Sparks

Yesterday I was crawling out of my skin. I felt restless; wanting to do something (anything!) besides sitting on the sofa, but completely lacked any kind of motivation. I kept looking over at my painting area, hoping that some kind if inspiration would be sparked. Nothing.

At this point in my life, I'm trying to embrace where I'm at without judgment. Of course, it's much easier to embrace my happiness, contentment, pleasure - things that I have been taught are "good" emotions. It is much harder for me to embrace my anger, sadness, loneliness, as I was taught those are "bad" emotions (the things of which we do not speak or express). Over the past few years, I have come to the realization that there are no "bad" emotions. Sure, it doesn't feel great to be overcome with sadness, but I now see the beauty in these feelings. To be alive is to feel, and I want to experience all of life. When I really think about it, I feel the burden of that statement. It's the highs and the lows. And the lows sometimes sound daunting. Especially when you are sitting somewhere near the bottom of that low, looking up, hoping there is something to hope for.

Having nothing to do all day but acknowledge or ignore the cloud of worry becomes draining. Even as I say that, my internal critic (who sounds hauntingly like my mother, no surprise there) says with way more than an air of annoyance, "But you're not doing shit all day. How the hell can you be drained?" I tell my little critic to shut the fuck up because I'm busy having a pity party and I can't experience the fullness of party if she keeps yapping, pulling me out of my emotions. I've numbed myself for the past 20-something years, thankyouverymuch, I'm ready feel. Everything.

Well, in theory anyway. Living is daunting. Beautiful. Crazy. And daunting. It's that gasp of air before jumping. And I'm all in. This is when I feel the spark.

I can feel the rise of energy - my desires begin pulsing. I have this time - this time of unemployment, of worry - and I have complete freedom to do what I want with that time. Anything, everything, and nothing.

In a strange twist of events, I need to travel to Florida to help take care of my grandmother. Thankfully, this means making a little money and getting to travel a bit. I also recently re-connected with an old pen-pal - I know, it sounds so archaic. When we were freshman in high school, we took part in a pen-pal exchange thing - an English class in France was to be partnered with our French class in the States. She and I ended up together and wrote to each other consistently until about 2004. I stumbled upon a letter from her that had an email address on it - and voila! we are back in touch. This time via email, which is way more convenient than snail mail.

Anyhow, my French is somewhat nonexistent and so is her English. We write in our native language and hope the other one can still get by enough to understand. All of this has inspired me to use some of my free time to brush up on my French. Now that I'll be in Florida for awhile, I figure it's the perfect time to really focus in on re-learning. My grandma doesn't have internet (don't worry, I'll have time to post from a coffee shop or something), so I'll have ample time to study.

Who knows - maybe I'll find a job, save up, and travel to France in the near future. Any takers?