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From Me to You: Good Job!

July 9, 2015 Leave a Comment

Good Job. Yeah, you. A+!

Yeah, you’re probably wondering why I’m telling you that. I have my reasons. Recently, I’ve been considering how we don’t receive enough encouragement and positive feedback for living life. It’s the expectation that you’ll grow up good, and then you’ll become an adult that lives the good life.

*screeches to a halt*

Does anyone else feel like they’re still floundering in this whole adult life thing? Like in this school of life you are surely getting a failing grade, but there’s no curriculum or teacher to tell you what you’re doing wrong?

I do. I absolutely and totally do. There are SO many days where I just want to pull the duvet over my head, shove the earplugs back in, and snap the sleep mask over my eyes. Hold on for a lifetime, alarm clock. I’m just going to ignore you and shut the world out, too.

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Why did I ever as a kid want to grow up? Adulthood seemed so free, so magical! Adults made the rules! Now I see that Peter Pan had it right, running off to Neverland. But if Peter had invited me to Neverland, I suspect little Barbara would have been quite adamant about wanting to grow up and do awesome things for the world.

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Yeah, well. That’s not so easy.

Everything is so complicated. But let’s not turn this into a Barbara Whine Session. Unless we’re talking Wine. Rosé to be exact.

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What I wanted to tell you today is that you are living the Good Life now. It is your life. You climbed out of bed today.

Maybe you’ve had that One Thing staring you down for a day, a week, or a month. You just dread doing it, whether it’s making that doctor’s appointment, fixing the drain (even though you know NOTHING about plumbing), or taking the car to the mechanic’s. Kids had it right with monsters under the bed; ours just happen to haunt our days too!

But you’re going to take care of that One Thing today (or maybe tomorrow).

I want to tell you that you’re doing a great job of figuring out life, taking care of One Thing at a time. Because as we all have figured out, that One Thing is followed by another One Thing. And another One Thing…they won’t stop coming.

BUT You’re doing it. You may feel like you’re faking it, that you’re putting off life, that you have no right to be called an adult. I get it. I do. I feel like a kid still playing house.

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So that’s why I wanted to take this little bit of internet space to tell all you 20-somethings and 30-somethings that you are legit whatever stage you are in your life. If you’re not to your ideal job yet or in the ideal relationship or in the ideal apartment yet, it’s okay. But you’re still moving forward. Little by little. Think of all the things you are able to complete on your own today: start the coffee maker, pour yourself a bowl of cereal, drive the car, answer emails, go grocery shopping. The laundry list of items that adults do.

You are far from failure.

So take it from me (another confused and faking-confidence 20-something), YOU ARE GREAT and You Are Getting This Adult Thing Right. 100%. A+.

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What About You?

How are you rocking Adulthood today? Staying in bed all day or taking donuts to work for the co-workers? Either one is legit!

Entertaining Your Muse

July 7, 2015 Leave a Comment

Perhaps you don’t have to entertain your muse. Maybe she shows up and ~~entertains~~ distracts you at the most odd of moments. I had a friend once who described this look to me as “going with the fairies.”

That little word picture of my wandering mind delighted me. Sometimes it feels like that. When I’m brainstorming sections of stories, it requires long pauses of staring into space doing nothing. I try to keep these moments to private spaces because I’ll be less likely to be interrupted.

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How do you invite your Muse to create with you?

Do you do handstands across the floor? Run through a field that’s in the midst of its summer planting? Do you jump in the car to fly down a long stretch of road to think and to dream about the story? Or do you just plop your paints and let the white canvas bloom colors before you?

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When I sit down to create, my headphones go in my ears and I choose music that soothes and inspires. It’s a perfect mix. But sometimes I’ll mix it up with something full of beat and wailing voices. It depends on what I write. A glass of water a foot from my right hand. I might scan through Pinterest, but if I’m serious about writing. I try to just get down to it.

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When I know I’ve written something good (for once), I list the people I know who might make good readers of the thing. Yes, it’s a thing–not quite fully formed but in the process of growing. Once sent, I sit waiting desperately for feedback. I love feedback, the more detailed the better!

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Images delight me, spinning my mind into a hundred different scenarios for stories. Few make it to the page! But it’s fun to let my thoughts ramble like butterflies through a wild flower field. And this is why I’m a Pinterest addict.

As much as I love images, though. Something is to be said about music. It lifts and transforms my view of the world in ways that I can’t even describe. Nothing leaves me as speechless and music.

Here’s my song of inspiration this week. It’s croony, soulful, and so sad. I like my dancing tunes, but these mournful tunes are so much more real sometimes.

What About You?

How do you invite your Muse into your creation? Do you have any little rituals?

Without a Map and How My Yells Echo Back to Me

July 2, 2015 2 Comments

Sometimes I really don’t get why we’re deposited on this planet without some type of map or plan. As soon as I make a plan, everything spins out of control.

It’s happened more than once.

I have a distinct memory of one late night striding out to the back porch and guttural wailing at the cold moon with fist in the air. My yell probably sounded like some wounded animal, scaring children from sweet slumber and causing adults to check out their windows for the hoodlum. Once again, my life plan had fallen through.

Like a small child, I threw a tantrum. It was a short one (I didn’t want the cops to come looking for me), but I kind of hoped that God might lightning strike me as I raised my fist at him.

At least if he struck me with lightning in that moment, I would know with every fried piece of hair that there is a God of this Universe and beyond. But no. There was no lightning strike; just a brokenhearted, twenty-year-old Barbara left to gather up the shattered pieces of yet another dream, each shard leaving a cut in the soft flesh of her hands and a little bit more doubt in her heart.

Where’s my map? Where are the directions to this life? If you follow the plan, you’ll make it, right? I want some sort of reassurance ~~that I~~ that we’ll make it out okay.

But time and time again, the ones that follow “the rules” seem more chained, dissatisfied, and brittle than the ones that throw all “rules” to the wind, doing whatever they desire. As a kid when you follow the rules, you win the strawberry bubble gum lollipop. We’re conditioned to believe that if we follow the rules, we’ll win the strawberry bubble gum lollipop of life.

Yeah, right. The school of life is a bit tougher and seemingly more random than that. Good things happen to bad people, and bad things happen to good people.

In this stage of my life, I am surrounded by individuals who are much more mature in all levels than me, including spirituality. Where I struggle, they have already been. So it seems silly to write out these thoughts, worryings, failings. Presumptuous almost. Like I could really add something new.

A couple of nights ago, I went running at midnight (Don’t tell mom). Three quarter moon. Big Dipper. Night beauty quietly at its finest. My mind had split into a million rabbits, skittering across fields and down bunny holes. My body needed to go chasing, too.

As you might know about the countryside, there are no street lights. I could trip or twist my ankle on the gravel path. Deep shadows caused by the moonlight confused my eyes, and so I stopped looking where I ran. Trusting my feet would carry me, I ran. Spikes of fear nipped at my heels (Are there cougars in Austria? Do poisonous snakes reside around here? Eep! What was that noise?).

Throughout the run, the moon glowed above. Constant. Cool. Just enough to see. Sure, I couldn’t see far ahead on the trail but the immediate future steps were accounted for.

And it hit me.

“Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.

I have taken an oath and confirmed it,

That I will follow your righteous laws.

I have suffered much;

Preserve my life, Lord, according to your word…

Though I constantly take my life in my hands,

I will not forget your law.”

Psalm 119:105-107, 109.

God has promised to preserve my life even as I try taking my life into my hands again, and he even offers a lamp to see a bit of the path ahead. The lamp section I’m very familiar with, but “though I constantly take my life in my hands” seemed fresh and new. Well, seeing it in the Bible was new because…

I’m all about taking my life into my own hands.

It seems easier to trust me with my life. If something goes wrong, I can blame me and I understand my own reasoning. But God? I don’t understand him.

I’m still mapless, and I definitely feel the lack but I’m not completely alone in this. You all are missing maps, too. And I’m not so keen about the whole “lamp for my feet” especially because the light doesn’t show me enough of the path ahead.

But I guess it is nice that the lamp is close to me.

I still don’t get it. This whole living life by righteous laws when those doing really bad things seem to be living such great lives. *cue whiny voice* I want a great life.

To the Map Holder and Lamp Lender,

I’m fisting my life plan, turning it to dust in my hand by the tightness of my grip. I don’t know how to live looking for your plan and not scrawling a new map of my own. It feels safer to hold my own life, but my fingers ache and my nails dig into my palms.

When I shout at the skies, my yells echo back to me. Do you even hear me?

My fist is in the air again, demanding answers, direction, anything…a sign of your presence. Do you even care?

And so I comfort my heart with memories of your faithfulness, hoping and trusting that you’ll be faithful again. It’s not much, but it’s what I have to offer.