Ms. March If You're...

Remember when I took us on a little timewarp back to some old blog writings? That was fun, right?

Let's do it again!

This was the first post on my blog back in March of 2010, Ms. March. Reading it fills me with SO MANY FEELINGS. Happiness, sadness, peace. Hope, fear, bravery. I feel lost and found and totally and completely crazypants. It's scary to read this and get the sense I could have written it all yesterday.

Read. Enjoy my musings on motivation, and yoga, and writing, and weight. All the things I still talk about now, three years later. I'm still so much the same. And so very different.

I’ve tried more than once to keep a blog, and have always failed rather miserably. I don’t know if I run out of things to say or if speaking to the emptiness of cyberspace gets to me, but my endeavors have never lasted more than a few weeks.

This is true of most things, for me. I’m a bit of a commitmentphobe, at least when it comes to things like this. Motivation for me is a tricky business, depended on factors both in and out of my control, and hard to hold onto for the time it takes to achieve anything. The things I do succeed at, like getting a college degree for instance, are generally because of pure luck and not any amount of effort on my part. I hate trying too hard because if (when) I ultimately fail, it’s a hell of a lot more painful.

Obviously, this is not good. I’ve come to realize over the last few months that I tend to float along in the proverbial river of life, paddle at my feet and hoping the power of my wishes becomes wind to push  me along. This silly metaphor could expanded further, even, if I were to consider the way most of my choices in life have been guided by something other than myself, a wave that crashes me against a rock and changes my path without my consent. I don’t fight against the waves, though, I don’t try to forge my own path or try to change my direction. I simply coast, and coasting has led me to the place I am now, a place I’m not too fond of, and very much would like to leave now please okay thanks.

For the past couple of years I’ve lost touch with who I am and what I want out of life, lost all connection with my body and soul and wants and needs. I don’t like who I am when I look in the mirror, or when I’m laying in bed and going over and over all the stupid things I think I’ve said over the past day, week, year. I obsess, I criticize, I judge, I worry, I panic, and then I eat. ‘Tis a vicious cycle of depression I’ve found myself in, and all I want is to leave it behind.

I have a plan.  Now, granted, I’ve made plans before and abandoned them very quickly. I’m fond of list making and scheduling, which (as my therapist tells me) satisfies my need to be productive without actually…being productive. However, this time is going to be different (hopefully). At this point in my life, if I don’t make the changes I need to now I may never will. I don’t want to spend my twenties fat and miserable.

I’ve already made steps forward that give me hope that maybe I will change this time. It’s not just about losing weight, or being hawt, or fixing all the things I think are wrong with me. It’s about learning who I am and loving that person, flaws and all. Or maybe it’s about becoming someone that I can love, I’m not sure yet. Sure, I’m spouting a lot of therapeutic “POWER OF MEEEEE” BS, but it’s clearly what I need right now.

So, I’m working on it. I’ve signed up for a three day introductory yoga seminar in few weeks, for instance. I abhor exercise with every fiber of my sizeable being, and it’s been verboten for the last few months per instructions from my therapist/nutritionist. But I’ve been aching to move lately, to try something, anything, and I’ve always thought that I might fall in love with yoga. Inner peace. Bendiness. Right up my alley.

And I’m writing. See: this blog. As the deliciously witty Nick Hornby apparently said:

"I always presumed that I would be a writer, without actually doing any writing. I think I thought I was going to get a phone call from somebody one day saying they had a vacancy for a novelist. When I realised that this wasn’t going to happen I thought it was about time to do something."

(Saw this on Shapely Prose.)

I’ve always loved to write, and occasionally I’ve even done it consistently for an extended period of time, but mostly I like to call myself a writer without doing a whole lot of actual writing. If I don’t start now, I’ll probably just be a cubicle rat for the bulk of my twenties, which…no. Thanks, but no.

And thus: da blog. I’ll ramble an awful lot about  myself here, ’cause I’m a narcissist that way and clearly my mental state needs some reflection. I’ll probably write a lot about pop culture, too: movies, TV, ohmygodwhatisshewearing. I was a soc major in college, so a bit of that might creep in. And I do so love a good piece of fiction every now and again.

So basically, I’m going to spout some fascinating things here. You should probably read it.

(You, obviously, being…anyone who happens to wander by. *wave* Hi!)

Awww.

AWWW.

HIIIIII MEEEE.

Timewarp: Fantasy and Imagination

Remember when we talked about killing my fantasies?

And remember how I'm still trying to do that?

Randomly last night I logged into my old WordPress account and rediscovered my blog from three years ago. There were only a few posts on there, and I think I'll share one of them with you soon, but what I have today was something in the depths of my draft folder.

It made me sad, a little. And happy. Happy sad.

I was newly twenty two when I wrote this, dating a boy who wasn't good for me, happy in life but unhappy in my body. Just a month after I wrote this, I would move to LA, and break up with the boyfriend, and things would start to change for me. Slowly. Gradually. They'd get worse before they'd get better, but they would.

But the imagination I talk about in this little essay, the fantasies I write about little Taylor having as she fell asleep at night...I've let those go now. Sure, there are others in their place, but...

Well.

Just read.

I'll be back.

(slightly edited for grammar)

I've been offered a job.

A really good job. A job working for a company that treats its employees well, working with people who seem to like me, for bosses who see potential in me and a future in the department. A job with benefits and good pay, in the town my parents live in, a cinematic picturesque beach town. A place where I have a boyfriend, a new puppy, a life and a home.

Yeah, so...I'm not taking it.

In theory, it's everything I want. Everything a person should want. Except that it's not.

My whole life, I've dreamed about how my life could be. Imagination is the one thing I have plenty of and I use it every night as I fall asleep, and I've imagined the paths my life could take. All these fantasies began the same way, with me moving to L.A., Hollywood, City of Angels, silicone-enhanced CokeTown, whatever you want to call it, it's the dream I've had since I was ten, maybe eleven, maybe nine.

There were a million things that could happen to me in L.A. in these daydreams, these fantasies, and really, there still are. I could do anything, be anything, try anything.

If I stay here, I'm giving up all those options.

And in all of these fantasies, I was thin.

First, can we say a collective "awww" for younger Taylor and her insecurities? Thanks.

It's so strange, reading something you wrote a few years ago. It seems like something separate from you, yet still familiar at the same time. And it makes me happy to know that I did give this girl what she wanted, I moved to LA for her and tried a few things.

But really, I've given up on the rest.

I used to have these really grand ideas about what I wanted my place in the world to be. Famous, important, artistic, powerful. Do all kids have that, or just ones like me? Regardless, not all of them carry it through to near-adulthood, willfully ignoring their limitations, my body and brain the only stopgaps on a path to world domination via screen or stage. 

There are certain things I will not, can not, and do not wish to ever be. Not anymore. But there is an entire universe full of other things I can imagine for myself. I am not limited to the bright lights of LA and the idea of fortune and fame. I can see a whole different world of happiness now, and that used to be my problem. I was limited in my thinking, my imagination only took me to one place when I let my mind wander. I couldn't see a happy future if I wasn't special in some way.

But you know, there are different ways to be special.

And my imagination is opening up that whole new world of possibilities to me.