Fresca

As with everyone else it seems, the New Year brings a feeling of motivation.  A time to really get something started.  For me its like a feeling of freshness, a new start, a re-do.  (ah, that clean Tide smell...), well, not quite that but this effervesce of promise, and hope.  And that giddy feeling is slowly turning into a mid-day (daily) crisis.  How should I act on it?  I've already broken one of the many resolutions that I have come up with.  So what do I need to do to satisfy this creature?  The one that says- "what the hell are you doing with your life?" 


For the New Year, I want to be able to say that I'm content.   (here's Webster's definition)

¹con·tent

adj \kən-ˈtent\

Definition of CONTENT

: contented, satisfied <was content with her life as it was>

 Content seems like a perfectly cute, simple, reasonable attainment don't you think?  It doesn't bear the responsibility of "admirable", or the ambition of "successful".  It tends to imitate "happy", but has a little leeway for a bad day here and there. 


Here's the difference in my assessment of "content".  I'm afraid "content" gets a bad rap because you could conjure images of "lazy" or "unmotivated" (see above, was content with her life as it was).  To me that looks like she didn't feel any need to change, or progress, to grow.  Webster (not Emmanuel Lewis) regards content as an adjective (yes, it can be used to describe someone-- and ultimately its how I'd like to describe myself, or have others say of me)  but I kind of think of that trait as more of an adverb.  An attainment that requires conscious action and thought.  (hence describing a verb...) An action that requires weeding out the negative or cluttered.  Simplifying to reasonability (is that a word?) makes sense to me...
Being appreciative of what is present, and not longing for more of the physical, but more of the soulful. 


So, New Year's resolution #1. (subsection B, article EE, section 4)  To make me a more content me.  Good thing there's a lot of year left....

What Now?

So, here's what I have been thinking about lately... 


Gay Rights.  Yes, a broad subject to be sure, but it seems only recently that I've really come to see the depth and distance (and it seems like such a long road with no end in sight) of this issue.  I guess I never really understood, and still don't for the most part, why it is an issue at all.  How do you defend the right to something when there are no facts involved?  By facts, I mean no real evidence, nothing to deny its worth.  There are plenty of arguments to support its validity and absolutely none (that is, none I find remotely worthy) to deny someone of their basic rights. The argument for this discrimination is based on nothing but feeling/emotion- and so all my emotion and feeling gets to the boiling point and all I can think is "Are people really this stupid?"  to deny a person everything because of a preference?  It is a preference (and not even a chosen preference, because really who would choose to be degraded), but its not THE ONLY element of anyone's lifestyle.


I am more than just a wife to Obie.  I have a preference to one man in particular, yes but there is more to me than just a woman who loves who she loves.  And guess what, I love a lot of things.  I love my kids, my pets, art, dancing, words, sports, my friends, nature, quiet, work.  None of which anyone has any right over but me.  And I have been so lucky for that fact, but unfortunately I can't say the same for others who have to experience attacks on everything that makes up who they are.  Society has deemed being gay the one defining factor of the person.  period.  You see a brilliant dancer, but, guess what, he's gay.  A successful businesswoman, and guess what, she's a lesbian.  That one element of their personal life superseeds anything that they have or will accomplish.  And for what?  What does anyone gain by this denial of liberty?


I have seen plenty of women enter into and stay in relationships with asshole men.  And plenty of men who are in relationships with selfish women.  And in my mind, it is these couples that help to disseminate the fabric of the American family.  Repectless relationships,though straight, are what we need to protect our children from.  Its not the gender of people involved that qualify a relationship- its the quality of the people themselves. Gay or straight, there are good and bad people, and I just pray that my children are smart enough to know the difference.

the Verge

I am on the verge of something... literally that excited, giddy, toomuchenergytositinoneplace, but at the same time nervous, sad, and about to cry any minute type of feeling.  Unfortunately I'm not sure where it's heading.  There is this overwhelming feeling lately that I'm meant for more-- to see more, hear more, notice more, feel more, make more, play more, listen more, care more, LIVE MORE.  But, how does more happen?  Or, more importantly how does ones appreciation of less become more viseral, profound, absolute?  I have often referred to seeing through my eyes vs. seeing with my eyes.  I'm afraid I've let mine again become some kind of physical caveat instead of what they should in fact be.

There is more inside here. 

More that is dying to come out and play.

McFly....

So... here's the deal.  I have conversations with myself all day long about the most random things.  (I rarely argue with myself, and have only once had to give myself the silent treatment (do I sound like Bob Dole?) but, I decided I needed an outlet- and that is what this shall be! (shazam!)


I am not politically minded, I don't watch TV or read the newspaper, I listen to NPR- but mainly because its the only station I get in my house (which maybe doesn't even count, because I tend to turn it off during the pledge drive which means I'm a sucky listener anyway) and I tend to have strong opinions (opinions is the nice way of saying short-tempered) on everything- whether they are informed opinions or not.  So, where does that put me?  here I suppose- alone again thinking I have something to say.


So, although I am again inside my own head, I feel better strangely typing down my thoughts.  A journal you say!, they sell those in stores and you can tuck them under your bed and keep your private thoughts private...I have found that:

• as it turns out I'm a better typer- my handwriting would make Sister Claire cry (again...)
•  journals are lovely, and for lovely words.  And who ever feels like journaling when they are thinking lovely thoughts?
•  there is no 3, but a list just doesn't seem like a list with only 2 reasons.

So, that's my story.  This should be a middle of the nighter for sure (or when NPR is asking me for money....)