Liljumper’s Adventures

Yesterday I was thinking how different, maybe even unrecognizable, I am from when I was younger, specifically high school (that is the time period that is always on my mind). During that time period I went through a lot of struggles and change, moments where moments of my life were to be decided. I was thinking about how different I am to who I used to be. I wonder if people would even recognize me if I went back into time and visited.

How strange and foreign everything is, almost a different place entirely. That is the feeling I get when I am home and walking around all these moments that used to mean so much. I feel somewhere between a ghost and an alien; I can remember where I used to walk, feeling these echoes of memories, but at the same time everything is different and these differences make it seem completely foreign. The only thing I recognize is the shadows of the old memories, not the landscape, because that has changed so drastically.

When I was in Germany we went to this crazy extravagant vegetarian place where the meals were similarly priced, but the food was a culinary experience.

The menu only told you what the ingredients were, the actual food you didn’t know until you had it. That was such an interesting idea and it worked out well! We got 2 menus and shared it, and I have to say I was so impressed with the vegan menu. I could really eat anything without fear (since I’m pretty sensitive to lactose), whereas there was a dish in mine that I totally didn’t want to eat (some poached fried egg concoction).

But I was thinking during this meal, that this restaurant celebrates the experience of eating. There is no dropping in for a quick meal and then leaving. Each course is a singular experience to be experienced without being rushed. It is about spending time with others while waiting for your senses to be moved. There is no point looking when the food will be done, because it will just be done when they choose. It isn’t about the food, or the time. You pay for an experience, and a new one at that.

One where the taste combinations are unique and innovative. Where your food palette and likes are challenged, but usually reformed on the other side of that first bite. It’s that first moment of tasting that is worth it all. When you taste something totally foreign and maybe even scary, but that just works. It’s the daring and the challenge.

That’s what you pay for. And in that respect, I loved it. The food really was innovative and delicious. They were so friendly and attentive. Plus the decor inside, everything in the place was about creating that atmosphere and experience. They had little wooden branches with holes where a bowl of salt and a container of oil was. Unbelievably cute and ended with the same branches but filled with chocolate truffles. It was a beautiful evening, which reminded me of the beauty (and possibility) of food.

I was thinking the other day what are my goals in terms of my book review site, what type of reviewer do I want to be, and what information do I want to present.

In terms of goal, my current goal is to have 30 people subscribed to my newsletter on that site. I don’t think it’s unattainable. The newsletter for the book blog goes out once a week, Mondays, and that’s it! Less emails than this blog in fact. There are at least two full length book reviews, sometimes some short story reviews as well. I need to build a widget to display how many followers I have and what not.

I want to be an insightful reviewer. I do not give information that can only be made sense of if you read the novel, I hope to provide interesting tid bits and things I found fascinating to encourage you to read them. For those who have read them, I hope they provide my point of view on these issues. I want my writing to be beautiful, I get too caught up in the writing for my school and what not, that I want it to be a playground of beautiful words.

I have been debating about whether I should put a short synopsis. I think I will, but I want to challenge myself to perhaps only write one sentence (ideal scenario since I haven’t written any yet).

I want the site to grow with me. My ideas are baby ideas, still in the mushy unformed state. So are my reviews. They could use expansion, contraction, a whole lot of stuff. They need refinement, polishing, and a certain style. I want to develop this on that platform. To explore the things I can say about books, my passion in life, and all the ways I can make them beautiful. To help people see the love and tenderness I feel, the highs and the lows, to make people fall in love with them just as I have.

What I still need to do: promote my blog through my friends on facebook, connect it to bloglovin (a blog platform), and pick a logo/icon for the facebook page.

Something I recently read in Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert (the author of Eat, Pray, Love) is that this idea that our life partner or spouse is supposed to be this source of happiness, or fulfillment is both so central to our culture and identity. There is this huge expectation, this idea that we were always on that path to them (soul mate) and that they will complete us, or make us whole.There’s such a pressure on a relationship, “Marriage becomes hard work once you have poured entirety of your life’s expectations for happiness into the hands of one mere person” (48). And I thought, YES. This chapter just resonated with me and made me question what I thought about marriage and love.

{What were we before? I don’t feel like I am walking around only half here. I am a whole person already.}

And while I do feel I am not waiting to be completed, I think there is this underlying assumption that this life partner decision is the most important in our lives. I get that. I get that this partner, in marriage, is someone we are supposed to be with forever and live with forever and have kids with and blah blah. So to pick one person to do this with is a big deal. But it is just one facet of our lives. I have friends, my work, school, my hobbies, my family, and my partner. I have not been eaten by that identity. I don’t want to just be anyone’s Mrs., anyone’s plus one. I want to always be me and to retain that individuality. In my former relationship I totally thought it was the goal to be that unit, that submerged me. But I have risen to the surface and fought to be me again. It was really hard for me afterwards to be who I am, to have my interests, and to fight for control over myself again.

I like me. I don’t want to lose me. So I think that the idea not to ladle so many expectations and life plans onto marriage is a great idea, but also freeing. Marriage is a title, a piece of paper, logistics. It doesn’t change my relationship now. It doesn’t change my relationship with my family, my friends, myself. It is the formalization of the bond I have already chosen. It doesn’t make it less special, but I don’t want to fall into the trap where marriage is the climax of my life, the special moment, the best moment.

 

I recently watched a youtube video that spoke about what ‘having it all’ meant, how reasonable/delusional it was, and how different it was for everyone. This really made me think a lot and I thought I would put down my thoughts.

What does it mean to have it all? Before this, I would have said that, to me, having it all was to have a fulfilling life with a loving and compassionate partner, having a child/children, a career that makes me feel happy and that I am doing something.

What does it mean now? I am not sure now what ‘having it all’ means. I definitely fell into the category where I thought I would have it all, or that was my goal. But now I feel so differently. I wonder what it means to me now to have it all, or what my ‘life goal’ is?

I definitely think there are things in feminism that ignore the different dimensions of race and what not. So that was a first moment where I thought, wow I never even thought of how that mindset was so entitled. For just me to pick a career that fulfills me that I CHOOSE is a huge deal. It’s not the same for everyone and this belief makes me entitled. As a millennial too, I think this idea that we can just have everything if we go for it, is huge. I think that we are brought up with the idea that we can have those things. It is a huge privilege, like she says, not something we are entitled to.

I do agree that the desire to have it all, can set you up for disappointment, because there are a lot of material things people could choose (house, car, etc). It’s hard when you set up expectations, and especially huge expectations like those. It reminds me of something I am going to talk about in the next blog post that relates to the book Committed.

But also, what ideas of ‘having it all’ is so gendered? To have a family, but what does that mean? These ideas of what ‘having it all’ mean are incredibly society oriented or normalized. How many people would say a family, career, and a house? And if that’s true, how many people actually ‘have it all’ or get it?

I agree that this mindset makes us believe we are entitled to something, to that lifestyle, and that would be what would make us happy. It sets up huge expectations for ourselves and our goals and is, to a degree, limiting. Who knows what would happen in our life?

Can we adopt a lifestyle or a life mantra where we already have it all?

If my goal is to be happy, and that would be all, how would that happen? I have days where they are perfect and other days not, to be constantly happy would not be my goal. I need days of sadness, different modes, and off time. I need to be able to be cranky. I don’t want to be constantly sunny rainbows.

So what does having it all mean to me? What would my goal be in that respect?
I want to live my life unapologetically and with the mindset that I want to take the opportunities I have/make and know I am following my heart to its fullest extent (to refrain from the tendency to look backwards, and move forwards with a caring and forgiving heart).

I am flying up up in the sky above the white fluffy clouds in the bright blue sky.

Flying towards another part of my heart, part of my identity, part of the puzzle that is me

Getting into a scary white box with wings and clutching my hand tightly in fear

That clenching, breath trapped, then exhaled when the floor falls away

The monotony, beautiful sky, feeling so small

The descent, tightness, bumps and bangs

Warm embraces and familiar beds

It is great to know I will be heading back home Monday, I love my home and I have missed it. Since my last trip home, I have done a lot of work on myself, my fitness, my life style, and my living here.

I have found more peace with here, more understanding with myself, and am generally happier than I was before here. I am growing into it, knowing, still at this point, I don’t see myself living here permanently, but knowing it is getting way better. This 30 day project of pictures has helped motivate new experiences and what not. Having a work ethic and people around. Life is crazy, up in the air, and hectic now. But it will always probably be?

I am finding peace with myself, and maybe that helps me find peace anywhere, I do hope so. Maybe I have finally gotten around to choosing to be here? I can only hope. I don’t want to say I’m further than I am, I don’t want to over advertise the ‘progress’ I have made (a long time coming I think).

So I’m growing. I feel myself growing as a person, growing into here, growing into the uncertainty, moving forwards (like a shark).

Thank you to the partner who:

• always has my back
• constantly supports me
• loves me no matter what even when I look like a clown
• appreciates my time
• has patience with me
• cooks with me and for me
• listens to me when I complain
• looks at all my books lying everywhere
• is willing to move with me
• wants to embark together

And many many more, but it’s always great to stop, have a moment, and say thank you

I am a big believer in things happen for a reason. That being said, I don’t have anything specifically I would change. I would not say, “past self, do not do this, etc” but I do have some wishes that I wish I knew then or was more aware of then.

• Be kind to everyone, there are such things as bad days and the best advice for how to become a better person, or one piece of advice, is to be compassionate to everyone
• Do not think that bringing other people down will bring you up. Don’t do this, especially to other women
• Gossiping is a not so great social activity. Instead talk about the things in life that matter, not some stupid gossip
• Let the drama go and remove yourself from it, it’s not exciting it’s toxic
• There will be people in your life who don’t want to be in it, and it’s okay to let them go. There are people meant to be there and others not. If someone isn’t making an effort, really isn’t making an effort, let them go
• You cannot help people who do not want to be helped or help themselves. No matter what happens it is like a black hole and it will only suck you in, detach yourself so you don’t go in, but remain open and there, do not completely detach
• Do not leave things unsaid or opportunities un-taken. You are young, but there will be a time you might wonder what could have happened. Try your best to avoid that. Follow your heart, but realize it’s better to try and put yourself out there than to never say anything.

There is such a pressure to never question what a doctor says or to listen to what they say. You go around and they have all this knowledge and authority in our society as knowing best. So when they tell you to try this, or not to worry you want to believe them because I think, in a lot of Western culture, that is what is advised. Yet there are so many problems with this.

First, blindly following authority is pretty problematic. Second, doctors can be wrong and a condition can have tons of symptoms, that doesn’t mean they’re a bad doctor, it means that the body is a tricky mischievous thing. I still don’t know why I have had a serious of rashes and allergic reactions to burns I get from pans and cooking things (despite visiting so many doctors and getting prescribed everything under the sun and being told I am allergic to x,y,z). At first that made me say, no never again. But that is too final and too simple. Being a doctor and making a prescription or a diagnosis is not an exact science (irony right?), but there is practice and wisdom and things can present themselves differently. Thirdly, I think we tend to ignore our own body wisdom. The wisdom we get from listening and living in our bodies 24/7. We should never totally ignore that little voice inside our head because it is important and worth listening to. We shouldn’t say, no little voice the doctor said it’s not. We should remember that there are somethings that are body is right about and the doctor may not realize it yet.

It is hard to stand up against a doctor and say “No do it again” or “I don’t think so” or “I don’t think that is right for me”, but it’s important to stand up for yourself, to be your best advocate, to realize they are fallible people too, and to know you can always try to seek another opinion. We need to treat ourselves with the same protection we treat our best friend.