Every Ounce Matters

Organizing this trailer with the "must have" pieces of my life is starting to become a fun and creative challenge. So I ordered some slim jewel cases to condense down the CDs and DVDs that I want to maintain, but when I went to the store to pick them up tonight I, immediately knew that I was going ro return them, because even though they consensed the space well, the box was way too heavy! There was no way I was going to take on all of that extra weight!

So, I have reordered a different style of cases, ones that will barely add any weight at all, but the degres of shock that I felt when I picked up that "heavy" box made me realize just how sensitized I have become to just how much everything weighs! Yes, size definitely matters, but more importantly than size is the fact that every single ounce I can shave off matters, too!

My trailer is like a backpack for my car! An I am obsessed with the baggage that's going into this trailer...how big it it...how much it weighs...how much emotional significance it has...whether it's replaceable....how much I need it...how functional my life will be if I keep it...and on the list of considerations goes.

And I can't help but wonder how different my life would be if I were as focused on the emotional baggage in life as I am with the baggage going into this trailer. I can just imagine how much lighter I would feel if I understood how truly burdensome my emotional baggage really is on my spirit...if I weighed and considered each and every piece of emotional baggage that I take on in my everyday life...if I understood just as poignantly that every ounce of emotional baggage matters, too.

Personal Liberty

I did something last night that is causing some inner conflict today, because I can feel the invisible seething criticism from the guardians of all things proper and appropos on the inside of "the box."

But the problem isn't the critical opinions that people are having about what I did...the problem is that I am giving these opinions power to influence my choices about how I live my life.

As I was taking the trash out this morning I grumbled to imyself that this shouldn't even be an issue in the first place. But then I realized that it's an issue because I'm not the only person who has a right to form my own thoughts and opinions, which means that free will by its very nature implies a perpetual sea of difference.

Conflict about this sea of difference, however, is not inherent.

There is a very clear line between the choices that I make in my personal life with cause that effects that affect only me (choices that fall within the realm of personal liberty) and the choices that I make that fall within the realm of community accountability. Unfortunately, we don't always agree with which choices fall within which category of rights. 

Personal Rights vs. Public Accountability.

Thank God for the artists of the world, because it is the artist who is compelled by its very nature to question the rules, to push the boundaries, and to speak a truth that the people of the box could not even dare to whisper.

However, for the artist to survive, they must come to terms with this inner conflict with the critic...or their voice will be lost in the seas of chaos. And I do realize that the conflict ultimately lies within my own mind. So, I grapple once again with this INNER critic who assaults my choices and tries to rob the joy from the fun adventures of my artist self.

And, over the years I have learned one important truth about my artist self...the more pressured she feels to be silenced, the more compelled she feels to speak out and hold these self-imposed guardians of the box accountable for their critical judgments and negative commentary about how everyone else chooses to live the truth of their personal liberty.

So look out...because I am about to clean me some house! 

The Phoenix

I am more than a little bit in love with this part of my journey, right now. Every day more stuff is donated or delivered to its rightful place, and I feel lightened with each day's release.

Today was another very productive day, and tonight I tackled what I first thought would be the toughest piles to purge...my "process" history...journals, sketch pads, poetry portfolios...calendars...photos albums...etc. But I was wrong.

Now I have a box filled with stuff to be burned. And I will create a wonderful ceremony out of it...just myself so I can immerse into the moment of it...the same way we go through when a person dies...to honor and celebrate the life lived and lost.

I am honoring the parts of me that have died along the journey.

This process is so liberating...filled with great reverence and respect...no sad, slow dirge. And at the end of this work, when I leave this part of the world and head east in search of the path to my roots, it feels like an entirely new me is rising up out of all of this death that I've been holding on to, moving from place to place.

It feels amazing...and I can't wait to get to know this new me...

Thoreau on Wheels

My life is in transition. But, it is not a transition from one place to another...or from one job to another...or from one obligation to another, either. My life is transitioning internally. No longer am I willing to put my needs, my passions, my purpose on-hold in order to further someone else's passion, purpose, or agenda.

My life is now completely my own.

I am also no longer willing to spend the vast majority of my week working to earn the chinks to pay for the home to house the stuff. If having the stuff means that I need to work full-time to pay for all of the stuff-related-stuff, then I don't want the stuff...which is why I am sorting and purging my life down to "functional minimalist." (Oooh, I love this term!)

But I am not simply moving from one place to another.

My life is no longer on hold. This isn't another temporary fix that I'm willing to endure until my "real" life can be made manifest. This is it...my life is here...my life is now...and I am fully engaged with creating it in a way that reflects this wonderfully liberating inner transition.

My life is here...my life is NOW!

And I realized this morning that my life is like "Thoreau on Wheels." I am stepping outside of the bulk of social conventions so that I can live an authentic life...an unencumbered life with freedom to chase my dreams and pursue my passions. Dear Henry may have gone to the woods and built his own version of functional minimalist home, but I am building my functional minimalist home so that I can go to MANY woods. And there may be few who ever understand what I need to do, or why I need to do it...but their understanding is not required in order for me to continue moving forward....and, so, I do.

My trailer is not something to carry my things from one place to another...it is my home...my tiny, tiny little tumbleweed gypsy home that will make it possible for me to simply be (at home) wherever I am.

I am Thoreau on wheels...and that is enough, for me :)

The Stuff That Binds Us

I am so filled with anxiety right now. I bought the trailer yesterday, which took a good chunk of cash, so I was expecting this anxious backlash.

But, I''m also continuing with the sorting and purging project, working to pare down my life into this very tiny trailer space. And, not to fill it to capacity, but to create functionality...so, paring down this stuff is kicking up HUGE waves of anxiety.

But this is exactly what this life change is all about! The stuff that's making me feel anxious tonight is stuff that I bought for future potential projects that I have not had time or energy for...and will NEVER have time or energy for...yet here I am, feeling like I can't breathe because these books are in a pile to be donated to the library!

I can't wait to rid my mind and body of all of this stuff!

Here's what I know...this anxiety lives in me every day, whether I am sorting and purging, or not. Because whether (or not) I am thinking about it consciously, there is a part of me that is VERY aware that we bought this stuff, and she's been waiting for her turn to manifest her projects, too...so that part of me has been stirring up all of this internal anxiety!

How many times do i need to be reminded that I can't do everything that I want to do?!

Oh, my goodness, I am going to feel so liberated when I am finished with this work!.I know it! I can feel the release of burden, which is what THIS anxiety is. It's not really even a "current" anxiety, because it's not about anything that's real in my life right now.This is a release of the anxiety that's become stagnant and binding of my time, my energy, my spirit!

This is anxiety passing through you...just breathe, and let it go....

Life On My Terms

Today I resigned from the last significant responsibility that I had on my plate...and I realize tonight that I have pared my life down so that for the first time in my life, I am finally living life on my terms...completely on my own terms.

But, living life on my terms has its price.

I had to let go of the job that provided financial security. I had to let go of the stable home that kept Sarra and me safe and warm. I had to let go of the academic program that promised to finally make me marketable. I had to let go of the piping society, community piping, and piper's glen. I also had to let go of all of the hopes that I've been carrying around within my heart about how other people might change the way they think and feel about me. But most importantly, I've had to let go of the image of who I thought I was supposed to be.

My world is crumbling to pieces around me...and I am doing nothing to try and stop it or perform CPR to resuscitate it back to life.

I am finally letting go...

On the other side of this process, I am creating a life that I can manage without having to answer to another single person for what I do, or how I do it. (Within lawful social parameters, of course.) And, my life is now pared down to nothing but me and what makes my soul babble.

My life is finally all about me...

I don't mean that in a narcissistic way. What I mean is that my life is finally all about me...MY passion....MY purpose...MY path. And because my life has been whittled down to nothing more than what I choose to do with my own life, other people's thoughts and words about me become nothing more than the  opinions that they have a right to hold in their own mind about me and what I choose to do with my life. BUT, they no longer have any authority over me personally, or how I choose to live and apply my passion and purpose.

No one any longer has a say in how I choose to live my life...as I am now only accountable to God for my choices and actions...so I am finally free to absolutely live life on my terms...

The Company You Keep

Everything has an end. But the past few months have been a long, painful series of letting-go of cherished and meaningful pieces of my life here in Prescott, with this past week resulting in the final loss that makes it absolutely clear that it's time to move on.

There's now nothing left here that holds any meaning for me at all, and the common thread embedded within each of these losses is choice...MY choice...and the inevitable loss that necessarily results when a difficult choice has been made.

I am only recently starting to understand, not only how much of a "bridge between" I have become, but just how damaging the toll exacted upon my spirit by the holding of this tension has been. And I am just beginning to find a connection between the anxiety that wraps itself around and through my chest, and the tension created by bridging between two sides of a difficult choice that I don't want to make.

It is a lovely blessing that I have such a strong capacity to hold the tension between opposite sides...between diametric perspectives. But, just because I can understand both sides, that doesn't mean that I don't have my own thoughts, my own values, my own beliefs that affect my ability to remain neutral,  unbiased, and choice-free.

I have been afraid to choose one side or the other, yet paralyzed by the tension created by having one foot on one side and one on the other.

The losses in my life have occurred because I have been forced by circumstance to support one side or the other...I finally had to make a choice. And once that choice was made, there was then a withdrawal of support both to and from the other side. And in those critical split-second moments when the deepest truth of my personal loyalties were decided, the bridge was burned...and there is, now, no going back.

I was reminded today that we are defined by the company that we keep. And as much as I want to resist this truth, the company that we keep is reflected in these critical choices of loyalty. What is more important? Sobriety? Or our druggie friends? This is only one example, of course, but certainly clarifies the point.

We ARE defined by the company that we choose to keep.

I have more choices to make, of course...choices about what is more important to me...because that's what makes a choice difficult...when we have to make a choice between two things that are both important to us.

Other people have also been making their own choices of loyalty...and it's always enlightening when people choose to disengage from their loyalty to you. Sometimes that process can be subtle and confusing, while other times as swift and shocking as a sword slicing off one's hand.

So, just like the hermit crab, I have outgrown a life shell, and there is great freedom in the letting go of something that has painfully bound and constrained me throughout this past year. I can see, now, that I have resisted letting go of this particular piece because I felt safe and accepted by the inhabitants in that world...even if my growth was limited and stifled by it.

So, we absolutely are defined by the company that we choose to keep, and I have made a choice this week that redefines who I am...a choice that burns a bridge and alters the course and direction of my life. And as painful as this is, I am strangley comforted by the relief that comes with this choice...and the curious wondering of why I did not make this choice sooner.

Right Now Plan

We read these inspirational quotes and Facebook memes every day, and we all agree that these wonderful warm fuzzies are the way life "should" be lived. But the idea of living in the now or living an open-ended life is soooo much easier than actually doing so, because living an open-ended life means that I have to let go of the endless possibilities as contency plans on the other side of this journey to Nova Scotia, which is proving to be much more challenging than at first appeared.

I have borrowed Miranda Bailey's plan for Seattle Grace Hospital, and have adopted it as the best description of what my life plan has become.

My new life management plan is the Right Now Plan.

So, today I am hitting the truth of this new plan head on. Well, actually, it's more accurate to say that this new plan is hitting me head on, because I'm going round and round in my head about the best way to proceed with the "stuff management" part of the plan based on this endless list of possible lives on the OTHER side of the "right now" plan!  But the cold, hard truth is that a right now plan sort of implies that there is no future plan that guides the journey, which is why my brain keeps spinning its wheels...it's having to integrate a new reality into existing thought structures that are resisting the reality update.

There is no "other side" contingency plan of a "right now" life plan.

This is so very difficult for me to let go of the illusion of control...because that's what these contingency plans are...the illusion that I will be able to manage and control the course of events that will take place between now and some intangible point in the future after Nova Scotia, so that I will land in the exact spot in order to manifest this plan of future contingency.

How can I possibly know who I will be after this life changing experience I am about to drop myself into?

I am trying to make plans based on who I am now...what I want now...what I can envision as possibility now. All of this is subject to revision anywhere from mild adjustments to a complete overhaul....and I can not know what that revision is going to be!

In an open-ended life, I'm not in control of the process! Or the outcome!

So my right now plan is not just kicking my ass, it's kicking my ass into a total and complete commitment to this journey. It's like I'm stepping through a Ring Gate, so it's truly an all or nothing venture. I can't keep one foot on both sides (the way I have managed change so far). No. I have to make a 100% commitment to this process, which is not as easy as it seems!

So I will learn how to live my life as it is actually happening by simply doing it...day to day...moment to moment...at each point and juncture that I will need to let go of the need to control both the process and the fore-planned outcome....one illusion of control at a time....one illusion at a time...

Soul Babbling

I just had one of the most fascinating conversations with an artist friend of mine. She made an off the cuff comment about not being able to change the past, and a jolt of truth reverberated through me that she is absolutely right, because we can only change the course and direction of where we're headed. Even in the small, local geography of our lives, we only have control over where we choose to direct our lives each day!

I seriously felt a jolt through my whole being to feel the truth of these words.

So we continued with this conversation, about directions of our lives, and she said she would love to spend time in Utah. For me, I have no spiritual connection to Utah whatsoever, so I asked, Why Utah? And, she told me that Utah makes her soul babble...

Utah makes my soul babble, she said.

Wow! This is exactly what my life transition is all about...why I've let go of an apartment that I've outgrown...why I've quit a job that stresses me and doesn't support my brain's healing... and why I'm engaged in a sort and purge process to free up my physical and psychological freedom....because I want the course and direction of my life to be all about moving from experience to experience that makes my soul babble.

I am shedding the me that I think I'm supposed to be, falling in love with the truth of who I am...and, I am absolutely changing the course and direction of my life so that my soul can babble every single day.

And life doesn't get any deeper or more profound than this.

Paradox

I just finished watching I am Legend, and while I've seen this film many times before, something very poignant stands out for me tonight...and that's about the basic human need for connection with other human beings.

I had a conversation earlier with a friend of mine (who also blogs) about this inner pressure that I experience when I post...an internal pressure created by the perceived outer pressure to just "shut up" about whatever I am writing. We both understand that writing about our experience is what we need to heal, yet we are healing in an environment that doesn't always value the public sharing of one's inner process.

For me, it's about survival...and just like Robert Nevill who talks to mannequins in order to feel human, we all have a need to speak and be heard...even me, the queen of solitude and isolation.

But what I'm realizing is that I am a bit of a paradox, because I'm so socially impaired that my trauma therapist is recommending occupational therapy for social repair work, yet I blog publicly about an inner vulnerability that seems uncharacteristic for a person who avoids people because she feels so threatened by and painfully vulnerable in their presence.

But I think this is precisely why blogging is so deeply important to me. My brain may interpret social interaction as a dangerous threat (and so it responds in ways that helps to promote and sustain social isolation), yet there remains a kind and sensitive "me" inside who still needs to feel valued and appreciated and connected with others (which is, of course, something to be achieved through the kind of social interaction that freaks out my brain).

Like I said...paradox.

Living with PTSD isn't easy, but it is what it is...and so I continue to journey on with my life doing the very best that I can to connect with people through this invisible war zone that separates me from my self.