Believe me, I'm mentally fighting something right now. Growing up, my sister and I shared a room until we decided it was in the best interest of my teenage years that she move across the hall. We each got to choose the colors of our new rooms - blue and white for me, pink and white for her. I was totally merciless in making fun of her. In my defense, her room was really, really pink. Like walls AND carpet.
She was a girl. Girls like pink.
This was clearly pre-women's studies class. Now we're grown up and both less rigid in our thinking by virtue of the fact that we are older. But I didn't like pink as a girl. I wanted to be different. I was adopted. I AM different. Right?
Before you slam the page shut on this blog, let me say that I realize it's pretty lame to invoke the color wheel to make a larger point about life. A friend recently started a blog about ways he's different from anyone else he meets. I have been through some pretty awesome Lets Make Our Lives Better years of late, and one thing those people tell me is to look for the ways I am similar to everyone else, not ways I am different. So, ok. I still like my friend's blog. I keep starting blogs and then shutting them down because I'm afraid of revealing too much. See? I think I'm waay more "X" "Y" or "Z" than anyone on the planet and it's just not true.
I hope.
But here's the fact and reason for doing what I do ... : until about a year ago, I had never given myself time or space to actually be myself. As a 32 year old person I had no idea until age 30 that I'd spent nearly two decades hiding in drugs, booze and a fear of being "unmasked" as an actual human. I wasn't hiding, I was being myself. Right? Wrong. The shock of my life has been enjoying people, places and things without taking something first. Does it blow you away that I did not think it was possible to feel good on my own? I couldn't do it. I was defective. Etc. Hello, the past.
But look. This is not about princesses and fairy tales. Back in the day (the high school day) I had a shy, dry sense of humor and my favorite authors were William S. Burroughs and random, off-beat poets. My favorite music was acid jazz, Bone Thugz, jungle music, some classical and random pop. I loved My So-Called Life on tv and wrote prolifically at the expense of everything else because I was special and entitled to do so, god dammit. I rode horses til I couldn't any more. I was enraged at just about everything. I would have put my life on the line for a friend. You were stupid. Unless I worshiped you. Then I was inferior to your presence. And sometimes, at points, I was very, very cool. And had great taste!
The life of extremes is tough.
I'm honored you are reading this blog. And you weren't stupid, I was jealous of everything you could do, because I couldn't. Or thought I couldn't. Or made it so I couldn't. At any rate. Somewhere in here I hope to say something profound, but until that day comes I'll state that my goals for this blog are for me to get to know me, to let you know me honestly, and hopefully to say something you'll relate to - maybe even something that helps you or someone you love. Humble aspirations. I've had a lot of rockiness but that's all smoothing out now for taking the right road, and I have a terrible fear of being view as the 'walking wounded' or anything too ridiculous. But from this point on I'm not in control of what you think of me, my life, or my goals. It's pretty real.
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