people? Can you be yourself if you've never been alone?

Does your personal perception of who you are change who you will become? Are you trying to be something you are not? Are you hiding the something(s) you are? Is there a difference? Do you know what it is?

I have no idea what the answers are for myself, let alone for the world, and yet, I find myself asking these questions regularly.

Why? Because questions are important. If you don't question, how will you understand? Professors, bosses, doctors - they all expect you to ask questions. But do you ask them? Are they thoughtful? Do you answer quickly when someone asks you something? Do you take your time? Does it matter?

I ran across a blog tonight, a brilliant, thought-provoking blog called Marcandangel.com. Read it. Follow it. It will change your life.

One of their articles is called "50 Questions That Will Free Your Mind". You can find it here. Tonight I read through them, and they are hard, difficult questions without an answer. Some of them I have asked before, and some of them have never occurred to me. And so, for the following 50 days, I will have an entry per day with an answer that is, I hope, genuine and thoughtful. At the end, I hope to have learned something.

As I do this, I challenge you to find your own answers, and if you're willing, to share them in the comments of each post.

Nameste.

The Places You Will Be From

Sometimes there are lyrics that play 'round and 'round in my head.  There is nothing I can do to make them stop.  Well, almost nothing.

Today's clever tune is Semisonic's Closing Time.  There are so many brilliant lyrics.  And it's so applicable.

Closing time; it's time for you to go out to the places you will be from.

Well, that's so true isn't it?  It is time.  It's always time.  I have no idea where it is that I'll be from, but this particular place is old, and it's haggard.  It needs a fresh coat of paint, a new rug, and everything should be rearranged.  Yep.  I said it - everything.

I find that it's hard to realize you're stuck in the place you are currently from.  Who actively decides to give up their will be place?  Not me.  But once you realize you're stuck, it's even harder to make the change.  Just like when you stumble out of the bar late at night, disoriented, lost, and wandering because you're not sure where you are going, finding your way home is a just a little more than scary.  Maybe the comfort of familiar places lulls us into dreading anything slightly new.

Slightly new means risk.  It means turning down a road you've never seen before.  It means talking to people you don't even know.  And it means giving up the warm bar stool you searched for all night, not because you really want to - but because it is time.

In nearly twenty four months, huge changes - personal and professional - have come, and huge changes have gone, but there is a gnawing, a hollow unsettled knot in my gut, that has never gone away.  As per usual, I'm restless and want to wander.  I have no idea where the path goes, or what my life will look like in another twenty four months, but the only thing in focus is the something else my life could be.  Or should be.  Someday.

There are so many things I've never done, so many things I've wanted, needed, and longed for.  A degree in something I love.  A job that satisfies my soul and not my wallet.  People who will complete my family.  I close my eyes, and I am missing things and people who have yet to ever exist.  Most notably, my child.  Folks, I've wanted to be a lot of things in my life, but the only thing that has never waivered is my deep desire to be a mother.  Everyday I close my eyes and I find myself missing someone who I don't even know.  And it's not because I'm 31.  I've felt this way for as long as I can ever remember.   

This blog isn't to tell you all that I'm having a child (this is how rumors get started!), but it is to tell you that there is something out there for me that is bigger than all this.  I don't know if my job will change or I'll get a new degree - but my place look so very different now.  And so, there's no point today, my friends, except to acknowledge that there is change brewing inside me.  I have no idea where I'm going, but I hope you'll follow along as I figure it out.

As always, thanks for reading.  

This is What i am

A little more than fourteen months ago, I started this blog as an opportunity to chronicle my trip to India.  As I returned back to my abnormal life, though, I found it important to begin reflecting on the things I think about, what I regret or am afraid of, and what matters most to me.  So I've recently began to think about the life of this and what I want it to be, and I realize I want to continue sharing my experiences, my thoughts, and my life.  There are no themes or topics other than what I find meaningful in the moment.  And so, "The Wacky Tales of a Mushroom Gone Wild" doesn't really seem to fit with much of anything I think or feel, write about, or want to define me or this blog that's become a lot more than just a way to share the journey to my roots all those many months ago.

As I continuously looked for a reinvention, I kept returning to the same questions: "What do I want to say?  And who is it that I really am?"  It reminded me that for almost all of my life, my personal mantra has always been two small little words that merely read: i am.

Why is that?  Because any time I find myself anxious or unsure, I can close my eyes and think "it doesn't matter.  It only matters that I am."  I am what, you ask?  Well, the answer always depends. 

I was a child, a teenager, and now I am a woman.

I am a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a cousin.

I am a business woman, a homeowner.

I am a thinker, a writer, an artist.

I am a friend, a family member, a role model.

I am a girlfriend, a partner.

I am myself...

And as long as I can always close my eyes and know whatever "i am" is true, then I will always have something to say.  So today, I have landed on a new blog name - This is What i am. 

I hope you like this, and me, for what it is, and what I always am.