Petrie: M-my name Petrie.
Ducky: Petrie, huh? Funny name.
Petrie: Uh, I...I flied?
Ducky: No. You falled.
Petrie: I falled? Ohh! (crying)
Ducky: You cannot fly? How did you get up there?
Petrie: I climb.
Littlefoot: But you're a flier, not a faller.
Petrie: Hard thing to fly.
-- The Land Before Time
I've been resisting making any kind of commitments for the coming year. No resolutions, no goals, nothing. This, however, is an avoidance behavior that needs exploring. I've noticed that whenever I have a knee jerk negative response to something and really dig my hooves into the ground to resist, it means that I need to read into it more. That's not to say that I need to take back everything I've ever said no to and give it another chance, just that I need to watch out for those responses. There's a pattern. I see the pattern. Now I can break the pattern.
I have been resistant to New Years resolutions because I have been feeling the effects of prolonged feelings of inadequacy. Why make a resolution to do more yoga when my body hurts most of the time? Why make a resolution to change my diet if I'm too poor to afford the food I'd rather be eating? Why explore artistically if I'm jobless? This is the wrong attitude.
It appears that I have created several of my own road blocks. My priorities are all messed up. I now know what is really important, but I haven't taken the plunge and promoted the important things to the top of my priority list yet.
The Bay Area is so different. It seems that my polar, linear mode of classification is of absolutely ZERO use to me here. This is a bad example, but there is no "gay" or "straight" here. It is so much bigger than that. Every single degree of difference between those two things, and around them, is present here in all of it's diversity. Not only that, but for every degree of difference, there is an entire group of people that embody it. There aren't just friends or lovers here, there is all the in between! There are platonic lovers and romantic friendships, and platonic friendships and romantic lovers, and loving friendships and platonic romances... The list is diverse and complicated, and this diversity applies to EVERYTHING.
Everything here is beyond my parameters of classification. And because of that, I'm stuck. I've rooted myself for stability in a narrow channel of questionably bad habits that I have been meaning to break. Habits that I am now clinging to in the name of familiarity as a flood of newness threatens to whisk me away to parts unknown. Why break bad habits when they give me comfort? Why reject them when they make me feel sane and safe? The new question is "why not"? And I have no answers.
I need to accept that there are more people, cultures, definitions, vocabularies, symbols and classifications in my life here than I can ever hope to identify and attach meaning to. This is unnerving to me. I guess my challenge this year is one of letting go. I need to cut the anchors holding me back in order to really soar. Soaring is scary because I could fall. But the focus should be the soaring, not the potential falling, crashing, and recovering.
So my new years resolution is to be present, avoid classification, take care of myself first, kick ass, and learn to fly. My focus is to accept things for what they are, not what they could be or what I think they should be. The challenge is to not get bogged down by the obstacles that present themselves along my path, but to forge a new path around them if necessary. And above all, I need to let go. Stop clinging to the familiar and "safe" knowns in my life as if they can help me, because they can't. I help me. I need not look outside myself and this present moment to find all of the answers, stability and comfort I require to be happy, healthy, and at a safe cruising altitude.
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