Saturday, December 31, 2011

Little personal facts

1. Certain sounds repulse me. The pouring of liquid. Eating and drinking sounds. Clinking silverware on plates. Sandpaper/wiping dirt off of rocks/that sort of thing, especially if I imagine what that feels like.

2. The moon is possibly my most important spiritual symbol.

3. I love mosque (masjid) photos, even though I’m not a practicing Muslim and I’ve never been to one.

4. 2011 sucked bigtime for me, but ended very nicely. I landed a part-time dishwasher job and an interview for a full-time better-paying office job. I could go from basically unemployed to working 60-hour weeks very soon.

5. I’m still grieving my choice to leave behind my academic dreams after more than 20 years of holding onto those dreams. At 41, I’m ready to just take a job and retire from it someday. Letting go of ambition has been a crushing experience. I’m hoping to go through the grief and come out at the other end in a sort of personal resurrection.

6. My boyfriend is 20 years younger than me. We have been officially together for over a year, we have very little in common, but we are making it work.

7. I will probably always love “boy bands.” I think it’s because they bring back childhood/teen closet memories. They touch something of my past that still hurts a bit in my heart. And their music, however corny, brings me healing.

8. The only kind of spiritual process that brings me faith is in-the-moment experiential spiritual activity, like meditation, ritual, music, dancing, being surrounded by religious art, etc. I have (as of yet) failed to maintain faith just by thinking about it, reasoning things out, or any other strictly mental exercise. If I relied purely on intellect, I would be a strict agnostic. But I’m not. I feel strongly there is something beyond this life, an afterlife, other beings, maybe even a singular God, and my spiritual quest is to experience more about that, not necessarily to declare faith or argue about it. No human’s declarations are convincing to me, and certainly no religion’s moralism or dictates. As a postcard I have says, “Faith is a journey, not a guilt trip.”

9. If you have read this far, I think you’re one of the coolest people ever. Thank you.

2 comments:

  1. I absolutely love this post and learning about you. 2011 was indeed a rough one, but here's to moving forward and making 2012 wonderful!

    ~C

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  2. I am one of the coolest people ever.

    I very much approve of #8, though intellect is more important for me than it is to you.

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