I’m trying to clean as fast as I can
I wonder what feeling I’m running from
When I look at the art supplied filling the closet
That I slept in last night
I feel like I want to cry
My heart hurts
Is there a point to setting up
My own place
If I have no one to share it with
I miss
Feeling safe
Everything just feels
So empty
Just like me
I saw a video today
About how we should love ourselves
For things
The people we love
Saw in us
She loved my appearance
Thought I was handsome
I’ll indulge in my appearance
Feel proud
Groom myself
She loved my intelligence
I’ll indulge in that
Try to decipher
The world’s problems
She loved me for my emotions
I’ll indulge in that
Seek to find emotion
In art
In myself
In other people
She loved me for my skill
I’ll indulge in that
Not being afraid
To take the game
To new levels
She loved my laugh
I’ll indulge in that
Surround me with humor
She loved me because she understood me
I’ll indulge in that
Confide in her
Confide in people who get me
She loved me because I needed her
I’ll indulge in that
Seek to be taken care of
To be cared for
She told me that I would have been ashamed to tell my family or my therapist. But it wasn’t true. It wasn’t true because I would have explained that I loved her.
I loved her when she told me that when I left she cried for so long she threw up. I knew then she must have seen something special in me just like I saw something special in her.
I loved her when she made me laugh and smile at the stupidest things. I loved her when we would banter back and forth with insults.
I loved her when she told me that I needed to tell her when I got to my hotel late in California because she was scared she would lose me.
I loved her when she sent me a playlist of songs, beautiful songs, handpicked by her.
I loved her when she tried. Even when I made her uncomfortable. Even when I was mad at her.
I loved her when she was tired and would open up about the things in her life that troubled her. Things about her family. Things about her life.
I loved her when she told me she read my blog every morning.
I loved her when I was needy. So annoyingly needy, but she was nothing but caring and reassuring.
I loved her when she would ask me why I was ignoring her, if I was driving and couldn’t respond right away.
I loved her when I came back from a meeting and would find so many messages from her, like gifts waiting to be opened.
I loved her when we used to talk on the phone for hours, and it never felt longer than a few minutes.
I loved her intelligence, her passion, her humor, her taste in music, her compassion and warmth, her emotions, her feminine side. She understood everything I said to her. Whether it was a dumb joke or my life philosophy. She had a deep emotional intelligence. She knew when she was avoiding the truth and what the truth was. She was immature at times. She gave up easily. She was self-destructive. She preferred to avoid her problems instead of dealing with them. She liked distractions. She was vindictive when she was angry. She liked to cry. She was embarrassed easily. I loved her for all of that.
She tells me now everything was a lie. What a beautiful lie to love.
I’m in a new place
And I feel lost
When I asked her why
She told me
It’s because I am coping with the emotions
By not feeling them
That my old life
Gave me a lot of my needs
And that it will take time
For me to find it again
I asked myself
In the men’s group
What I should do
And the answer
Was to be alone
In nature
And to be ok
With everything
Being a complete
Mess
I feel tired. And yet I feel so inspired.
I ran with the ideas last night, of dance and music and I can say I feel extremely sad. Something about how much I miss this part of me. I feel sad about the weight I’ve been carrying around for so long. I feel sad because sadness acknowledges the pain in the world without shying away from it.
I watched this video last night:
I remember in art there is no right or wrong way to go about something. Just like in life. I feel we forget that a lot.
For some reason, I feel the desire to write stories. Here is a space for some freewriting:
A shark was washed onto the shore. That was the day when I asked my next door neighbor Amy to marry me. We were both 12 at the time. Amy was a quiet sort of girl, not shy, just took a while to think about things before she talked. When she did, she didn’t say much.
She looked at me up and down as if she was trying to size me up.
“So what do you say Amy?”
I wonder if this is how the shark felt. He was already dead when he was on shore, but his eyes seemed to look at you as if to say…well? What’s up?
“I don’t know,” Amy finally responded. Her fingers figeting.
“You don’t know?”
“Yea.”
“That’s ok!” I said. I was 12 and I felt invincible…
I feel sad because of how much of this I repressed within my self.
In terms of work, I feel I’ve done the experiment and I can officially say to myself, working on too many things at the same time does not work towards my strengths. I think I need to focus on one focus every day. If I get to a second one, then that’s good. Also, I can have many low effort progress toward every goal, but it can’t be the main focus.
In doing one main thing, I might be able to go to bed much sooner which is something of great concern to me.
It’s been a few days since I last wrote in this blog. I sometimes, I feel like I’m pushing a heavy bounder up the hill when I write. But I decided today I’m going to work through that and deliver something special. I remembered something that inspired me today. Writing isn’t about putting words together, it’s about clear thinking. And I love clear thinking.
Today, I was at the CLIO conference. CLIO is a software that law offices use.
During their keynote, author James Clear gave a speech about his bestselling book, Atomic Habits.
He said a lot of things I already knew like that fact that forming habits are about creating small triggers for bigger actions (like putting on your shoes is the habit for running) and that powerful habits that are about who you want to become instead of achieving goals.
However, there is one new thing that stuck me.
He said that your physical space determines how successful your habits are. Look at the spaces that you are in for most of the day and that will tell you a lot about what habits are.
I want to institute these new habits:
And here is how I plan to implement them:
In other news, the CLIO conference was so good for business. Everyone was friendly, looking to network. We had so many good conversions and met a lot of potential customers and partners. Some thoughts:
My mind feels wild
Like a disordered pair of weeds
Blowing in the wind
They seek home
Somewhere to rest their aching knots
And yet
I cannot find any purchase
The loose threads of my mind struggle
To connect into anything cohesive
Today I was feeling confused about a question:
Why do I no longer feel any motivation to do coaching? Is it because I’m scared to propose a $20,000 product? Am I scared to start a community?
And so I went for a walk. On my walk, I determined that it was because I desire to focus more than anything. Currently, I am focusing on posting for 50 days on LinkedIn and it’s taking a lot of energy. I need to be able to have fewer things on my plate.
However, when I sat down to write this journal. I realized that I’ve lost my way in these posts. I no longer do the hard work to grow and articulate how I am feeling. When I did, my poem revealed to me that I feel extremely lost and scattered in my mind. I’ve forgotten the helpful intentions I use to set myself into the mode of preparing my day:
When I immerse myself in these intentions, I feel the distinct taste of possibility coming back to me and my world is opened wide enough to do the planning that I want to do in these posts.
Today I want to continue the work of yesterday and I want to focus on three things: