Category: The drain trap.

All that’s slipped through the cracks.

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Evolutions

Change happens.

You don’t have to advocate for it, embrace it, or even instigate it. Change is inevitable. That said, sometimes we want change. Sometimes we need it. I made some big changes in my life in the last year. Sometimes, when you do this, it’s exciting and invigorating. But after the initial buzz of a big change things settle, they simmer, and it’s then you can begin to smell the real flavor of your ingredients, and what the hell this grand thing you’ve been cooking up might taste like. You can never really and truly know the full extent of your decisions ahead of time. You can weigh options, make a pros and cons list. Consider and reconsider. But eventually you have to jump in and swim through the reality of what you’ve chosen.

I’m not trying to be dramatic, only to paint a picture of how much I’ve changed my life in this last year, and how much it means I find myself considering what that means for me now, what it means for my future, basically just how it might play out.

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Real Life

What up party people!? I’ve returned from my vow of digital abstenence and bring with me deep realizations, shallow epiphanies and nuggets of truth and dingleberry. While I saw some breathtaking beauty and some gut wrenching ugliness, most everything was just plain old beautiful ordinary life.

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The Narrative

We’ve all got a story. Who we are, where we’ve been, what we stand for, we have our interests and occupations, our likes and dislikes. People can ask us questions and we answer authoritatively, “No I don’t like Brussel sprouts”, or “I’m an Electrician”. What we do becomes who we are, we grow comfortable and settle into these narratives of who we are, what we stand for, and what we care about. Meanwhile the world around us changes, circumstances of our lives change, the weather changes, everything changes. And yet we’re expected to remain dogmatic to this story of who we are, what we want, and where we’re headed. Stability, it’s called, or consistency.

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Curated Content(ment)

When you really think about it, life is almost always a front. How often are we not hiding, shielding, shadowing, skewing, or shading the reality we face, the reality we project, and the reality we live in? How rare and beautiful an occurrence it is when we can actually let go of our vulnerabilities, our insecurities and come clean to anyone, to ourselves, about the struggles and triumphs of our hidden lives. How often do we share something real, raw and boring? How often is what we share curated to be the most likeable, the least threatening? Can we handle the reality of our own mediocrity? Does the chaos of the world at large have an effect on the self image we promote? Media’s influence is powerful, subtle, invasive and widespread, I’m taking a moment to dive in and see how it settles, or more accurately, to dive out.

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Resolve

I’d like to think I’ve never been one for manufactured resolve, but I think the truth is, I just don’t want to be told what to do.

The dial turns, a New Year begins, and we’re made to believe that we’ve got a new chance, a fresh start. But isn’t this the truth every day? Don’t we begin anew each morning with a blank slate, a fresh start? In fact, every moment is an opportunity to let go, to relent, to acknowledge we’ve drifted off course, to realign, reaffirm, and start again.

How hard it is to say we’ve been wrong. We can become so entrenched, so stuck that we find ourselves forced to argue a point we no longer believe in. Life opens a door, gives you an opportunity to relent, but so often our pride prohibits us from moving forward. The New Year is like a get out of jail free card. An opportunity to find resolve without focusing on the lack, on the void that we’re hoping to fill. It’s pure optimism, looking ahead, looking up, looking within.

In reality, I’m all about resolve. I’m an Aries, I love to start. I have a head full of steam, inspiration strikes and I want to set out in search of it. But the New Year always seems like such a poor time to capitalize on this momentum. Winter is a time of reflection, of rumination and hibernation. Ideas gestate and creativity simmers like a mulled wine.

I want to play along. I want to find resolve, to be resolute, to take action in a new direction, but that’s just not the energy I feel. I feel like it’s time to listen. Time to be still and absorb. Time to do what you’re told and wait patiently. To compile your resolutions as they crystallize, to write them down, fold them up and stick them in your pocket. To wait till the time is right to take action.

But there’s something to be said for rising to the challenge, to answering the call. You can put off your resolutions till you’re ready but that day might never come. The time is now, what are you going to do?

Slow down.

Help.

Be patient.

Look hard at the things that make you squirm – what’s making you uncomfortable has something to teach you.

Embrace what makes you feel good – don’t be afraid of giving yourself up to love and laughter, life is short.

Happy New Year,

Love,

Tim

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Reflections

Time is fluid, cyclical, and relentless. It’s everywhere and unstoppable, yet we work so hard to compartmentalize it. Days, weeks, hours, minutes, we work to break time into fragments that we can cope with. Unaware and unaffected, time moves on. Perhaps there is no other way, maybe our minds are just not suited to flow with time in its ever expanding and contracting nature. We want time to move in one direction, we want ourselves to move in only one direction with it. Growth, ascension, forward movement. If time is not bringing us somewhere better we easily lose touch with our own direction. We wish to command time and bend it to our will, to believe we are capitalizing one this one element in a way that will deliver us to our goals, our hopes and dreams.

But I’ve come to believe that time has its own will. That we are as much a product of time’s fate as any other. Today’s political climate proves this to a degree, that time has its own weight, its own momentum, a pressure that sometimes binds, folds, and back up upon itself, slowing and stopping until so much weight accumulates that it bursts forth in a flood, rushing past us or carrying us along. But even this fits into the narrative of a flow of time, one that has direction, current, and inevitability.

Regardless of our view of time, and our place in it, it does seem advantageous to break it into pieces we can more easily digest, pieces of time we can hold and weigh and use to plan for our own future. A life, after all, is only one small piece of time, an amalgamation of moments we stitch together into a narrative. Simpler times have come and gone, and today’s time often seems complex, confusing, challenging and even cruel. There’s work to be done, within and without. We’re encouraged to find ourselves, to become our best selves and contribute to the solution, to the repair and replacement of flawed systems. At the same time, we’re groping for meaning, purpose, connection and love. These are the metrics we use to judge time, and our passage through it.

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The Stumble Along.

There is no lack of direction. No lack of obstacles. No lack of words.

What there is a lack of is courage, of belief and faith. I made this space for me. To expel and expand, to share, to communicate and hopefully, to understand.

But then it turned into a statement, and today there might not be anything more dangerous. As soon as you speak, as soon as you open your mouth you are wrong. There are no absolutes, no certainties. But that doesn’t’ stop us from trying to pin them down, about us, about the world.

I feel like there’s something caught in my throat. There is a confusing mix of ideas and emotions that I so badly want to let out and put into order. But even if I manage that task that seems so big, I still know it will be misunderstood, that my words will be mixed up, twisted, and magnified. The fear of the inevitable holds me back.

There is more, there is an excuse, a reasoning, a logic. It’s part of the story, but sometimes even I can’t remember it. I’m afraid I won’t be able to get enough of it out to convince you, to bridge the gap between us, I’m afraid you won’t understand, or worse, you won’t agree.

Life shoves you ahead. You fall, you get up. No. It’s the controlled fall. You’re bumping into things along the way and they set your trajectory. Maybe sometimes you can slow down before you fall on your face, but more often than not it’s those glancing blows that cause the most damage.

We’re stumbling. Sometimes it’s graceful and we’re running ahead, leaping over obstacles, other times we get caught up in the push and trip over our own feet. Along the way I’m trying to find you, to hold your hand and share my story, to remind and encourage each of us that were not alone. Because when I’m silent, I feel like I’m alone, running in the dark.