Crappy Denim

Carpe Diem.

Mrs. Pulliam, my 11th grade English teacher, used to joke and say, "Crappy denim."

I've always been acutely aware of death. Maybe it's because I was a sickly child. Maybe it's because I worked at the morgue at fourteen and saw first hand what a body looked like without a soul. Maybe it's because my Friday nights at 20 were spent uselessly helping intubating trauma patients who died once I gave report to the ICU nurse.

I don't know. I guess it's all of that. But the result is that I am very aware of how fragile and short our lives are. So it speaks to the depth of my stupidity that I was taking my own life for granted.

Is it because of capitalism that I assumed tomorrow would be a better tomorrow? We're raised to expect it to be like that, you know, to have that kind of excessive hope. Capitalism causes excessive hope. (go to 2:56 in video to see what I mean).

It would be better to assume the future isn't going to be better. If you  aren't following your passion, it probably won't be. You're wasting time dreaming about something that could already be here tomorrow if you wanted it.

There are people who wait to start on their dreams. They think they can put it to the aside and deal with it later when their life calms down. Then they can finally travel, start a business, or create that masterpiece. They just have to wait for their finances to get fixed, or when they have the time, or when they retire, or when the kids leave the house, or when they get that degree, or when they win the lottery ,or when...

I know they think they're playing it safe waiting like this. I know this because I was just like them. I used to play it safe, working a job I hated. After all, I was waiting, too.

And before long, one year turned to two.

Turned to five.

Turned to ten.

I got used to that weird state of being both physically comfortable and emotionally unfulfilled at the same time. I mean, sure, my sadness came out of me in wild spurts. And yes, I would plummet to days of dark despair. But if I spent more money, I could forget that and move on. So shopping became a way to help ease the pain, same with travel. Food rotted in my fridge because I ate out every night.

I was running away. I was trying to ignore the dream. You know, the one Langston Hughes wrote about? A Dream Deferred, yeah that one. I was desperate to do anything to quiet that voice that told me I wasn't supposed to live like this. That I was denying my truth. I wanted to take a pillow and smother the truth. To make it stop saying that I was wasting my life away.

Because I managed to convince myself that I was playing it safe. I was living the life I wanted. That's what everyone else saw. It wasn't until after my 30th birthday that I realized the dangerous game I was really playing.

Death isn't going to wait for me to find my happiness. I won't be getting a Save the Date card a month before it comes for me. And I was taking one hell of a gamble not living the life I wanted now. I had wasted years already. Years. And still, I was too much of a chicken shit coward to even try to go after it.

I found a sliver of courage and started on my journey clumsily these past two years. I lost some friends with this new life. Some of them thought I had a midlife crisis (probably), others didn't like my new standards of living (yeah, HUGE paycut so counting pennies became a literal thing). I wasn't fun because I couldn't afford to pay for everything like before.

But there were a precious few that looked at me with awe and said words of encouragement for having the guts to do this. I try not to call them crying every week. I don't want to be that girl. I need to get it together and be strong enough to bolster my own spirit.

I wish I could say everything became hunky dory then, but c'mon this is real life. I wish I could say it wasn't a painful process, but it just doesn't work that way. Not for me anyway. Let me tell you what really happened.

My attempts to make my dreams come true have not been calm. It's been hard. And I'm still riding the ride and no, it's still not smooth.The past year has not been movie montage worthy. There's been a lot of crying and worry and pills had to be prescribed for the anxiety that kept me up at night. I vacillated back and forth between two thoughts: being insane to leave a career I spent a decade building and the wild freedom of finally doing what I wanted.

I fail a lot. Daily, actually. I feel like I am stepping forward only to look down and see that I'm glued to the same spot I was at last week. That's what it feels like anyway. You feel like a fool a lot of the time.

Still, if I was to die tomorrow, that would be alright. I mean, yes, I haven't seen my dream come to fruition the way I wanted (and dying young would suck major balls), but I don't think dreams can ever be truly fulfilled. You won't ever reach the top because there is no top. I think the attempt, the climb, the guts to try is the real dream worth living for.

Because yes, it's not fun, but I'm living a more purpose driven life now. I feel free. Alive. Awake.

I'm not sad or depressed anymore. I don't feel like I'm here on this earth pointlessly. I don't think of myself as a waste of space. I've stopped being a living corpse waiting for the day I really start living. You get hungry for a bullet living that way. Worse, you become this twisted festering shell of your former self. And sometimes, to get rid of some of that pus your spirit is oozing, you hurt people. You're cruel and unkind.

As a child, I was beaten a lot. By people just like this. They were always the ones who didn't go after their dreams. The future and the consequences of ignoring dreams are deadly and heartbreaking.

I guess the take away from this post, my words of advice for myself and anyone else reading this would be:

Run, don't walk to your dreams. It will be hard but it's worth the sacrifice. Even if the whole world is laughing at you, you have to try.  

Time is running out. Your name is already on Death's list. The sand keeps falling. Let go of the fear and do it. Just do it. Now.

Crappy denim already.