I’m not going to get too deep with you here.  Sometimes I’m just floored by the obvious things I do consciously and choose not to acknowledge those actions.

In this case, I’ve been shutting out music.  To save myself the grief.  To not deal with what’s happened to my life.  To move on and deal with the healing later.  And it’s working pretty well.  I am generally happy.

But it’s not until you’re spinning in a puddle of tears do you realize, “Shit, I’ve got some issues I need to work out.”

Yesterday morning I took Melanie‘s class at SoulCycle on W77.  The songs she chose were provocative and her language dug deep into places I’ve been shutting out for a while. For an instructor to be able to pull that kind of catharsis means either she’s really good and/or you need some soul salvation.  In my case, it’s both.

The tears came when everything I had been hiding from started jumping out at me at one time: I shut out my grief.  I want to dig into myself but I’m scared.  I resent this struggle in New York.  I cherish my memories and hate that I can’t use them for comfort….After some consideration, I realize I’ve been able to do so by starving myself from my music – the songs that have given me so much joy over the past three years.

I know these days will pass and I’ll be home in LA again.  But I think what is really bothering me is that I don’t have a home.  The man I called home locked me out.  If that isn’t hard enough, how can I open myself up to trust another one who appears to welcome me with open arms?

In a way that sunny Lala Land didn’t, New York is obviously challenging me to be introspective and push my limits at the same time.  This time is also allowing me to explore avenues I chose not to venture down in the past and I’m glad to have the opportunity to revisit them.  Meeting new people, being out in the world brings me joy.  New music will come, time to reflect will come as well.  And I will be all the stronger for it.

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Have you ever slowed down to notice the problems, issues, and dilemas you face right now are drastically different from those you had 5 years ago.  In my case, that would be last year.

As I get older I become much more aware of the details of my life, why things happen, how I can conciously alter my behavior/schedule/habits to make life easier on myself and those around me.  That all sounds glorious, but we know it’s not that easy.  The awareness and desire to change is one thing; actually implementing the conceived solutions is a whole other issue!

In the past, say for example when I was living in NYC 5 years ago, I believed I had the same awareness, but I now realize I didn’t. My youth allowed me to ride the highs and survive the lows of my rollercoaster (aka glamourous gypsy) lifestyle.

Now here I sit in Atlanta, a place I never dreamed I would live, with a whole set of issues I never believed I would have.  Does that make me unhappy?  Absolutely not.  Quite the contrary actually.  But what I will say is that finding my identity within this space is proving to be a challenge.  I don’t have my friends and family that I do in Houston , my BFFs in LA, my NYC network or venues, or the luxury of my more exotic temporary homes.  That last one is obviously a stretch, but it’s all very true.

Let’s take my blog as an example.  The content has to evolve with me or else it would be just like many others out there: suppositions and babble. Who wants to waste their time on that.  Not me and I’m sure not you.  I should say, that’s not why I started MTM and that will never be how I maintain it.  For me, the joy of blogging comes in sharing the new things I discover because I believe they will be beneficial in your life.  In living a more domesticated and private life, I no longer experience (which is different than just reading about) new things as often as I used to.  My style is casual; my workouts are consistent; my travel is occasional; my friends are mommies; my boyfriend is private; my life is pretty straight ahead.  I’m MORE than ok with that, I’m actually very happy with my life.  It just makes content harder to come by.  And, I’ve realized I’m no longer relevant to the 18-24 year olds as I used to be.  Something else that is absolutely fine by me….Now I’m rambling.

So that’s the problem of today that pertains to you.  There are plenty more, but I’ll keep them to myself per usual.

What I can say is that self-awareness is a blessing and a curse.  I can say for certain it doesn’t come with age, but moreso the ability to just slow down and think.  That’s obviously not front page news.  Sometimes it’s just nice to hear that clarity doesn’t have to be a journey as much as it just needs to be a little time to yourself.

What will become of my clarity is yet to be seen.  I’m doing the work to implement it and trying to stay calm all at the same time.  How all of that comes to fruition on this blog??  Now that should be interesting :)

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