Day Thirty

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I woke up this morning, rolled out of bed, and decided that today was Day Thirty, and therefore today would be mindblowingly remarkable.  Fourteen hours later, after positively nothing bizarre, outstanding, or victoriously-drop-to-your-knees-and-sob-tears-of-enlightenment-worthy had happened, I genuinely considered putting Day Thirty off until tomorrow. I'm kind of glad I didn't. Here's why:

"Resolution" is such an arbitrary word, because nothing's ever really over. We like to put brackets around things--declare this "the start" and that "the end," but really, the universe doesn't work like that. The universe just keeps trekking on,  flowing, taking things moment by moment, and leaving the past with yesterday and the future for tomorrow.

We can't let beginnings scare us, and we can't let endings finish us. They're all in our heads--this misperceived notion that experiences can be labeled and contained and planned out.  Living--real living--is deciding that this moment won't ever be the things you miss, and it won't ever be all the things you might be hoping for.  It'll always just be this moment, but that enough. 

• Show two people how much they mean to me

(1). Covered lunch for a Miss Sarah. 
(2). Got in touch with six people I hadn't spoken to in a while, just as a way to let them know that I hadn't stopped thinking about them. 

Help out a stranger

Lent a pen and a piece of looseleaf to a guy in my contemplative thought class who'd forgotten both. 

• Live instead of sleeping thinking

Made an impromptu decision to go to Salvo with Reese instead of starting my homework. My objective was to find oversized man-flannels, and oh, did I succeed. I've also managed to obtain this bamf leather jacket, which means I can now with a clear conscience <joke> proceed toward my plans of joining a biker gang and getting a face tattoo </joke>. 

We also passed this really sick barn/shed thing on the way, and I had to take a picture of it. I've always had this fascination with sheds. Probably because they're the closest things hobbit holes the real world's got, and God knows I'd give one of my limbs to chill in a hobbit hole for the remainder of my life. Kindly refrain from all short jokes/unnecessary sexual innuendos. 

• Do something good for myself, by myself

Revived this notebook off my bookshelf and finally thought up a purpose for it. I bought it in some bookstore in Pennsylvania when I was still at UC, but I thought it was way too pretty to use for just anything, so the pages are still blank. I've decided I'm going to use it to keep up with these objectives--not as strictly as I've done here, but if one of them comes up, I'll jot it down for future reference when I have a way-to-suck type of day. It'll be a good way of reminding myself that I have, in fact, made a significant amount of progress. 

• Write here and write elsewhere

Yes and no. Dammit. 

• Make a conscious decision to leave my comfort zone

Serious-time: I took someone who I really, genuinely care about, sat him down, and did my best to articulate the honest and entire truth to him. Honesty is something that we're all scared shitless over, because a lot of times, the most common thoughts and mental processes don't particularly line up with what's considered to be "polite" or "acceptable." I decided that it was better he knew exactly what was going through my mind, even if it changed his perception of me. Then again, perception's just a temporary thing; it can always be reshaped.

• Take three  pictures of three beautiful things.

(1). See above.
(2). See above.
(3). See below. 

Meditate

Roughly forty-five minutes during contemplative thought today. Though admittedly, ten of those minutes were spent doing this bizarre hand-raising counting-out-of-order exercise thing, and I'm unsure I've ever felt so stupid in my life. I was that kid saying the wrong numbers at the wrong times and messing everyone up. It was like the Fairfield Thanksgiving play all over again. #Thingstobringupintherapy.

• Look up at the sky 

Beyond awful picture, because I'm still using my phone as a camera, but that's a full moon shining through the clouds. I was initially disappointed as all hell that I wouldn't catch any stars on my last night, but admittedly, that halo is just as incredible. 

This won't be my final post; I'll be doing one last entry in a couple of days, once I've had a chance to go through old updates and collect my thoughts a little bit. It'll be a sort of reflection on the whole process, because it's been quite an enlightening, exhausting, overwhelming, and amazing thirty days, and I think I owe this project just a little bit of commentary. 

"I am a writer of books in retrospect. I talk in order to understand. I teach in order to learn." -Robert Frost

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