Posts tagged with "self-evaluation"

you got to hold on

I have all this stuff I mean to write but when it comes to typ­ing it out, it seems point­less. I don’t mind feel­ing this way any­more. I’d much rather come off as wit­ty or inter­est­ing, but I can set­tle for hon­est.

My pol­i­cy nowa­days is to act the way I feel. Instead of try­ing to cater to oth­er peo­ple or fit into social norms, I do what I want. It takes some trust in myself to believe that I’m gen­er­al­ly a good per­son, but every­thing seems to be work­ing in my favour.

bird

With anoth­er wed­ding booked next year, I was able to jus­ti­fy a new lens. The final one in my lens path: Canon’s 70–200mm f/2.8 IS II USM. It lets me take pic­tures like this.

I have some­thing major going on each month until December, at which point I’ll prob­a­bly her­ma­tize for three weeks until anoth­er round of hol­i­day crazi­ness.

I used to have Hold On by Tom Waits play­ing here.

The sum­mer has been warm and fuzzy, and it’s filled me with con­tent­ment. I don’t care about the future any­more. I’m liv­ing in this moment, and thank­ful it’s a nice one.

29 7/12: The Taoist

I got these tat­toos to remind myself to stay on the path. A reminder like this is some­thing of a para­dox; to be on the path is to be unaware of the path.

Even though I strong­ly believed in the tenets of Taoism, I still found myself off the path more often than on it. There was a point where I began to ques­tion whether I was tru­ly a Taoist or just a Tao-enthu­si­ast, because my under­stand­ing of the ideas did­n’t nec­es­sar­i­ly mean an abil­i­ty to apply them to my life.

Self portrait at 29 7/12

 

But over time, I for­got about my tat­toos. Or, should I say, I stopped think­ing about them, the way one may be so accus­tomed to the nose on one’s face as to nev­er dwell on the idea of it’s exis­tence.

In the same way, I’ve for­got­ten about the path too, even though I know I’m on it. I don’t seek coun­cil from the Tao Te Ching nowa­days, because there’s noth­ing left that I don’t under­stand. I found the feel­ing of seren­i­ty I’d been seek­ing for so long.

I turn 30 in five months, and I final­ly believe I’m a Taoist.

The Turning 30 Series

romantically vulnerable

I’m left feel­ing very vul­ner­a­ble and won­der­ing if I can be tru­ly attract­ed to some­one for who they are, instead of the idea of a rela­tion­ship and the asso­ci­at­ed com­fort of famil­iar­i­ty and phys­i­cal con­nec­tion. I miss affec­tion­ate text mes­sage con­ver­sa­tions, spon­ta­neous plans to cud­dle, and hav­ing some­one to spoil, but I need more time to sort out my feel­ings, and to get over the last one.

This is the exact rea­son I had to take a break from her. I haven’t had any con­tact in a while, and even though I sel­dom think of her these days, I’d be lying if I said I’ve for­got­ten com­plete­ly.

There are morn­ings I wake up with the mem­o­ry of her next to me in bed, pass­ing hours with only del­i­cate grazes between us. It’s as if my sub­con­scious is still lin­ger­ing on what we had, even though my con­scious has giv­en up on what could have been. Wanting to live my life with her became such a habit that I still catch myself wish­ing she could be there to share in my con­tent­ment when I’m sit­ting out­side with the breeze against my skin on sun­ny Spring days.

She nev­er under­stood why such a break would take so long1, or why I could­n’t give her a sol­id time-frame, but now I know it was the right deci­sion. Even though the pain and jeal­ousy have left me, I have to let go of the good mem­o­ries just as much.

Not that I can’t be in a rela­tion­ship with some­one right now. Rather, I should­n’t, cause it’d be unfair to the oth­er per­son; I still catch myself mak­ing com­par­isons to her, believ­ing that no one will be as dynam­ic, inspir­ing, or good for me. Or wish­ing I could some­how relive those mem­o­ries through some­one else, even though I know that new, won­der­ful, unique expe­ri­ences are cre­at­ed with every rela­tion­ship and every part­ner.

I know where I need to be before I’m ready to be with some­one again. I’ve been com­plete­ly tak­en with peo­ple in the past, and even­tu­al­ly I tru­ly get over them. It may take years, but one day I wake up and the mem­o­ries don’t affect me any­more, though they remain as beau­ti­ful as they are impor­tant.

  1. And this break was with the expec­ta­tion that we’d even­tu­al­ly be in con­tact again, which would assured­ly take even longer! [↩]

29 6/12: The Arrival

I haven’t had much to say late­ly. Suffering has always been a pre­req­ui­site for my cre­ativ­i­ty, as I only need to write when unful­filled or unhap­py, and late­ly I haven’t felt either.

The real­iza­tion that I was hap­py only came when some­one asked how I was doing; I respond­ed with my usu­al, gener­ic, “I’m doing well, thanks”, and for the first time in as long as I could remem­ber, I did­n’t feel like I was lying.

Self portrait at 29 6/12

 

Not that the desire to write has left me com­plete­ly. I still want to, though only because it’s an enjoy­able exer­cise in itself, not because I need to get some­thing off my chest. The world final­ly makes sense, and I won­der if it’s nec­es­sary to have this blog a place to sort out my thoughts any­more.

I’m sat­is­fied with the per­son I’ve become. I’ve stopped try­ing to change, or con­stant­ly fig­ur­ing out how to improve. I like me.

The seren­i­ty is get­ting bet­ter still, almost to the point where it’s an uncon­scious state-of-mind. Things don’t both­er me the way they used to. I can dream with­out desire, I can live with­out bias, I can give with­out expect­ing, I can think with­out wor­ry, and I can enjoy with­out guilt.

I turn 30 in half a year, and I final­ly feel like I’m where I should be.

The Turning 30 Series