Jinx

I'm so hesitant to say anything because I'm sure something horrifically unspeakable is just around the corner, but I am so happy right now. For one of the first times in my life, everything is going my way. I actually got something I worked really hard for, and deeply wanted. I feel successful, like I really earned something I care deeply about, and like I'm on a train going in just the perfect direction. I'm so excited to start school and to start training and studying and doing something so meaningful to me that I can barely stand it. The excitement and drama and discovery of a new city awaits me.

Through an unexpected turn of events, it also looks like my dream of living in a tiny house with big windows and a garden in the back, with nearly everything I might need only mere blocks away might come to fruition.

Aside from being a therapist and a teacher, I want to be a prolific gardener so bad I can't stand it. I have this ideal in my head of this person I want to become without being self-righteous and indignant and angry about it. I want to just be it, and be content and loving about it.

Tonight at work I was so bored I made an arbitrary list of what being a good steward and sustainable citizen of the world would look like. For me. I'll never attain it, and probably won't even try that hard with a lot of it, but nevertheless, the list exists and it's something nice to strive towards. If you make your goals so easy to reach that you actually can, what fun is that?

1. Red meat - only twice a month.

2. Farmer's Markets - at least twice a month. No more shopping at profit-driven, lifestyle-selling, elitist supermarkets like Central Market and Whole Foods (this, especially, will never come to pass....).

3. STOP DRIVING!!

4. Stop buying anything new - only second-hand stuff.

5. Stop buying stuff.

6. Get a water filter and never again let a plastic water bottle touch your lips.

7. Flourescent bulbs (so easy, and yet I still haven't done it...).

8. Eat seasonally. As a religion.

9. Grow a goddamn garden already.

10. Learn to cook more stuff, and a wider variety. The freezer should be empty. Except for frozen fruit for smoothies, because that's okay.

I don't know that I've ever felt this at peace with myself, or where my life is at, before. Obviously I still have my doubts, my fears, things I get angry about, my regrets, the past I can't let go of. But that's okay. We all have those to some degree, but I've learned to forgive myself, to stop beating myself up so much, and to accept life as it happens.

This is all very new and strange and weird to me.