Live free, Rebels.

An aquaintance pointed out my tag line here the other day, remarking that it was a scarily accurate yet completely inaccurate description of me.  I ignored the fact that this made little sense and pondered the quote.   "Just your run of the mill reluctantly domesticated bohemian."  Heh.  It was written to be completely tongue in cheek with the just the smallest amount of actual truth to it, so I suppose that if I squeeze my eyes shut hard enough, the person making the original statement may not be crazy after all, just sort of inarticulate.  Go figure!

I consider myself to be utterly pragmatic.  Others tend to see me that way as well.  If the surface is scratched just a bit deeper and I allow myself to show it, the reality is that I actually have an incredibly vivid imagination and like to drown in it on occasion.   You may have picked up on that by some of my writing, I tend to go off on silly tangents and analogies that sound perfectly reasonable in my head.   For example, I used to get picked on in school quite a bit and would daydream about having the ability to beat someone's skull into the pavement effortlessly.   I oftentimes wax poetic about the home that I'm going to turn into my lifelong project, my greatest physical expression of every aspect of things that I love, with different themes and all done to create the most perfect total environment for myself.  I re-read my favorite childhood book 'Ronia the Robber's Daughter' and immediately imagined myself as an adult, running silently through the woods with my animal friends,  utterly deadly with only rudimentary weapons at my disposal.   One of my long time favorites is my lighthouse dream… the one where I reside on a colder and rocky beach, where I live and write my days away in a lighthouse with the company of my dogs and my dashing and magical lover, only breaking to take walks wrapped in a shawl to stare endlessly at the beautiful and angry ocean and can smell the salt water in the air whenever I so desire.

Everyone has dreams and fantasies.  I'm not a special and unique snowflake because of that.  What I find astounding is that so many people, the vast majority of people that I come across, have not found a way to incorporate their dreams into their actual existence, to create their lives to their liking and grab the bull by the horns and make this one chance count.  I've admittedly been consumed in the past with the outcome of all of my decisions (by consumed, I mean relatively paralyzed by the fear of making the wrong choice), but as I've grown older I've realized that it's not about the end game, it's about the actual process.   I believe that this is one of the crucial perspectives that makes us gravitate to certain people in our lives.  Just as I am not able to stomach those that like to complain but refuse to be doers, I am aware that my own way of living is probably very uncomfortable and off putting to those that aren't wired that way.  That's ok.  We aren't all meant to relate.  I can hardly relate to anyone.

I love this, and how true it is.  Everyone I know that lives life in this manner is considered the epitome of rebellious, and that has always been interesting to me.  It's been said since I was very young that I naturally gravitate toward the rebel…. it took me some time to realize that while I never argued this statement as untrue, what I was attracted to was not what folks seemed to immediately assume (well, perhaps it was just a little bit, I do so love a textbook bad boy/girl).  It was the blatant courage in them to live life on their own terms, to make their reality whatever they wanted it to be…. to live free of chains of outside expectation, to make their own rules, to find what they love and commit to never compromising or letting it go just because it would make life financially, socially or emotionally easier.   That is true freedom.  

I believe in being rational.  I don't buy into the 'you can be anything you'd like if you just want it and work hard enough' mentality.  We all have limitations and I'm well aware that in order to be successful in any way, we must take honest inventory of ourselves.  This is precisely what dashed my singing career.  I suck.  I know this.  I sing only for personal pleasure and to sometimes torture others and I move on.   The trick is knowing how to weave your dreams into your reality in every way possible… if I can do it, anyone can.  I just marvel at how little interest so many folks have in even trying.  

Y'all know as well as I do that my paragraph above regarding the products of my imagination are somewhat amusing in a way and on the surface are easy to not take seriously, but I do take them seriously.  I always hated being an easy target and weak, both physically and emotionally, so I started training in a gym. I'm not saying I can beat your ass, but I'm tougher than you may think I am.  I want my greatest achievement to be my home, and I can drywall, paint and lay hardwood floor for a reason…. I like to work with my hands and it'll come in handy.  Perhaps not today or tomorrow, but when the time is right, I'll be up to my ears in a shop vac and paint swatches and I'll be happy.  Though there is a minuscule chance that I will ever run around the woods with coyotes next to me, keeping their disjointed limbs at pace with my feet, I bought a slingshot and I'll be damned if someone is going to tell me that I can't learn to kill something with it.  Laugh if you want to, I do what I want.  Just wait until I master that slingshot and move on to a blowgun.    Oh, I also want to swim with sharks, I can't imagine why that can't happen.  

(side note: This is a small example of how just being yourself is the only filter you need.  Folks are either delighted at me or think I'm an idiot.  Being unapologetic about every aspect of yourself is the far easier way to have the right people around you than spending a ton of time just being polite. What a colossal waste of time that is for everyone involved.)

In terms of my lighthouse fantasy, there is a very good chance that I may never actually live in one.  However, that does not mean that I can't buy that project house closer to the ocean, and until then, visit my beloved sea as much as I can.  There is no reason whatsoever that I cannot create a platform for my writing other than this blog.  People, the wheels are turning and things are happening….. stay tuned for news, for the trifecta of witchy awesomeness are very close to throwing their hat into the ring.  

We create our opportunities, we are the masters of our existence, we thumb our noses at settling for anything…. at least anyone that I personally choose to have in my world does that.  No one else is of consequence, that's the beauty of carefully creating your own life, you make all the rules.  

I have made incredible headway in making my world what I want it to be over the past year.  It's been painful, oftentimes akin to walking through a jungle of hot coals at a snail's pace.  But I don't regret the scars that I've gotten along the way and it's a darn beneficial thing to know how to get back up after being metaphorically plowed over by a steam train.  I don't particularly expect for the next year to be easier.  In fact, it may actually amp up in difficulty before the waters start to settle.  So why am I not laying under my bed eating chocolate in despair and reading only the most tragic excerpts from  'Jane Eyre'?   

Because it's worth it, I know that in the end it will be worth it.  For every terrible experience and unsavory dilemma that I've forced myself to face and power into, I've had a door open to me, giving me a glimpse of what could await on the other side of all the bullshit.  I'm not insinuating that it's been all fun or a walk in the park, it's been quite the opposite more often than I'd care to admit. But good has entered my life in some very unexpected ways and I've smiled more often in the past couple of months than I have in a long time, despite the tornado of issues still whirling around me.

I am a magician in the real world, I'm not afraid to make things happen… there is no shame in going for and getting what you want.  I'm not afraid of the unknown and most of all, I am open to listening to my dreams.  They're only silly to some of you, to me they are my life.  

Here's to the true rebels in life, you're doing it all right in my book.