My little Parsian

Well there she is folks!
My brand new old bike.
She's just perfect. I knew we were meant to be together the moment I set eyes on her black and red rusty features. I couldn’t stop thinking about her Parisian persona, her slender and delicate wheels, her distinctive shifting arrangement, her gentle and steady “click click click” as I ride her in certain gears.

I admit, she has far more experience than I do. She probably is aware of all kinds of methods I am unaware of, accessories that will make riding easier, proper safety measures I am to young and impulsive to heed. The places we will go! The things we will see! The gas we will save!

Take me away my little Parisian two-wheeled gas-saving machine! TAKE ME AWAY!

Regret

If life were a dream, if life had physical representations of what resides in your thoughts and souls- here is a piece.
Something painful has happened.
This mysterious, almost menacing fog has descended on your path.
People handle that grey matter differently depending on who they are. I plunge myself directly into it and sit down. I close my eyes and feel the full course of pain till it has swept through me.

I know the pain.
Then I begin to walk through it. I probe it.

I find whatever beauty I can in it. Like a crocus pushing its way through the snow, or a bite of chocolate pudding during PMS.

I believe all pain carries opportunity for beauty in my life.

“Life is pain highness” said Wesley to Buttercup before he revealed himself.
If life is pain, and life if beautiful, then pain too, is beautiful.

I spend however long it takes to find the beauty, then, I step out of it –and release it.
Essentially, I see the dark for what it is- so when I step outside of it, it dissipates, I know what I am leaving behind, and I let go.

But what happens if you get lost inside?

I tell people that I live my life with no regrets because regrets don't do any good. To be honest, there are two things I regret in this life. I am lost in them. I find I am transporting myself halfway back into my regret and wishing it away. Taking back something that is already done.

It is haunting me.
I have closed my eyes and sat down. It isn’t there *says a stubborn 5 year old or a 5 year old adult*

I realized this yesterday when I went to work. Usually, if I have any unfounded sullen feelings they dissipate once I kick my brain into some other gear. When it’s real- any other gear aside from mind-numbing denial seems to um…push me over the edge a bit (this is what we call a wall/locker kicking moment- the second in my life’s history).

So I’ve realized, my “post-quarter-life crisis” -that I sarcastically and flippantly make fun of myself for- is induced by these two regrets I can’t let go of. I don’t know how other people can let go of things without really knowing what it is. Or how people can hold onto things and still live a relatively normal life with sparks of happiness.

...I apparently do not have that gift.

All or nothing baby. I’m like the pendulum that defies physical science and just never loses momentum from one side to the other.

The good thing about that is… I see beauty in everything.
The bad thing is…when I can’t see the beauty I’m like a puppy looking for their stick with their eyes closed. Stupid.

The ironic things about this all is…. I see the beauty in my collective post quarter life crisis, just not in the individual components. Unfortunately, it's the individual components that keep me here.

So I'm stuck until I find the beauty in these two regrets. ....maybe the question isn't- when will i see the beauty? Maybe the question is, when will I be ready to see the beauty and finally let go.

Note to Self

My friends (Mar and Decks) and I used to play a game called Preach It. We would search our brain holds to come up with some sort of image or event and create a maxim to represent it. We would then present it to the group and leave it up to them to extract meaning, or present a meaningful "sermon" from it ourselves.

Usually it went something like this (paraphrased from my disjointed memory):

Mari: "our relationships with people are like a bird of paridise beginning to Bloom"

Decks and I: "hmmmmm....huh."
Not being the leading expert on flowers like Mar was (she worked in a flower shop) we could not add to that. So Mari proceeded to explain the process of the flower beginning to bud and how gently you have to almost reach in and pull parts of it out at just the proper time etc etc etc...
Ok actually i forgot most of what she said...

But the point is...Here is MY maxim for today

"Just because things are good separate,
doesn't mean they are good together"

How did I come up with this brilliant Maxim?
I made a smoothie today (doesn't it look good up there?) and threw in:Apricots, Plums, Strawberries, Keefer, Ice, Yerba Mate, Apple Cider Vinegar, Ground Flax Seed.
I drank it....but probably just as you were reading that and thought it sounded good till your face contorted when you got to "yerba Mate" is probably about what my face looked like drinking it.

But hey, you don't have to use my Maxim for Smoothie making- you can use it for things like Gum and Peanut Butter OR Driving and reading.
The possibilities are endless.