How did I get here?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Boombats on March 28, 2009 at 1:36am

Bet. Like every day. I just try to make a mental note of where and who I am so that I don't fall into suspended animation.

Permalink Reply by XiaMin on March 29, 2009 at 5:59am

Thanks for the responses! I just lately have been feeling like I am SO FAR AWAY from what I really want to be doing with my life in several areas. I also feel isolated because things could be so much worse I feel like I should just shut up and color but dammit I'm tired. Really tired. I've always been able to work things out up till now but I am running out of ideas for positive change/exploration/diversion.

Permalink Reply by Rosenda on March 29, 2009 at 3:38pm

Hell yes, and I'm still going through that, Xiamin. My big weirdness is not feeling I've done all the things most women have done by 46 (and feeling really stupid and naieve in comparison) and also feeling like at 46 I can't totally relate to younger people so much and I feel the world is spining way past me and I'll never understand all of it.

So I still feel some days that I am BEHIND SCHEDULE and AHEAD of SCHEDULE and OUT OF SYNC WITH THE THE WORLD and LEFT BEHIND and thus I feel no one will totally understand me.

Why? Xiamin, Ca African is right, sometimes you have that crisis of consciousness, because you HAVE TO to move forward. Even if it's some LITTLE change. I've made one big one with my class and one big one started at home getting organized but I know now I have one other major change that will be hard to start involving my health and wellbeing.


Even just KNOWING what you want to do in your life as far as certain PERSONAL goals, although you know it will take a long time to achieve them or even begin them, is a first step, in my opinion.

And that "why the hell am I here and who the fuck am I?" question, it is painful and it hurts. If it helps to just "coast along" for a little while, just functioning on the basic needs of your practical life, then do it. But keep talking to your friends, in person and on here. Even if just one or two of us respond cause we been going through it, it helps.

But don't stop altogether and give up on anything important. I think in a way that is another blessing of you all having children. Cause your children are there and need you to function properly at a basic level, and that alone forces you to keep moving and keep action in your life. It CAN help you not fall apart, I think. And Ca African that is so cool that your husband was there to get help cause he thought you needed it, even if it was just some other therapist or doctor to talk to and ask questions of.

I had to do that one time, about 6 months after my divorce proceedings started and I only talked to the woman one time and it opened my eyes to shit I could not fathom or understand until then. It was very helpful at the time.

Boombats thats a good suggestion, and everyone has their own way of doing SOMETHING every day that keeps your feet on the ground and living every day. It could be reading or walking or music or dancing or skating or crossword puzzles. Sometimes it's good to do that shit when you are feeling cut loose and confused. I also KNOW inside that EVENTUALLY I'm gonna stop feeling bad or lost or confused. I might not know WHAT is gonna trigger and change or help but I know something eventually will. It might be gradual and it might be sudden but I know it's gonna happen. It always does.

Xiamin I think it's just to ask questions anyway. Exercises your mind just like communicating with others you trust and also........keep your eyes and mind open about other people. Sometimes I learn the answer that way to something bugging me......I see someone else do or say something and BINGO! the lightbulb clears it all up because of some person or situation completely not involving me. Weird!

Permalink Reply by DR. JONES on March 30, 2009 at 2:10am

I often think this to myself. I usually shrug it off, but it is always there. I also just figure Hey there is no one like me and it brings a smile to my face. I find that I'm stronger than I think I am in most cases. So it's like you can't let those feelings get you down. Although I do constantly wonder what am I gonna do when I really grow up?

Permalink Reply by lyfenlyn on March 30, 2009 at 12:14pm

I remember a moment when I just moved to Florida. I was pretty much homeless flopping in this rathole hotel that you paid $13 for a bed with two random chicks in a room. I wasn't working one day and I was behind two days in rent. Because they knew I was home they turned off the air in the room and it was like MAY, so it was crazy hot. I was laying there sweatting and mad thinking 'I've actually died and I'm in purgatory.' This can't be my life for real.

Permalink Reply by Compound Egret on March 30, 2009 at 4:31pm

Yes. Definitely still working on it.

Some things that may help...

sorting out that stuff that keeps you up at night and splitting it into two columns on paper...Things you can control and things that you absolutely cannot control.

exercise

long drives after dark.

good luck.

Permalink Reply by lyfenlyn on March 31, 2009 at 11:19am

Good visual 'been sleeping on the floor so long.' And some of us quite literally.


El Machetero said:

i was in pretty much a nonstop crisis of conscious from 28 to about 30, i would say.

At the time, it was bad.....in the sense that it hit me hard like a ton of bricks the full extent to which i'd wasted A LOT of time being severely focused on the wrong shit, and the fact that i'd gotten caught up like a dummy in the street life for so many years began to REALLY bite me in the ass.

Plus, i began to feel the repercussions of all the abuse i had dished out to my own spirit, mind and body for so long, and i realized that while i had earned much credibility and respect in the underground subcultural worlds i'm a part of, the reality was that i had next to none in the so-called "legit" straight world, and that i was gonna have to adapt and shift worldviews considerably, or else be headed straight to a life of perpetual poverty, depression, destitution, despair, failure, and total exclusion from the world (to an extent i would have zero pretence of control over).

But now, a month shy of turning 34, i'm GOOD. i went through a bit of a cranky old man phase during 31-32, until i realized this year that i'm still very much a young man with a lot that's still ahead of me. The fact that i've invested much time in bettering my health and wellbeing, developing a much more disciplined and responsible mindset, and bettering myself professionally and education-wise has really paid off. The quality of my relationships and friendships has jumped sky high, and generally speaking, i like the path that i'm on.

But it's been tough as hell too. i've had to make a ton of sacrifices (one of the hardest ones being my decision to put aside my music career and focus instead on school), i have had to take some losses and endure some hardcore tests of faith along the way, i've had to cut a shitload of people off, and i have had to face the fact that no matter how much i value things like economic stability and certain comforts in life, the reality is that the world is not a stable place for the likes of me and you, and no matter how good i get at playing certain parts of the game, i am not a mainstream-type of dude in the slightest, i hate all that "their" world represents more than ever, and there are certain types of environments where i am just plain miserable and where it ain't worth my while to even try fitting in, cuz it's just plain contrary to my nature.

But that's cool. Soon people like us will all emerge as the victors. We've all been sleeping on the floor for so long that we don't have to worry about falling out the bed, cuz either we never had a bed for long or never had one to fall out of in the first place.

Permalink Reply by lyfenlyn on March 31, 2009 at 12:21pm

What I did about it was just stayed true to who I was and grinded like crazy. I moved all over the place staying where I could, in shelters and stuff while I went back to school AGAIN. (and I still have one more round to go) I am not the give in give up type. That's the chick down the street, not me. I worked two jobs for most of three years to get back into an apartment and a decent car. I have a simple life because I am still on the move, like I said I have one more city and round of school to go so all that other stuff , needs and wants have to stay on pause for now.

Permalink Reply by Rosenda on April 4, 2009 at 3:30pm

I feel VERY far away from SOME things where I want to be. But I've already begun those little steps of getting there, and that feels good. It is not easy and it won't be easy. Lyfen, I have to put stuff on back burner too just to take care of some practical shit but you know that's part of growing.



El Machetero, I will kick you butt if you EVEN start saying "oh I'm so old now." Neither of us has any business talking that way, and I'm older than you!

I'm realizing myself sometimes I feel old but then the very fact I live the life I do with the freedom I do is VERY different from a lot of people my age. And that is my choice and has always been. The fact I still got QUESTIONS about stuff and DON'T have everything set in stone about my living and my self image even probably keeps me younger and changing. Even when it hurts and confuses me!

Lyfen and Machetero you all have literally come from hell and back and that is truly to hold with pride.
Sometimes getting through your own personal painful shit in your past is that indestructible background brick wall that can tell you "well damn if I got through THAT ain't nothing ELSE that will ever stop me!"

XiaMin said:

Thanks for the responses! I just lately have been feeling like I am SO FAR AWAY from what I really want to be doing with my life in several areas. I also feel isolated because things could be so much worse I feel like I should just shut up and color but dammit I'm tired. Really tired. I've always been able to work things out up till now but I am running out of ideas for positive change/exploration/diversion.

Permalink Reply by CurvyDivaJC on April 9, 2009 at 10:48pm

I am going through that right now. If you told me I would be this person back in high school...I would have told you pshah!! But I look back and see the forks in the road that made my life what it is today. I can literally see what has happened based on past decisions I have made. You just have to work it out in your own way. I have been doing a lot of physical and mental cleansing lately. Trying to get out of the rut.

Permalink Reply by Rosenda on April 11, 2009 at 3:44pm

Me too on that cleansing thing CDJC. I've been dropping off so many bags of clothes and shoes at the local Goodwill on Crenshaw that the dude knows me by now. Tossed so much in the trash and given some things to folks who can use them. I still have to make one more sweep of my closet and shoes. You know those shoe racks made of plastic with metal bars that hold 50 pair of shoes? I filled them both up PLUS a couple of smaller 15-pair metal round racks that sit on the bookcase. Today I filled up a big trash bag full of shoes. I had to go through and admit yeah some things are still cute but they hurt like hell and how many of THOSE shoes, for "special occasions", do you really need to keep?

It's not like i'm going to formal dinners every night of the week with Barbara Walters and the Countess Von Hohenloe or something, you know? I work and go to school 3 nights a week. And if I go out I wanna dance and hop and be comfortable.

But it is SO hard. What forced all this cleaning again is my class. I had to go through stuff to find things I needed for class (a lot of sewing supplies I knew I already had) and I was on a roll with the cleaning and pitching out that I just kept on going and it's been a month now, every weekend I do it.

My main problem is energy. I need to wake up earlier to go the gym. And I feel like I'm ground into the dirt with sleeping pills in my ears when I wake up in the morning, and it takes forever to get out to work on time.

Curvy I know EXACTLY what you mean by "I can literally see what has happened based on past decisions". Me too, actually with me it's more like "the decisions I did NOT make" along with the ones that I did. Both equally set me where I am today mentally and physically and emotionally.

A lot of that is good but a lot of it is bad or at the very least things I need to correct, ya know?
Funny Curvy in some ways I am much more risk taking and "fuck you attitude I'm gonna do what I want" person than I was when I was young, and that really surprises me. :)

Permalink Reply by Rosenda on October 31, 2009 at 3:27pm

I'm gonna update my own shit here. Life has taken a big huge open up direction and turning on the universe.
It's scary as hell but it's great as hell too. Now I know how I got here.....letting everything my life "just happen" and not until now am I learning I can't leave shit to chance when it comes to specific needs and accomplishments. It's fucking harder than anything I have ever done or had to live throught to now actually take deliberate action in my life and to plan shit out to the minute/day in many parts of my life. I didn't know I was being lazy and laissez faire until recently. I am now thankful I learned but I continue to learn struggle day by day. The pain comes with joy every single day. Wish me Good Luck!

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