Lessons In Learning, Part Fourteen.

Lesson Fourteen: There's no rush. We're just cruisin'.

I've shortened the title of these posts to be Lessons in Learning. Period. End of title. Because I've recently discovered that all the lessons posted on this blog have been myriad of exercises in learning. Learning how to truly settling into my own being, how to slow down or how to move forward in my own life.

And on that note, this is the post where I say that I don't know how to really master this lesson. I'm attempting the whole slowing down concept, but in reality I don't have a clue what I am doing. All I know about my current situation is that I have two speeds: the speed of light and being at a dead stop.

Let me set the scene...

While on my glorious Hawaiian vacation, I went surfing with my new friend. (I'm going to skip the part where I looked like a baby giraffe on a surfboard and underwent multiple baptisms by the rougher-than-I'm-used-to waves.) At the end of our little surf session we both paddled back to shore. Correction: He effortlessly made his way toward the beach like he had been born in the water. I frantically splashed my arms around in the shallow waves with a strained look on my face like I was reenacting the final scenes of Cast Away.

Somewhere in the middle of my Tom Hanks impression my friend turned around with a look of surprise on his face, smiled and said, "Hey, there's no rush. We're just cruisin'." At which point I let out a huge sigh and laid my face down on the board and just let myself float with the sway of the tide. I was exhausted. I also didn't know how to "cruise." I knew how to get back to the beach and I knew how to surf. I didn't know what cruising was, what it meant, or what it felt like. 

We ended up floating on our boards for the next 20 minutes while he told me about the history of Kauai, Hawaiian traditions and how Disney butchered the pronunciation of Hanalei Bay in the movie Pete's Dragon. Turns out cruising just meant enjoying where you're at without the ferocity of taking an extreme approach toward the destination.

Basically, it means slow down and smell the roses once or twice.

The destination isn't going anywhere. I'm not going to get amnesia and forget where I'm headed. And chances are I will have more fun stories, more enjoyable experiences and a fuller life if I allow myself to cruise my way to the finish line.

I don't always need to be busy, because busy doesn't mean I'm getting there any quicker. And not everything I do has to be done with a fierceness that says, "This chick is hard core." Being hard core doesn't add meaning to what gets done.

That being said, this is tough. I wasn't entirely sure where to start. So, I've started by not filling up every second of every day on my calendar. I've let myself sleep later than I've slept in months. And when I find myself raising the leather strap about to crack the whip over my own head I tell myself to chill out. There's no rush. I'm just cruising.

Aloha!

I want to move to Kauai. There. I said it. I'm in love. With an island.

I know. I know. People go on exotic vacations and come back so tan and happy that they are convinced they would have a better life back on a beach in some remote location. Well, this time it's true. I would actually have a great life on that beach back on that remote island. I know the title of this blog is The City Girl, but truth be told I'm a Beach Girl. Always have been. I can't help myself. While I love a good pair of heels and getting all dolled up, I just adore a good beach day. In fact, I've been known to schedule work around prime beach hours just so I can get the absolute best sunshine of the day on this already tan skin.

I felt like I became a different version of myself on that island, the real version of myself. I finally slowed down. I slept more soundly. I craved time in the ocean and actually got out there. I laughed more. I smiled bigger. I let my hair down. (Like actually stopped wearing it all tied up on top of my head.) I lived more life on that island than I ever have back home. I enjoyed work more. (Yes, I worked while I was there. I didn't completely lose myself!) I made new friends.

I lived the good life that everyone talks about.

There is one set back, though, to the idea of actually living out there. I'm an habitual slave driver of myself. I will work until the cows come home, have dinner, brush their teeth, and go to bed. My idea of slowing down is driving the maximum speed limit. And while I was there I was constantly reminded of how much I over-live my own life (if that's even a thing). I never slow down and smell the roses, because I'm too excited to get to the destination already! So, I had to ask myself: Could I really live there and be happy in moment and really enjoy that place? And in that case, can I still live here at my beach and start to enjoy this place more than I do?

So, the plan is this: I will try to enjoy my life here a little more while secretly planning to somehow move my life out to my little island in the sun.

Ross and Rachel

Will they? Won't they? Will they? Won't they?

And they danced and danced AND DANCED around their feelings for each other for years...

I have unknowingly become a part of a Ross and Rachel relationship and it sneaked up on me like a ninja. Two years of wishing everything could go back to the way it was, a few well-timed conversations, one too many moments alone, a couple nights that ended in kisses and BAM!

Just call me Rachel.

Since discovering that both parties have had lingering feelings for each other, I have found myself sleepless and frustrated wondering if the mystery of What's Really Going On will ever be solved between this City Girl and Bachelor Number Two.

This is pretty much the gist of it.

Some days there just isn't enough wine in the bottle.

Serenity Now

I recently made a new acquaintance the other day and casually mentioned that I had just booked a ticket to Hawaii and how I am planning to skydive while I am there. Within a matter of minutes this new friend began to describe his skydiving experience to me in full detail. (How my conversations with new people quickly turn to odd subjects involving intense feelings, I'll never know.) He said they make you get on your knees in the doorway of the plane, rock back and forth 3 times before jumping and then chaos ensues for the next 120 seconds while you somersault in the air, simultaneously plummeting back to earth at an alarming rate. He said it was the only time he enjoyed being completely out of control, but at the same time was freaking out on the inside because he was completely out of control. And then (and this is my favorite part) he said the rip cord got pulled and he immediately went from a state of total insanity to complete serenity.

 

I couldn't help but think of my past year in relation to this story and felt I had already been skydiving through my own life. 

The last 365 days of this Girl's life have not only been chaotic they've inhibited the very definition of a tailspin. Everything was out of my control, I was freaking out on the inside, and some days felt as if there were no up or down; a complete lack of stability. As my sister-in-law likes to say, I was ass over tea kettle for days on end. And at the end of it all I looked back and saw that everything that happened, all the seemingly schizophrenic situations, were going according to a bigger plan. Now I didn't exactly know what the bigger plan was, nor do I know now, but I am starting to see the edges of this puzzle fall into place. The rip cord has been pulled. And while I haven't landed on the ground just yet, there is peace and calm.

There is, at last, some serenity.

The Seven Day Itch

I recently reread an old Bible story about Noah the other day after being reminded of something I'd heard years ago that coincided with that old tale. I absolutely adore reading stories that were read to me as a child or stories that I once discovered on my own that changed my life. And this is one of those stories.

When I was first read the story of Noah and his oversized boat I remember thinking as a kid that he was a complete loon and likened him to an old biddy that had a weak spot for all things feline influenced. Hence, the ship full of animals. As an adult, however, the story began to resonate with me about how difficult it can be to go against the grain when all you want to do is go with the flow and become a wallflower in your own life. Or how choosing to be a part of all things good and right can sometimes require every last bit of our strength and patience.

But now...well, now a different part of that story resonates so deeply I can feel it in my toes.

While Noah's biography is fairly well-known there's a small little fact that often gets overlooked, but may be the most important part of the whole thing. After he built the ark and loaded all the animals and his family onto it, he had to sit there for a week before the rain started. That's right! For seven days he lived his life inside that ark with the sun shining outside and not a cloud in the sky. And there's a good chance that he felt his labor was in vain. There's a good chance that Noah started to doubt himself, God and everything he knew to be right and true.

There's a good chance he got the 7 day itch.

There are times in this City Girl's life where waiting isn't just a thing that happens in long Disneyland lines or behind the old, slow lady at the grocery store, but seems to have become a way of life. And let me just preface my next few sentences by saying that this Girl's life is good. Really good, in fact! But there are days when I can't help but look around, notice that the boat has been built, or at least as far as I can tell, and now I'm just sitting inside it waiting for the sound of water droplets landing on the deck.

There's a time to work and build. There's a time to set sail. And then there are times when waiting is the right thing to do. This isn't the first time I've had to wait for something and I'm absolutely sure it won't be the last, but I look forward to the day when that itch will finally be scratched.

Scaredy Cat, No More.

"Men [as opposed to boys] know what they want and they don't let you in on their inner monologue, and that is scary." -Mindy Kaling

Or for this Girl, used to be scary.

I found myself saying to a friend the other day that I just wished that So and So could have seen the old me; the scared, non-committal, skiddish me. (I wanted 'Ol So and So, who had wrongfully judged my intentions, to be fully aware that the new me is still very new.) My friend responded by rolling her eyes and said, "Yeah, you've come a long way! You used to be scared to commit to a parking space for fear of being blocked in at a party where we both knew you would end up sleeping on the couch."

It was an embarrassingly true statement. I used to be scared. Of everything, including (but not limited to) parking spaces, lunch decisions and commitment to relationships of any kind. When I got my first (and only) tattoo my friends who accompanied me to the parlor, probably to make sure I didn't back out, kept chattering on about their first tattoos and how they couldn't wait to be under the needle again. All I could think about was how many hours I would have to work before I could afford laser tattoo removal. I don't think I had that one-inch by one-inch tattoo longer than 10 minutes before I started inwardly panicking about its permanence.

Today, however, I am a different girl. One might say I've graduated from girl to woman. Although, I hate that word "woman". It sounds like I should be wearing pantyhose and a dress suit everyday. I blame commercials from the 80's. They really warped my little brain into thinking that all grown, confident women must wear suit jackets, shoulder pads and own an abundance of hosiery while having developed a very mature palette for diet soda and low-fat yogurt. I don't drink soda and I usually hate the taste of any food labeled low-fat.

Anyway, lately I've felt confused by my most recent relationship that appeared to be with a man, who at times acted like he was an old man, but was in fact with a boy. I've been remembering conversations we had that, in retrospect, were orange flags. (I would say red flags, but they weren't deal breaker conversations like him saying he wanted to ultimately live on a commune someday. Just things that should have signaled to me that he was not ready to take the next step.) And today I finally made sense of all those things that were said. Today I realized why that last guy wasn't going to work out, at least not yet. I want a man and apparently have wanted one for some time. I thought I had accidentally stumbled into a dating relationship with a man only to find out that he was just a boy parading around in a grown man's life, wearing all the right clothes, saying almost all the right things and acting like he was ready for retirement. And that's ok. He will get there someday.

But I'm not talking about possibilities in the next 3 years. I'm talking about today. I want someone who knows what he wants, doesn't feel the need to constantly fill me in on his every waking move so that he can hear himself say it to make sure it sounds right, and who isn't afriad to go after all those things he truly knows he wants to have in his life.

That idea would have sent the old me running scared in the opposite direction, but it doesn't scare the new me. Not one bit.

Trying Out For The Lead Role

"Iris, in the movies we have leading ladies and we have the best friend. You, I can tell, are a leading lady, but for some reason you are behaving like the best friend."  
-Arthur Abbott

I've been rather enlightened lately by TV shows and movies which means only one thing: I'm either spending way too much time on the couch or I've been gaining wisdom from the most unlikely sources. For the sake of keeping a positive momentum let's just say that God works in mysterious ways...via my television.

I was enjoying a few much needed hours of down time the other day, sacked out on the couch, convalescing my sick throat while watching Christmas movies. As I drifted in and out of my sore throat haze that afternoon, my brain was just about to check out when I heard Arthur, from The Holiday, challenge Iris to start behaving as the leading lady in her decision-making. She had been acting as if someone else was in the driver's seat for all of the choices she made for herself. She had let some guy take command of her feelings for far too long and it was time for her to take the reigns again or forever be playing the role of the sidekick.

There they were again: words of wisdom. From my television, no less! And they prompted a string of questions that hit me in that part of the gut that tells you you had better start paying attention or you'll soon lose the game. Had I been playing the best friend role in my own life; the one who is at the mercy of someone else's control? Or had I been behaving as the leading lady; the one who moves forward without trepidation and accomplishes what she sets out to do?

Have I been moving forward in certain areas of my life as I should or have I been sitting on the side lines scared and unmoving?

Without saying too much, I know that there are areas of my life where I've been holding back or holding out....waiting to see what will happen. When, the truth is, I should be the one playing the game, not watching it.

So, dear readers, with some shaky steps on an unmarked path, I will be bravely moving forward knowing that the risk of failing will not be greater than the risk of regret. And if all of my friends' advice is right, it will all work out for the best in the end. If I can just keep moving.