"If you ever happen to go outside of your house, do you think you could run this errand for us?" - my boss, during a meeting.
It's safe to say I am always at home. Mainly because I'm at home every time I don't have something I have to do, that is to say, if I am free to choose where I want to be, I will choose home every time.
But why?
I've been thinking about this a lot, for the past few years, trying to pin-point the exact moment in which my abnormal sleeping pattern stopped being the only reason I wasn't engaged socially as much as everyone else in my circle.
Part of it is being a highly sensitive person (HSP). I don't know how canon HSP is as a diagnosis but I can say I definitely relate and thinking about myself as a HSP has allowed me to understand myself better and find solutions to my particular challenges. Basically, being a HSP is not necessarily about sensitive in the sense of feelings, but more in general, all your sensors are more fine-tuned and can pick up lower signals than average. For me, it means that I can find it hard to focus, and I tend to note everything that goes on in a room to the point that I miss the main event because I was making note of how all the people walking in and out.
Another big part of it is that I tend to overthink everything, and have a running anxiety that constantly weighs on all my attempts to do anything. So, as I go about my HSP life picking up very many signals, I also happen to overthink each and every little signal, leaving me with a very busy brain. And after a while, I feel really tired. Especially after a long day of social engagement, I feel exhausted, I need to retreat seemingly for long, long days. Yes, I am an introvert. I am also just a little bit shy, but that hasn't really been a problem.
Come to think of it, most of my favorite activities are solo activities or quiet-time activities as well, such as reading (number 1 favorite!), coloring, researching/learning, watching movies. The best companions for all of these activities are my little housemates, Eggy and Mimin, who are cats. Even so, no man is and island. And as I grow and mature, I'm starting to be a lot more grateful to all the people behind the scenes who have supported me all along and helped me succeed. I'm putting a lot more value on interpersonal relationships, because now I see that even though I am happy being alone, I still love, like, need, and want people in my life.
So it has come time to lose the identification with the hermit in me. The hermit is just another facet of my personality, but it's not who I am. If I'm a little bit more honest with myself, I will also talk about how much I loved hosting dinner parties when I lived in Scotland, how I traveled for a week with friends, lived with friends, and how much I enjoy going on walks and even, occasionally, I love parties. I suppose, being completely honest, that a personality is more like breathing, oscillating between extremes as you learn and adjust and try to find a happy balance where things somewhat make you feel complete. I spent the past three years on the inhale, isolating myself, taking in experiences, reflecting and hiding inside my own self. But I can feel it already, the exhale has begun. I am now ready to come out, like the proverbial butterfly all changed up, to show the world all what I can do in my new form.
So yes, boss. I will run that errand. I will run it today.
Thursday 29 June 2017
Sunday 18 June 2017
Grow the fuck up
About two months ago I took a two-week trip to my homeland Guatemala, and it was everything I thought it was going to be, and then some. But (very) long story short, I returned renewed and with a major attitude adjustment, and figured I would nag at the poor souls who wander into this blog for a little while.
Man, I cannot begin to tell you how difficult life's lessons have been for me growing up. Life is hard as a woman. Seriously, it is. Society throws so much shit at you all the time that you end up with a really convoluted mind and sense of identity, and that in turn keeps affecting everything you think and do. So all through my teens I couldn't wait to be in my twenties, and then all through my twenties I feared the approaching end of the golden age. Because for a woman, you are rarely ever worth as much as you are in your twenties.
Spoiler alert: I am no longer in my twenties. When it happened, I hated it so much. I moved back to the island on the last of my golden years, and it truly, honestly wasn't at all how I wanted to spend that last moment of true joy. I felt I had been robbed of my one final happiness. But it wasn't all about the twenties, to be honest. While I was in Europe, I had a chance to develop as a person, away from everyone who knew "me" as I used to be. I used the opportunity to begin a change in habits and to try and crack my mind open to understand and patiently consider conflicting realities. I was happy there, but of course all that head cracking plunged me into a borderline suicidal depression.
So that when "the event that shan't be named" (okay, exaggeration) occurred, I sort of just gave up. I had always thought I would peak in my thirties, mainly because I was a late bloomer who only got interested in boys and Guess jeans until I was like, fourteen instead of like, eleven like the normal girls. But when I moved back to Aruba, it felt like a set-back, and it automatically translated to "that thing back there that just ended was the peak." Uber-bummer. Society was right, my best years were behind me.
Despite the tragedy, life had to continue being lived I supposed, and having not too long ago learned the benefits of pop-Buddhism, I was determined to learn whatever life was trying to teach me asap so that I could move on. I sincerely encourage this approach. It took me about a year (during which I worked hard and succeeded at my job) to get over the shocking turn my life had taken, but with the help of the patient, ever-loving world, my attitude started improving. I purposefully looked for lessons in everything and tried to learn them as hard as I could, emotional toll be damned. And then life threw me a little support in the birth of my niece.
I started realizing that I didn't want to work all the time anymore, that I missed my family, that I was going to be a stranger to that baby if I kept working in retail. I started filling out job applications, but it took a year of only a couple of interviews here and there to finally land a job offer. I hurriedly quit my job, only to have the new job offer rescinded. I had only ever had one full-time job up until that point, and I had no idea that people could take the job offer back. Regardless, I had made up my mind and communicated to my previous boss that retail wasn't the life for me, so I was determined to not fall back.
I went on a couple more job interviews before I was given the chance of a lifetime at my current job, but even that hasn't been without it's challenges. The more I pushed myself, the more I saw how great the effort you have to make is when you want to change your life. I addressed my depression and started treatment. Even so, I was still struggling to adjust and to find a rhythm and a purpose within it all.
Then I went to Guatemala, and I found myself telling friends and family about my life, my apartment with my cats, my job, my relationships with my family and friends in Aruba. And just talking about it and hearing myself, I started realizing how truly blessed and lucky I have been this whole time. It was just that I've always surrounded myself with happy and lucky people that I had started to think my own life was lacking. But it's not.
And I promise you, your life is not lacking either. We've all heard "count your blessings" but how many of us actually do it? How many times a day, a week, a month, do you take time to actually think up all the people and things you really love and are thankful for? So stop feeling sorry for yourself. I know it's hard, but stop it. Take responsibility for the things you can change, get over the ones you can't, and start being grateful for all the things you're taking for granted. In a moment, it's all gone.
Every cloud has a silver lining, make that silver your crown.
Man, I cannot begin to tell you how difficult life's lessons have been for me growing up. Life is hard as a woman. Seriously, it is. Society throws so much shit at you all the time that you end up with a really convoluted mind and sense of identity, and that in turn keeps affecting everything you think and do. So all through my teens I couldn't wait to be in my twenties, and then all through my twenties I feared the approaching end of the golden age. Because for a woman, you are rarely ever worth as much as you are in your twenties.
Spoiler alert: I am no longer in my twenties. When it happened, I hated it so much. I moved back to the island on the last of my golden years, and it truly, honestly wasn't at all how I wanted to spend that last moment of true joy. I felt I had been robbed of my one final happiness. But it wasn't all about the twenties, to be honest. While I was in Europe, I had a chance to develop as a person, away from everyone who knew "me" as I used to be. I used the opportunity to begin a change in habits and to try and crack my mind open to understand and patiently consider conflicting realities. I was happy there, but of course all that head cracking plunged me into a borderline suicidal depression.
So that when "the event that shan't be named" (okay, exaggeration) occurred, I sort of just gave up. I had always thought I would peak in my thirties, mainly because I was a late bloomer who only got interested in boys and Guess jeans until I was like, fourteen instead of like, eleven like the normal girls. But when I moved back to Aruba, it felt like a set-back, and it automatically translated to "that thing back there that just ended was the peak." Uber-bummer. Society was right, my best years were behind me.
Despite the tragedy, life had to continue being lived I supposed, and having not too long ago learned the benefits of pop-Buddhism, I was determined to learn whatever life was trying to teach me asap so that I could move on. I sincerely encourage this approach. It took me about a year (during which I worked hard and succeeded at my job) to get over the shocking turn my life had taken, but with the help of the patient, ever-loving world, my attitude started improving. I purposefully looked for lessons in everything and tried to learn them as hard as I could, emotional toll be damned. And then life threw me a little support in the birth of my niece.
I started realizing that I didn't want to work all the time anymore, that I missed my family, that I was going to be a stranger to that baby if I kept working in retail. I started filling out job applications, but it took a year of only a couple of interviews here and there to finally land a job offer. I hurriedly quit my job, only to have the new job offer rescinded. I had only ever had one full-time job up until that point, and I had no idea that people could take the job offer back. Regardless, I had made up my mind and communicated to my previous boss that retail wasn't the life for me, so I was determined to not fall back.
I went on a couple more job interviews before I was given the chance of a lifetime at my current job, but even that hasn't been without it's challenges. The more I pushed myself, the more I saw how great the effort you have to make is when you want to change your life. I addressed my depression and started treatment. Even so, I was still struggling to adjust and to find a rhythm and a purpose within it all.
Then I went to Guatemala, and I found myself telling friends and family about my life, my apartment with my cats, my job, my relationships with my family and friends in Aruba. And just talking about it and hearing myself, I started realizing how truly blessed and lucky I have been this whole time. It was just that I've always surrounded myself with happy and lucky people that I had started to think my own life was lacking. But it's not.
And I promise you, your life is not lacking either. We've all heard "count your blessings" but how many of us actually do it? How many times a day, a week, a month, do you take time to actually think up all the people and things you really love and are thankful for? So stop feeling sorry for yourself. I know it's hard, but stop it. Take responsibility for the things you can change, get over the ones you can't, and start being grateful for all the things you're taking for granted. In a moment, it's all gone.
Every cloud has a silver lining, make that silver your crown.
Thursday 8 June 2017
How free life would be if we stopped measuring time.
How free life would be if we stopped measuring time. Our youth would be defined by our vitality and our eagerness to meet life. We would match up with people in terms of experiences, or points in life, rather than the times the earth has orbited the sun. We wouldn't start feeling angst over a youth lost as soon as we turn 29, we wouldn't worry when to get married, we would take that trip when we're ready. We would work on a task for however long it took, or until we got tired, or bored. We wouldn't obsess about working exactly one third of the time it approximately takes the earth to rotate on its axis. We would go to sleep, and wake up when rested, or when the sun came up. Things would take however long they would take.
The Greeks had two words for time. One is profane time, χρόνος chronos, the time-keeping of watches and dates on calendars and alarms. The other is καιρός kairos, the spiritual time of the seasons and the natural rhythms. And ever since the dawn of chronos, I think that's the moment humanity began falling apart from nature and the earth.
I once somewhere read a story* that said, that humans are the only animals who count the passage of time, and therefor the only ones worried about their own mortality. I wish we could lose the bondage of time, of appointments, alarms and deadlines. That we could just live out our days in the raw intensity of nature where you live each moment as it comes, instead of being constantly a ghost in the past or the future.
Then again, the grass is always greener.
The Greeks had two words for time. One is profane time, χρόνος chronos, the time-keeping of watches and dates on calendars and alarms. The other is καιρός kairos, the spiritual time of the seasons and the natural rhythms. And ever since the dawn of chronos, I think that's the moment humanity began falling apart from nature and the earth.
I once somewhere read a story* that said, that humans are the only animals who count the passage of time, and therefor the only ones worried about their own mortality. I wish we could lose the bondage of time, of appointments, alarms and deadlines. That we could just live out our days in the raw intensity of nature where you live each moment as it comes, instead of being constantly a ghost in the past or the future.
Then again, the grass is always greener.
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