Everyone should have cathartic moments-- those times when we are overwhelmed by emotions until we reach a point of clarity.
I try to make sure that the people around me, the ones I let into my life, are honest with me and themselves. If they aren't, and I care about them enough, I will confront them and challenge them to be real. That's what happened this weekend with someone very close to me.
Challenges are never easy, or else they wouldn't be called "challenges." After my friend listened to me tell him he was "boring," he stormed out of the restaurant. I thought that because I could tell he had not been himself for some time. His passion had waned, and he became a person of rote and habit. I went after him, got him to listen to my argument only to convict myself of my lack of passion for what I've been trying to do, which is sell the book I just wrote.
It might not be easy to speak the truth, or say what we really think, but when we do our personal growth is imminent.
So, in the process of trying to help my friend, I found in myself the same flaw of becoming "boring." And I realized the having a success that is truly satisfying must have our passion involved. I've been passionless.
In the big picture, I can see where my efforts will lead me if I keep them up. But the satisfaction of my success can only manifest if my passion precedes those efforts. Now, I have a growing passion to prove to myself while my parents are still alive that I can accomplish what I want in spite of my upbringing. I used to want to prove it to my parents, but that was a miserable state of mind. Proving it to oneself shows solidarity and independence. There's freedom in that.
Whatever we have become slave to, we must overcome. But the only way we will know we are enslaved is if we open up to the truth, unafraid and unashamed. Carpe diem.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
I'm terribly sad today. The sun is shining, it's beautiful outside, and I've got Annie's macaroni and cheese cooking on the stove.
Okay, now I have the mac and cheese in a bowl next to me. I didn't feel like dirtying a colander to drain the water from the pasta, so i just strained the water out using the pot lid, dumped the powdered cheese into the pot, added a little water and olive oil and mixed. Doesn't work well that way. I've destroyed the peace symbols that the pasta is shaped into and can feel the granules of half-moist clumps of cheese in my mouth. Tasty. They look like yellow Amtrak logos.
My parents were not very nurturing to me. Maybe as the third child I was victim to parents having had enough rearing. My oldest brother had social issues, and my other brother had unavoidable and obvious visual art talent. They both received plenty of parenting, whether discipline or encouragement. I, on the other hand, was "fine" my mother told me later. Little did she know I had developed a debilitating self-diagnosed neurosis that would lead to a desire to study psychology-- the basic course of which I nearly failed during college, because I had trouble reading with then undiagnosed ADHD.
It was very difficult talking to my mother. Her expectations for me were far beyond anything I cared about. Image still is very important to her, having been born into an aristocratic Korean family. My father was also difficult to talk to, but for different reasons. I don't really know why.
While I had ideas and dreams as a child, none came to fruition until high school when I inadvertently instigated the implementation of a recycling program in our upstate New York county. That was in the late 1980s. All I did was put out empty boxes labeled, "Please recycle," and they filled up rapidly. So quickly that a Board of Education member took notice and somehow made the program happen. I wish I could remember who that was. When she asked me what I did with the cans, I told her that I took them to the dump. But really I just threw them in the trunk of my mother's old Buick Century. Later, my dad took them to the dump.
Whatever I wanted to do, my mother was vehemently opposed to it. Once I wanted to bake brownies and sell them, because I wanted to save money for a car by the time I turned 16. I was 8. Someone had to take me to the store to buy ingredients (the store wasn't walking distance), so of course I had to consult the parents. That went nowhere.
I always wanted to make money somehow that wasn't an allowance. But my parents squashed every effort. I did get to sell brownies during summers, but only with a partner who had been selling them already at a local concert hall. The concert hall was walking distance. I was not allowed to be a self-starter.
Now, however, I have been self-starting since 2002 and before during adulthood. I can't say I've been self-finishing though. I did write a book. But it hasn't made much money, which is why I'm sad. I feel as though my parents are squashing my efforts. They really aren't, but all those years of repressed feelings of rejection are coming up. God, I could use a good cry. Then pull up my bootstraps and get back to it.
Don't ever let anyone stop you from doing what you really want to do. Not even yourself.
I ate the entire box of Annie's mac and cheese.
Okay, now I have the mac and cheese in a bowl next to me. I didn't feel like dirtying a colander to drain the water from the pasta, so i just strained the water out using the pot lid, dumped the powdered cheese into the pot, added a little water and olive oil and mixed. Doesn't work well that way. I've destroyed the peace symbols that the pasta is shaped into and can feel the granules of half-moist clumps of cheese in my mouth. Tasty. They look like yellow Amtrak logos.
My parents were not very nurturing to me. Maybe as the third child I was victim to parents having had enough rearing. My oldest brother had social issues, and my other brother had unavoidable and obvious visual art talent. They both received plenty of parenting, whether discipline or encouragement. I, on the other hand, was "fine" my mother told me later. Little did she know I had developed a debilitating self-diagnosed neurosis that would lead to a desire to study psychology-- the basic course of which I nearly failed during college, because I had trouble reading with then undiagnosed ADHD.
It was very difficult talking to my mother. Her expectations for me were far beyond anything I cared about. Image still is very important to her, having been born into an aristocratic Korean family. My father was also difficult to talk to, but for different reasons. I don't really know why.
While I had ideas and dreams as a child, none came to fruition until high school when I inadvertently instigated the implementation of a recycling program in our upstate New York county. That was in the late 1980s. All I did was put out empty boxes labeled, "Please recycle," and they filled up rapidly. So quickly that a Board of Education member took notice and somehow made the program happen. I wish I could remember who that was. When she asked me what I did with the cans, I told her that I took them to the dump. But really I just threw them in the trunk of my mother's old Buick Century. Later, my dad took them to the dump.
Whatever I wanted to do, my mother was vehemently opposed to it. Once I wanted to bake brownies and sell them, because I wanted to save money for a car by the time I turned 16. I was 8. Someone had to take me to the store to buy ingredients (the store wasn't walking distance), so of course I had to consult the parents. That went nowhere.
I always wanted to make money somehow that wasn't an allowance. But my parents squashed every effort. I did get to sell brownies during summers, but only with a partner who had been selling them already at a local concert hall. The concert hall was walking distance. I was not allowed to be a self-starter.
Now, however, I have been self-starting since 2002 and before during adulthood. I can't say I've been self-finishing though. I did write a book. But it hasn't made much money, which is why I'm sad. I feel as though my parents are squashing my efforts. They really aren't, but all those years of repressed feelings of rejection are coming up. God, I could use a good cry. Then pull up my bootstraps and get back to it.
Don't ever let anyone stop you from doing what you really want to do. Not even yourself.
I ate the entire box of Annie's mac and cheese.
"I'm just a little girl." That's the line I'm thinking of today. It's from the play The Owl and The Pussycat by Bill Manhof. I read the lines of Doris in a Stanislavski acting class at NYU's continuing education program (adult night school).
I decided to write a personal journal online. I have nothing to hide and everything to give. This journal is therapy for a wounded heart. While I'm writing this for myself, I'm also sharing with the world to let others know that they're not alone...or they're not that crazy...or they're not the only ones who are crazy...or you may live vicariously through me, if you'd like.
How did I become "crazy" and why would I say such a thing about myself? That's what I'm going to explore as I write. I guess this is a memoir of sorts. But really it's therapy.
I decided to write a personal journal online. I have nothing to hide and everything to give. This journal is therapy for a wounded heart. While I'm writing this for myself, I'm also sharing with the world to let others know that they're not alone...or they're not that crazy...or they're not the only ones who are crazy...or you may live vicariously through me, if you'd like.
How did I become "crazy" and why would I say such a thing about myself? That's what I'm going to explore as I write. I guess this is a memoir of sorts. But really it's therapy.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
This blog used to be about living with ADHD. But now that I have somewhat of a handle on my "special" skills and how to use them in this "slow" society, I haven't been inclined to talk.
I've just written a book, AlphaDog, Get The Bitch You Want. I made the title controversial to get men's attention. Now i'm trying to market it.
Ideas go so fast through my head, faster than I can write them down. Half the time, I forget some brilliant ideas. Sometimes they come back, but not usually. It's painfully apparent as I try to sell my book and write a marketing plan.
To cope with this slight problem, I have a bulletin board on which I tack pieces of paper with ideas written on them. I hope, in time, I will have a full marketing plan written on these scraps. They will be the ideas I get, which I was able to hold on to long enough in my memory to write them down. There's a solution to every problem.
I've just written a book, AlphaDog, Get The Bitch You Want. I made the title controversial to get men's attention. Now i'm trying to market it.
Ideas go so fast through my head, faster than I can write them down. Half the time, I forget some brilliant ideas. Sometimes they come back, but not usually. It's painfully apparent as I try to sell my book and write a marketing plan.
To cope with this slight problem, I have a bulletin board on which I tack pieces of paper with ideas written on them. I hope, in time, I will have a full marketing plan written on these scraps. They will be the ideas I get, which I was able to hold on to long enough in my memory to write them down. There's a solution to every problem.
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