living 365 days a year…

Sunday was a little day of self-discovery for me, which has turned into the longest, most rambling post I think I’ve ever written. So as not to completely fill anyone’s friend’s page, I’ll cut the gory details

So yesterday, in the self-imposed funk of all funks, I decided to try to do some motivational things for my life. Probably not the best way to begin, but first I wrote myself a terrible private journal entry, and arranged to have it emailed to myself every morning to finally motivate me to make some particular changes. It’s actually pretty harsh and mostly just inspires to piss me off, but I guess all sorts of other motivations have failed me, perhaps I’ll get somewhere from anger.

Next, I went out to peruse the mall, with the intent of buying some new sleepwear. Dunno what it is about being in funk, but the thought of new pajamas just always makes me feel a little better, so I figured I’d at least look. That didn’t really pan out, though, as when we got to the mall it was “back to school” fest, crawling with all those too trendy/spending daddy’s money/don’t I look like a victoria’s secret model kinda girls, and well the sight of them really didn’t do much for my inspiration to buy something pretty for myself. Something else changed, too… I did my best to see (so as not to trample anyone) the people, but I didn’t really look at them. I tried not to scan the room and pick out the ones that inspire jealousy or that I think might catch JT’s eye, and further than that, I tried not to watch JT at all, because if they’ve got it all hanging out there, I can’t expect him not to notice–it’s natural–so I just made the effort not to notice him noticing, for my own sanity. It worked pretty well, I guess.

That got me thinking, though, that a lot of the stress I feel in my life is probably self-imposed. I do believe I gave the advice once that your attitude is what you make it, and that you can consciously choose to be happy and make it happen. Somewhere along the way, though, I think I perverted that concept to a level where it wasn’t valid anymore. I think I don’t just try to change my own attitude, I think I try to impose my “happy” on others, and most times it gets rejected by them. So, I guess my twisted lesson from that was that it didn’t work.. you can’t just change your life by wishing it happy or whatever.

So, from the window shopping, we go to peruse the bookstore, and according to Sex and the City, I guess I ended up in that section where “no single woman in her 30s ever wants to be”… Self Help. It started out innocent enough.. JT’s squeal at the site of AnnaK on two FHM covers, which promises more of their patented wet-dream worthy photos inside. That didn’t even phase me… AnnaK, that’s accepted. I bought them for him, just about insisted. I know if it were me, and I’d seen Eddie Van Halen or Chris Cornell or some such on a cover promising more lickable photos inside, he’d understand and probably buy them for me. It’s just a thing. Hopefully, a normal thing.

Standing by all the magazine covers, though, did eventually get me to thinking about myself again, and comparing myself, and being right there on the verge of getting really depressed, yet realizing somewhere in my mind that these images may be of actual people that they’re not the last word in beauty.. just one word. I accept that I’ll never be bony and 18 again, but I could certainly look better. So, I walk away from the magazines thinking along these self-improvement lines…. I swing by the paper journals, but I’ve already got one of those–it’s depressing– so I meander by the computer section for any inspiring books that I may need, but that too is just depressing when I think about the pile of computer books I have at home that I start then leave by the way.. so I make my way over to diet and fitness, consciously avoiding the fiction/sci-fi areas because in my opinion I already spend/waste too much time on that kind of escapism reading. In diet & fitness I managed to pick up an interesting Little Book of Pilates that goes in depth into Pilates principles and explains the common class terminology and how to do the basic moves correctly. I know that from trying to watch the two Pilates videos I have that they apparently just expect you to know everything and they just go too fast, even though they’re supposed to be for beginners. Hopefully this book will keep me from feeling like an idiot next time I try to watch them.

One shelf over, though, I see the ‘self help’ rack. My eyes sort of wander across the titles, and I spy all sorts of things that look inspiring, motivational, etc, and I’m just about intrigued/brave? enough to pick up a title when JT finds me and suggests we head to Barnes and Noble (a real bookstore) and look around, which I consent to.

I know this is already the longest rambling post ever, but once we got to Barnes & Noble, I ended up spotting a title, “Living 365 days a year”, finding a chair, and reading for what seemed like over a half hour, just completely taken in by what I’d found. What I learned from that book is really what I wanted to relate here…

I think however, that I will pause here to compose my thoughts, and relate what I’ve learned in another post.