Let's Call It Day Eleven

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Here's a quote for you guys: 

"He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else." -Benjamin Franklin

Then there's a lesser-known (but still pretty legit) add-on in which our founding father states, "Unless you're Maria. Go ahead, Maria; I'm dying to hear this one." 

Thanks, Benji. You're the best. 

But seriously, quick update on what's been going down: long story short, these last couple weeks have been a hot mess. One check-engine-light crisis the day before I've gotta drive back to New Paltz, two weeks of one of the worst fever/cold combos I've ever had (AKA, what I've dubbed "the plague" in my over-dramatic world), and eleven days of adjusting to five of the most heavily-reading-intensive-courses I've ever found myself unfortunately enrolled in at once, solely because I'd like to graduate before I'm halfway to thirty... All that stuff later, and I'm back. Here goes. 

• Show two people how much they mean to me

(1). Covered the sushi-coffee-and-desert check for a Miss Stephanie. 

(2). Covered the sushi-coffee-and-desert check for a Miss Elizabeth. 

• Help out a stranger

Smiled at absolutely every single stranger I passed today. Turns out they're contagious; who knew? Also turns out they're basically the multivitamin of facial expressions. Who knew? This guy knew. 

• Live instead of sleeping

Dragged myself out of bed a whole half hour earlier (emphasis on the term 'dragged') so I could walk to class instead of driving. Gorgeously sunny day today, and sometimes I forget that I'm lucky enough to be living--temporarily, at least--up in the mountains. It might be a hell of a lot colder, and Chucks sure as shit don't cut it as far as appropriate snow-gear, but lemme tell you, you can rotate a full three-hundred-and-sixty degrees around and every single angle is breathtaking. 

• Do something good for myself, by myself

A moment of serious-time, you guys. This morning I called up my therapist before class and told her I wanted to schedule regular appointments again, even though the original plan was a one-semester deal to satisfy my parents--a sort of safety net to make sure I was alright after Will. I'm really, really glad I stuck it out and decided to go back. I'm also really glad that I'm admitting that here. For a while, I was pretty quiet about the whole thing. Having never needed anything like it in the past, I admittedly saw the whole process as something that should be kept under the radar in the future. Like I was admitting my weaknesses to the world. I couldn't have been more wrong. Turns out that making yourself vulnerable is one of the most courageous things you could ever possibly do. 

• Write here and write elsewhere

Yes for the first--finally--and yes for the second; the very first page of a semester-long meditation log, to be exact. 

• Make a conscious decision to leave my comfort zone

To be honest, getting back on this horse scares the ever-loving crap out of me. I'm juggling a lot more than I thought I would be, and after a near-three-week hiatus, it was so unbelievably tempting to abandon this thing altogether. More so than that, if I mess up again, I know this whole project's going to leave a pretty bad way-to-fail taste in my mouth. Here's to asking the universe for the resilience, because I really, really want to see this through to day thirty. 

"Keep on going, and the chances are that you'll stumble on something, perhaps when you least expect it. I've never heard of anyone stumbling on something while sitting down." -Charles F. Kettering. 

• Take three pictures of three beautiful things.

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

There are few things I love more than sitting down cross-legged in the fiction aisle of a bookstore, plucking paperbacks off the shelves, reading the synopses quietly to myself, and wondering aloud, "How did this horseshit ever get published?" 

Meditate

This semester--having been lucky enough to receive the council of a new, epic friend and the cooperation of a chill-as-hell professor--I now find myself enrolled in a one-credit meditation class that's been full since the second day of last-semester's registration. Hands down, coolest course I've ever taken, and I've got a sneaking suspicion--formed solely by reading the names of the texts we need (clearly some rock-solid evidence)--that it's going to introduce me to a whole lot of perspectives that I genuinely need to experience right now. 

• Look up at the sky 

Like I said, gorgeously sunny day today. 

And to Diana and Maria for being on my ass about this: Thanks. I needed the push. 

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