Wednesday, August 29, 2007

thought of the week: august 26-september 1

here, you can be anything, anything that scares you, i think that scares you
~jimmy eat world, clarity, "just watch the fireworks"
since june i've been on a big jimmy kick, listening to the album clarity every night as i fall asleep, while working out, while driving, just about all the time. jenn gave me the cd for my birthday & it's one of the best gifts i've ever received. sometimes there are things that come to you at just the right point in your life: a book, a movie, a song/cd. & this cd came into my life at just the right time.
right before my birthday i was definitely feeling out of sorts, on the outside, & like i didn't have any sense of grounding in my life. i really am concentrating now on moving forward with my life & not dwelling on my past: my mistakes, the things i wish i would have said, would have done, the time i wasted doing anything but what makes me happy. but at that time i was in a pretty dark, dusty place.
while in cali, incidentally on the way up to pleasant hell where i crisped like chicken in a pan of hot oil on my way to be tattooed, i had a jimmy epiphany, my first jimmy epiphany. to quote miss jenn "you can't avoid having a jimmy epiphany in cali with the top down." TRUE STORY. i did have the top down, bandanna in my hair, shades on, the top down, going faster than i'll admit with jimmy eat world on the stereo, & " just watch the fire works came on." the song starts off with my quote of the week, & all of a sudden something hit me, as if the song had been written for me for that moment in my life, driving from campbell to pleasant hill on I-680 north in a blue convertible. i had heard the song at least a dozen times from receiving the cd on wednesday & my birthday on friday. but there was something about that moment in time that just touched me.
& i realized that, i really can be anything. & it does scare me. i'm scared by the possibility of it all. because i don't want to live my life in the normal pastel shades of life. i want to color my days in the thick, heady, deep shades of bold pigment: glittering emerald green, sparkling pacific ocean blue/green, passionate dragon eye red, the purest virgin white & deepest sinful coal black. the tones that are scary because they don't whisper for approval, they shout their intentions to the whole world, no matter what. i want to be the kind of person that is so utterly phenomenal that everyone wants to know her because she's just that magnetic. (well, ok, i already kinda think i am that person. . . . but i want to be even more so).

where does that leave me? same place i started. looking straight at the fact that i can be anything i want, anything at all, even something scary. & to be honest, while it's my greatest dream, being a writer is something that IS scary. being an artist is most definitely not walking the same worn path. it's outside the norm. it's sexy, elusive, mysterious, uncertain, scary, & surreal. for a chick who grew up in subsidised housing, my parents scraping by & working hard to give me a chance at something better. to give me a chance to have financial stability, free of their same worry. for me, it's the most frightening thing in the world, because, while i know i can make it. i know that i can, will, be financially successful at writing. it's also doing the exact opposite of what my parents dreamed for me. they wanted me doing what i am right now: working a full time job, with good health insurance, a 401K, the chance for something better. but, at the same time, they also told me the same thing as my quote this week, that i can be ANYTHING. talk about a bit of a mixed message.

but, i stand by what both my myspace & yahoo IM say "talk to me now before i'm famous." i'll make it. & it's the scariest thing in the world. but thrilling & well worth the work & everything i will give to live my dream.

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