Operation Be Less Grumpy

This morning, I woke up super grumpy.

It probably has a lot to do with waking up at one in the morning several nights in a row and not going back to sleep until around 5:30 and being woken up 90 minutes later by obnoxious noises. (I felt bad for momentarily hating people who were just doing their job, but power saws before 8 a.m. inspire deep hostility in the under-slept and under-caffeinated.)

As I walked downtown to get some coffee and a waffle with more sugar than is good for me, I decided to revel in the grumpy. Resisting the grumpy tends to make me even crankier, but sinking into it like a warm bath helps. Exaggerating the grump always makes me feel like the curmudgeonly old muppet hecklers, and that’s just funny.

But when your baseline for the day is set at Cranky Jerk, it takes a bit more effort to keep yourself from creating more Grump-tastic situations. (I already failed at the coffee shop by taking someone else’s drink which made the drink maker person cranky which - curse of the empath - made me have to fight off their cranky along with my own.)

My best tactic for shifting into a higher state - whether it’s up a few notches from cranky or fear or whatever human experience I’m swimming in - is looking around and noticing the small, lovely details around me.

Steam rising off my chamomile citrus tea. A gnarled old tree reaching its branches toward the sky. The silky black and white puppy straining against its leash on the sidewalk outside. My pink jeans. A striking girl in an outfit I’m certain she just threw on, but still looks like she stepped out of a magazine that sells beard oil and single source coffee beans. Sun glinting through the redwood trees. The clock on the square that’s been there since 1926. The preponderance of pumpkin coffee now that the calendar says autumn. Giraffes on my phone case.

It really helps, whether I’m trying to feel happier or more abundant or more taken care of or just less grumpy.

If that doesn’t work, I walk to this:

Being as cranky when you walk away from this as when you walked toward it is statistically impossible. That’s just science.

Sunflowers and Social Media Fasts

On Monday, the little voice in my head - the one I trust, not the one with brain hamsters that shoot spit balls at unsuspecting parties - told me to get the hell off social media.

Since I make it a practice of following these little nudges - said little voice has magicked me up a garden cottage in Hobbiton (or Mill Valley, if you want to be strictly linear about it) and is good at reminding me to pay bills and go hang out with redwoods - I got the hell off social media.

I haven’t had such a nice time in ages.

Yesterday, I made myself some beef stew in the crockpot, stared happily at my sunflowers, napped with crystals (hippie healing tip! put crystals on or around your body in any way that feels right and close your eyes for a bit and you will feel splendid upon waking), and generally enjoyed the utter freedom that comes with not feeling compelled to check instagram and twitter every 33 seconds.

We’re in a major clearing phase right now.

In the past month, I’ve started eating vegetables, taken eight bags to Goodwill, made sure my storage closet can’t attack anyone ever again, started running, culled my lists, and am generally lining my ducks up in a neat little row.

I’m preparing for something, I just don’t know what.

We all are.

So if you’re feeling the limbo: fist bump, my friend.

Here’s what keeps coming through for me:

Trust that everything is happening perfectly.

Surrender to whatever the present experience is.

Feel deep gratitude for whatever lovely things happen to be in your life, like sunflowers and beef stew and tasty avocado. Even if it feels exasperating. Like feeling grateful that everything you need is within walking distance when your car decides to sputter and die on a road where lots of people are following you.

Accept it all, with a lot of love for your imperfect-yet-glorious self.

I’m doing my best to listen, even when I forget for awhile and go all triggered and weird. Because, human. Yes, we are divinity in human suits, but sometimes the human suit gets itchy and shit goes down. No worries. It’s fine. We’re clearing old wounds and old stories, and that is not the easiest proposition in an itchy human suit.

Anyway, because of my social media fast this week, I’m not posting a zillion things in a dozen places all over the internet, so I’m funneling it all to this here blog for awhile.

Writing here instead of elsewhere feels like part of this clearing process. If I post some rambling exposition on Facebook, I’m assured of at least a few thumbs up. Maybe even a heart or two, and who doesn’t want a heart? Posting here holds no such sweet ego assurance.

A big part of the last few years has been about incinerating my ego. Absolutely torching it. Burning it down to the ground. Blazing it into ash.

(And the phoenix chuckles. My higher self shakes its head and says “Ah, that feisty phoenix.” My human self says, “The phoenix is a major jerk.”)

Not letting myself have that pleasant hit of dopamine feels like a good practice for me. In the same way that not obsessing over the perfection of my writing has been useful. For the past few years, I’ve been doing my best to let things go out into the ether without obsessive rewrites, because sometimes it’s good to give a jaunty middle finger to perfectionism.

So here we are. If you’re reading this, I hope you’ll hang out with me this week on this random corner of the internet!

Riding Giraffes & Turning 40

On July 11, I turned 40. 

Over the last ten years, I wrangled a lot more grief than I expected - and learned how to drink that particular cocktail without choking.

I learned how to feel.

I adopted Sally, my stuffed therapy otter.

I learned that I was an empath - and how to take care of myself so that I wasn’t spending all my time trapped in other people’s emotions and completely drained of energy. 

Instead of doing what I expected to do - get married, have kids, maybe buy a house - I learned that riding the grief roller coaster clears space for joy. I learned that if a stuffed otter makes you happy, take her with you when you go. I learned that if there’s something you love to do...do it. 

It wasn’t how I expected my thirties to go, but it was exactly what it needed to be.

I learned who I am and how I operate and what I’m here on this spinning blue marble to do. I learned that I'm happier when I'm exercising and sporting colorful fingernails. I learned what love looks like and what joy feels like.

Not too shabby for a decade.

So for my next ten years, I’m surrendering all my ideas of how I think things should go and allowing things to happen as they do. I’m making joy and following my soul the priorities.

So this is what I want my forties to be:

Riding giraffes and writing love notes (and more books) and snuggling Sally and going on adventures and allowing the chips to fall where they may. Because that feels so much better than trying to wrestle the world into doing my bidding.

I'll keep asking for what I want, of course, and doing anything it occurs to me to do to help it happen - but I'm going to be so grateful for what I do have and so fueled up by random delight that whether or not I get it will be barely a blip on the radar. 

Because that's what freedom looks like to me. 

Allowing Fate

My last date ended 20 minutes in after he asked "What would happen if you accidentally got pregnant?" and I said "I would want to have it" and he said "I would not want you to have it" so we shook hands and walked back to our cars.

This true ass story perfectly illustrates my current stance on dating. Which is: hahahahahahaNOPE.

Dating was actually going better than it's ever gone before - aside from that random 20-minute misalliance, I've never before been able to basically snap my fingers and have amazing guys pop in like magic.

But, as it turns out, I have zero interest in dating.

I don't want to get to know you. I want to get to know ME.

Even though I just turned 40, I still have so much about the interior of my soul and brain to discover. There's a multi-verse to play in, within me and in the other dimensions. Healings to do, dragons to channel, books to write, coffee to drink, friends to meet, goals to dance with.

So no more playing the numbers game, no more going out with random strangers in the hopes of finding the partner - I am now relying 100% on fate. Maybe fate will deliver, rom-com-style, maybe it won't.

It's amazing how much space in my brain this has freed up. I feel like I'm able to really truly enjoy being single for the first time, possibly ever.

There's nothing to do, nothing to worry about, nothing to strive for.

My future relationship is entirely in the hands of god, the angels, karma, my higher self, destiny or pure unadulterated chance. Whoever makes these decisions, I surrender entirely to you.

In the meantime, I'm going to take singing lessons, work a lot, FaceTime giraffes, dance as I clean my house, write animal stories, drive anywhere I please on weekends, take myself out to fancy meals, get my nails painted wild colors, go out in the city with my girlfriends, lie on my bed and heal the cracks, eat crackers for dinner, and genuinely enjoy the hell out of my life.

Empty Hallway

I’m feeling doors shut all around me - doors to past relationships, doors to former options, doors to old worlds that used to feel so comfortable.

All the doors needed to shut, but no new doors have opened up. I can’t even see the doors yet.

So I’m in an empty hallway.

The question is always, Do I transform the hallway or just keep walking it?

I have a lot of tools for empty hallways - flood it with light, create new worlds, call in the dragons, call in Mother Mary, dive into the dark pits that suddenly yawn beneath my feet, re-code the entire structure.

But maybe I’m just supposed to be in the hallway.

Maybe I’m just supposed to be with myself.

Maybe I’m just supposed to breath in the uncertainty without trying to change it.

Maybe I’m just supposed to trust that the part of me that can see more than I consciously understand in this moment knows exactly what it’s doing and I should just allow everything to unfold.

But I was definitely supposed to get a breakfast sandwich with bacon, so I’m glad I did that. Empty hallways are easier to face on a full stomach.