Random stuffs...
Dec. 19th, 2008 08:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ht_murrayMan, yesterday I was bumming, wasn't I? Wanna know how bad it was? It was so bad that watching this video made me cry like a baby.
Warning: People falling off horses a LOT.
Huh. I honestly don't now what's up with me, but anyway, moving on...
Last night was my last night at work until January 5. I don't know whether I'm happy about that or not. I mean, I just realized it's the 19th today, less than a week until Christmas, and I don't care. Maybe after I sleep for a week. I also realized it's the 19th today and the Christmas fic I'm writing is nowhere near finished. If I write on it nonstop between now and Christmas, I might have a decent first draft. *headdesk* I wouldn't worry about it so much, because I have over the 5000 words I promised, but it's a Christmas prompt, and I really want to finish it for Christmas. *pulls out hair*
For people still keeping track, I'm over 140000 words in the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
autumnwrite challenge. I won't have a problem hitting 15000 by the end of the year. I'm up in the air about attempting springwrite, even though I definitely like the motivation to write every single day. It just has been making it harder and harder for me to keep with my workout schedule and SLEEP. I may do it informally and pledge like 800 words a day instead of the 1200 I've been doing. *ponders*
Oh, and you know what's really interesting? I used to write on paper. Not stories, not poems, not plans, just STUFF that would pop into my head while I was working away at my job or out sweeping in the barn or whatever. I'd write on little scraps of paper, sometimes on paper towels or toilet paper if that was all I could get my hands on, and I'd shove them in this folder I kept my knives and wire cutters in. When I had a bunch, I'd sit down and write them in a notebook.
I dug out one of these old notebooks this morning. Because you know what I remember most about those days? I WAS HAPPY. I mean, ecstatically, wonderfully, profoundly, HAPPY. I can remember writing my grandmother a letter and saying, Grandma, I don't even have words for how happy I am. Shit, I just made myself cry. Because I can't remember how that felt. I just know I felt it.
Anyway, I went looking in this notebook, and I remember thinking this stuff was really profound when I wrote it, and now... Now I find myself rolling my eyes at it, thinking what a foolish, naive, truly stupid girl I was. Not only did I think this stuff up, but I actually believed it. All of it.
And what's sad is, I see people post this kind of stuff all the time, and I roll my eyes and shake my head and click by quickly before I click on "Leave a Comment" and tell them how stupid they are. Stupid for being happy? For being sure? For being confident? When did I get so bitter? Hmm, let's see, the last dated entry in this notebook? February, 2006. Right after I found online fandom and right before I won my first fanfic award.
Part of me says, "A-HA! There's your evidence! You know you're addicted to the internet and have let it take over your life. Just look!" But then, you know, if that's true, then just unplugging would fix things, wouldn't it? And that ain't gonna happen.
And then there's the rational part of me that says, "Life is cyclic. It's just coincidence that I started a downward cycle at the same time I found fandom and fanfiction and stopped writing just for myself." Just a coincidence. That's what my rational mind says.
You know what my journal says?
****
January 17, 2005:
Ration and logic are the tools by which we unknowingly allow our minds to cloud our hearts.
Enlightenment is simply giving yourself permission to believe what you already know is true.
It also says:
January 18, 2005:
Science does not preclude or negate faith. It merely offers the occasional opportunity to glimpse, in no uncertain terms, that which we have believed to be true all along.
And:
A prayer is a rational mind's way of communicating with an irrational heart.
January 26, 2005:
It is a sad irony that the sheep depend on the shepherd for protection when it was the shepherd who made them helpless to begin with.
January 30, 2005:
Knowledge without experience is not learning, and experience without learning is not wisdom. Knowing that you do not know the answer to a question when life presents it to you is 90% of learning the answer. The wisest man knows only one thing for certain, and that is that he has more to learn.
January 31, 2005:
The biggest contributor to destiny is where you are and what you are doing right now.
February 4, 2005:
So much of our lives outside of Heaven are wrapped up in the mundane and the trivial. Yet, a great part of who we are as people is determined by what we do when what we do doesn't really seem to matter.
True peace is not calm. It is not mundane. It is the resolution of true conflict, not the avoidance or absence of strife.
Choosing to know the joy in everything you do, despite conflict... that is Heaven, and you don't spend a lifetime preparing to go there. You live there every day.
****
You know, there was a time when all of that made perfect sense.
It doesn't anymore.
I guess I have a lot more to learn.
Warning: People falling off horses a LOT.
Huh. I honestly don't now what's up with me, but anyway, moving on...
Last night was my last night at work until January 5. I don't know whether I'm happy about that or not. I mean, I just realized it's the 19th today, less than a week until Christmas, and I don't care. Maybe after I sleep for a week. I also realized it's the 19th today and the Christmas fic I'm writing is nowhere near finished. If I write on it nonstop between now and Christmas, I might have a decent first draft. *headdesk* I wouldn't worry about it so much, because I have over the 5000 words I promised, but it's a Christmas prompt, and I really want to finish it for Christmas. *pulls out hair*
For people still keeping track, I'm over 140000 words in the
autumnwrite challenge. I won't have a problem hitting 15000 by the end of the year. I'm up in the air about attempting springwrite, even though I definitely like the motivation to write every single day. It just has been making it harder and harder for me to keep with my workout schedule and SLEEP. I may do it informally and pledge like 800 words a day instead of the 1200 I've been doing. *ponders*Oh, and you know what's really interesting? I used to write on paper. Not stories, not poems, not plans, just STUFF that would pop into my head while I was working away at my job or out sweeping in the barn or whatever. I'd write on little scraps of paper, sometimes on paper towels or toilet paper if that was all I could get my hands on, and I'd shove them in this folder I kept my knives and wire cutters in. When I had a bunch, I'd sit down and write them in a notebook.
I dug out one of these old notebooks this morning. Because you know what I remember most about those days? I WAS HAPPY. I mean, ecstatically, wonderfully, profoundly, HAPPY. I can remember writing my grandmother a letter and saying, Grandma, I don't even have words for how happy I am. Shit, I just made myself cry. Because I can't remember how that felt. I just know I felt it.
Anyway, I went looking in this notebook, and I remember thinking this stuff was really profound when I wrote it, and now... Now I find myself rolling my eyes at it, thinking what a foolish, naive, truly stupid girl I was. Not only did I think this stuff up, but I actually believed it. All of it.
And what's sad is, I see people post this kind of stuff all the time, and I roll my eyes and shake my head and click by quickly before I click on "Leave a Comment" and tell them how stupid they are. Stupid for being happy? For being sure? For being confident? When did I get so bitter? Hmm, let's see, the last dated entry in this notebook? February, 2006. Right after I found online fandom and right before I won my first fanfic award.
Part of me says, "A-HA! There's your evidence! You know you're addicted to the internet and have let it take over your life. Just look!" But then, you know, if that's true, then just unplugging would fix things, wouldn't it? And that ain't gonna happen.
And then there's the rational part of me that says, "Life is cyclic. It's just coincidence that I started a downward cycle at the same time I found fandom and fanfiction and stopped writing just for myself." Just a coincidence. That's what my rational mind says.
You know what my journal says?
****
January 17, 2005:
Ration and logic are the tools by which we unknowingly allow our minds to cloud our hearts.
Enlightenment is simply giving yourself permission to believe what you already know is true.
It also says:
January 18, 2005:
Science does not preclude or negate faith. It merely offers the occasional opportunity to glimpse, in no uncertain terms, that which we have believed to be true all along.
And:
A prayer is a rational mind's way of communicating with an irrational heart.
January 26, 2005:
It is a sad irony that the sheep depend on the shepherd for protection when it was the shepherd who made them helpless to begin with.
January 30, 2005:
Knowledge without experience is not learning, and experience without learning is not wisdom. Knowing that you do not know the answer to a question when life presents it to you is 90% of learning the answer. The wisest man knows only one thing for certain, and that is that he has more to learn.
January 31, 2005:
The biggest contributor to destiny is where you are and what you are doing right now.
February 4, 2005:
So much of our lives outside of Heaven are wrapped up in the mundane and the trivial. Yet, a great part of who we are as people is determined by what we do when what we do doesn't really seem to matter.
True peace is not calm. It is not mundane. It is the resolution of true conflict, not the avoidance or absence of strife.
Choosing to know the joy in everything you do, despite conflict... that is Heaven, and you don't spend a lifetime preparing to go there. You live there every day.
****
You know, there was a time when all of that made perfect sense.
It doesn't anymore.
I guess I have a lot more to learn.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-12-19 03:39 pm (UTC)I mean, I think that during the days that I was writing for myself every day, I was extremely naive... so I think that's similar to what you're saying... and as life wears on you, well... you have less energy for the things that you did without any qualms in the past. But of course, those are the same things that kept you happy in the past, so yeah, it's cyclical and kind of messy.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-19 04:23 pm (UTC)Keep shoveling
Date: 2008-12-19 04:50 pm (UTC)I mean, I just realized it's the 19th today, less than a week until Christmas, and I don't care.
Yeah, me too. And the sad thing is, this used to be my favorite time of year. I loved everything about the Christmas season, both when I was kid and when I had my own. Now I would love to just skip the whole thing. I just want it to go away and leave me alone. So I can write and peruse the internet, actually. And I think you're right about this:
if that's true, then just unplugging would fix things, wouldn't it? And that ain't gonna happen.
I've had the same thought, and certainly my husband has, because he thinks the whole fanfic/LJ/internet thing was the cause of my depression, when actually it was the medication with which I treated it. But I've looked at my own longhand journals and this goes back further than my love affair with all things Sam and Dean--I just managed to hide it from him for the first few months. I don't know where I'd be right now if I hadn't found this online community, but I know it would be worse because I've worked through a lot of my shit on here. *pokes huge steaming pile of shit with shovel*
Now I find myself rolling my eyes at it, thinking what a foolish, naive, truly stupid girl I was. Not only did I think this stuff up, but I actually believed it. All of it.
I've done this, and sometimes it is just growing up. Not long ago I got in touch with an old friend from high school and college and I remarked on how I look back and shake my head. I can't believe the way I acted back then, some of the choices I made, even the way I treated my friends. She said, "I try to be kind to the girl I was." For some reason that hit me hard, and I was talking about stuff that happened 20-odd years before, not three or four. Maybe you're not as far away from that happy girl as you think?
I wish I had the answer. I used to have the knack for being happy even when things weren't that great, but I've lost it somewhere. I took it for granted, but now I know how hard it really is to find. OMG, if I ever get hold of it again I'm going to latch onto that baby so hard you wouldn't believe.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-19 05:32 pm (UTC)I think a big part of that is growing up. When I look back at the stuff I wrote just 1-2 years ago I find myself rolling my eyes too. That said, I quite like your journal scribbles in all their profoundness.
I don't really have any good advice or things to say that'll make things better. I think I felt a lot like you do right now last year and it sucked. This year has been good to me, however, on the happiness front, and I hope things will look brighter for you soon *hugs*.
Also, don't stress about fic!
no subject
Date: 2008-12-19 11:52 pm (UTC)So... cut yourself some slack, get some rest while you have this down time and don't worry so much. The truth is everybody has a lot to learn still. Just most of them either don't realize it or refuse to admit it.
I was wondering, what about this video made you cry?
no subject
Date: 2008-12-20 12:09 am (UTC)And the video... lol. That's the thing. I have no idea why it made me cry. None. I just was watching, and then wham! I guess maybe I just needed a good cry, lol.
Though that little white pony reminded me so much of a little black pony I had when I was younger.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-20 12:26 am (UTC)“I mean, I just realized it's the 19th today, less than a week until Christmas, and I don't care. I mean, I just realized it's the 19th today, less than a week until Christmas, and I don't care.”
Oh boy, add me to the list of those who feel the exact same way. First time this has happened to me in a while. So strange to be this far into the season and not be in the spirit yet. Starting to think it’s not gonna happen at all this year. I keep waiting for it to hit me and for me to get excited but nope, nothing. No decorations up at my house, hardly any Christmas carols (except for Sarah McLachlin's album of course).
I keep telling myself that it will be better in the new year. We'll get passed all this holiday stuff and it'll be fine. I know it. *hugs*
no subject
Date: 2008-12-22 02:02 am (UTC)Choosing to know the joy in everything you do, despite conflict... that is Heaven, and you don't spend a lifetime preparing to go there. You live there every day. I like this. But then, I've apparently always been an optimist. Some of my friends think it's endearing. *Shrugs* All I know is you've probably got something with the whole cycle thing.
Random fact #4567864 about me: I went horseback riding once many moons ago. It was in Missouri and we (family and I) were on a trail and my cousin's horse got spooked, reared and kicked the instructor off his horse, breaking his leg. We had to go ahead and leave him in the woods so we could go get help at the end of the trail.
The irony of it? He was telling us ghost stories about the woods we were in and telling us if our horses were to get spooked, it was the ghosts trying to ride our horses out of the woods. He was just trying to scare a bunch of children, but he certainly gained credence by then end of the day.