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Matters in Love

What really matters in love? Truly?

At the end of the effing day, when it is all said and done — what’s left?

What actually matters?

I keep circling back to this phrase: the full package.
But what does that even mean?

It’s hard to say when there are different types of love.

Love from mother to child.
Love from friend to friend.
Love from person to object.
Love from person to God.
Sibling love.
Romantic love.

You name it…
but what is IT?

Does love have a core?
Are these just branches on the same sprawling tree?

Is it a feeling?
An experience?
An idea?
An act?
An expression?
A combination of these?
A thing which cannot be explained in words?

GAHHH.

Why are we humans so complicated?
Is that part of the fun?

Relationships can be complicated.

When we love, we ache to keep it. We lay claim: my boyfriend, my partner, my person. And in that claiming, fear creeps in. We don’t want to lose them. We don’t want to see them laughing in the corner with someone else. So we make rules. We get jealous. We clutch tight.

Maybe that’s just where we are in our evolution. Still learning. Still human. Still attached.

And still, I wonder: at the core, what is it we really want?
Connection?
Safety?
Something else?

Some say love is a drug. Taste it once, and suddenly you’re hooked. Restless, aching, feening for another hit. You find yourself staring at your phone waiting for that text to come through. One little buzz, that name flashing on your screen and the rush floods in; sharp, fast, like a bump of cocaine.

“I miss you” they say.
You feel high.

But that’s it. No follow up. No change.
You feel low.

Oh, so low.


Sigh.
Hm…


Perhaps there isn’t one neat answer.

Life is too dynamic, too wild, too fluid to be contained by a single defining answer. What may be true today may be false tomorrow. Someone can say “I love you” today and drop you tomorrow. In the wise words of Snoop Dog, “It do be like that sometimes.”

Perhaps love is less of a one size fits all answer but more an art. Perhaps it’s not a thing we can shove into a neat little box slapped with a label that says “love is THIS.” Perhaps it’s more a force that can’t be contained. Perhaps it takes many forms, many names, many flavors, many sounds, many textures, many shapes.

And somehow, all of them different yet all of them true.

What a ride. What a ride.



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Matters

Lately I’ve been grappling with what actually matters in love and life.

What are we really doing, ya know? What’s the point?

If we don’t figure out the death problem then we’re all going to die. Yet we don’t seem to be talking about that enough. Some say there is an after life. A heaven. A hell. Some say there is nothing. Some say we re-incarnate. Too many different narratives make me unsure what is true.

I’m aging. Time is passing. I’ve already aged since I started this post. We’re all moving. We’re all changing. What is really the point?

Sometimes I want to sell everything and just drive off on the road without a clear destination. This idea sounds cute in theory until I need a bathroom. A shower. A bed. A place to stand and stretch. A kitchen to cook and store food. So maybe what I really want is more adventure, not to sell all my things and go into the road indefinitely. I’ve done multiple cross country road trips. They’re cool but it does get tiring being on the road at times.

Anyway, back to the point.

What matters?

Health seems to matter. If we’re going to exist might as well be in a body that operates well and feels decently good.

Food. Shelter. Connection. And I suppose some kind of purpose.

There is a force moving us forward whether we like it or not. I can’t stay still even if I wanted to. Something is moving me forward. Which begs an even greater question, am I just watching my life happen and have no real but only perceived control over it? Too much of a big question I don’t want to get into at the moment but certainly an interesting one.


Gah.
Experiences. Do they matter? If so, which?

We all have different ideas of what experiences we want. Take motherhood, for example. Not all of us womb holders want to have the motherhood experience. How does one go about deciding what experiences matter?

—

DEEP BREATH IN
DEEP EXHALE OUT

—

Life is both this deeply profound, delicious, juicy nectar I want to soak up while marveling in complete breathtaking awe… AND… an incredibly soul crushing, agonizing, gnawing, bleeding, heartless devastation.

!ROAR!

Roar at this magnificence and this gut wrenching emptiness.

ROAR at this EVERYTHING-NOTHING THING.

WHAT MATTERS?!


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No, really

Seriously guys, wtf?
No, really. Wtf?

I really mean it- wtf?

For real, for real — wtf?

Something’s off. There is literal no way that we exist on an intelligent, life giving planet and that our purpose here is to pay some bills and die.

Come the F on. I’m mad. I’m mad at what we’ve turned life into. This experience should be so awe inspiring it basically blows you away.

How are we not all blissed out?

Our energy is poorly allocated. It’s for this reason we are seeing hunger, illness, depression, fights, and all kinds of other suffering.

Gosh. I think about the world. I think about how big it is and how different we all are.
I imagine the people in India. There are so many of them and everyone has their own mindset- their own beliefs. I imagine the hot summers. The unpaved streets. The misallocation of resources.

I imagine Africa. I imagine Russia. I imagine the South American jungles. Everyone so different. Everyone with such different needs. Different opinions. Different religion. Different language. Different wants.

I imagine everyone’s ego and how our animal nature plays into the fact that we aren’t always conscious and we aren’t actually all knowing. We aren’t always wise. Our IQ isn’t always high and definitely isn’t perfect.

I imagine the planet as a whole. Outside of our man made barriers we are one planet. Like one body made by its different parts.

Gahh I wanna scream. Because I love it all. I love everything about everything. Every rock. Every rain drop. Every particle of dust. Every interesting little corner of everything which makes up this intricate picture we call “life”.

AAAAHHHHH

I want to scream at the top of a mountain because of how small I really am in comparison to it all. How little I actually know. It’s laughable.

I feel like there is more here than meets the eye. I feel like there is untapped magic. That we’ve been numbed down as if drugged and our ability to sense is blunted. It’s like we can’t always see the miracle before us. We think our man made laws and jobs and little nonsense is truly real. We get narrow minded. But I get it. We’re trying our best. But it feels like our best is compromised because we can certainly do better than this.


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Awe

I’m in awe of this experience

all of it

it just blows my mind

I’m in love with the fresh air filling my lungs on a deep inhale. The soft wind on my skin. The gentle light of the sun when it hits you just right.

Wow. Just wow.

The colors, patterns, sounds, tastes, vibrations. Mmmmmmm. I’m fascinated. Enamored. Enthralled by the paradox of it all.

How fleeting. How mysterious.

I’ll never know when my last day is. My last moment. We think we have time. But we don’t ever know. What a wild, beautiful, sad, scary, wonderful masterpiece it all is.

My mother is getting older and her health isn’t what it once was in her youth. I can’t bear the thought of losing her. How precious and special she is to me even though she drives me crazy sometimes.

The reality that this experience is oh so fleeting makes me not want to waste any time.

Not waste time doing stupid shit that doesn’t matter.

I want to learn quickly, forgive fast. I want to smile often, kiss deeply, dance even when the only music playing is the one in my head.

Ahhh what art this all is. This life. This experience. Mmmmmm. How divine.

Have you ever walked the streets of New York City on a delightful summer evening? If not, I recommend you do. You can feel the creativity pulsating through the air. You can tune in and hear the authors writing their books, and musicians playing their symphonies. Ahhh. The culture. The arts. So beautiful.

I can only imagine the rest of the world.
How rare and special it all is.

Italy, France, London, Spain. How I’d like to melt into the ether of it all and dance among all that there is.

Taste it. Hear it. Feel it.

And lock eyes with you.

Gosh it’s fleeting. It’s all fleeting.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Wow… WTF…

I caught a glimpse of the piece of floss I threw in the toilet right before I flushed. I marveled at the toilet. The plumbing. The lights in the bathroom. And I was like, wow. This is all amazing. Wow, just wow. I’m really out here. With a body and hands and a fancy toilet.

So easy to take it all for granted.

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Nostalgia

mmmmm

the depths of the depths of my soul craves the depths of the depths of experience

oh how I yearn for those beautiful, precious moments that slip through time and evaporate into the ether

how I wish I could hold them longer, how I wish I didn’t have to let go and could savor this gift forever

sigh…

I get sad sometimes over the passage of time
over the thought of death and letting go
and how this life is temporary and who knows where it all truly leads

It’s fucking nuts honestly

I’m sad over the aging of my mother
and how I wish I could give her the world

I’m sad over my own aging
I’m sad over the suffering that exists…

I wish I could do a million things at once

Go on a road trip on a warm summer day, look at the starts while smoking a joint on top of the hood of a jeep with someone who just gets me and the vibe is just right…. and also write a book, teach a course on personal finance that helps the average worker and laborers know what to do with their hard earned money so they aren’t stuck working so hard without seeing their money actually grow.

I wish I could travel to Thailand, Bali, Spain, Portugal, India, Italy, Greece, Turkey, London, Ireland, The Virgin Islands and swim naked in the ocean in some other beautiful island where the water is calm and just the perfect temperature – not hot, not cold ~ just right.

I wish I could reach more people and help them on their journey somehow, some way. To make friends from all the world and get a flower tattoo on my back to go with the humming bird waiting to kiss it.

I’m fucking sad bro

For all the reasons there exist for a human to be sad about…

A moment of silence please as we sit and acknowledge the dark side…the emptiness… the void…the stuff that we wish weren’t so.

……………………

I wish I could live a thousand lives
Walk the streets of New York City dressed in edgy but classy fashion while living in a beautiful Manhattan apartment filled with books, tapestries, and vintage decor.

Sigh…

At the same time I am grateful
Grateful for the experience of experience
Grateful for it all even though I have no idea what the f is going on

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Fascinated

The more I try to figure it all out the less I understand

I’m in awe

of this

all of this

existence itself

it literally blows my mind because it’s just not comprehensible

Talk this out with me for a moment

How is it that everything has precise order and incredibly fine, exquisite design

and then we are just existing here on a planet spinning around in space lit by a ball of fire that is conveniently distanced at the perfect spot to allow all kinds of intricately deigned life forms to take shape who then have to basically figure out how to survive…?

Like what is all this!?

The human body alone is a mind blowing work of art. The fact that this whole machinery constructs itself from a sperm and egg inside the womb and over time encodes itself to form a heart, lungs, eyes, a brain, feet, nails, hair, stomach, digestive tract, a nose, veins, etc – all with such masterful design is hard for me to wrap my head around.

If that’s not fascinating, I don’t know what is.
I merely lose it when I contemplate it.

Have you ever looked at a drawing of the ear drum?

The ear drum alone is incredibly impressive, let alone the entire body!!

Then just look at everything else- the other animals, insects, birds, lizards…

The leaves, trees, plants, fruits.

Bananas trip me out every time. Like how does it know to grow a beautiful cover to protect its fruit so we could eat it? 😭😭 How?? How does it even know to be a banana? What nececitated there be a thing such as a banana? What is encoding all that is to be?

Seriously, wtf is going on? What IS all this!???

And then there’s all the human invention added to the mix – as if life already wasn’t interesting enough

now we have things like iPhones and electricity

and I, a human, am here typing into a phone created by harnessing the elements provided by the planet and the intelligence and skills of the inventors of this technology, so that YOUR magnificently designed eyes could read this.

WHAT!?

Like cmon

I don’t know how we’re not all walking around completely mind blown at every second of the day

But anyway…

I think the point I’m making is that I’m truly in awe

and also feel so small

like what do I really know at the end of the day? So little. Barely anything. I feel like an ant.

What is even the point? Sometimes I don’t get it.

Sometimes I buy into the human story and drama – you know- the pay bills, make money, drive a car, do the laundry, every day normal people bullshit sort of thing.

Is that what life’s about? Is it about something else?
Perhaps cleaning oceans, ending wars, saving kittens, and housing the homeless?

Or is it about experiences, traveling, kissing, trying to make the best of the opportunity to be here?

I don’t know, and don’t know the actual point

But I hope I don’t miss it

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Late Night Cries

I’m wiping tears off my face
Wet eye lashes create a slight glow on my vision

I’m pausing to get my words together

Will I ever get it right?
Will I ever “figure it out”?
Will I ever get to that point where I feel really comfortable in my skin, in my life & feeling really proud of what I’ve accomplished, of what I’ve created?

Or will I never make it?
Will I never be fully actualized & certain of myself and my path?

At times I feel so disappointed,
Disappointed with some of the choices I’ve made
At all the time I’ve wasted being stupid,
But mostly disappointed with the existential place I find myself in
Not believing in anything concretely
Not having much of a ground to stand on other than “I exist, but I don’t know why”

Reality feels like an empty place, devoid of true meaning other than the meaning we give it
And I don’t know why that makes it devoid of meaning?

Maybe because I don’t value the value we humans give to things

This goes back to my issues with the belief in God
That belief has been shattered and left me very skeptical


There is as an intelligence embedded in the fabric of reality
There is something obviously happening here
And I suppose we can say that the totality of all that there is, the full universal energy/source/reality itself is “God.”

Sometimes I wish I could just be a normal person. I wish I could just talk about the weather, the latest lulu lemon leggings and not be so preoccupied with the nature of reality or the meaning of existence

I don’t even want to share this anymore…
I’ve stopped crying
And my emotional outburst has now passed

Energy changes
Emotions change
Everything changes

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I Don’t Know

The truth is that I don’t know.

Everywhere I look there is someone claiming knowledge.

But what do I know? Abso-fucking-lutely nothing.

There is so much information. And my barely average intellect can’t even begin to comprehend.

And it leaves me frustrated.

To survive in this world I have to submit myself to work. To provide some sort of service in exchange for credits (a.k.a money, a.k.a physical representation of energy exchange) that I can then use as leverage to obtain other goods and services.

I’m over it. I really don’t fucking care. Why do I have to participate?

I hope the atheists are right – that when you die nothing happens. Because FUCK having to do more stuff after all the stuff I’ve already done.

I don’t want to deal with reincarnation and all other kinds of bullshit. I don’t want to fucking participate in this charade of existence.

It’s nonsense and I don’t care.

Or maybe I do care.

I don’t know.

I just get into these spaces sometimes. These spaces where I really just don’t give a fuck. And then there’s this part of me that feels bad for confessing this because some of you will judge me saying “How could you say such a thing? Life is precious. Don’t be selfish. Don’t think like this. Don’t be negative.”

FUCK THE FUCK OFF.

Let me have my thoughts — you go ahead and have yours.

No. I don’t always think like this. But sometimes I do. And I don’t think it’s bad that I do. I actually at times really do think that not existing is better than existing.

If I didn’t exist I wouldn’t even have to think about whether or not existence or non-existence is better – I WOULDN’T EXIST SO IT WOULDN’T FUCKING MATTER — isn’t that blissful?!

I think it’s fucking blissful.

All this bullshit about good, bad, ugly, beautiful, existence, non-existence, is all a matter of discussion for those who exist and have some kind of a brain to ponder and reflect upon existence. But honestly, I could do without it. And I don’t care if that sounds negative to you.

I mean… suppose there really is some grand fucking purpose to life and it’s some beautiful ass fucking shit… cool? Then what? I don’t get it.

I enjoy the black screen. Those nights when I’m asleep and it feels as If I don’t even exist. I don’t see a need to come back to this bullshit and do things and talk to people and play fucking pretend.

There’s a part of me who feels she needs to apologize for saying the above. But not because I really feel bad for saying it, but because I feel bad for being judged for saying it.

These are my thoughts, though. And why should I hide them?

I don’t really know what the point of this post is. Which I guess brings it all back full circle.

I don’t know why I’m here. I don’t know what the point of all this is. I’m just going along with the system I was born into and trying to do the best with the limited knowledge that I have.

I have a lot to be grateful for. Things could have been much worse for me than they are. Things also could have been much better too, on the other hand. But either way I am who I am and I’m doing my best with what I have.

Some days are better than others. Some days it even feels like it all makes sense.

But other days, I just don’t give a fuck.

But honestly, I just don’t know.

I’m having doubts about sharing this – which is something that never really happens since Reflect Out Loud has always been about me sharing my raw thoughts in a more tangible format.

But I’m gonna share it anyway.

Fuck it.

YOLO, I guess…

I don’t know.

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Existential Crisis

So let me tell you about my existential crisis.

I’ve been tossing and turning the “Why am I here, what is the actual point of all this” question in my head for longer than I could remember. I’ve explored theories, entertained fantasies, looked to reason, theology, spiritual texts,  philosophy, science, but nothing really satisfied my query.

Existential bullshit aside, I’m also carrying around the weight of the reality I am currently in.

I am at a point where I am trying to figure out what truly matters to me.
Which is such an annoying task because I’m always changing! If I could only stick to one goddam idea and emotion, that’d be grand. But I’m constantly being pulled in different directions by my moods, desires, feelings, thoughts, and ideas.

One day I wake up feeling confident about a particular decision, set on doing particular things, while the next day I don’t want that same thing at all. My mood is completely different. My desires completely shift. 180.  Example: I am considering moving to Texas or Florida, even though I JUST moved to California (but more on that some other time).

I am currently giving myself a reality check.
Taking inventory.
Like: You’re 30 years old, you’re making this amount of money, you’re working this type of job, you’re waking up this time in the day, you’re eating these types of food, you’re talking to these types of people, you’re spending these many dollars, you’re doing x y z, a b c…. and if you keep going in this direction you’re likely going to be experiencing these particular results  in your future (whatever they may be).

I wish some genius could take stock of everything I’ve done and am doing, enter it into some kind of excel formula and come up with my future trajectory.

Which is what I’m trying to do now… with my average intelligence… and without an excel formula.

Other factors of reality that are hitting me in the face.
I’m aging.
It sucks.
My body isn’t as energized as it used to be.
I can tell my skin is different. My face is more mature. My hair texture is different.

I know on a fundamental level the best thing I can do is to accept myself as I age. The best thing I can do is be kind to myself. To be able to gracefully let go of what was and embrace what is. I know the best thing I can do is to make peace with the new identity I am growing into while having the maturity to release the attachment to the old image of me.

Yada. Yada. Yada.

I know. I get it. Anything outside of unconditional self-regard, self-love, self-acceptance is a recipe for suffering…

BUT – I’m still gonna complain about it. I’m still going to acknowledge how shitty it is. I’m still going to say I would rather not lose my health, beauty, strength, energy, memory, etc. A girl’s gotta vent, ya know?

Anyway…I don’t intend for this post to be about me complaining. You can hear me complain some other time…

My intention is more to share on my struggle towards understanding the real meaning and purpose of life. But given that I don’t have an actual answer yet, and maybe never will, I am trying to create purpose through living a life that feels meaningful to me. I’m trying to figure out right now, in this pivotal point in my life, what is actually going to fulfill me so that I wake up excited to be alive, rather than dreading what I do in the body that I do it in.

There are a lot of details that go into creating a meaningful, fulfilling life – and I am currently trying to figure out what those details exactly look like for me, while also accounting for the fact that I constantly change my mind/feelings/moods.

So in other words, how can I create a life that is fulfilling, meaningful and flexible.

Something like that….

Turns out I didn’t really talk too much about the existential crisis in itself… which often trumps all the day to day “What am I going to do with my life” type questions and goes deeper to ask “What even is life, and why was it given to me and what am I really supposed to be doing with it, if there is even such a thing as ‘supposed’ to, and if there’s not, how do I know that to be true — and who the hell am I anyway, and why does it matter or not matter?”

….

Sometimes I wish I could just be a normal person who didn’t even care or who didn’t even wonder.

 

 

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