my mom recently asked me, nonchalantly, “do you think i should have seen a psychiatrist sometime?” of course she should have. so should i. i think, perhaps, a good 99.9% of us should. because we’re not as friggin put together as we all think we are. so i asked her, “well, if you think they do any good, why didn’t you let me keep seeing one after my childhood trauma?” to which her response was, “well, she was weird; all new-agey and crap. i didn’t like her.” as if that was the only psychiatrist that was available to us at the time, so she had no other choice. but i digress…

counseling doesn’t have to come from some shrink in a chair with a diploma over her head and the ny times crossword on her lap behind the notepad. counseling literally means “guidance: something that provides direction or advice as to a decision or course of action.” and that is never something you can get too much of. everyone could use a little input. some constructive criticisms (which aren’t necessarily all bad!). otherwise, you know what you get? an over-inflated (read: hollow) idea of who you are and why you think you’re perfect.

as for the knees… i’ve never necessarily been rough on mine, but i gotta say, they’re still going… and one day they’ll be gone. and then i’ll wish i had taken the stairs more often. so; be kind to your knees, yes. but take the stairs. that is all.

i’ve changed career paths some seven times now, and have only recently decided on self-employment. but deciding what you want to do with your life is more than just your work. it’s your life. it’s where you want to live, whether you want to be alone or surrounded by friends, what hobbies you choose, what god you believe in. it’s all of it. and those are all pretty big choices.

so don’t rush it. figure it out as you go along. because if you try to cookie-cutter yourself into some mould that you figure you’re “supposed” to be in so that you have that ready-made answer when people ask, “so, what do you want to do with your life?” there’s a pretty good chance you’re answer isn’t really based on what you want to do with your life. it’s based on what you think they want to hear. whoever “they” are.

some other advice that goes along those same lines comes from a book i’m sure i’ve mentioned before, called normal is just a setting on the dryer: and other lessons from the real, real world. she says, “figure out where you want to live and go live there. everything else will follow.” when i decided a few years ago to restart my life, my destination had been boston. i won’t lie, a small part of the decision had been based on the melodic image produced by augustana (a moment of silence for all the innocent pianos that gave their life in the making of the video). but there were several large factors that held me back; the fact that i had just started down career path #6 and had recently feathered a brand new, albeit rented, nest not the least of them. and of course now i’m glad i didn’t go. much like i’m glad i didn’t stay in l.a., when, on a whim thirteen years ago i greeted a new year there with old friends and considered staying.

my point, and i do have one, is that in both of these instances i thought i was deciding what i wanted to do with my life, while subsequently ignoring that the life i was currently living wasn’t so bad that it needed some sort of escape. i’d already made those “escapes” and was rebuilding already. there was no need to derail those plans in order to have a more interesting answer to the question, “what do you want to do with your life?” because the truth was, i already had my answer. it was, “live my life the way i want to. answer to no one. be happy.”

i confess; in a rubbermaid container, beneath a layer of dust and stored under the bed – between the dried remains of the first corsage i ever received and my mickey mouse ears from disneyland - there are a few sappy love letters from boys from back in my high school days. i confess this because they are the only ones i felt worthy of keeping. why? they were probably the most sincere. those that i received later in life, in the grown up years… well, those are gone. folded, spindled, mutilated, maimed, damaged, bowdlerized, butchered, crushed, cut to pieces, defaced, disable, expurgated, mangled, ravaged and burned.

(i had some pain in the past – it doesn’t show, does it?)

the ones from the school years, though, the last time i read them – sometime in the last decade – they still made me smile. feel a little warm and fuzzy. shoot, had i had a glass of wine and some eighties love songs playing, probably would have cost me a fortune in long distance calls. good thing for me, and my bf, that i didn’t, eh?

oh, now… *his* love letters… well, those are keepers. but i digress… keep your old love letters, the ones that matter to you, because even when you are at your happiest in life, should you need a little pick-me-up, they’re good for that. to remember how special you really must be to have inspired such words from others.

bank statements, on the other hand, those can just go. why? think about it. those times in your life when you had no money, but now you do? nothing but bad thoughts there, amiright? and just the opposite… don’t have a lot of money now, but maybe you used to? doesn’t make the old heart warm, now, does it? or maybe you’ve been fortunate enough to have had a steady income for the past decade, and well, good for you. but when you’re looking back and seeing the $850 you spent on the water pump for your car or the $4500 for your kids braces (and then he never wore the retainer!) or the $1200 for the tickets to hawaii that you never got to use because your grandma passed away and you had to go to the funeral or, or, you see where i’m going with this, right? and trust me – worst case scenario, you get audited and the irs wants them? the bank can get them for you. that’s what they get all those ridiculous fees for. customer service.

now, for one that hit home just this morning (when we got up at 6 to go for the first bike ride in a month)…

Stretch.

i woke this morning to find that i had, in the tiniest of ways, aided a friend in her path to realisation that it really is okay to admit that some people suck, and to stand firm in your beliefs. and i’m glad i could help. i hope she sticks with it. we all spend too much of our lives trying to figure out how to fix whatever it is we think is “wrong” with us (the things we are insulted for) instead of cultivating and appreciating all the beauty we possess (the things we are complimented for). think about it; if at some point in your life, someone told you that you were smart, and someone else told you that you were stupid, which one stuck with you longer? it was the insult, wasn’t it? but now ask yourself this; if you’re so stupid, then why did someone else say you were smart? now, delve into this line of reasoning a little deeper. who was it that said you were stupid? someone who most likely doesn’t mean nearly as much to you as the person that said you were smart? so why let the stupid remark stick? what purpose is it serving you?

as for me, it’s an ongoing struggle, i admit. but the way that i blog and the way that i interact with the world in general, at least, as i have in these last few years, has helped me tremendously. i think, because i let myself get worn down to the lowest common denominator of myself, i had nowhere to go but back to the beginning, so i worked my ass off at making sure that was a strong base. i figured, hey, i may as well get something out of all that rebuilding. so i determined that my base needed to be my own sense of self. the very things i didn’t want to let go of ever again. and so i haven’t.

now, to tie this back to the u.s., and on the fourth no less - simple. we seem to think, as a nation, that when someone insults us, the best response is to insult them back. like baseball players kicking dust up on each other.  and how’s that been working for us so far? so we need to go back. we need to remember what makes us so incredibly great, and focus on that, instead of letting others’ insults about our greatness get us all pissed off and defensive. it’s one thing to defend yourself when under attack. it’s quite another to somehow thing you need to “defend your honor” when insulted. after all, if you have so much honor, why does it need defending in the first place?

all that “patriotic” chest thumping just embarrasses me as an american. when are we going to realize that citizens of all countries for the most part all think they live in the greatest nations in the world? and why does it have to bother us so much that they’re just as right as we are?

so, celebrate your freedom today; not your “greatness” – but your greatness sans quotation marks. makes a huge difference.

you’ve heard that expression, right? “keeping up with the joneses”? let it go! what’s it prove? anything? nothing. and chances are it doesn’t make you one bit happier. if there’s one thing that i’ve learned, and have had to learn over and over and over again, is that i’m the only one that can make me happy. not stuff. not things. not other people.

surround yourself with people and things that make you happy – don’t go out and get things or hang around certain people because it makes other people happy, or it impresses other people. all that can do is hollow out your insides. make you shallow.

find your own depth. jealousy is a trait of the shallow. i’ve known many people in my past that have just *had* to have the latest whatever-it-may-be as soon as it was available. and what did that get himthem? well, a buttload of debt, for one thing. more importantly, a lack of respect. and if someone else happened to beat him them to whatever-it-was? oh, the anger. oh, the greenness with envy. so where’s his their happiness now? now that he they has have all these things? gone. it would have never lasted anyway.

as for me? i’m happy. do i have everything i want? well… maybe not. but do i have everything i need? absolutely. and i’m jealous of no one. it’s a good place to be.

this one’s big, people. h-u-g-e!! so this is one of those moments when i’ll walk close to the edge of saying something personal. now, fortunately for the rest of the world, i can’t say as i’ve ever been accused of being reckless with someone else’s heart. well, maybe once… but i’ll come back to that. suffice to say it was justified.

i have, however, on many occasions, put up with people that were reckless with mine. note the use of the plural. because you’d think after the first time, i’d've learned my lesson. but i didn’t. i let it happen, again. and what adds insult to injury is, the second time around, it was even worse than the first. and it took me for-ev-er to figure out that i didn’t have to put up with it. or maybe not so much that i didn’t have to put up with it. i mean, i knew that. but how to get out of the situation that was causing the pain.

hence the reason i could have possibly been accused of being reckless with their heart. because i finally – finally got my $#&% together and got the hell outta dodge. and, somehow, they didn’t see it coming. though they should have. i’m just sayin’.

so look, i know it’s hard to make heads or tails outta this without the details, and for that, i’m sorry. but what matters is this: you only have one heart – be true to it. it’s not trite. it’s true. you have to let yourself love yourself. it’s the only way you’ll ever survive in this crazy, messed up world.

oh, and…

 Floss.

i’ve heard them (whoever they are) say that if you don’t, bad things can happen. fatal things. so, just do it.

and then there’s checking my email. because god knows, every day brings the chance that there will be an email from mom. so that’s pretty scary.

but other things, scary things… stuff i’ve told myself i should do, because it’s what makes life interesting. recently, i was offered the opportunity to go skydiving. at first, i said i’d do it. then, as the day drew closer, i started to chicken out. finally, the night before, i was losing sleep. fortunately (i guess) the day was postponed due to weather. i was glad. but sad, too. because part of me really wants to do it. the other part? scared outta my mind. i’m hoping the former wins, next time the opportunity arises.

there’s a shop in market street called lululemon athletica, and on tuesdays they offer yoga. used to be pilates. i’ve never done both. i’d like to do either. i have the time. i can easily fit it in my schedule. but do i? no. i wimp out, every tuesday, without fail. i’ve managed to put it off, in one form or another, for nearly thirty weeks now. craziness!

so i think this one, really, i need to take to heart. i need to rethink my self-stated bravery and actually do something. everyday. that scares me. really.

and you should too. i promise, it’ll make your life more interesting. no one ever gets to the end and says, “well, i’m glad i never did one thing that would constitute calling myself brave. that’s a relief.”

sing.

…as for that one, that’s easy. in the car, in the shower, at my desk, watching tv, drying my hair, folding the laundry… everywhere except where mom wants me to – which is on a stage on karaoke night somewhere with her. singing i’ve got covered.

this one’s pretty easy for me. in a two-way street sort of way. i’ll explain. i worry all the time. seriously. i worry i’m going bald. i worry i’m going crazy. i worry my wrists are way, way worse off than i think they are, and one day very soon i won’t be able to write legibly any more and will be forced to only type for the rest of my life…which will mean that eventually i’ll be typing with my eyes. cause they can do that $#*& now. i’m just sayin’. i worry i’ll have no retirement, i worry that i’ll never see the world, or at the very least, never leave this continent. i worry i don’t get enough sleep. that i get too much sleep. that i paid too much for a mattress that is already letting me down, less than three years later. *sigh* you see where this is going.

frankly, it’d drive me, and my bf, insane. if it wasn’t for the fact that he’s much, much, much better at not worrying than i am. and from the very beginning of our relationship, he starting trying to teach me how to not worry. and whenever i am, he gently guides me back to reality. a gentle nudge that usually sounds a whole lot like the algebra and the bubble gum analogy.

and he’s right. i know he’s right. and you know what? i – and everyone else – would be a lot better off if we could all remember that. worrying doesn’t change the future. it just takes away from the present. does that mean we should all float aimlessly through life, that nothing bad is gonna happen? no. but it does mean that no matter how bad (or not so bad) something that may or may not happen to us might or might not be, worrying about it isn’t going to help. because it’s always going to be the thing you didn’t worry about.

that thing that blindsides you at 4:00 on some idle tuesday.

happy tuesday! go forth and don’t worry!

i know, i know… as my mom said in an email to me this morning (in reply to my email, the first one i’d sent her in a week) “yeah, it’s been since like christmas since i’ve heard from you. yeah, yeah. hardy-har. you know, i’m not on a schedule here. it’s my blog, and i’ll blog if i want to.

well, that’s not entirely accurate. i want to blog way more often than i do. so i guess it’s more accurate to say, it’s my blog and i’ll procrastinate on blogging while i take care of things that pay the bills if i want to… but i digress.

second today in my series of advice that i’ve given, taken and ignored…

i think of the above stanza of the song pretty often. in relation to myself, i think, ‘ehm, no.’ i mean, when i look back on pictures of me 20 years ago, the first thing i think is ‘daaaayuuummm… no wonder i was a virgin all through school. can we say unibrow?’ no, but seriously, the one part of this i do try to take for myself is the last statement, about being fat. i know i’m not. not really. sure, i could stand to lose a few, most of us could. but as i just mentioned to the bf the other day, hey – i’m still in single digit sizes. which, honestly? i wasn’t always in. so i gotta find that precious balance between not being so hard on myself, and not convincing myself that just because i’m not fat doesn’t mean i couldn’t end up fat. and it’s not necessarily that being fat scares me… it’s the health risks that go along with it. what it means to your heart, your joints, your respritory system, your back, your colon and, some would say most of all, your mind – your self worth, your self value. you don’t have to be stuck up. you don’t have to be a diva. but you do have to love yourself. because you can’t love someone else until you do.

and as for the rest of this part of the song? i think of it every time i see girls that are currently in those random, awkward stages we have all gone through and survived. the girls that sit quietly in the corner of the library, reading books about third-world countries and wondering what they could be doing about it. the girls that at the tender ages of 13, 14, 16… think that they have to paint themselves another face, because the one they have is so inherently flawed. that’s your mind’s eye, sweetie. not the rest of the world’s.

but please, don’t misunderstand. there’s a huge chasm of a gap between teaching girls self-worth and empowerment and puffing them up with endless praise and princess tiaras. one will teach them they can do anything, and don’t need anyone’s approval. the other will teach them they can do nothing without it getting someone’s approval.

and seeing as how this is quite possibly the most fabulous collection of unsolicited advice ever assembled and subsequently put to music, i thought i’d start here, and work my way through it. so to start things off, here is all of the advice in it’s entirety, and i’ll begin breaking it down in my next post:

Wear sunscreen.  If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it.  The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience.  I will dispense this advice now.

 Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth — oh, never mind — you will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded.  But trust me in twenty years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked.  You are not as fat as you imagine.  Don’t worry about the future, or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum.  The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindsides you at 4:00 p.m. on some idle Tuesday.

 Do one thing every day that scares you – sing.  Don’t be reckless with other peoples’ hearts and don’t put up with people that are reckless with yours.  Floss.  Don’t waste your time on jealousy.  Sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind, the race is long.  But in the end – it’s only with yourself.  Remember compliments you receive, forget the insults.  If you succeed in doing this, tell me how. 

 Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements.  Stretch.  Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives.  Some of the most interesting 40 year-olds still don’t.  Get plenty of counseling.  Be kind to your knees – you’ll miss them when they’re gone. 

 Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t.  Maybe you’ll have children, maybe you won’t.  Maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75^th wedding anniversary.  Whatever you do don’t congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either, your choices are half chance.  So are everybody else’s.  Enjoy your body.  Use it every way you can.  Don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.  Dance.  Even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.  Read the directions – even if you don’t follow them.  Do not read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.

 Get to know your parents, you never know when they’ll be gone for good.  Be nice to your siblings, they’re your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.  Understand that friends come and go, but to a precious few you should hold on.  Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, ‘cause the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young.

 Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard.  Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.  Travel.  Accept certain inalienable truths; prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old.  And when you do you’ll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble, and children respected their elders.  Respect your elders.  Don’t expect anyone else to support you.  Maybe you have a trust fund, maybe you’ll have a wealthy spouse, but you never know when either one might run out. 

 Don’t mess too much with your hair, or by the time you’re 40 it will look 85.  Be careful who’s advise you buy, but be patient with those who supply it.  Advise is a form of nostalgia – dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.   But trust me on the sunscreen. 

i’ll tell you this much – i haven’t “tanned” since i was sixteen, and considering how dark-like-a-native i know i can get, i’m pretty freakin’ lily white. but i’m also skin-cancer-free, and hardly frecked, and definitely not leathery. so there’s that. ;o) more to come…