Category Archives: Feeling

Heart V. Brain

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You can tell yourself to let something go. You can scream and scream about it. But the heart will do whatever it wants. It laughs derisively at the brain and his logic. The heart doesn’t care. It will beat for whomever and whatever she desires. 

The heart will look back fondly while the brain keeps trying to turn her face forward, toward what could be, not toward what was. The heart looks into the sky at what could never be and the brain keeps trying to take the heart’s attention away from silly fantasies.

Silly fantasies are fine and fun, until they keep you from reality, until they cause you pain.

The heart loves him, could love him forever and ever. The heart feels connected to him. The heart wants to become one with his heart. The brain knows it would never last. The brain knows he will never love you the way you want to be loved. The brain knows you are not good for each other.

So what are you to do, really? Wrap it all up and dump it down a well until one day it bubbles to the surface, exploding with tension, pain and misery? Or do you survive it, feeling the rejection, the ache and the melancholy of what could be, but never will?

A New Beginning

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Friday I wrote about starting over. I have just been given a chance at something very new: a new career in a field I’ve never worked in. I’m going to be a Communications Specialist for Local 721 in Los Angeles. I’m thrilled! I’m terrified! I’m relieved! I’m anxious!

I’m thrilled. I am so excited to be able to get my life back on a track that I expect for myself. Having a career doesn’t mean that my entertainment goals are any less strong or on the back burner. It means that I don’t have to suffer in poverty while I pursue comedy, even if poverty is a strong motivator behind why I felt successful at comedy. When there is nothing else, there is making people laugh. People laugh at tragedy. Not to say my life is tragic, but it isn’t ideal. I’m excited to be on my own again, making my own way, the way I know how. I’m excited to help people instead of being the one who is helped. I’m excited to have something new. I’m excited to wake up to work.

I’m terrified. I could fail. This isn’t like teaching where I had a few years of experience and lots of resources to help me. This is a brand new field and while I have some experience to guide me, I’ll be learning more initially than I’ll be able to contribute. Naturally, I want to be successful right away because I want those who hired me to be happy with their choice. I’m terrified that it won’t be what I hoped for, or that I didn’t understand what I was getting into. I’m terrified that I’ll hate it. I’m terrified that I’ll love it.

I’m relieved. I am so relieved to be able to stop asking my parents for handouts. I’m relieved to get on a regular schedule that my body, mind, and soul can become accustomed to. My worries about succeeding are a little less because I have the prospects of a new life and an opportunity to do it.

I’m anxious. There are so many what-ifs that my brain starts moving in directions it doesn’t need to, creating disaster scenarios that aren’t realistic, but make my heart flutter with worry and my gut turn. Failure has been a good friend of me in recent years and of course, I’m anxious that I’ll fail again.

These feelings are all normal and they don’t really mean anything except that I have a heart, I’m breathing and I’m alive. For a long time, I didn’t feel that way. When I look back at my life one year ago, everything was just so different and part of me is happy that it’s so different and part of me laments some of the things I left behind. There isn’t anything I can do now, and truth be told, I wouldn’t change my life as it is. I just have a hard time accepting this new part of my life because I got so used to my life being crappy and making jokes out of it. I don’t feel like I deserve this new job, or real happiness any time soon. I think I need to suffer a little more, even if that sounds foolish. I’m trying to enjoy these moments, as my friend Nicole suggested, because letting them pass by is a true waste. I just need to convince my heart that it’s right, I deserve it and I will succeed.

Realization of Why

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I don’t know for sure what the cosmic reasons for my two and half years of living abroad, or for the divorce. If I were to be so bold to hazard a guess, I would say that God intended for me to be in this place right now. I finally feel like I’m pursuing a goal and a life that is meant for me. My grind means something. I’m satisfied and fulfilled by it. I wish it sustained me as an economic support, but one day, I know it will.

I’ve seen changes in myself. I’m slower to judge and slower to speak. I’m much more easy going. I’m softer. I don’t have the energy, desire, or need to fight with others over most things. My response to a personal challenge is often a shrug of the shoulders, which doesn’t mean I’ve given up, it means that I’m better able to judge what’s worth fighting over. But, I really don’t have the power in me to fight someone. I am devoting all my energy to fighting for myself. I want to find me again. I want to be myself, and it has to be the best version of myself. I was an unacceptable version for far too long. I’m getting there slowly, slowly. I like who I’m becoming. I’m aware of who I was and where I’ve been and where I don’t want to be ever again.

Moving to Burbank has definitely helped this process. If I had stayed in Fresno, surrounded by my family and friends, light and support, I would still be using that crutch. Relocating to a place where I would be initially alone forced me  to constantly evaluate who I was, what I was and who I was going to be. I had to make new friends. I had to depend on myself and I only had me depending on myself. I was out on my own. That’s really only partially true because I had emotional and financial support from my parents, as well as love from my friends whenever I needed it. But I was physically alone, discovering myself again. It has been a good journey so far, but not without trials, to be sure.

What I’m challenged by most, right now, is still guilt. I feel like I’m carrying around a lot of it. I know why, but I’m tired of doing it. It’s weighing me down unnecessarily and making my progress slower. I want to put this guilt down, but I don’t know how.

So while I understand that I don’t fully understand the purpose behind all that has happened to me, and all that I have caused to happen, I am trying to make sense of it. I am feeling more at ease than I ever have before. I like being the softer version of myself. I like being malleable to ideas. I like being open to new things. I like testing waters. I like testing myself. I like meeting new people and my whole story is mine. I also like being with old friends who can see the changes in me and like them.