Family and Friendship…

Yesterday was a great day.  I finally made it out of the city and went hiking with friends and friends of friends.  Roxana organized all of us to get together and go hiking for the day and have lunch in Pirque, a small town outside of Santiago.

Yesterday was one of those days where I couldn’t take anything too seriously.  Maybe its how being in nature makes me feel a little giddy, but I forgot how much good humor I find in all situations even if I have a tendency to laugh at maybe not the most appropriate times as well.  I remember camping with a friend of mine years ago in the desert, setting up our tent and going for a bike ride.  When we returned, all of our things were gone.  Our tent had blown away in the wind.  He was pissed.  I couldn’t stop laughing.  I remember him not being very pleased with my reaction.

I am pretty sure this comes from growing up on ridiculous comedies and maybe also the last 10 years of reality tv shows combined.  I was happy to sit in the back of the bus like a trouble maker scheming with my French friend and being disciplined by Roxana.  I swear she is such a leader and such a great organizer.  The price I pay for my sense of humor is that I am not a great leader, nor a good organizer.  In fact, I fail when it comes to those things much of the time.  I don’t have the personality to pull off what she does.  She even had all of us introduce ourselves and do that thing where you have everyone say one interesting thing about themselves.  I wanted her to have a clip board and a headset and pass out name tags too.

Friendship is so important to me.  It always has been.  I rarely get to see my family and to make up for it I have made exceptionally close friendships in my life with both men and women…they are like my replacement family.

I’m not sure if I consider my biological family close.  It bothers me.  I try to call my mom once a week.  I try, but I don’t always do it.  I haven’t seen my sister in almost 7 years and my brother…I haven’t seen him in at least 3 or more years and I only see my other brother due to the fact that he lives semi close to my parents, so when I see them maybe once a year, I usually see him as well.  Is this normal for us in the US?  My dad and I have never been very close, but his one wish for me was to actually write to my sister to say hi and break the ice a little between us.  Why weren’t we talking?  I have no idea.  I think it’s merely just a lack of consciousness we have for communication.  I feel my real family fading away in the dust and it bothers me immensely.

Sometimes I think about how years ago I couldn’t imagine never seeing my siblings…how they were such an integral part of my life.  How did I ever end up with this completely disconnected family?

I always remember the one time my brother came to California because of his job.  He just happened to visit me as well.  I met him at his hotel and we spent the evening together.  The next morning his flight was canceled and he irritatedly referred to the rest of the day together as “dead time.”  That kind of stung. But then at the same time I hear from so many people that know him about how much he talks about me and how much he thinks about me.  He isn’t the only person like this in my life.  Why can’t we just say how we feel to the actual person we have these feelings for?  And why is it easier to express it to someone else?  My mom always says, “You know your dad talks about you a lot,” but he isn’t talking about me to me so how would I know?  In addition to this, my family has always had a habit of insulting each other and its sort of an affectionate thing.  Tough love.  I kinda have a feeling that this is normal for many American families.

So much of American culture is based on independence.  If you are still living with your family after 20 years old then something is wrong with you…or at least that is what we assume.  I haven’t lived near my parents since I was 18 years old other than a small stretch of time when I needed to stay with them for financial reasons.  I missed out on a consistent relationship with my brother and his family and all of my nephews and my niece.  Suddenly my niece is 14 years old this year.  Suddenly my parents have grey hair and all kinds of medical problems.  When did they age?  I was never around long enough to witness all of the transitions.

Maybe I needed them more.  Maybe leaving them so young was actually a premature thing to do because the lack of them has made me seek it in others and I’ve maybe stayed in relationships way too long or formed bonds that maybe I shouldn’t have because of this.

At the same time, to appear needy at least in the US is completely unacceptable and so I was taught that I need to do it all on my own and I need to be proud of this.  I am proud of it.  I have done a lot just solo…more than I give myself credit for most of the time.  I’m definitely not afraid of being alone.  I can take care of myself and I can support myself just fine even if I slip up sometimes and get my Ipod stolen or forget my keys or have to go back to my apartment two or three times after I intended to leave to get something else.    One of my ex-boyfriends used to call me “two trips” because I couldn’t just leave the apartment the first time.  I’m not perfect.

I am thankful for Roxana because currently she is my stand in family and she does a good job of it.  She also does a good job of including all sorts of other people that are new here.  Our new addition was a guy from the States who lost his financial job during the beginning of the economic crisis in the US and changed his life becoming a yoga instructor and looking towards spirituality instead of the American dream.  That’s not much of a unique story these days.

I think I would absolutely go crazy if I didn’t have at least one good friend here that I could really communicate with inside out.  I’m realizing so much how I actually do need people in my life and maybe being so overly independent isn’t all that its cracked up to be.

The mountains were beautiful yesterday and it was so nice to breathe fresh air again.  Between that and having laughed all day, I feel somewhat renewed from all of it.

Stop being your own obstacle!

On Sunday my friend and I attempted a hike up one of the hills here in Santiago.

I had a great idea that we meet no later than 10am.  I was very adamant about this.  Of course, I woke up and changed the time for 11am.  And then she changed the time for 11:30.  We didn’t actually meet until around 12:30 when we both spent the first 15 minutes trying to shamelessly assess which one of us was the more tardy one.  At that point we had about an hour to walk part way up the hill because we had afternoon commitments that we also ended up being late for.  I really wish I could say that part of this was just us adhering to the usually late Chilean time…

Sadly, this was our big attempt to get in shape over the weekend.

For a while now we’ve been a little upset with ourselves because our physical motivation has been on the down low.  Basically this means we can’t seem to get up in the morning before 10 unless it is required for work.  It could be that winter is making me incredibly lazy.  I know it doesn’t snow here and I’m not outside shoveling sidewalks and the days can be quite warm, but the mornings and nights are extremely chilling.  And I have to say it feels more like winter inside my apartment than outside.  I’ve never slept in so many layers.   Wearing hats and scarves and turtlenecks to sleep, I feel like a nesting snowman.  It could also be the air here.  I see people walking around the street covering their faces because of the pollution and I’ve walked to work many times feeling ill from the smog which is worse in the winter (and much, much more intense than anything I experienced in LA).  Basically, I’m not getting enough oxygen.  The only resolution has been yoga, which helps my breathing and gives me energy, but of course, I’ve put a halt on that lately simply because I won’t walk across the river and buy more tickets!  Ridiculous.

So now, I’m putting a post-it on my cell phone that reads “Stop being your own obstacle.”  Doesn’t it sound like the perfect hip bumper sticker?  My cell phone is the very first thing that I look at in the morning.  This is the suggestion of my friend upon telling her how I feel completely lethargic.  The note idea does sound exciting and I am going to do it.  This is exactly what I need to keep reminding myself and I imagine myself four months from now still waking up to this note and jumping out of bed at 6am, cleaning the house, conquering projects, doing yoga, hiking mountains, completely altering my personality and inevitably changing my entire life.

But, I have tried these tactics before.  I made that list of everything I wanted to do in life.   I wrote about it in my journal, thought about it, visualized it.  I put the list under my pillow and slept with it.

I just think what I really need to write on the post-it is:   “Just get your ass out of bed.”   And make sure I add some extra adhesive to it to prevent it from falling off and me finding it sometime in the future under my bed with that gray fuzzy dust and dirt clinging to the once sticky side of it.

I remember finding such dust filled notes when I finally moved out of my loft and cleaned out my room.

I had a room plastered with little affirmations and cute vision boards about what a great artist I was and how I could do anything!   Of course they came down when people came over.  Exposing things like that is just a little  embarrassing.  All of the little negative comments got put in a big jar.  This contained all of the things I wanted to tell just god.  Like, “please help me pay my rent this month, get me out of this relationship, send me a new job…”  All of that finally ended up in the garbage.

For my financial problems, I read about how if I just came up with a specific amount of money that I wanted to be earning each month, and tell myself I am already making this amount at least five times a day, my problems would be solved.  At the end of the month it would surely appear somehow.  So, $4000.  I thought that was reasonable, but maybe god didn’t?  Because I ended up losing money.  How could this have been producing the opposite results?  My next move was discussed over tea with a friend.  She read an article about how what we really needed to do was write checks to ourselves that doubled in amount everyday and then, once we receive the checks from ourselves (again by magically putting it under our pillow to find in the morning) we had to write down all of the ways we would spend it.  “The money manifesting game,” it was called.

It didn’t do a damn thing.

But, I did almost get good at manifesting parking spaces before I left the States and I think that was a major step for me.  Parking in Long Beach anytime after 5pm was a complete nightmare.  My friend tried to start her manifesting with spotting pink flamingos until one day she was like…why?  Do I even want to see them?  And, also, we didn’t live in pink flamingo land.  We lived in the ghetto.   There just wasn’t a big likeliness for it and it just didn’t seem all too realistic to me.

Perhaps I should have been using this level of creativity to actually just create the things I wanted to create instead.  There’s a reason for the slogan “Just do-it.”

So, I am fortunate because being here has separated me from all of the things I used to worry about at home.  I mean, for the first time, I feel like something major has left my life and that major thing is stress.  Recently, I realized, I have no real bills other than my rent that is much more inexpensive compared to what I was paying in the US, I have no car anymore, no relationship to fret about, my cell phone is not ringing constantly with people expecting me to answer at all times, while I take time to prepare for my job, all that it really requires is some conversation in English and some knowledge of grammar.  I haven’t even thought about creating a jar of negativity.  My life has become extremely mellow.  I haven’t felt this space away from all of those things in years…or maybe even ever in my adult life.  I actually have time to think and process things and for a while now I have been feeling so much clarity about what it is I actually want to pursue in life.

And now I want to offer up winter as my new excuse?  Or maybe the lax Chilean lifestyle?  Or the environmental emergency warning we received on Sunday on our way up the hill?  It’s true!  There was some kind of nuclear toxic biochemical thing going on in the air that day.  We received the text from a friend.  Physical activity was NOT recommended after all.   (Perhaps all things do happen for a reason and we weren’t meant to go up that hill?)

I know all these things are my own mind’s excuses (except maybe the last one – I should do a little research on that.)

But, it’s true.  I am being my own obstacle and I always have been.

My move here is accomplished and now I need to just…keep going.  How do I get myself out of the way so my other self can do the very easy and doable things to guarantee that?   I am concluding as usual that I need a lot of energy.  I need to be in shape.  I need sunshine.  I need exercise.  I need fresh air (hopefully teargas and toxin free).  I need to eat well.  Drink a lot of water and get sleep.  And I need to just stay active.  Blah blah blah…  Making lists and notes and plans and playing kid games are a waste of my creative energy.   And how many times is it going to take before I realize that eating the fried crap is going to give me a stomach ache?

I so wish that life was something you could just fix and put back on the shelf.  Or that I could just write something and put it under my pillow and have everything I wanted.  But instead I just have to learn to accept that life is about actively maintaining balance and care in each and everyday.

I am pretty damn sure about what drives me now.  I have been lucky enough to have the space to figure out what I want to do. And I do feel extremely called towards these things….but sometimes and particularly lately, I really don’t want to get out of bed.  But, I am determined not to let these things go and so now I just need to continue to step up and put in the extra effort to protect myself from…agh…myself.

Yoga, Authority, Freedom…

I’ve been going to yoga for the last three weeks now at a studio near my apartment in Providencia.   For $1.000 (the equivalent of $2) each class, but only if I buy tickets for the classes ahead of time.  It had been so long since I was doing yoga consistently and my body felt it.

It’s amazing to me how just doing something as simple as stretching can alter everything…my physical health, my state of mind and how difficult it can be to actually get myself to go.   Its interesting that instead of doing what is easy and available to so many of us, we’d rather medicate ourselves or see some doctor that has no connection to us for advice.

I think this comes down to a lack of trust in ourselves and the need for some kind of authority.  As much as we don’t like to be told what to do, I think we secretly prefer it.  Maybe because when things don’t work out there is someone to blame and it’s easier to have someone to blame and hate the authority instead of seeing any fault in ourselves.

I have this struggle with authority, I think.  I hate being told what to do and then I also feel the need for approval.   It completely contradicts itself.  I want to know that I am doing the right thing.  And the right thing according to what?  I feel so conditioned to do whatever it is that is right even though I have no idea what “right” means.  I’ve been spending all this time trying to live up to this word that in ways has little meaning.   So when I make decisions and I think what is right….a counsel of people appears in my head…like…my mom, my friends, the public to name a few.  Never is it solely myself as the authority over my life.  Because, I don’t want to end up being wrong.  I don’t want to fail.  It’s easier to have people to resent when things go wrong.  It’s easier to place trust in them and allow them to disappointment me than to look at myself.

When I’m drinking, I feel free for the moment and I can say fuck you to everything…I have the illusion that I am bigger than authority…but still…there’s the belief that there is an authority over me.  That is the real problem.  If I lose the image that something is over me (friends, police, the president…) and that there is no one there to fight, then I am fine.

I think many times, we continuously seek out conflict in our lives because of this belief in authority.  And, I think we are not seeing that we have this need to resent others because we do not trust ourselves enough and by doing so we are giving them a huge piece of ourselves to control.  We need someone or something to find fault in to support this authority role…the guy who cut me off, the republicans, the IRS…  If you think about it, these are all just images we have created with whatever irritations we have buried inside ourselves.   Someone cuts us off on the freeway and we immediately create a story about that person.  We imagine what that person must be like, how they must think.  Most of it is based on our own thinking.  It’s not real.  How much peace would we have in our lives if we simply learned to let go of these images as problems and stopped fighting things that are just concepts we created in our heads?

Recently, I watched a spiritual counselor talk about love and she rhetorically asked “What does love mean to you?”  Because whatever the answer is, chances are we are not loving ourselves in this way.  The first thing that came to mind for me immediately is that love is freedom, allowing the other person to be free in everything.   And so my conclusion could be that I don’t love myself in this way.  I don’t allow myself to be truly free.  And I’ve probably granted other people in my life this freedom that I’ve denied myself.

Well, not probably, I definitely have granted other people this freedom.  I’ve always had the habit of fitting into other people’s lives instead of feeling strong in my own.  I want to change this.

So in thinking about this freedom, I wonder what is it that I have the freedom to do?

In terms of taking care of myself, I have the freedom to create health in my body, to become strong, to become clear.  And by doing this, I can begin to let go of those images and stories that have prevented me from trusting myself and becoming my own authority.  I can do this on my own without waiting for someone to tell me what I need.   I can read my own body.  I know what feels good to me.  I know what hurts.

The more I can make my body strong, the more my mind will follow.