10. Do the impossible

Halfway there. Is this what it feels like to run a marathon? I am so proud of myself for my accomplishments and yet I also cannot wait for this to be over. (Well, not exactly. I do feel like there's something about this discipline I want to continue; I just mean that I can't wait to reach and complete my goal. I am a compulsive goal-reacher.)

“You go through big chunks of time where you’re just thinking, ‘This is impossible — oh, this is impossible.’ And then you just keep going and keep going, and you sort of do the impossible.” —Tina Fey

I have been super encouraged by so many of you sharing your thoughts via comments, emails, or even text messages. So grateful for my community that is meeting me where I'm at. I leaped, and the net appeared.

I've written a lot already ("a lot" is relative, of course) but I continue to feel that I'm dancing around the edges of what I really need to say. Yes, maybe there are "vulnerable" and "real" things I will get to eventually - the deeper you go, the more universal you get? - but I also want to exercise the concept of embracing where I am, even if it's not where I think I ought to be.

One of the things that I keep coming up against in my personal meta-dialogue (and there is SO MUCH meta-dialogue) is the idea that I have nothing new to say, and that people have already had these thoughts (if I would just Google), and worse, the people who have said these things are half my age and therefore how juvenile and behind-the-times I am.

When I started this project I was fueled by the words and voice of Elizabeth Gilbert, telling me that it doesn't matter what people think; or, even if you let those voices speak, what are you going to do, just nothing? The last thing I want to do is live my life a victim.

I wonder if part of the struggle is not just my 6-ness, but also my Asian American-ness. The whole idea of saying "I am _____" and filling in the blank is utterly terrifying. I am so many things and I don't know which is more scary: to name and settle on one thing, or to live in the undefined.

Philosophical question of the day: Do you get to decide the genre of your life?

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The more I write and the more I read, the more I find things that are exactly what I'm thinking about. (Even Liz Gilbert mentions this in her book; she describes this as the universe giving you signs, portents; this is what I felt before Day Zero, and why I decided to keep going forward, even though it was scary and unknown.)

I am referring now to the wonderful, glorious, beautiful thoughts in Fault in Our Stars, and the nerdy, stick-it-to-The-Man-ness of The Art of Non-Conformity. I mentioned starting these books on Friday and have finished the first and am 80% through the other. Guillebeau mentions that sometimes deferred gratification can be a sort of life avoidance - saving up for a better future vs. enjoying life now. This balance (the fact that this paradox even exists) is exactly related to: (1) my thoughts on choosing sanity over money, (2) a lot of things about Konmari (editing your life and making joy out of what you have by getting rid of things you held on for a reason that was probably good at one point; living your best life now without over-focusing on the past or the future, and all this definitely needs its own post), and (3) my thoughts/reflections on the principles of Mr. Money Mustache (also probably another post). Going. to. explode.

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I don't know where this fits so I'm just going to plop it here:

I have a history/pattern of ignoring my gut, which is, admittedly, yet another Enneagram 6 issue. I make decisions by fighting between my head and my heart, but the engagement of my gut is underdeveloped. (Except the food-eating type of gut. No issue there. I try to find the good food in every situation.)

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Speaking of food, this:



Theo got this baby eggplant from our church's community garden yesterday. Today, out of nowhere, he went to his bookshelf and grabbed this book to show me a "match" between his eggplant and the book. We seriously hadn't read this book in months. I love how he inherited my crazy random associative memory. Insert heart eyes emoji.