Cha-Cha-Changes

On the off chance there is someone still reading this, I thought I would let you know that I'm abandoning Gemini Rants. 

Not to worry. I started a new blog and it can be found here:

Cake. Wine. Chaos.

If you are still checking this desolate landscape for writing, I sincerely thank you for your dedication. You truly are my hero. I promise to make my new blog better. If not better, at least consistently posted on.

Words

Back in January I was naive enough to think that I was miraculously going to take certain steps and become a happier person using someone else’s formula. Needless to say, I abandoned that little fantasy a while back ago. I wasn’t getting to the root of the problem. I wasn’t digging deep enough. It has become a matter of defining who I am, what I want, and where I want to go. This little journey has developed into forming my own philosophy on life. The hardest part was finding a starting point. Seriously, where do you start to define yourself? 

I asked this of a close friend of mine and she suggested that I start small. What do you enjoy? What do you want to do? She made me realize that I didn’t need any great epiphany to get started. I just needed to start with the basics.

 I started a list of words. I like words. It’s because I’m kind of a nerd. Anyway, I started a list of adjectives, verbs and nouns (like I said, nerd), that I wanted to describe me. Basically a list of characteristics that were most important to me. It doesn’t get any more basic than single words. I stopped writing on that list months ago when I started to be able to see the bigger picture a little. Until last week. 

Last week, I got my journal out and opened it to my word list because I wanted to add a word after my blog post last week (I’ll get to that in a bit). As I was reading through the list, there were three words, one of each type that literally jumped off the page at me. They were darker, brighter, and more important than all the others. That is where I’m starting. 

change (verb): to make the form, nature, content, future course, etc., of (something) different from what it is or from what it would be if left alone

Change is essential. Not only is it essential to my nature, but I feel like it is essential to growth. I don’t want to be uninvolved in my own life. Change is inevitable. Life in general is a dynamic process. Shit’s gonna go down. I want to affect the changes in my life. I don’t want to simply endure them. I don’t want to just survive them. Change is a verb. It is life in action. I want to be the force of change in my own life. Letting the world around me affect that change is passive. That word isn’t on my list.  It needs to be removed from my vocabulary. 

fearless (adjective): without fear; bold or brave; intrepid.

That is a stupid definition. Let’s go ahead and define fear. 

fear (noun): a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid

I refuse, REFUSE, to continue to live in fear. I’ve lived my whole life in the shadow of some fear or another. Fear of failure. Fear of rejection. Fear of hurt. It’s such a futile exercise. Making decisions based in the shadows of fear have not, in the least little bit, prevented ANY of it from happening. I have still experienced failure, felt rejected, been hurt and a whole hot mess of other crap. I’ve been broken. There have been days that I thought I wouldn’t survive. I’ve been lost in darkness that I never thought I would escape. Guess what? Still here. It’s time to stop letting those fears be a driving force in my life.  I really am a bad ass. I need to stop letting myself forget that. 

magic (noun): the art of producing a desired effect or result through the use of incantation or various other techniques that presumably assure human control of supernatural agencies or the forces of nature.

That is one hell of a definition isn’t it? Holy hell. Magic has a completely different definition for me. The connotation is unique to me and that is why it’s one of my favorites. It’s the word that I added last week. It’s about the power I hold within myself. It’s a concoction of confidence, tenacity, strength, self-awareness, and a myriad of other inner forces that provide me with the potential to become what I want to be. It’s representative of finding those things within myself after years of not recognizing they were there all along. It’s not supernatural. There’s no hocus pocus to it. However, the realization of my own capabilities is, in fact, magical.

These aren’t the words that define me. They are words that I WANT to characterize me. They are words that I want to use to shape myself into a better version of me. I use them every day in some form or fashion. It takes constant vigilance. Constant practice.

  

Be a force of change. Be fearless. Be magical. Every day.