Running with Abandon

I’m usually a planner. I like to know what’s going on, when, where, how… you get the point. I tend to think about something before I do it. ‘If I do X, then Y may happen, and if so, Z…but what if I do Z and Y happens? Then I’ll say X’ and so forth and so on. It is rare that I charge into a situation without a plan.

It’s happened twice in my life. Once was the night that two dogs attacked my cat, Gracie. I was sitting in the front room of our old house and heard some commotion. Knowing my kitty was outside, I glanced out the window and saw them fighting. I flew out the door, through the yard, across the street, and into the neighbor’s yard in nothing but a t-shirt and some undies. Looking back that was pretty stupid for a plethora of reasons. I could have cut my feet on something in the road or hidden in the grass. The dogs could have turned on me, or worst of all, some people could have seen just what Victoria’s secret was all about. But I didn’t think about any of that at the time. I just thought about my kitty who needed me. I’m sorry to say that she died two days later from her injuries. But I tried.

The next time that I literally went charging in was just a few days ago. The alligator that lives in our pond was heading right for the ducks that live in our pond and well, I wasn’t interested in hosting some National Geographic episode in my backyard. I ran toward all of them, totally prepared to throw myself into the water if the ducks didn’t fly away, which fortunately, they did. I don’t think I even need to point out all of the reasons why that was a bad idea.

Now while I am in agreement that these were both really careless ways to behave, I can’t help but yearn for that feeling of complete and total abandon. Looking only ahead, plowing forward at full-steam, tunnel vision for your goal and your goal alone. To be free of society’s expectations, life’s worries and heartaches would take away the fear that holds all of us back. While I can’t live like that, I can sure as hell write like that. And I will. Using adverbs as I please, starting and ending sentences with prepositions, and going crazy with the dialogue because that’s what’s really in my heart.

In memory of Gracie Trujillo2008-2009

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Expendable

My friend Monique went to a psychic, the same one who told me my books would be published as a matter of fact, and she was told that she ‘wasn’t from here.’ As in, this was her first time on this earth. Sometimes, I feel like that. Like, I don’t belong here. There are days when I feel like my soul is the pocket of a comfy coat with a hole in it. Nice and together on the outside, incomplete and inherently flawed on the inside. I daydream about being stopped on the street by a psychic and them saying, ‘Hey, this dream you have…don’t give up. This writing thing, it’s for real.” But who knows, maybe that’s not the case and maybe I have nothing to say that’s worth being said.

If you hold your hands in a tight fist in front of your body you will see the mind and soul of the majority of the population. Safe, secure, generally together. And the best part is that this is fine for them. They don’t need and/or want anything more. Now, untangle your hands and pull them back into a large circle, stretching your fingers as wide as they’ll go. That’s me. I’m…more. Everything is more for me. I feel more, see more, love more, hate more, hurt more, and want more. I want enough hours in the day to write proposals, be a mom and a wife, and still have time to be me. As it is, one of those will have to go. Guess who the only expendable one on that list is? Yep. Me.

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