yin and yang

My life is pretty smooth right now. It’s currently a delightful sail. It makes me nervous. No one goes through life too long without bumps. It’s been a while now, and I’m scared because I actually had the nerve to write out that disclosure. I just knocked on wood (for real, that wasn’t just an idiom.) Life is bumpy. It has to be that way to stay balanced.

Remember being young, and wanting to look like everybody else? When you're young, anything that makes you stand out is  a bad thing. Being drastically tall with a starving Ethiopian body frame, I was a walking bad thing.

Even to this day, any thoughts of anonymous streaking are tossed out the window. You can’t be a six foot/ size four woman and stand a chance in a police line-up.

Memories ago, everyone around me used to wear these name brand jeans called Girbaud. Don't ask, it's a weird Utah pastime. How does a stupid label makes you instantly cool? There’s no logic to it. It just does. The irrational game of acceptance starts early in life, and tends to get worse before getting better. I still don’t get it, so really, don’t ask.

You take overpriced jeans, combine them with a common sense mother, and you get a missed opportunity for "coolness." But wait...add in my spoiled neighbors, and their hand-me-down clothes, and we're back in business. The business of popularity; mine about to plummet and explode with a distressing combination of  oil and water, or in other words, a normal pair of pants with an abnormal body. This was a daily dilemma solved with elementary brain power.  All it took was extreme sagging plus belt wrapping. YES! It worked, and I looked ridiculous, but I was wearing Girbauds!  I had no rear end, and the jeans barely hit my ankles, but again, I problem solved. I tight rolled them.

I rock.

After a few years of monotony, we decide those "fitting in" days are over, and we enter a new quest. It’s time to stand out and be different. All sorts of weird things start happening, aside from puberty. I can’t even say that word without feeling gross and gangly. I remember a girl coming to school with a piece of toast strung around her neck, like jewelry. I also recall an enormous amount of exposed naked skin. What a strange, insecure time of independence seeking.  I could write a whole story about the awkwardness that comes with breasts and the catastrophe of not having them. Everything about this phase is egocentric.

The world is a strange place in the eyes of children. My kids are constantly asking me why that person “has their earlobes stretched out” or “rings in their lips”. They’ll ask directly in front of the perpetrator why he/she is smoking. It’s a reasonable question, but still, embarrassing for me. I wish I knew all the whys. A psychology degree later, and I’m still asking.

 “It’s about attention,” I tell my kids. “They’ll grow out of it.”  Then I grab my designer purse, jump in my flashy car,  blast my music out the window, and head to the beauty salon.

 As an adult, I don’t care about blending in, and I don’t really wish to stand out. I want to contribute  to something bigger than myself. I want to know that I am leaving an impression in this world. I want to matter, be acknowledged. I want to make a difference.  I do not want the highlight of my day to be something that happened on “Oprah.” I do not want to write a story that sounds like it should be read aloud on Oprah… but crap,…it is what it is.

There's a friend and foe to every stage of life. It gives the universe balance. What goes around-comes around, what goes up- must come down, for every good-there is a bad. Food, religion, activity  and love all need balance. I obsess over this theory. Sometimes to the point of neurotic, which then take pills to void my nervousness. Run your brain over that paradox.  Here's to healing, yoga, faith and family(but not in that order.)

I never want to forget what's important. We speak about these things at funerals. It takes the dead to give direction to the living, and guide our priorities. I need a permanent post-it note reminder, and that is the reason for the giant tattooed yin on one butt cheek and yang on the other.

P.S  Don't believe everything you read, it puts you out of balance with reality.
P.P.S I'm not showing you my tattoo







        

Footloose

          Almost any place has its claim to fame. I live where the original movie "Footloose" was filmed. It's a bit more city than country now, but the roller mills still exist and I salute and sanctify them as a holy place. Miraculous dancing graced those mills in 1984. Ren McCormack (played by Kevin Bacon) finds himself in multiple moral dilemmas.  Aside from his rebellious literature reading and wild games of vehicular "chicken", his character loved to dance. Problem number one: dancing in this conservative town is unbecoming and unallowed.

        This is where the title "Footloose" comes about. Kevin Bacon picks up a cigarette and a bottle of booze and...you know what happens next. Imagine what it would feel like to live your entire life wrapped  like an Egyptian mummy, to finally become unraveled. What do you do next?.................. You know exactly what... you dance.

        You dance like you're freeing every bit of caution, indignation, sadness, and frustration that's been locked inside and fuming. It's the powerful anger dance that turns the key and releases all opposition and aggression. It's an emotional expression that proclaims "I no longer fear."  Hopefully everyone has seen the "Footloose" scene I'm talking about, and marveled at its intensity. Also, I challenge you to watch it without laughing...or crying...or both.

       Metaphorically speaking, we all want to dance. By definition of the verb, I mean breaking through a wall that's holding you back. Everyone has walls, some thinner than others, but ideally we want to bust through them. And when we do...

       Ren McCormack and I  know the feeling.  Elation,...freedom.

       I will never tell my kids they're shy. Why? Because it's a euphemism. It's a nice way of saying "you're awkward".  As a woman who used to be a painfully shy girl, I'll tell you right now, it sucks. I bet money other shy people would agree. It's a feeling of wanting to break free and interact, but you can't, you're scared. A thick barrier is wrapped around you and taking you hostage. Everyone seems alive in the world, except you. That barrier is a label that sounds like this: "This is Emily, she's really shy." It's a mindless, trite label. You couldn't have replaced "shy" with thoughtful or observant? Think of what I would be now if my introduction was "this is Emily, she's incredibly awesome!"

         People laugh when I disclose this past life; my life as a social prisoner. It's the opposite of what I am now. Our weaknesses can become our strengths, which then lead to our next weakness. And now, I'm that uninhibited old person who talks openly to strangers. Balance is good, and so is a comfort zone. I'm overeager to invade yours.

         The new me overspills. I vomit out comments that are sometimes a bit shocking. You know, the ones people think but don't say. Reason being: It's my way to distance myself from that overcrowded airless elevator otherwise known as shyness. I'm done with those suffocating years; I refuse to return to that awkwardness. The irony now, is I've created a new kind of awkwardness, but now it's me in control- not you. How do you like them apples?
  
Liberation.

       When I say what I feel,  I'm free. Every time I write, I gain a new feather for flying. When we stop labeling each other, we're limitless. We'll fly to the freakin moon and back, or never never land.

I've always wanted to see a mermaid.  I hate that there's no such thing... a world without labels.

      Moral of this story: Find a wall to break through.  Be careful though, don't go all Incredible Hulk on me, some walls are healthy. There are certain things inside of us that should always remain restrained, no matter what Sigmund Freud says.

     You just can't lose all control, or you end up with the hippies, living in a nudist colony, doing all sorts of drugged out kinky shenanigans.