Last night, I was sitting in a restaurant with a friend, eating dinner and catching up. I looked down at my watch face and I had two reminders...
“Disco Dancing”
“Meditation and yoga”
It made me laugh out loud. I tried to figure out how to capture the two notification to be today’s photograph, but I could not lock it down before they disappeared into the ether.
I thought, “wow, if that isn’t emblematic of me as a person, I don’t know what is!”
The fact the two events were scheduled for the exact same time, even more revealing...
I am both these people. This person who is out disco dancing on a Friday night AND the person who is at home in her meditation/yoga studio doing well, yoga and meditating. Two VERY different people, yet both reside relatively peacefully within my skin.
The fact that I was out to an impromptu dinner with a girlfriend and not doing either of my scheduled tasks, underscores who I am even more. I mean, I can have several things planned: usually one novel thing, one routinely scheduled thing and then chuck them both to do something else entirely.
I guess I am grateful I am able to service all the divergent parts of myself. It isn’t an easy or always fun task. In truth, the three very different people who reside inside me were at odds with each other last night, each one jockeying for pole position. The “fuck what the calendar says, I am doing something else entirely!” Person won. She actually does that with some rhythmic regularity...
I wanted to go disco dancing. I even had an outfit all laid out for the event. Two treasures from a thrifting adventure gone haywire. Sometimes you come home with the best new jeans and sometimes you come home with a 70s disco outfit. That is the thing I love most about thrifting. There is no “need based” shopping...you just bring home whatever you find which is a random assortment of largely a great deal of things you do not need...which would be very explanatory if you looked into my closet.
I also wanted to stay home and yoga and meditate as I do nightly. I wanted to have the quiet, peaceful evening alone at home with the dog and cats. This is also who I am, just as much as the hard partying insane woman that walks onto the dance floor then shakes her booty until the music ends...I am both these people. Two extremes of personality that I have spent the better part of my life trying to bring into some alignment. No luck so far.
But there is this emerging other faction of me that is opting for a middle path, and she was the one who met a friend for dinner and then watched the same friend’s son’s band play locally. It was a nice evening and I was in bed by 10.
Disco dancing failed because of my scheduled activities today and location. To go last night and come home late and then have to rise early and return to Santa Barbara was just a little too much for my delicate constitution (there is nothing, nothing delicate about my constitution, I said that solely for irony’s sake). I didn’t go not because I didn’t want to dance or party, I didn’t go because I didn’t want to drag ass through my day today and have to drink 10 Red Bulls to function. That was the tipping point - not enough sleep which is something that I can absolutely relate to a shitty attitude and mindset.
I didn’t stay home and meditate either because I wanted SOME social interaction. I mean I went to the gym but I am rarely talked to there...which is a good thing, really since it is mostly high school students. But I was not feeling the whole "stay in and marinate in my feelings and thoughts" thing either. So when a friend last minute texted me to join her in supporting her son’s local band, I found a middle way to spend the evening.
They are really good. “The B Sides” so check them out if you are ever in town. And yes, apparently, the middle between disco dancing and meditation and yoga is listening to a live band rock out. Who knew?
I am not sure I am ever going to find a lasting peace within me. I am not sure I am ever going to find a place of equilibrium within myself, let alone the world and life and living. But last night I was able to pretty adequately assess my needs and then act accordingly. Which if you have ever met me, you know that honoring my own needs is not an easy task...like ever.
I am up early this morning taking care of my usual routines and will be out the door at 8:30 to ensure an on time arrival for today’s events. This feels good. Not rushed or hurried. I have time to write, prone in my bed, gently waking to the day, sipping the magical elixir that is coffee like some sort of fine morning wine.
Life is good. When I achieve some sort of balance between two very divergent extremes, it is nothing short of a miracle. And last night’s refusals, led to this morning’s peace. And I do want, if only to myself, to take a moment to honor that. Balance is hard for a lot of us, and for some of us, balance is something we only really see as we are manically flying by to the next extreme. It is middle point we only see as we fly over. So when I can acknowledge and accept and see my own balance in real time, that is pretty fucking cool.
Who knew?
Not me, that is for damn sure!
Life is something else! Enjoying it in the moment in which it is actually happening, feels like a win. I am gonna take it!
Again..still.
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