Category: Questionable reading material

Move that foot

I get these urges to change everything. It’s like an energy runs up my body from my toes. My feet start to move and once they do I’m gone. When I make a decision, I MAKE a decision. In college, when I would lie in my bed cozy in warm sheets contemplating whether or not I should make it into class, it’d take just a split second where I’d think, “nope!” turn onto my belly and let my face fall back asleep into my pillow. No regret, my mind was set and I’d fall asleep HARD. When I decided to quit a job, it was something I let tumble in my brain for a while, but the actual decision of it came quick and resolute. Like super resolute. A hefty raise, provided housing, and altered hours couldn’t get me to stay once I told myself I was done. When I decided to move across the country, I thought about it for about three seconds, then told my family I was leaving in a month. When I decided to follow my heart, there was literally nothing that could sway me. I make spontaneous decisions and I pronounce them as my new law. I’ve often wondered if this characteristic of myself is something I should worry more about, but then I decide, naw it was what I wanted and I don’t feel bad about it. I am where I am and I’m happy for it all. For the most part…

Decisions are big. You put one foot ahead of the other sometimes not knowing where your next step will take you, but still, you take that step. Thoughtfully planned and intentional, or impulsive and uncharted, decisions show that you know what you want, but more importantly, that you care enough about what you want to do something about it. Doing something. That is huge. Whether it be a verdict on an ankle sock, or a moving across the country type, celebrate each accord as their own.

Fight for what you want. You know what you want. You do. If you don’t think you do, well then you’re just scared, scared, or scared. Make decisions. Tell your significant other where the fuck you want to eat. YOU KNOW.

Being true to yourself is really where it stems. We make up excuses. And damn, they’re usually pretty good. But they are what they are. Excuses hide your intentions. 

Love yourself enough to make the choice to decide. Love yourself enough to leap to that rock you’ve been staring at above you. Love yourself enough to run towards what you want. Love yourself enough to walk away from what is not good enough. If it doesn’t give you butterflies, leave. Love yourself so you can give love. It starts with a kick in the ass, water thrown at your face, a slap in the face, a kiss, a laugh, a good song, a view bigger than you, and a conversation with a crazy stranger. It starts with something that inspires you to make a goddamn move. Make the damn move and follow the urge in your gut. It’s probably right, and worse comes to worst, it’s wrong. But at least you did something. Doing nothing is a waste of your time, and it’s a waste of my time. And I hate my time wasted.

See through

It’s what you feel when you aren’t doing anything. You feel parts of yourself that you forgot were there. It’s in the moment that you feel the wind blowing your flyaway hairs, you hear a quiet that is louder than the world around you. The world where people are yelling, cars are honking, and machines are machining. You realize that quiet is the thing you have been running from, or hiding from. Because once quiet finds you, you find yourself consumed in its loudness. You see the dust floating in the air in the beams of the sun. You hear those thoughts in your head that haven’t had the chance to come forward with all the other noise going on up there. You scare yourself in that way. Seeing something that has always been there, right in front of you, shows you that you are more ignorant, more distracted than you prefer.

It’s a necessary thing that is more underrated, forgotten, neglected, and relied on least when it comes to self-care. Thinking that the noise of life, the sounds of people, of music, of traffic, of nature, of games, of movies, of cooking, of conversation is more substantial to our growth than what quiet, what slowness, what reflecting on what has happened to us, is the kind of thinking that causes us to stay in an unnoticeable rut. We become ignorant to things in life because we actively portray our lives through the noise, the happenings, that we go through.

But when the happenings are over and we find ourselves naked we find ourselves in a place that meets us with either familiarity or hostility with a pushback that we filter with drugs, alcohol, and Netflix. We neglect ourselves of the quiet that we need, that others around us need us to have. We lie to ourselves, or more we don’t get to know ourselves. The time we are offered to familiarize ourselves with the why’s, the how’s, and the hmm’s become a mind-numbing buzz that becomes detrimental to the foundation we stand on.

The quiet can be where you find out what is important to you. It’s where you realize what you want. It’s where you see what you don’t want to deal with anymore. It’s where you see through the bullshit of the world that you surround yourself with. Or, it’s where let your mind wander. You may find nothing in the quiet, and that’s part of the deal. 

The thing about this quiet though, it’s not only part of the auditory sense of the definition, but really all the senses. It’s the stillness you find around you. It’s the taste that you find on your tongue. It’s what you see beyond the bullshit.

It’s what you notice.

Taking time to notice things is more rare than I think most are aware of. So easily we are distracted by the touchscreens we have so close to our fingertips. So quick we are to jump into a conversation just to be a part of it. It’s hard to stand back because, shit, what if somebody notices?