The Day After Opposite Day, Pt. 2

In The Day After Opposite Day, Pt. 1, I shared my revelation that I was in desperate need of a new lifestyle—one that was active and full of new stimulations. It was easy for me to fall into lazy habits when I moved to a new city. Honestly, I think I was just scared to get settled into a new place, because I did not consider my new one-bedroom--though cozy--my home.  But after the day of the death of my lovable lab Caffie (Opposite Day), I did a lot of reflection. Besides the obvious grief of loss of the family dog, I made some discoveries about my childhood, my life, and what the heck to do with myself.

Our childhoods define us. It's totally cliche, I know. But in these days for many of my friends and I--twenty-somethings-- physical and emotional elements of our childhood are disappearing, and I am realizing why the statement is so tiredly used. When I think about who I am, a lot of my thoughts go back to my mom, my dad, my sisters, my house, my school days. The lessons I learned as a child from my family and the childish mistakes and my first embarrassing moment are the foundations of my moral fiber. They are the basis of how I mentally approach life. A lot of things in my later life define who I am now, but my childhood is what defines who I will always be.

My childhood stays alive in memories, and it stays alive in physical embodiments.  Eventually, however, some memories will fade away. As I get older and my life moves out of transition this transitional phase and into full adulthood, I fear the that little, special details of my memories will be pushed farther and farther back until they are inaccessible.  


Thus, with the fear of my memories fading as I grow up, I cling onto the physical embodiments of my childhood, like my house and my old things. I think that is why I cherish old things.  They remind me of myself, of who I am. I love going back and reminiscing, holding things that belonged to another time and place. I love hugging and smelling my blankie, which accompanied me every single night in bed until college.  I loved just sitting in my childhood house, thinking about the memories that the walls held.  But when Caffie died yesterday, it hit me hard that representations of my past are dropping from my reach.  I realized that my attachment to Caffie, combined with unconditional love companionship, was related to the fact that when I looked at her, I saw my childhood in her glassy eyes and greying hair.  Most of her memories embodied my own, for she lived almost her entire life with me. 

I used to think that those physical embodiments of my youth were the ones I could really count on to hold those memories for me.  I guess I underestimated my memories and thus depended so much on the tangible things that held them for me.  But I am quickly learning how foolish that was.  The physical elements of my childhood are dropping away one by one like they are in line to walk the plank, falling away and lost forever. 

A box of my belongings that lived in my bedroom and soaked up the sights and smells and  smiles and tears of my childhood in a house that is now on the market now sits in a stuffy attic.  Once the house sells, that will pretty much be all that is left. And now that Caffie is gone, when I go home to visit, that is one less reminder of my childhood that will be there.  


It occured to me that perhaps this is why I had my 'revelation' of a desire for a new and improved lifestyle.  I need to grab onto something--onto my life today, which is moving forward at a pace that I sometimes can't keep up with--to fill my life as the things of my childhood, my old life, cued up on the rickety slab of wood.

Maybe my attachment to things and my obsessions with childhood memories is exorbitant or just plain crazy.  But as I sit here, writing about all this, I realize that my memories have impacted me in an even more devious way than I realized: they inspired me to be the artist I am today.  

I think my attachment to things and memories is why I picked up photography as a teenager. I absolutely loved getting my prints and putting them into photo albums, accompanied with ridiculously specific captions (date, place, name of every person in the photo, what was happening in the photo). Enter the digital age, and to this day I will not publish my Facebook photo album until it is in chronological order and properly tagged and captioned to my liking.  And when photographs cannot suffice, I write. I require myself to capture the feelings, the thoughts, the reflections of one moment or event in time and immortalize it in words. It started with my own personal diary, and then a journal I took with me to my travels to Italy. Knowing that I would cherish those moments forever, I was painstaking in my detail to description of my time there.  That journal turned into the blog to go with the times, and here I am. 

Clearly, my sentimentality can get the best of me.  But as I grow into my adult self and accept the fact that I will never be able to hold some of those things again, I will cherish the memories and objects that do stay on the boat.  


So, I can say with content, nostalgic thoughts, and infinite blank pages ahead, that all is not lost.

The Day After Opposite Day, Pt. 1

My mind was a blur when I woke up this morning.  I had slept for over 12 hours, which I hadn't done since high school--and a sure sign to me that I really needed to rest my head and my mind.  It took me a second to realize why I was so exhausted.  And then I remembered about Caffie.  I opened my email and read all the messages and collection of memories my family had sent around in memory of my dog who had been put to sleep earlier that day.  I went to this very blog, and couldn't even believe my own words about her passing.   I was confused, sad, and completely unmotivated to do anything besides stay in bed and let the world pass me by.  I had promised myself the night before that I would get up early, take a walk to breathe in some fresh air and life, and not mope.  But the rain was falling and was predicted to all day, so it was another day of bed and movies on the Lappy for me.

After unsatisfactory Facebook browsing and a couple of mediocre chick flicks, I realized how sore my neck was, how greasy my hair was, and how disgustingly lazy I had become.  Today I was mourning the loss of Caffie, but this wasn't close to the first time I had wasted a day in bed.  Living alone was a challenge for me--having been surrounded by sisters and roommates all my life, I had to adjust to having just myself around.  As I began life in my one-bedroom,  I struggled with the quiet and the calm.  But what I realized today is truly how much living with other people helped keep me active and motivated.  Here, I had nobody to judge me if I spent day after lazy day with my face glued to a screen, or inspire me to get up and out. I enjoyed that freedom for a while.  But today, it slapped me in the face.

I gotta get up, I told myself.  I need to do something.  Something new.  I couldn't spend my independent adult life--a new and scary concept in itself--in bed.  I had work, but what else do I have?  It hit me that I had been making excuses to get settled here.  It's been a month and time is up!  Instead of catching onto the excitement of a fast-paced new life that was in front of me, I was letting the train pass me by.  But no!  Today, I decided, I was going to start making a life for myself.  I shot up in bed, closed my Netflix, Hulu, and Facebook tabs, and replaced them with research of dance classes, theater performances, and places to buy bikes.  This is happening.  I am going to ride this train.  No, even better, I am going to drive it.
  
Declaring it here is the only way I can think if motivating myself, since self-motivation by talking to myself hasn't seemed to help in the past.  I realized that I had totally fallen out of the boat on my monthly resolutions.  Moving and starting a new job was my excuse for February.  But no more of that.  So, this month, I decided that I will:

Once a day: Meditate and stretch

At least once a week: Attend a dance class

Absolutely ASAP: Buy a bike (and use it)

Despite the toll some of these will take on my wallet, I am hopeful that they will make up for it in reason and happiness.  Determined to get started, I got out of bed, lit the deliciously scented vanilla candle in my living room, and took some deep breaths while stretching my legs, pathetically stiff--further reinforcement that I needed a lifestyle change.  As I felt my muscles uncomfortably extend, I took some deep breaths and remembered something I a dance teacher had said during the warm-up of a dance class once: "give your body some love."  As I sat there, rolling my head to loosen my neck, stiff from staring at a laptop while reclined, rotating my toes and ankles to recall my turn-out, and massaging my thighs, I remembered why that was so important.  My body really needed some love and attention--the kind that I had deprived it of a long time.

A couple downward dogs later, I settled into a cross-legged position and, with the help of an audio guide (thank you, YouTube!), did a 10-minute meditation.  Now, I am no master at meditation, but I had read and heard from others that making it a regular part of your daily routine can have a significant positive impact on mood and perspective.  And in this time of big life changes, I will take whatever I can get in terms of solace.  I'm also a hippie at heart.

Giving myself a slap in the face (literally) and some motivation to create new habits for myself came out of many things.  Besides my shame of my inability to touch my toes like I used to, I realized that having to say good-bye to my dog had a lot to do with it, and I came to some interesting conclusions about the strange transition into adulthood. In part two, I'll try to make sense of it all.

Resolved

In the belated New Years spirit ...

There's always so much pressure to come up with a good New Year's resolution.  I always forget to start brainstorming until around December 30, and by the time midnight on the 31st, I just have to scramble to think of something so I can start.  And, how many times have I actually kept a New Years Resolution?  Zip.  It always seems that we are so ready to start anew and we do really well the first month (or maybe two, if they we are really good), but once March rolls around new goals have faded into the background.  And, at least for me, by April I have forgotten what resolution I made in the first place.  But how to get the most out of life if there isn't a challenge to be accepted? (<-- to be read in a Barney Stinson-esque voice).

Thus, I was thrilled when my good friend Travis told me of a new take on resolutions that he was doing.  I don't know if it was the spirit of New Years Day in New York City or the magically delicious salsa we were sharing at Jalapeno (what was in that salsa?!  I must find out!) , but I was inspired and pledged to begin immediately:  Monthly resolutions.  Yes, a new life resolution for every month.  This is makes so much more sense than a full year resolution, I don't know why I hadn't heard of or tried it before.  And the cool thing about this is if one is going well, you can keep it up and add another one, or just extend it into another month.  You could keep this going for years!

For example, I chose to give up the crispy, greasy, breakfasty- and burger-y goodness of bacon for the month of January.  And, with 6 days to go, I can say I have succeeded.  (We are going to ignore that very small but decadent slice of quiche I had at a wedding a couple weeks ago ...  hey, no one's perfect.)

Here is my brainstorm for options to take on in the coming months.    I welcome any additions and encourage any fellow resolution non-keepers to start your own list!:

• Read a book all the way through
• Write a pen-and-paper letters to my friends and family
• Limit dessert to once a week
• Blog at least 2 times a week
• Take at least one photo a day (and post it?)
• Try new foods--order something I usually wouldn't when I go out, and wander into a new aisle at the grocery store
• Eat all organic
• Watch/rent only foreign films
• Try 5 news recipes
• Read the newspaper/online news fully every day
• Go to community events/museum events/exhibits at least twice
• Find a volunteer opportunity for the weekends
• Eat vegetarian
• Do an art project, like a T-Shirt blanket or scrapbook
• Call and update the grandparents
• Go to a religious service of a different religion
• Buy a homeless person a meal
• Blog about the resolution completed (or not completed) at the end of each month!

What are your resolutions?