Theory and practice. In theory I am quite lovely. I have a big fun heart and when with a group of people I can truly light up a room, if I choose to. I could get a pack of suicidal teenagers to spill their guts and then belly laugh their way through heart warming stories about who they’ve pashed and what inspires them.
The problem is I don’t. I don’t know why but somewhere, somehow I kind of stopped trying in life. Full stop. I kind of gave up the whole wild unpredictable ride and have been flat out trying not to care, ever since. I’ve pretended I don’t give a fuck about anyone but myself and sometimes I’m astoundingly convinced. But it leaves me feeling empty, like I just had a big plate of cheap no frills pasta. No nutrients and full of something that is foreign and my body doesn’t know quite what to do with.
I think because I spent so many years in overwhelming adrenaline cascading fear, I kind of felt that all I could do was deal with myself. I thought that if I could just get myself happy, then I could get on with the business of giving a fuck about any one else. But this is about as fulfilling as porn when really what someone is crying out for is love. Connection. Something to make your heart burst and scream and let go and trust and pray and know that wow life is fucking amazing after all. The fairy Godmother was not a psychotic narcissistic bitch out to get you. She was right. You are the fairy tale and life is there to give you all its incredible magic if you can only find the courage to … connect.
The challenge for me is my business admin approach to life. Lists. Dot points. Cross things out and move onto the next task, human or event. I wanted to get enough career fulfillment to then feel satisfied to join life, for real. But, its a waiting game that could go on for ever. I’m living on the side lines at the moment, I occasionally run in and take over for a few minutes whilst one of the players has a breather. I joined a theatre company and let my spirit come alive for two hours a week between 8 and 10pm on Thursday nights. I occasionally let myself go to shows that make my soul sing: But hopefully not too much cos then I end up all jaded that my life is not quite that vibrant or magnificent looking.
I can feel this shiny sparkly loving soul inside me that is quite wild. A veritable torrent of love. And lots of those in my life have felt it and are quite captivated by it. But poor pups had better not be too attached cos it is gone just as quick as it appeared. They are left with a tease and shadow of love and I am left empty wondering where all the love went.
This thing is love is not a game. It is a way of being, a life style, a choice. I have chosen a half life where I give very little of my self to friends, family, my community or the world at large. Don’t expect too much of me and I won’t expect too much of you. It is a stingy way to live, but such has been my self induced suffering and I have chosen it as the only way forward. Focus on yourself now and plough forward like a death eater, keen to steal any scrap of joy in order to simply go on, go on, go on.
It is overwhelming to be so ruthless with my life right now. So honest. So desperately honest in the hope that this honesty will allow me to pick up my courage stone and finally rub it and let my genie appear. The genie that has been waitng all my life: The one who tells me that love is not a damned barter system and that if I want life to look more beautiful then I should become a torrent of beauty and fill the world with my flowers everywhere. Love is not an excel spread sheet. It can not be organised or ticked off one column at a time. It is messy and only by getting all crazy and disorganzied and spread across it like a feral concoction of peanut butter, nutella and pickled tomato chutney can there ever be any hope of growing. Love can’t grow in a vice.
Today has been a monster awareness day of admitting that I give very little emotionally or physically to anyone. Even how I give to friends has become quite limited and neat. It is time for me to start dancing naked in the pie chart of my life: To jump from segment to segment like a wild toddler after a gallon of red cordial. It is time to stop waiting for the world to make me feel better. It is time to grow up and stop expecting others to take care of my needs. It is time to seize every single second as an opportunity to give and be love on this planet. How can I honestly expect life to be generous to me when I am so insular? Planet earth: Welcome. I’m stepping aboard.
"Calling in the One" Journal 