The fog is here in Los Angeles today as a personal favour to me. It's never fun to gloom alone.
People want me to succeed at the things I do, the things I like. I wonder if they realise that can't happen as things are now. Or maybe they can't happen at all, but that's a thought I've stopped entertaining.
Do you ever feel like your life goes nowhere as soon as you're in charge? Most people don't even fully realise they're in charge until they're forty or above, it seems. I understand it at twenty-seven, which should be a leg up in the world. I'm that chance to "have things work out differently, if I could go back." I would have been more receptive or happy or thankful for this knowledge if I were eighteen years older and had already wasted too much time to be accountable for a lot more. I would have an excuse, and I could regret things all at once instead of on a day-to-day basis. I see every opportunity slip by because I'm not reaching towards them; I'm not pushing them away, but waiting until they nudge my hand enough for me to open my palms and take hold. Like being in a room of floaty pink steam and waiting for chance or some scientific movement of air molecules to push things towards me.
My dad would at some point of my life – maybe not as he is now; not because of age, but because of trying to be there for me – he'd tell me that spending time writing this up, building analogies and comparisons, without being funny or without it paying me back monetarily is, essentially, useless. A secondary thing to be done, once my real career or path in life has been set, planned into motion.
What I don't want this to be is my triumph over his opinions or "how I succeeded in the face of ______." I don't want everything I do to have a point. Some of it is just there, as a part of me – not because I want it to be or summoned it forth like a fantasy-book wizard. I just want to let those parts be, and not demand they pay me up or get out. Maybe that's harder to understand than I know. I'm sure there are people in the world who would know what I'm talking about – I'm not deluded enough to think I'm the only one. Emotion isn't that hard to share; understanding is.
...And now I've gone and out-profounded myself. I want to make bumper stickers of that sentence (why bumper stickers? No idea) or have it be my motto; something that makes people think.
But I don't want it to be binding, or me trying to get people to be a certain way, recognise their "wrongs" or go "hey, she's smart!" I just want it to be there, like those parts of me that maybe don't really give me anything in return, but are just there; and are important there, because otherwise, I wouldn't be full. I'd be a business instead of a person.
I don't want that.
