Friday, October 26, 2012

Wednesday in a Cafe

Finished registering for classes. Just had a debate with my roommate about the usefulness of my degree. Usually I'm okay when people ask about it, I mean I knew it was something that I was going to get asked. But for some reason it was different tonight. Her opinion means a lot to me and she seemed to be totally okay with it before. But tonight she was just like, "Why bother getting a degree in something that is useless?" Specifically it was my minor. I am a philosophy major, international development minor. I don't know what I'm going to do with them. All I want to do is travel. I might even get a double minor in arabic or something. I know I'll have to go do more schooling afterwards, so I figured that I'd study something that I actually liked. I'm not trying to validate my choices, I know why I've made them. I'm just reasoning some things out.

Right now I've got some slow music on and Rainymood.com going. That is how it's been this whole week. Slow, soft, and sad. Who knows why, but that is how it has been. All I've wanted to do is curl up with a cup of tea in sweatpants to read a book while sitting next to the window so that the cool breeze blows over me. I want to leave behind all kinds of responsibilities and due dates. To forget everything for a little while would be absolutely glorious. My stomach drops at the sheer pleasure of that situation. But, sadly, we live in reality and cannot do that. Why do we have to do silly things like grow up? I guess that is what weekends are for. Saturday, let's hurry this up.

I need to make it up to the temple sometime soon. I'm having some serious difficulty getting my mind to calm down. It's almost as though it likes being tied up in knots of worry. I'm seeing it start to affect my body, I'm tense everywhere. This cannot happen and needs to end. Maybe I'll head up to the temple tomorrow... Nothing sounds better than the warmth of the temple and those warm jumpsuits when they are still hot from the dryer. The feeling of home and comfort is overwhelming. That is something that needs to happen ASAP. Mind, calm down. Please?

I realized one of the reasons that I love snow. But it'll have to wait until I'm able to express it. I just tried to write about it, and for some reason the thoughts just were not flowing. I'll think about it some more and get back to you then.

Tonight I was interviewed by this random person in my ward. She needed someone to interview that she did not know and I said that I could help. I didn't know that it was going to be a therapy session. She is training to be a social worker and this is for her interview skills class. I had to fill out a questionairre before and after the session and it was being recorded so that her class could watch it. It was perhaps the most awkward thing I have ever done. I could relax. Dumb. She kept asking me about my life and stuff. She didn't know arabic was a language. When she asked if anything was getting me down, I thought I'd finally be able to talk and have someone really listen. Nope. She played with her nice, shiny engagement ring and fiddled with her fingers. I didn't want to say random stuff and have her not listen... I mean seriously. I have been waiting for someone to ask me how I'm doing. But this whole week, it hasn't happened. Not really. People ask the generic question. I have been waiting for the question with emphasis. How are you doing, really? But it hasn't come. That is probably best. No one needs to hear my pathetic rantings. I don't think I could listen to myself. Yeah, life is difficult and all blah blah blah blah. .. Why does this happen? I know that my issues aren't a big deal and those that are, I can't do anything about them! I'm trying to find another job, but it really isn't working well. That is completely out of my hands right now. I have done what I can.

My mom keeps asking me about my other job, and I won't give you details because it is kind of pathetic. But every time she asks, it is like a little part of me dies. A part of me has failed every time she asks me about it. There is always that part of me that hasn't lived up to what it should have. It is embarrassing. I say that I have done the best that I can, but I know that I can do better. I can push myself farther. It is just so difficult to remember that in the moment. There are so many things that I could be doing better. But I can't think about that!

Too often I think about that and not about what I'm doing right. This week has been especially bad. I keep putting up this false happiness, well it is not completely false it is just forced until it sticks, and I haven't allowed myself to express my full feelings. I have let it get all bottled up inside and I think that is why I feel sometimes like I'm about to explode if I don't express them in full right then. But I can't. That is not socially acceptable.

Also, I live in fear that my feelings are not justified. My fears, my irritation, my stress. I don't want it to be one-upped by anyone. I know that there are people out there that have it harder than I do, I just like to wallow sometimes. But I can't do that. That leads to things like this week where I've listened to T-Swift and sad Michael Buble songs for various reasons. I need to accept what I'm feeling and move on. Let it become a part of me instead of something that I need to get over. I can progress so much quicker when I accept things.

Mary May and Bobby plus Rainymood makes me feel so peaceful right now.

Do you sometimes want to cry because something is so beautiful and you don't know what makes it that way? I get that like right now listening to the music and the rain with the cool breeze on my ankles. When I look at the snow falling. When I see the lights of cars and street lights reflected in the puddles on the pavement. When I look up and I see the stars and the moon. When I see a look between two people who love each other. When I see an awkward couple fumbling as they try to hold hands. When I see a single leaf fall from a tree and sway on the wind before finally resting on the ground. These moments are what make life so beautiful. Everyone sees them differently, each moment in itself is different, and therefore no one can ever experience the same exact thing. We can try to explain it, but you had to be there. Humanity can be so imperfect sometimes, but isn't that what makes it perfect?

In philosophy we were discussing Plato's theory of essences. (What Republic is about). Plato believed that there was no such thing as ugly. Humans created the idea of something being ugly. When something was not beautiful in the scientific sense, it was simply not participating in the essence of beauty. It was participating in anti-beauty in a way. Each essence was perfect, by nature. Therefore, the essence of anti-beauty was perfect therefore anything that wasn't beautiful was still perfect in some sense. While that argument does have many logical flaws, I think that it applies perfectly to the situations and moments that I mentioned. They are fleeting and they are imperfect, but that is what makes them perfect. They are participating in an essence of some sort and that makes them perfect in a completely unique sense.

Sometimes I forget what it is like to sit back and become myself again. I haven't changed. I haven't put on a mask. But I have allowed myself to become so full of worry, stress, and anxiety that I haven't drained that and become me again. That has overwhelmed my thoughts for the past while and it needs to end. I need to remember the law of attraction. Be peaceful and you will attract peace. A part of me likes the stress because I can become lost in it. Through stress I lose my feeling, my sensitivity, my reality. It is almost like going into a dream, where the things that really matter don't worry you. Stress makes me focus on the things that don't matter instead of the things that do because sometimes it wants to cope that way. It can be too hard to deal with what I'm actually thinking, feeling, or doing so I change and focus on dumb small things like my physics homework or that arabic drill that suddenly became the most important thing on my to do list. It shouldn't be. I need to focus on me. Focus on life. Focus on the breath that restores me. I need to stop and pay attention to the height of the trees on campus and ponder on how long they have been there and how much they've seen. Who cares if I step in a puddle if I find a small part of me through looking up? I certainly don't.

Wow. I feel like Emily again. I've missed that feeling. This whole week I've been feeling about where I did when I wrote my last post. I've written a couple of things and none of them sounded like me. They were angry, callous, and rash. And I feel like they might have hurt someone close to me. There are so many things I wanted to say, but never got the chance to. The odds of you reading this, even this far, are slim to none. So I won't dwell on this. I shouldn't dwell on it.

Be truthful as you go about this Friday. Be honest in your intentions with everyone. Start with yourself. Wake up and be honest with yourself. Be honest in your prayers. Be ready to act on whatever the Lord gives you as instruction that day. Then go and be honest with your fellow man. Then you will find how happy it is and how much more you learn.

سلام عليكم
"Peace be unto you"

PS. Word of the day is Petrichor. It is the word that describes the smell of a fresh rain.

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