Locked in a Glass Room

Spirituality. Fuck. It's tough. More laborious than shoveling concrete and more mentally exhausting than try to understand biophysics.

I am 20 years old, a time when I should be out partying, getting wasted, or getting a boyfriend. Yet here I am in the mountain in an ashram taking out trash and washing toilet seats. To say I feel a little odd being here would be an understatement. I don't feel like I should be here and at the same time I feel like I need to be here.

To say my time here is all smiley and divine would be a lie. I cry a lot. Sometime just during yoga, or eating. It's quite pathetic really. I'm battling my ego, my doubts about being in this hippy dippy place, and my aversions to God, all to see if maybe I have some kind of kind of hope or soul in me.

I can't really describe my constant need to be better, or at least to be different. I am never happy with the way I am or my bad habits, I am always looking for that next new diet plan or that new type of exercise or new talent to make me feel like I'm proud of myself or that I've achieved becoming a more whole person.

The people at this place seem joyous and are always focused. It's enviable and its hard to not compare yourself.

My experience with spirituality is akin to being locked in a glass room with nothing to break out the walls with but my fists. I see the smiling people outside, all laughing and talking with one another and I go through the stages. Jealousy. I want to be out there with them. I see the sun and how happy they seem and I want to get where they are. So I start pounding on the windows. But then I realize the glass is double paned. So I get angry. Why the hell put me in a room with a view if I can't even experience it? I start blaming whoever put me here and fume that I have to struggle so hard while everyone else is outside playing in the sun. Then I start pounding some more. My fists begin to bleed. They're sore and hurting but I am so close to desperation now because I feel the big doubt coming on. The one that says "You've worked so hard with no pay off and you still think you're going to make it out?"

That doubt comes like a smoke fire that starts in the room, and the heavy smoke is filling the small space for air, for faith. So I pound with what little strength I have left. Still nothing. And so I don't lose my dignity I start even telling myself that the smoke is just incense. That I'm really at the better place and those damn hippies can have their fields. I cry because even when I tell myself that, I still know I don't believe it.

I am in a hugely different place than what I usually go for. Me, Christina West, analytical thinker, master doubter, in a spiritual commune trying to learn how to meditate. I am still in that glass room and I don't even see the cracks yet. So why do I still try? Why do I still refuse to give up?

One line. "To even want to know God, takes extremely good karma"
I do not want to struggle anymore. I want some sunlight. I want some guidance. I just want to feel like I believe in something, even if it's just believing in myself again.

Great for Snuggling

I miss him, and that scares me.

I was single for a long long time. In fact I've never really had relationships, just passing ships. Flings thats didn't even last long enough to for me to care when they end.

I thought for sure in my mind, that I didn't need men, didn't need someone like everyone else seems to. Then he came along and fucked it all up.

I was spending time with someone, someone who I could discover and let him discover me. It was exciting and nerve racking. It was happiness and yet so much stress.

I don't know if I miss him specifically, or just being with someone. Maybe a bit of both. And I realize it's the small things in a relationship that I love. That hold it all together. That make people want to be together.

I miss how he started nicknames for me.
I miss how he'd cackle when I'd tease him.
I miss how he'd make me laugh when we were fighting
I miss how he'd talk passionately about things I didn't know about or didn't care about before
I miss how he'd reassure me on the phone over stupid insecurities
I miss how he'd kiss my nose, my neck, my bare back.
I miss how he'd reach for me in the night and pull me to him.
I miss how he'd squeeze me when I sat on his lap on the skytrain so I'd know he was paying attention

I hate alot of things he did too, especially since they outweighed the good. But the thing is he gave me a taste of companionship and now I understand the bitterness of being lonely. Of wanting that arm around you at night and finding nothing. I want to say this because I hope someone will read it. Women should be adored. Women should be loved. Women are the feminine divine which bring light and passion and kindness and love to this cold planet. Every single woman out there deserves someone, especially someone who knows the worth of what they hold. I don't care whether men suck or they will always suck, they're still needed, and they're still great for snuggling :P

You need will for Willpower

No no, I will not let him sway me. I will not let someones opinion overrule my dreams. I've done that for way too long. I need to be concrete in my passion. You need will, for willpower. I need to focus on what I hear when there are no other voices. When there is only one. My own.

Broken

I think the scary part is, I need to heal before I can run back into the wild.

I've put so much pressure on myself for the past 2 years. Stressing, and crying, and losing sleep, and worrying, and planning, and moping, and ripping myself to shreds, all over trying to figure out what to do with my life.

The irony of this all is that in figuring out what to do with my life, I've actually never been more out of touch or ignoring who I really am in my quest to figure out what I will be.

I've been saving and planning and yearning and longing for school, for an education, for some kind of passion that will be my ultimate career. Yet I've been ignoring how I'm hurting. How I'm still lost inside myself. How I haven't even spent one week without having at least one breakdown.

I am so broken, I can't even find large enough pieces to put it back together.

Last night I got caught in a bad situation. I went to friends house with a girlfriend who I know is toxic for me. But she and I hadn't seen this girlfriend in awhile and it was supposed to be this great reunion since all three of us had grown up together. It was fantastic. Until it wasn't. We had drinks, and listening to music way too loud, we ate obscene amounts of finger foods, and laughed as we drunkenly jumped outside on her old trampoline. I felt like it was all okay for a night. That I could relax. Just be happy for once and not feel pressured or guilty for not working at having purpose.

Of course though, life caught up to me. Late at night and chilling back in the house, we were all sitting on the couch, and somehow that same toxic friend after having too many drinks starting picking a fight with me. She said I was a bitch, that her friends thought so, that I couldn't see it.

I don't really like this girl, and I like her friends even less, so it shouldn't have bothered me. But it did.

Maybe I just can't handle anymore negativity from others about myself since I kind of don't like myself enough. I just started crying. Although I at least waited till I was outside and grabbed my stuff. I felt bad for our  good hostess for having to witness all of our fighting but I was more just feeling like if didn't get out of there I would shoot that girl and then myself.

So now it was 3am, and no buses are running and I'm in some suburban street.

I was stuck. And I knew it. I could sleep out in some park till buses started running in the morning. But I figured after debating, maybe just maybe I could try phoning my unreliable mother.

Weirdly she answered. And more weirdly she came and got me, at 3am and with her boyfriend who she asked to use his car.

Getting to her house, I fell on the couch and bawled. Like a fucking demon though. Not soft little cries expected from a pipsqueak girl like me. I moaned and shrieked and choked on my sadness. My mother just kept asking what was wrong. And all I could say was, "I'm broken, I'm so broken." It became like a chant.

Of course my mother just thought I was distraught about the fight, but the thing was I was distraught about my whole entire being.

Now here I am. My spirit in shards. I need to find a way to regain who I am before I can even think about entering back into the world.

Make your Own map

"It's time you start taking control of your life. I can't do it anymore, you're an adult now. I can guide you. But it's up to you to do things on your own now."

Yes I know. 
I know dad but it's scary.

Realizing you're an adult when you still feel like a screwed up teenie bopper can be literally the scariest thing to find out. That you are responsible for yourself now. That every tumble, scrape, drunken night, ticket, missed appointment, even food choices are now on you. There is no one to correct, confront, or compromise for you anymore.

I have so much energy and none. I want to be a dancer, a photographer, a musician, a producer, a script writer, an aryuvedic doctor, but as soon as I get home from work all I can accomplish is making dinner and watching TV.

What can you do? What can I do? PLAN.

"Get a poster. Make a dream board. Plan the next few years, things you want to accomplish or see or do. And then get pictures, visuals, reminders. Make a bucket list. Write it all down."

I was coming back from the kitchen one night with my food and heading to my room when I passed my roommates open door. She's one of those perky Australian travellers who have been everywhere and seen everything and the only thing constant in her life is change. I noticed on her closet door she had posted several cute yellow post it notes. Each individual one had a name of a city or place she wanted to go and then even more specifically some had sights or activities to do in each place. I thought my god here I am trying to get stock of my life and here is someone already on the right track.

Goals, plans, dreams sometimes are heavy weights to bear. Court orders or tickets we want to sweep under the rug and pretend they don't exist so we don't actually have to put some effort in.

However they can be light and vital. They can be candied sweets that we savour in our minds and strings in our heart that hold us up.

If you feel lost, thats natural. The only thing you can do it make your own map.

Only as Beautiful as you make it

I need to be positive. But before I do that I need to be positive about being positive. I owe it to others. But mostly I owe it to myself. Life is only as beautiful as you make it.

Timeless

My brother recently came back from Taiwan and it's been great. I feel like for the first time we are close and in a time in our life where we can actually hang, actually talk, actually be buddies. I mean growing up with 6 year difference I was always running after him and his friends; they were the elite to me. These cool hippie badass skater boys who joked and got into trouble and were always telling to me to buzz off and I'd keep chasing them anyways.

One of the boys, Jamie who was always nice to me was getting married. And Jonah's timing couldn't be better seeing as the day after he arrived Jamie was having the wedding. So Jonah offered to bring me as his plus one and secretly I was praying the whole time he would.

I wanted to look hot, to look grown up, shock them all alittle. Maybe even feel like a grown up for once. And I did. I got smiles and lotsa lotsa "Wow we knew you when you were just a pip squeak and look at you now!"

I noticed too how much I missed these goofy guys. Seeing each one of them, despite the small changes and appearances, I was relieved to see the unchangableness in them. They were still those goofy playful wise cracking yet sweet and loveable as hell troublemakers they were now in their late 20's as much as they were when they were 8.

Kevin was still that skinny little Indian gangster dressing wild child who either be cracking jokes or smiling his big goofy grin until you couldn't help but laugh. Evan was still had that sneaky charm and his sarcasm still thick in conversation. And Jamie. Oh the married old man was still the confident sweet weirdo doing lineback dancing and breakdance moves on the dance floor even on his wedding day. All of em, they were like sweet and happy reminders of days in the sun, days of my childhood.

We all ended up on the patio terrace after doing too much dancing in the reception. Smoking cigarellas and double fisting beers we all talked about the good old days and memories so funny you choked on the words. It was like I had never experienced all the bad krap, all the hard krap, or any of the dissapointing krap which is inevitable growing up.

That night was about dancing, and laughing, and eating, and celebrating, and doing some much needed catching up. All so far away and on such different paths now it was hard to leave knowing that we'd probably never see eachother again for another 10 years.

That is why if your reading this, remember to cherish life, and cherish those who are important in that life. Keep the good memories folded away in your heart, keep that glow inside for the hard days outside. Time is fleeting, but memories are timeless.