mizChartreuse || redefiningSuccess

As I write this, I have been in silence for over 24 hours; I haven’t spoken a single word in over a day. It wasn’t something that happened deliberately, but it simply happened because I’ve been in solitude and I rarely answer phone calls unless it’s a client or the BF or a BFF. I pretty much went off the grid to the world, save for four text messages I sent.

For being completely silent for one whole day, I found that writing came about a bit easier, my thoughts were a bit clearer, and my ideas and perceptions of the world and my life within it became stronger.

The BF, Sean departed Saturday morning for a week-long business trip to California, and I decided I would use this time as a bit of a refractory period dedicated primarily to me doing me, as they say on the Jersey Shore. When you’ve spent 95% of the year living with someone, seeing them every day, it helps to get some time to yourself.

If you know Sean, you know that he is constantly talking, ranting, pacing, joking, and farting– sometimes I just have to tell him to shut up and take it down a notch because he has inexhaustable levels of energy; while I’m always tired but am an insomniac.

So while Sean is across the country on work, I’m having a staycation; a personal mini-retreat into myself. I liked my day of silence, I guess. Well, I didn’t hate it. After yet ANOTHER crazy nonstop weekend of work, partying, and beaches con mis amigos, it was nice to be by myself for one whole day…but also kind of scary. Although I had the distractions of housecleaning and blog-reading and book-reading and stupid TV-watching, I was still very much self-aware and very introspective.

I just looked up the definition of “refractory” to be sure I was using the word correctly in the third paragraph. I don’t think that sentence was the perfect context in which to use the word. However, the antonyms of “refractory” are: amenable, biddable, compliant, conformable, docile, obedient, ruly, submissive, and tractable, according to Merriam-Webster. Therefore, since I am the opposite of these antonyms, I will keep “refractory” as an adjective to describe this interesting process of which I’m presently in the midst.

Also, I don’t feel bad about saying the things about Sean above, when his last blog post was an expose on how much of a hot mess I can be when I’m drunk. And it’s been the latest entry for FIVE FUCKING MONTHS! Holy shit dude, post a Grammar Police photo entry or something!

So, yeah. A mini-retreat into myself. While I do write self-reflective posts, read self-reflective books, and have self-reflective conversations with people, I’m not really good at facing myself and getting shit out, other than scratching the surface.

I don’t have insurance for a therapist, so I need to start journaling more. You know– the  private, raw, deep entries where you just hash out all your mind drama. Since I haven’t been keeping up with personal journaling, all my psychological stuff manifests in me having dumb, annoying dreams.

Dreams like, my parents will be ruining my life at home (even though I haven’t lived with either of them for seven years), or I’ll be working at a restaurant and completely overwhelmed and forgetting the orders of snide, entitled clientele during a Mother’s Day brunch rush or something.

Now, to my parents’ credit, I had a decent, loving childhood despite the fact that it was spattered with long bouts and irregular spats of fucked-upness. And the reason why I think I remained mentally stable through the dysfunction is because I journaled like a fiend. Back when my extent of Internet usage was chatting on AIM, looking up Hanson pictures, or reading stupid survey email FWDs, I just filled pages with ramblings about school happenings, the soccer-playing white boy I was in love with that week, how my dad was such a jerk that day, or the reasons why Incubus’ “Make Yourself” record changed my life.

Purging the thoughts onto a page (or into a screen) makes dramz bearable, no matter how little cohesive sense it makes. The journal never judges.

*****

This summer has been an absolute blast, and I recognize that much of my happiness and “Flow” is experienced either while writing, reading, working out, or most of all, being in a social setting. This isn’t to say that other people *make* me happy or sad. (This also isn’t to say that while exercise is addicting, it’s easy to go every day. I don’t go every day, but I’m addicted to thin/fitness, so I push myself because I want Gwen Stefani abs and it’s awesome to see progress..)

The point is that while socializing, I’m connecting with other humans and creating experiences and memories–both of which are vital to my well-being. I’m so glad I don’t live with roommates, but I’m also very glad I live with Sean. Our lives are great together, which is why I think it’s dumb that fundamentalist folk want us to go to some city hall and get a marriage certificate for it to be “okay” for us to live together. Really. What difference would that make? Sean is a major part of what keeps me functioning a normal daily life, even though my life is far from normal.

Ah, normal. What the fuck does that even mean? That’s a question I know I’ve asked myself a billion times, and my lack of adhering to social mores and norms leads to cognitive dissonance time and time again.

Stuff and things don’t make us happy. Creativity, experiences, accomplishing goals, and pushing ourselves to be better, on the other hand, do bring us optimal enjoyment.

My friend Bridget is a great entrepreneur. She’s a hairstylist with her own business, is a fashion designer, and is also an avid HULA-HOOPER. She is good at everything she does, and she introduced me to the big world of the art of hula-hooping. Other than enjoying the plastic toy versions I had as a child, hula-hooping was never anything I took seriously. But there are tricks! And twists! And twirls! And lifts! And so many fun, cool things you can do with them, as she demonstrated yet again at the beach on Monday.

One of Bridget’s sincere goals is to get “good enough” to compete (or be on a crew?), but when I watch her and our friend Sara hooping, I am awestruck by what they can do. But just the way Bridget talks about designing vintage purses or practicing hula-hooping shows that she has a genuine passion.

So effing cool!

That’s Flow. It can be something as seemingly “trivial” (to an outsider) as hula-hooping— but to others, hula-hooping is optimal experience. When I can finally do a Pilates pike on an exercise ball or do a ton of sit-ups in my 100% Abs class at the YMCA, that’s optimal experience. Goals I set for myself; accomplishing them over time.

I feel like we need to get back to the basics and embrace our unique lives and ways of being. We need to stop beating ourselves up because of these societal norms imposed upon us from birth! Guilt is such a useless emotion, but so very powerful. I’m still working on not allowing my mother to wield that over me, and I think I’m getting better. But guilt doesn’t only come from parents; it can come from your professor, your religion, your friends, your significant other, and/or society at large.

So what if I don’t finish school by the time I’m 21, or if I’m not married by 30, or if I enjoy hooking up with boys at 23, or if I decide to leave the church at 18, or I prefer job-hopping rather than climbing the corporate ladder at 25? So what? Leave me alone; stop telling me what to do.

“Everyone else does it” or “it’s what we’re supposed to do at this age” are simply not good enough reasons for me.

What do those reasons even mean? Everyone’s life experiences are different. We’ve all created our realities and made choices and decisions which have led us to our present locations and circumstances. Yes, maybe a Nigerian student’s ticket to a better life was through getting an education scholarship and coming to the States. The Korean kid from the North Shore with overbearing parents has no choice but to become a doctor or a lawyer or a pharmacist or piano prodigy because it’s their culture to defer to parents’ wishes.

MY LIFE IS DIFFERENT. And SO full of that pesky cognitive dissonance(!) and inevitable culture clashing when you have Zambian immigrant parents raising their children in a shallow American culture.

I so often hear people in their 30s say, “Glad my 20s are over. I spent WAY too much unnecessary time worrying and feeling guilty and pressured and rushed and wondering what I was going to do with my life.”

Life is not TOO hard to figure out; we just have to discern which paths work for us as individuals. To avoid that 30-something regret happening, I resolve to spend the second half of my 20s with as little guilt as possible and just continue to set my OWN goals.

Wow. For a day of silence, I certainly was not lacking for words. But when am I ever?