English: Memorial to Major-General Sir William Casement in -Kensal Green Cemetery, London, England. A British General who served in India during the early Victorian era. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I haven’t had time to meditate lately. I’ve been very busy and I know I should meditate. I can’t right this moment. I need to write and I know I would just fall asleep if I tried. Instead of writing about a much needed meditation right now, I’m going to make a post that’s all about honesty. This is honesty about myself as well as what I want in a mate. I think I need to write this, and know this, because I’ve been going through some hard times. It might not get any easier than this. I’m hoping some issues will be resolved, but all I can do is hope.
Recently, I’ve been doing quite a bit of self-loathing. I wrote a blog on this site when it was at it’s worst. Thankfully, my depressions have gone quite that far into the mire since. I don’t ever want them to again. The point is that I don’t put a very high value on myself or my life. Some of you may be thinking that that’s not fair to the people that love me. I’ll agree with that to some extent. To be frank, my life is my own. My body belongs to me. This is my life, my body, and my soul. No one can should have the right to dictate what I do with it. I’ve felt this way for as long as I can remember. This is me. I am me. I am not someone else and I’m not someone else’s puppet. When I follow direction, it’s because I choose to follow it. I’m intelligent enough to make decisions based on what I think and feel, including what I know of the known ramifications of said actions, so I don’t need someone to control me. Do things go array on occasion? Yes, but that is part of life. Upon hearing all of that, you would think that I would think more of myself, wouldn’t you?
The problem is that I tend to linger on the more negative side of that moral. I don’t know why I do it. I feel like I’m walking a delicate line. Here is the fence, an old, wooden section, riddled with knot holes, with a field of sunshine and flowers on one side, and a field of thistles on the other. To fall one way is to fall into rainbows and sugary delight that doesn’t have that certain sense of reality for me. The other side is never-ending pain. Sometimes I feel like I walk the line well, but each little knot hole in the boards beneath my feet make me teeter this way and that. To give up this challenge of walking the borders is the difference between absolute despair and insanity. That’s right, the sunshine, rainbows, flowers, and sugar-coated thoughts spell insanity for me. I am part of this world, no matter how insignificant, and while I don’t like to involve myself in the nitty-gritty of the world’s most horrific factors, I still don’t want to live in some dream-reality where life is wasted on trying to stay blissfully unaware. It’s a delicate balance, a tight rope walk that I’ve teetered on all my life.
I’ve had the usual questions. Who am I? Who am I supposed to be? Is this right? Is this wrong? What am I supposed to do with my life? What is it that I need as a person?
These questions were confusing but still had an air of relative ease when I was a kid. Who am I? Lindsey, just Lindsey. Who am I supposed to be? I’m supposed to be a lady someday. In terms of right and wrong, I was still learning. What am I supposed to do with my life? Live it and enjoy it. What is it that I need as a person? Understanding, not only myself but what was around me. I had to do it in my own way. I was a stubborn child.
Now these questions are a bit more difficult. I’ve learned to consider those around me more often. I’ve gone through trials, error, and success to find my way to this point in my life, and I’m still changing. As a human being, I am ever changing and growing through experience, ideal, and discovery. It’s something all humans do. They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but the fact of the matter is that there may be a point in our lives where we just don’t want to learn. We don’t want to push ourselves anymore because we’ve lived so long, changed and reshaped ourselves so much that we just want to settle down for a while. As long as we’re experiencing life though, we’re always in a process of change. That being said, some things stay the same or very similar throughout the years. Some of our traits are held as if by stone. It’s this that has muddled the answers to my questions, and made them more complicated. I couldn’t even answer them in full as a child, but now they’re a bit of a mess.
Who am I? I’m Lindsey, yes, but sometimes I go by Nixie. I’m a bibliophile. I’m a lover of art, the horror genre, animals, and peaceful causes. I’m a student of history as well as of the more “paranormal” sides of life. I’m an English major, a writer, and an avid reader. I’m a bell collector. I’m a friend, a co-worker, a family member, an unofficial sister, and an Aquarian. I’m an eccentric individual and I’m also a little bit of a flirt. Who am I supposed to be? I still feel like I should be a lady, some how. When I was younger, I would imagine that I would grow into this more modern-faced Victorian lady. That’s who I felt my grown-up side should be. My image of that lady has changed, ever so slightly. I feel like I should be this lady, one that’s strong and well-mannered. One that doesn’t pollute her body more than society deems necessary. One that is constantly acquiring knowledge as well as passing that knowledge down the line to others that want to know it too. I should be the Victorian lady that somehow lived through social movements that opened her eyes to what is right when it comes to how others are treated and how they fare in the world, but still retained that air of dignity even amid her eccentricity. That’s how I want to see myself, especially in the future. I realize that that’s not a common vision for one’s self. I tend to latch onto what I suspect and fear will happen instead. When I think of myself in the future, I think of an over-weight, lonely woman that lives in something that can only be equated to shack in the middle of the woods with only a bunch of mangy animals to keep her from completely going off the deep end. This is the kind of woman that doesn’t care about herself and she’s sunk so far into depression that she can’t even keep the animals she loves cared for. That’s what I’m scared of becoming and that’s usually what I assume will happen to me, because I fear it so much. Not only that, but with the way my life is right now, it seems plausible. In any case, I’m still learning right from wrong, but I know more than when I was a child. Also, I am learning to trust my gut when it comes to right and wrong as well. The hardest questions are “What am I supposed to do with my life?” and “What do I need as a person?”. How can I possibly answer those? I don’t even know where to start anymore.
Here is the truth about me:
I am like a cemetery. There are people that find me creepy, spooky even. There are people out there that see me as an eye-sore. There are people that hate being near me. There are people out there that don’t want anything to do with me. There are people out there that see the way I am or the way I look as something bad, scary, weird, or even disgusting. They all have their reasons. They see a cemetery as something to be feared because of what it represents to life. It’s a field to bury those that have come to the end, and there is where their body shall decay. I feel like I get a similar response because they look at me and see stereotypes and sometimes what they could be. They might see negative qualities in themselves looking back at them when they look at me, or some of them see someone so conflicting with their norm that they just don’t like the shock. I’ve had to come to terms with this. Not everyone is going to like me, but like not everyone loves a cemetery. It’s about perception, and not everyone is going to enjoy how I am perceived, either from the way I am or from the way they associate me.
On the other side of the coin, I am like a cemetery, because some people do find that they like me. They might like that I’m morbid. They might like the way I look. They might like the way I am. It all depends upon the person. I love cemeteries. They’re a garden for the dead. They’re a garden for those that are buried there to be remembered in some way and they’re a way for us to remember. For me, they’re a symbol of beauty, hope, love, balance, and the cycle of life. There are morbid aspects to it, and I love those as well. I like the way cemeteries feel, the way they smell, they way the look as long as they have standing headstones and not those flat stone planks that are so easily missed. It’s peaceful, and though it bares the mark of many deaths, it’s usually quite alive with energy. I compare myself to this kind of place that I love so much because I feel like it’s deeply connected with my sense of being. I am loved by some and I repulse others. I love peace and morbidity. I struggle with this, but it doesn’t make it any less true.
I should be more kind to myself. I feel like I’m being vain when I show myself a little kindness though. I need to work on that. I need to be better to myself because maybe, some day, I could be that lady. Maybe some day, I could be a novelist and take care of those I love. Maybe I can pass on knowledge, even as I grow. Maybe, some day, I can be proud of who I am. Maybe I can accept myself as much as I want to be accepted by others. Who knows?
Just some food for thought,
ulvenNixie
Nixie's Meditations 