#365Gratitude Day 346: Tough as Nails

My gratitude today is kind of an unpleasant one.

I'm generally a soft, gentle, loving person.  I open my heart and welcome folks in.  I see to others needs when and where I can.  I don't like suffering in anyone, but most especially in others.  I'm pretty tender like that.

But not always.

When I have to be, I can be hard.  I can do that which is necessary.  I know my own boundaries, and can establish them firmly.  Without being cruel, without being unkind, I can be blunt, firm, and unyielding.

I can be tough as nails.  I can take a pounding, get a bit bent, but still stick.

I've had a situation going on recently that's made me have to do just that.  I've been involved in a friend's drama, to a degree that rapidly became unhealthy for me.  It lifted me high, and slammed me down low.  I'm not going to say who or what, because it's nobody else's business, and because I don't want to smear them on the internet.  That's not my style.

But I reached a crucial impasse with them late last night.  I told them so, too.  The amount of drama in the situation was just toxic for me.  I was done.  I wished them well.

Don't get me wrong - afterward, I sobbed myself to sleep.  I'm tough as nails, sure - but I'm not a robot!  Eventually, I did drift off.  I reached out to some of my trusted folks, both in my sleeplessness, and this morning.  

Today, I feel better.  

I'm glad that when I need to, I can do this.

#365Gratitude Day 345: Getting Fishy with Michy

I have this good fried, Michelle.  She's part of a big, healthy poly family.  They're all adorable, amazing, awesome people.  I kind of have a crush on their whole family.  Michelle's wife is vegan, and several members of the family are some form of non-meat-a-tarian or another.  Mich is also, like me, a big fan of mindfulness.

So, we have these big talks about stuff, sometimes.  When I made my recent decision to become a pescetarian, she was one of the people I turned to, to talk it out.  Because I realized it was important for me to understand, to elaborate to myself and others not just what I was doing, but why I was doing it.

So Friday morning we had this lovely conversation:

Me: For me it's all about minimizing my participation in suffering.  I know I'm going to cause some - it's natural.  I just don't want to cause more than I need to. Nor benefit from its being caused

Michelle: That's what led me to really minimize my meat intake, and to buy from local farmers I can visit  My body doesn't do well on no-meat. So I've tried to do it as in line with my personal ethics as I can.

Me: *nod* Understandable.  The universe needs just the Michelle you are.  You can tell - because you're here.  Lately I feel so much peace, compassion, and love for EVERYTHING and EVERYONE

Michelle: Yay! that's a fantastic place to be in, a wonderful feeling to carry with you

Me: I've just become hyperaware of some Very Big Truths™ More than ever I realize happiness is something you DO, not something you are.

Michelle: Yes! So one of my big things is, "I am joy, I serve love. I am love, I serve joy."
For me, the doing and being are one and the same- the doing created the being drives the doing.

Then she shared an AWESOME quote with me, which I'll share with you now:

I slept and dreamt that life was joy.
I awoke and saw that life was service.
I acted and behold, service was joy.
- Rabindranath Tagore

I told her that would be my gratitude that day.  I'm lucky to have such a good person for my friend.

#365Gratitude Day 344: It's gonna be magic

I really, really, really love Lev Grossman's Magicians series.  It's the story of Quentin Coldwater, a very smart and very depressed high school student, on his way to college, who knows that there's something missing from his life, something vital.  He's filled with ennui, bitterness, sarcasm, good math skills, and a penchant for card tricks.

The something that's missing from his life is magic.  Also maybe prozac, some therapy, and emotional maturity, especially around relationships.  He gets into a sort of magical college called Brakebills.  Adventure ensues!  

The books are like putting Harry Potter, Narnia, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, a bottle of vodka, and maybe some amyl nitrate in a blender.  They're amazing.  Quentin is, at turns, empathetic, heroic, disgusting, vain, selfish, obnoxious, an unreliable narrator, and worthy of a deep outpouring of love he's never gotten, but you're going to give it to him whether you like it or not, damnit.

They're brilliant.

Which is why I'm excited more than is probably healthy that they're becoming a Syfy miniseries, too.  Well, they have been.  And they are going to be on in 4 days.  I know, when I found out, I immediately DVR'ed it. 

Check out the trailer!   

#365Gratitude Day 343: A good reading

No, not the utility kind. 

The fiction kind.

I've been working on my new book A Little Patch of Sunshine, for a while now.  My writing is a funny thing - sometimes I am on point, churning out thousands of words every time I sit down, with ease.  Other times, I just can't seem to find the time or the secret-entrance-behind-the-bookshelf-in-the-study-inside-my-mental-house to get there.  

Years ago I recall something a favorite author, Piers Anthony said about writing and the block.  You just keep going.  You find coping mechanisms, deploy them, and plow on through. [One of his better coping mechanisms is employing these brackets where you have a conversation with yourself about the issue in question.  Isn't that a good idea.  Yeah, I thought so too.  Look how meta you're being right now.  I know, it's amazing, right?]

One of my coping mechanisms is to have test readers.  They're a trusted few who I let read my work as I go, and they help me fine tune it.  Another coping mechanism of mine is to perform my writing, to read it aloud for an audience.

That's just what I did this past Wednesday night.  I read from both Concerning Littleton, already published, and from A Little Patch of Sunshine which is still up on the blocks, with the hood open.  

People dug it.  So much in fact that the audience visibly paled at the places I wanted them to.  (Which is a challenge when the audience is a text based IRC chatroom while I read on the podcast stream.  You know you've really got people trembling when they emote that they're doing so.)

It worked well.  My creative fires are banked and getting hotter.  I'll be doing it again.  Repeatedly.

#dailyThink Painful expectations

I was just thinking that every time I feel any sort of emotional pain it's because of some expectation I have or have had. "That shouldn't happen to me" or "That shouldn't happen to anyone" or "I need this to happen/be true"

Can you think of times when you have been sad, disappointed, anxious, nervous, or angry that WERE NOT tied to an expectation?

Leave me a comment, tell me about it. That would be great. Not that I'm expecting  you to. No pressure!