“Life perfect ain’t perfect if you don’t know what the struggle’s for/Falling down ain’t falling down if you don’t cry when you hit the floor/It’s called the past cuz I’m getting past and I ain’t nothing like I was before/You ought to see me now.”
- ‘Lesson Learned’ by Alicia Keys feat. John Mayer
I don’t know why, but after big parts of my life, I seem to turn back to a few certain songs to get me through, pick me up, and dust me off. This one is one of them.
It’s pretty accurate, though. Not just about love, either. There’s so much that’s happened in just the span of a month that my mind is still reeling, my eyeballs are still spinning, my stomach’s got that feeling like I just rode that giant roller coaster at Busch Gardens again. And it’s just now that I’m looking back, analyzing, trying to fix, and trying to improve the things that have happened.
Yes, yes, I’ve already learned, no unnecessary airing of dirty laundry. So nothing specific, just veiled pieces and vague suggestions from here on in.
I just got off of a blind date tonight. My friends figured that, because they’re all happy in their respective ruts and monotonic misery that I should be, too. So there I was, sitting in a pretty decent restaurant waiting for the guy to show up. Can I just say that the guy never came? No, I didn’t get stood up; I sat and made very polite conversation with a cardboard cutout all evening. And, just so that I’m not being totally one sided, he probably thought he was got stuck with a dud of a date, too. The first five minutes of conversation after the waiter seated us and got our drink orders went as such:
Him: So, you’re friends with So-and-so and Whatshername?
Me: Umhmmm. I've known Whatsherface for years and I was a bridesmaid at their wedding. How do you know them?
Him: Oh, Whateverhisnameis and I work together. Different departments, though. (awkward laughter)
--Awkward silence ensues for, what felt like, an eternity.--
Me: Oh. That's nice.
Now, see, that was the pleasant part of the evening. And, granted, from the first five minutes of being together, I probably judged him and closed myself off from him, but I really couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t stand him. (Kind of makes me question the kind of friends I’m keeping now… Heh, I’m kidding… Sorta…) And throughout the evening, there were so many things I wanted to say, so many stories I wanted to share, so many of my experiences that I wanted to scare this man with but I had to keep my friggin’ trap shut. Why? Because those stories, those experiences, those memories all happened with people who aren’t exactly… Available or attuned into my life right now. Seems like a stupid reason not to talk about stuff, right? Nope.
I believe that if people aren’t part of your life, you shouldn’t talk about them. Not out of malice or of spite or anything negative like that; just a simple matter of respect for them and for yourself. It just raises eyebrows and questions, emotions and talk. So I guess I played my fair share of the cardboard cutout, too.
And, sitting there with my glass of wine and dinner, I realized a bunch of things. So many epiphanies were soaring through my head that I’ve not yet even changed out of the annoyingly painful (but achingly adorable) high heels I wore out tonight. So, even though my date turned out to be a total bummer (trust me, absolute FAIL. The guy didn’t even warrant a ‘goodbye-nice-try’ kiss on the cheek. You know it’s bad when a cordial handshake and a dash to the cab is what I’m attempting) and I did go out for drinks alone afterwards, it’s still been a pretty big night for me.
Firstly, have passion. That’s something that I cannot stress. If there isn’t passion in your life, in how you live, in what you do, then you’re not going to have fun and you’re going to be one of those Milquetoast personalities that gets bypassed and rejected. Everything you do should be done with absolute conviction, courage, and white-hot assurance that you are indeed correct, even if you aren’t.
And, to go with passion, there’s fight. No, I’m not saying stop and throw down every time someone crosses you; what I mean is that the passion you have should also have some fight behind it for when someone does want to question your passion. Take a stance, stand your ground, be stubborn if you believe that it’s worth it. But also know when to yield, when to concede and agree that you’ve been bested.
I’m stubborn. Sad fact is, that’s probably one of my more endearing qualities. But I’m not afraid to admit that some of these platitudes that I spout are things that I’m still working on, things that I’m trying to master. Oh, hell, I’m far from perfect; Perfect and I stand at opposite ends of the spectrum and Perfect likes to point at me and say, “Oh, yes, her,” in it’s WASP-y, snobbish tone when asked what is the bane of it’s existence. The art of graceful failure is one of the things I’ve yet to learn to properly execute.
Be proud. A fair amount pride never hurt anyone. And I’m not talking about the kind of boastful, arrogant crap that leads me to dislike so much of the English speaking population. Real pride: the smile of satisfaction at (cliché alert) a job well done, walking through the streets like you’re worth a million and a day. Actually, the latter bit is something that someone taught me years ago. She was an amazing person and I thank whatever forces that control this kind of stuff that I was able to once call her one of my best friends. She told me to never walk with my head down, looking at my shoes, but to always look up and ahead, like I was the most important person in the world and I was worth more than anyone could ever dream of. Lawd, I miss that girl. Word is is that she’s got a baby boy. Well, if she’s still the same girl I knew back then, then that kid is in good hands.
Forgive, but never forget. Forgetting, when practiced purposefully, is just flat out disrespect. Probably the highest degree of disrespect you could ever deign to bestow upon a person and I don’t need to explain why. But forgiving, another feat I’ve yet to wholly accomplish (but luckily I’ve got another ten, count ’em, ten years left in my life to try and master it), is probably one of the hardest things to do, show, and give. It requires you to swallow the pride you’ve worked for and admit that you’re smaller than you really are, that there is someone inside you that feels and that is real and willing to work to make yourself and the people you love better. Even if others have moved on, bettered or worsened their lives without you, forgiveness is sometimes all a person has or is asking for. Might I now direct you to listen to Don Henley’s ‘Heart Of The Matter’, for it explains this concept in its entirety, with a sweet melody and memorable acoustic riff to boot.
And, in the pursuit of forgiveness, it’s okay to miss things, to miss people. That is, if I may say so, one of the things I’m better at: the melancholic misery is one probably one of my better moods, and one that I’ve been immersed in wholly as of late. Missing people just proves that you’re human, that you can love and be loved (sorry, forgot to sound the cliché alert) and that something in your life is wrong, is absent, is, well, missing. But it’s hard to admit to missing someone, because that shrinking feeling seems to embrace us and push us down until Smurfs look taller than Yao Ming and Michael Jordan. But people never learn to appreciate you until you show them that you’re capable of being three inches tall and that you do indeed need them in your life.
Also, and this is probably the most imperative of all my epiphanies of the night, embrace your humanity. And by humanity, I mostly mean flaws. Embrace it, make sweet, sweet passionate love to it because, no matter what, it’s those flaws, that humanity that makes you the person that you are. There’s no sense in hiding it or else you become just another emotionless, uninteresting, bland, grey chunk of cardboard that gets bypassed by everyone.
No, I’m not going to continue spewing commonsense banalities or strangely mundane advice like Baz Luhrmann did (think back to the late nineties… Remember ‘Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)’?) for pages and pages. But sometimes it’s the things we already know that are the things we need to be reminded most of. And this, all these things that I’ve been saying are just some of the things that I needed reminding of lately, and I bet many others, too. And there’s still so much more that I could say but who am I to impose and force you to reevaluate your life and the people you hold? These are just some things that need to be thought about.
