"...but everything's exactly in it's place, and i'm the only thing that's changed, i'm not the same"
-Lelia Broussard, Something True
i ate peanutbutter and jelly sandwiches at many Thanksgiving dinners when i was younger. i refused to try turkey. or vegetables. or hamburgers. or seafood. or any food that might have a texture. or any food that wasn't on an unhealthy American menu and outside of my bagel-pasta-occasional-ballpark-hot-dog comfort zone. i threw monumental temper tantrums as a blue-eyed toddler with angelic blonde hair but seemingly demonic intentions. i had a lethal stubbornness that explains why i have no younger siblings.
my mom is a healthy individual, but it came to nobody's surprise that she nearly had a heart attack when i asked her to pass the broccoli at a family dinner on a college break. a cafeteria aimed at feeding the masses (rated on par with most jails--true story) forces you into trying new things. sometimes, those things are healthy. my stubborn attitude had to give.
maybe it's an innate characteristic i was born with. maybe my parents' ability to cultivate an independent child crossed the line. maybe it's because i'm a Taurus and the stars made me this way, mannn. but i'm REALLY stubborn. sometimes, this is a good thing, if you stand strong in your beliefs and won't back down like Tom Petty and won't take anyone else's crap. usually, we refer to being stubborn in these context as "strong-willed" because it sounds nicer.
sometimes i'm strong-willed. sometimes, i'm such an infuriating, bullheaded pain in the butt that my stubbornness interferes me and my relationship with others. lately it's robbed me of my ability to trust that everything is unfolding as if should; that those who are in and those who are out of my life belong there, respectively and currently; that i am where i'm meant to be, how i'm meant to, and that why i am makes sense on some level to someone or something somewhere, even if it doesn't quite make sense to me. i'm not a religious person, but i do have faith.
i became obsessed with South Park a while ago and their ability to transition from fart jokes into brilliant political satire. i started YouTubing interviews with Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the show's creators. they comically criticize all religions (and EVERYTHING else), leading many to ask, including this particular reporter, if they are atheists. Trey Parker responded by saying he thinks the most ridiculous belief is that the whole world happened "just 'cause" and that he "believes something is going on that we don't know about, and that's as far as i can go." this simplistic glimpse into a satirical cartoonist's religious beliefs resonated with me, and i take it with me wherever i go. i don't know if that "something going on" is one God, multiple Gods, or is even called God, or is male or female or has a gender, or is "the Universe" or is actually a broomstick. i do know when my stubbornness results in my straying from trusting whatever "it" is, i find myself a little lost in a sea of doubt, bobbing thru waves of questions and confusion. the water calms when i surrender; when i forfeit control and throw the reigns over to that "something." it is then i focus with the sharpest clarity, the kind of clarity you can't pay for and you can only earn and achieve. i focus on the right things--on self, and what is in my control. it is then i stop hovering on the cusp of kicking life's ass, and just go and kick it's ass.
i know this. i've learned this. i've learned this again (and again). i live with the definition and walking proof of this. it's in my head and it's in my heart but i guess it isn't always present. not only have i been too stubborn of late to change my lack of trust in whatever is greater, but i've been to stubborn to even see that i'm not doing so. but the recognition of this is always a sobering self realization, and change will follow. maybe my stubbornness is in a metamorphosis. or maybe it's just in my twelfth house by way of the Taurus.
-k.
No comments:
Post a Comment