I realize that I promised to update on the various activities from the past two weekends, including Stephanie’s birthday party where I lost my driver’s license, Rhiannon’s wedding, the great Labor Day ceiling leak and Liz’s baby shower (she’s the best gift opener ever! and I heart Emily LePlastrier). But…

I am not in the mood.

I know, I’ve been a downer recently. Totally. I would like to try and write cheery posts with fun pictures and witty anecdotes, but the truth of the matter is…that isn’t authentic to me right now. It just turns out to be me trying to mimic other people’s blogs who I admire and adore very much.

So, here I am. Right as I am, right now.

I’m totally and utterly lost.

I remember having a mini-identity crisis at about, oh, twenty-two. Then again at twenty-seven. And now it’s happening again at thirty-one. What’s with this? Is this going to be an about-every-five-years occurrence? I really hope not ~ because it’s exhausting and boring is what it is.

I was recently looking through some photographs trying to find some frame-able photos from recent years to add to a collage frame; some photos from the last three years. And in looking back over some photos from two years ago to the month…I looked so much lighter, happier and *younger* then. Ok, I realize, I was under thirty then, but not that much. And yes, I was just about to fall in love, so I had ” that glow”. But no, that’s not it. I see a kind of satisfaction, a drive and meaningful passion in the face of that girl from two years ago and I look in the mirror and I wonder where she went. Where did all the hope go? Where did the positivity go? Where did the laughter go?

I want look in the mirror and recognize my face. I want to talk and say exactly what I mean. I want to smile effortlessly. I want to breathe more fully without fighting back tears. And I want to dance like nobody is watching.

I really love the sky, which makes sense since I’m a Gemini and that’s an air sign…

Yesterday my boss said “I’ll make a business woman out of you yet!” And something inside of me panicked a wee bit. Is that bad?

My brother rocks my world. We are very different, but are also very much the same.

I know I am related to my brother because of the following statement he made in an interview recently.

“I really believe that music, rythmn and dance are revolutionary elements in the human psychology as well as in our basic physiology. To move, to relax, to let go, to resist, to get in tune with others, to cheer, to sweat, to sway, to flow is a spiritual experience.”

Exactly. Right. It’s what I teach, it’s what you do. We’ve got different mediums, but we feel the same thing.

And he also said this, which really resonates with me right now…

“…if anything can happen, then very often, nothing does.”

I know why we get along so well, even though we don’t talk that often and the moments we spend together are fleeting.

~
I. Heart. You.
~

(And why didn’t you send that f-ing amazing interview to me? I had to get it from our parents! You’d be so mad if I did that.)

~
If you’ve read this and you’re not my big brother, then click here and listen to ‘higher’ and if you like it, then everything else. Shazaam!

As I sit here resisting the fact that I must, indeed, go back to a full week of work today, I am calm in the fact that I have changed my tune.

I have worked for my company for 3 years and for 3 years it has been a “growing business”, forever going through growing pains. And I have many times been told to “hang in there” through these growing pains. Well, how long will these growing pains last, I ask?

At the end of last year (literally on December 28th) my work stress rose to the point of insanity. And I was sincerely ready to walk out of that corporate door and never go back. The disorganization I felt was crippling and the numerous attempts I was making to get what I needed to do my job were ignored once again. And I finally realized that it was out of my control.

For a number of hours I let this freak me out, venting into the ears of my loved ones, causing myself anxiety and back pain. Then, suddenly, I made the snap decision to turn off my stupid blackberry and enjoy my Saturday. And a calm slowly washed over me and I simply let go.

Over the new year I meditated on how I contribute to my own stress in these matters and that my perfectionism (the strong need to be the best, the most valuable, and the most perfect) is the root of everything I’ve been feeling. And I am now making a concerted effort to let it go.

This is very hard for me because it is an affliction with which I have lived forever, though only became truly aware of it as a problem in grad school. I had a teacher who told me that I “suffer from perfectionism”. And I remember thinking to myself, “Yeah, so?”. But I went home and got online to read about it and ordered a book called “Overcoming Perfectionism”. I read it but I didn’t think that my case was really that extreme. I wasn’t ready to let go of it yet. I just continued on the path of frustrating myself to the point of anxiety and stress over why I’m not the most successful, the most creative, the most innovative, the most capable, the most hip, the most, the most, the most.

But today, I am ready to overcome it. And today, I don’t need a book. (I ditched it during one of my many moves over the past years anyway).

I am going to work today with a brand new comfort in the fact that I am not responsible for certain things and I am going to revel in being out of control of certain situations. I can only ensure some things and I am on top of those.

Everything else is someone else’s problem. And if I am asked about these things, that’s what I will tell them. Politely, of course.

Because I am the most polite. *wink*