2013

Assuming that the world won't actually end this month, I want to look forward to the next year.

My goals for 2013:
-- Take a "sabbatical" to figure out what I want to do with my life and to figure out how to become the person I used to be.
-- Actually complete (at least) one of my creative projects.
-- Audition for a play.
-- Learn new recipes.
-- Find a job that I love and will fulfill me.
-- Paint.
-- Write everyday.
-- Start knitting again.
-- Reconnect with my old friends.
-- Make some new ones. Ones who are artists or something.
-- Free my mind from the box that it's stuck in right now.
-- Get involved in my community.
-- Go back to school, if I so choose.
-- Figure out if I actually want to go back to school, and for what.
-- Have a dinner party.
-- Start speaking up more.
-- Enjoy every moment I have with my Benjers.
-- Become better friends with my sis.
-- Travel.
-- Try to enjoy being a quarter of a century old.
-- Make more films!
-- Read more books.

me

On Facebook I said that I missed the me I used to be.

I used to be fun, easygoing, positive, happy.

Now, I am negative. Cynical. Stressed out most of the time. Judgmental. Bitter.

But most of all, I used to be passionate about so many things. Writing, acting, music, reading, creating, cooking, doing new things, being with people, sex!

Now... I don't really feel passionate about anything. I've forgotten who I am, what makes me me. And I need to get back to that, to who I am, to what makes me the fireball of positivity and energy that I can be.

But how do I do it?

I keep blaming my job for doing it, for crushing me. And it does play a huge part. But if I quit, will that solve anything, or will I just be a poor cynical Libby? I'll have to find a new job. But where do I look? I've forgotten what I used to be so passionate about, what I used to be good at. And how do I market that to employers?

I hate this. Feeling like this. And needing to complain about it. I'm blessed to have a good-paying, steady job. To have health. To have a loving husband and kitty. But I'm so bitter. I can't appreciate it. I just want to be me again. And I'm so scared that this is me now. No going back.

hide

there isn't much space to hide here
where every room looks into the other
and the most important things are on display
on a shelf of dust

if I could hide away I could
germinate
grow
produce

but what grows in isolation
no bee to pollinate me
no wind to carry my seed
only dust to gnaw on
and spiders

Stories

I want to be a teller of stories. That's what I want from life. I don't care if it is through writing, acting, filmmaking... I just want to tell stories.

I've been developing a crazy dream where I go to nursing school and when I graduate I work with the elderly and record their stories somehow, probably through writing. They have such important things to say, to teach all of kids who know nothing about living hard lives.

Who knows if it will happen.

work/life\work

On paper, I have a pretty good life. I'm getting promoted at a company that generally treats its employees and customers very well. I'm happily married. I'm more financially secure than some people. I'm healthy. Yadda yadda yadda.

But it's not the life I want.

I guess what I have to face is the fact that the life I want might not ever happen.

And don't get me wrong, this life isn't bad. It's just... not what I was hoping for.

I'm tired everyday, all the time, from working 9 or more hours on my feet, dealing with the constant stress of making everybody within a mile radius fucking happy, while serving them quickly and efficiently with not very many people to help me.

I'm too tired to do what I love to do. Instead, I come home and sit my fat ass on the couch and watch Netflix or Hulu or Youtube or surf the web, check Facebook where there is no real communication. Because that is easier than using energy to read, write, make films, cook.

I don't even want to get out of bed in the morning because I'm too tired.

And now, I'm going to be working even more, driving farther, having more responsibilities.

When will I have the time and energy for myself?

It's not that I'm ungrateful for my career or the opportunities I've been given. I'm learning a lot and growing some. It'll look good on a resume... for jobs I don't care to work.

I guess I just miss dreaming, and actually believing that those dreams have the possibility of coming true.

my favorite songs

Wind blowing through fishing line. Haunting and high pitched, just a step above imaginary. 

The strum of an in-tune cello. The open strings playing together.

The ring of note played in tune. Hanging in the air, it sings with all the strings.

Cicadas. Buzzing about summer and the heat and returning to normal.

Minnesota

They didn't go there for the lakes or the fishing or the wildlife

they didn't go there to escape the modern world

shut out technology

They went there to reap

to take

to mine

to log

to destroy

greedily, they took trees and iron ore

sent it off

mad money

The trees regrew

mines changed or emptied

Now I can go there for the lakes and the fishing and the wildlife

to escape the modern world

shut out technology

But they will reap again

leaving the earth's belly empty and soured

her face pocked and disfigured 

And where will I go?