Tiny Feelings

I am having so many tiny feelings today. SO MANY. And they are distracting and they are non-motivating and I feel like I'm sinking into non-creativity, which makes me all the more distracted and unmotivated and non-creative.

I don't want to do anything but there are so many things that I have to do.

I don't want to go anywhere but I hate staying home.

I don't want to write but I know that I need to.

Singing and playing the guitar feels like a chore but I know it will make me feel so much better if I can just get all of these tiny thoughts out into the universe.

Meditating feels like inaction but, again, I don't want to do anything.

I'm pretty sure I'm in the definition of a rut.

Got some bad job news yesterday, which was and is disappointing and makes me feel sort of useless. I feel like I'm failing at everything, even the tiny things like taking my laundry to the laundromat. Every time I make progress in one place, something else seems to go all to hell. What is that?!

Ugh. I feel frustrated and trapped. I feel like a child but I have the responsibilities of an adult, which I'm having a hard time taking care of. I don't recognize my own self. When did I become this person? This person who is unenthusiastic about writing or anything creative? This person who is unmotivated? This person who doesn't fight for things? This person who is afraid to say what she really means? This person who is afraid of asking for the things she wants? Who are you, bizarro Ashleigh?

I don't like any of this. Not one bit.

Back to Normal?

The power finally came on Tuesday night. We were sitting in the living room with some friends surrounded by blankets and candles and wine and suddenly, miraculously, the power came on. And I didn't know what to do with myself. Because the time after the hurricane seemed like a thousand years. It was all encompassing. It was life defining.

Now that that time is over, now that things are finally back to normal...I have no idea what to do with myself. I'm...bored. With everything. with my apartment, with my work, with the way I spend my days. I'm just...bored. And I don't exactly know what to do next. The world spins forward and everything keeps moving and I just simply don't know what I'm doing or what's next.

The storm made me, I don't know, brave? I wasn't afraid to do things because I didn't have a choice, I just had to do them. Things I needed I asked for--showers, meals, a shoulder to cry on, everything. I didn't think, I just acted. It was...invigorating. It was also completely exhausting and not at all sustainable. And I know this. But I keep feeling myself, I don't know, mourning over the last few weeks? Does that make sense? Is that the worst, most selfish thing ever? I don't know, maybe I just need something new--a new project, a new friend, a new relationship, a new book, a new TV show to obsess over.

What I really need, what I really want, is direction. A new course to chart. New goals. New experiences. Because if this storm has taught me anything, it is that new things aren't scary if you look at them not as the unknown but as new things you get to experience. You have the privilege of experiencing all these new things, even if these new things involve you scooping out rotten food from a damaged basement or cleaning a thousand wine bottles. It is your privilege because you can experience them. You aren't hurt or hindered or limited in any way. You have the ability to do things. What a gift that is, the ability to do. To help. To change. To make. To be.

So maybe I'm not in mourning, maybe I'm not pining, maybe I'm just finally getting the lesson of this damn hurricane. And here it is--go do things. Because you can. Don't waste time over thinking or under thinking, just trust and do.

I think I can do that.

Some of the Best Advice I've Ever Received

My mom has this phrase that she uses all the time--they use it when things are confusing, when things are up in the air, when things are exciting but also maybe too exciting--and it is some of the best advice I've ever gotten:

Let it be hot.

Think about it like a hot, delicious coffee you are just dying to enjoy. You know it is too hot, the coffee itself knows it too hot, but you drink it anyway and you end up singeing your tongue and regretting that choice all day long. Instead, what you should do is just let it be hot.

In other words, let the situation be what it is for a while before you go rushing into changing it or dealing with it and end up with a burned tongue. Sometimes there are things that you just can't fix or alter so you just have to let them be for a while. It is an incredibly hard lesson to learn and one that I've been grappling with for a while, but I'm working on it day by day.

Just let the situation be hot. It'll cool down when it's time.

Teams

There is a part of my personality, part of my thought processes, that is...obsessive. Once I get hooked on an idea I tend to replay it over and over again until I've seen it from every angle, until I've experienced the entire range of emotions that could be associated with it. Maybe it is more of an inquisitive mind thing, that I really want to fully understand something, even if that something can't be rationalized or fully understood. Either way, I'm sure it makes me a less fun roommate/friend because I just won't stop talking about something until I really get it. And that's when the people on my team step in, because they are the best.

I have to process things out loud. I have to hear other opinions and talk about my opinions, even if I am forming them in the split second before I voice them. My saintly mother knows all about this--I tend to call her multiple times over a series of days to talk through a problem or to make a plan. There is something about not only turning things over in my head but also testing them out on another person that helps me come to understand them.

My roommates (who are the best, you guys. THE BEST) have been dealing with this for the past day and a half (sorry, ladies). I've been obsessing about new information gleamed from the internet (which is, admittedly, not always a reliable source), examining it from every cringe-worthy angle, gaging advice and my own feelings by talking about it non-stop with them (and Kyla isn't even home, I've been texting her long tomes on the subject like a crazy person). They are two of the most intelligent, kick-ass gals I know and their advice is not only spot on but incredibly kind and super helpful. They listen to my ranting, spinning thought process with patience and then delicately (or not, which is the mark of a true friend I think) point out things I would have never seen on my own. I feel incredibly grateful to call them my friends and to have them in my corner, even if my corner sometimes feels a little Howard Hughes obsessive compulsive (minus the bottles of pee, I promise).

I hope everyone has people on their team, on their side, like the ones I have--ones that are kind and direct and intelligent and funny and caring and sage and ass kickers from way back. People who will tell you things you don't want to hear, and listen when you need to rant, and laugh at you for being crazy, and tell you it's going to be fine when you can't process anything else. It is truly a stroke of luck  that the people on my team are as tremendous as they are. So, to my people, you know who you are. And you are the best. Thanks for keeping my head on straight and telling me when I'm obsessing like a crazy person. You don't know how much I depend on your thoughts and opinions. I would be nowhere without you. I promise to do my best to be as good a team member for you as you are to me.

I've Got the Music in Me

The dog* we're house sitting for doesn't really like it when I play the guitar.

He weighs 6 pounds and has a silly mustache so I don't really care what he thinks. (he's also a dog)

While he's in our house, I have to wait until he is completely distracted chewing on something to play the guitar. And while I know this is just because he is a tiny jerk (he's not), it does seem like the perfect metaphor for my singing/guitar playing--there always is a tiny jerk keeping me from doing it.

And most of the time that tiny jerk is me.

Because just like everyone, I am the one who gets in my way most of the time about most things. Especially music. Because there is nothing like the way I feel when I'm singing and playing the guitar, even if all I am doing is a ham-fisted cover of a song I love. For the two minutes or so that I'm wrapped up in a song I am wrapped up in it. Like a big comfy blanket, the music and the feelings envelop me. There is nothing else like it in the whole world.

I don't know where my fear comes from about singing/playing in front of people or with people but it is there and it is palpable. Maybe fear is the wrong word, maybe it is just hesitation. I hesitate before I play in front of someone (the singing isn't such a big deal to me, not quite sure why. Maybe it is because I've done it forever). It is like a physical barrier that I've got to leap over before I start playing. Once I'm over the barrier I'm totally fine but man, standing in front of it? It looks huge and insurmountable.

This is one of the lessons of my 25th year--to leap over the barrier. Especially for something that I really, REALLY like doing. Because on the other side, everything is just fine, even if I don't believe that pre-jump.

*to be clear, that is not the dog in these photos. The dog in these photos is my parent's dog, Matilda.

Opinions, Having and Sharing

Yesterday, on the Facebook, someone I know (who happens to be a Republican) posted something that I just couldn't not comment on. Now, I am usually not one to comment on things that rile me on the internet (possibly because it happens too often), but this one had specifically to do with women in the media and I just could NOT sit by and not comment.  My comment, I thought, was benign enough but, as these things usually do, it spiraled into something so frustrating that I have written 100 unpublished comments trying to express myself. None of them do justice to the way I feel or to the larger discussion that really needs to be had, but they felt good to write, even though they went unpublished.

After stating my views in response to this person's post, they came back with that, while they respect my opinion, they would rather hear from me in a "more positive and blissful manner" from now on. xoxo.

And here's where my tiny brain just simply couldn't handle it any more.

Because what I wanted to say, hyper-emotionally and in extreme frustration, is that freedom of speech means that not only do you get to express your (bullshit, borderline offensive) position on the internet but that I also can comment on how I feel, even if that feeling is opposite from yours. You put it on the internet, on a public forum, so please don't come at me about commenting on it in a way that you didn't like. Expressing opinions (in an articulate manner) is a good thing. Dissonance is a good thing. Debate is a good thing. We don't have to agree on everything. We don't even have to agree on most things. We just have to accept that there is more than one opinion out there and that, even if they make us uncomfortable to hear, they are worth listening to and they are worth stating. Saying you respect my opinion and then limiting the kinds of opinions I'm allowed to express to you is pretty condescending and the opposite of the point of talking about things.

There are reasons that I don't respond to things on Facebook, there are reasons that I don't talk about politics on the internet, and I was reminded of these yesterday. I wish that these reasons didn't exist, I wish that in all of my relationships, whether they be with family, friends, or acquaintances, expressing differing opinions weren't a taboo and instead were an inspiration for discussion. I truly believe that if more people were open to really having a discussion about where opinions and beliefs differ, we'd find that we don't actually disagree as much as we think we do. This is my hope for the future. But for now, I'll just continue to write but not publish comments on the internet and save my debating for face-to-face conversations, even if what I have to say isn't pretty.

On Choices and What I've Learned at 25

Lately I've been thinking a lot about choices. What sorts of choices, you ask? I've been thinking about the little choices we make every day that point us in a certain direction. These decisions are, perhaps, the most important choices we ever make and often times we make them without thinking. We just move towards what feels right and then reflect on it later. At least this is how I've tried to moved through the world.

I don't know that when I left college I had a plan. Oh, wait, yes I did. My plan had two main points on it, "Pay off Student Loans" and "Don't Be a Burden." With these "goals" in mind I moved forward, seizing opportunities as they arose and letting other things move past me. To say there was a lot of choice in the things I decided to do is...generous. I was asked to return to my same summer gig after college. I pursued and then took the only internship I was interested in in the Bay Area.  When the opportunity to work for money at the internship I said "hell yes." When the opportunity to join the company full time came up, I simply nodded my head and signed my name.  Even the promotion I got 6 months in was more of a "Ashleigh isn't a crazy person and she's heard of this job before" thing than a "she's completely qualified" thing. YES, I could have said no at any point and SURE, if I hadn't pursued the position I wouldn't have ended up here but still, all of these decisions, at the time, felt like no brainers. I don't think I even took the necessary mental time to make a pro/con list. I just said yes. And in no time, it seems, my plan was moving me towards something, something I couldn't truly conceive of (and still can't, to be honest).

When the opportunity came up to move to New York, I think I literally said to my mom, "I kind of have to do this, right?" "Duh," she said to me. So I let myself be open, be free to allow for any possibility and free to say yes. And when I did that, a wide sea of things I never even imagined appeared before me. Jobs and adventures and friendship and a myriad of exciting, hard, lovely, terrifying things.

On a recent episode short of RadioLab, my favorite podcast, they were talking about the "Slinky Theory" which is basically this (from the RadioLab website):

"1) Dangle a Slinky above the ground as though you were holding a fish by the tip of its tail.
2) Let it extend to its full length.
3) Let go.

For a fraction of a second, something amazing happens: the bottom of the slinky hovers midair, seeming to defy the laws of physics, while the top collapses toward it.

The reason the bottom just floats there, according to Steve Strogatz, is simple: it hasn't gotten the memo yet."

There is so much more to this theory that I'm probably going to do it a disservice by simplifying it here, but basically the slinky theory says that when you let go and the bottom floats there it is because, for a split second, it doesn't know that you let go of the top. And when I say know I mean know. The cells in the slinky literally haven't gotten that information yet. Crazy, right? But awesome. Totally awesome, in the truest sense of the word.

When it comes to choices and paths, we are the slinky. We don't know what we don't know because we haven't learned it yet, because we can't know it until we know it (what a sentence). So why stress about the future? Whatever is coming for you, whether it is positive or negative, exciting or boring, whatever is out there is coming towards you no matter what you do. Therefore, you can only worry about the choices you make in the present because those are the only things you have control over. You can't know how they are going to effect the future because you can't see the future. You only know that you are the end of the slinky at rest. You have no idea that your ass is literally about to be handed to you.

Even now, just a few months into my 25th year, I already know that this is the most important thing I'm going to learn this year. Because it is about living in the moment, being present, and embracing your own intelligence regarding your own life. It's about trust. Trusting yourself and trusting the universe. Because the universe always has your back, even when you don't think it does. You just have to be open to seeing what it has to offer.