fivebyevif

Long weekend. Very tired. Good fun with Curtis sensei. Lots to dwell on. Speaking of which….

There are days I wake up and I wonder if we’ve replaced serfdom and peasantry with lives of mediocrity.

Lives where people accept what they’re told, do what they think they should do, live as they think they should be living rather than, truly, living.

The pressure to not be myself is immense, and though the impetus may come from the suggestions of others, I have only myself to blame for the molds I perceive I must fold up into. I stand in front of my mirror most every day with a gnawing voice that tells me I’m going to die alone because I’m not young or pretty or thin enough. Everytime I sit down to write, that same voice is telling me I’m not original or professional enough to cut it in the literary machine, and it’ll take years to get to that state, so why even try?

And then there is the dojo, where just stepping onto the mat can trigger a wave of “I could be better”s and “if I only practiced more”s. The defeatist in me goes on to remind me that I’m fat and old and getting older, and it’ll be a miracle if I get better. The whining can get worse on the drive home, when I go over the night and pick out where I could have done better, taken a fall with more grace, reacted more appropriately to something the instructor was presenting.

Except that unlike the morning mirror check and the writing slog, the dojo is not a solitary practice. I get exterior feedback from another source whenever I’m helping a friend get up off the canvas. And I found out something this weekend: I don’t suck quite as much as I thought I did.

Getting tied up in the miserable melancholy of failure is a trap that never gets fun and never yields success. Oh, but it’s so comfortable, and so easy to find more things to fix.  It makes the couch and TV damn inviting. Stop struggling, it’s too much work. Just shut up and watch some more Mythbusters, Steph.

But I decided years ago that I am not going to rot my life away sitting on a couch watching someone else’s idea of reality. I’m not saying a little brainrot once in a while is a bad thing, but I only want to do it sparingly. I only have this moment.

This one, right here.

There is one established fact in my life and all our lives: we’re going to die. And also: we don’t know when. Why waste this moment living up to what we perceive as the expectations of others, whether they be a person or an institution, or a text written in a book, magazine, or blog?

I only have this one blog post. George W. could accidentally launch an air-to-surface missile at my home tonight and foomp! no more Steph. The likelihood is low (tho’ slightly higher if I’d used Cheney in my hypothetical situation), but if I want anything chipped on my gravestone, it’s this: SHE LIVED. And also that fruitcake recipe everyone likes.

When I was much younger, the idea of going down in history without leaving a ripple drove me nuts. I’ve progressed since then, having lived with famous people and seen what history does to its darlings. I don’t want to show up in a history book anymore, but I still have the original, pure intention: I want to do something. It doesn’t need to be the Eiffel Tower. It doesn’t need to be a cure for cancer. Hell, it doesn’t even need to be a published novel. It just needs to be a life where I was awake and aware, in the moment.

I want to be here, right here.

And so I am.