BRICK SANDWICH

Forward or Bust

noreply@blogger.com (Shayla) — Tue, 21 Mar 2017 07:30:00 +0000

What I don’t understand about life and the people who live it can just about fit into the Grand Canyon.

I don’t understand an existence is without the burn of ambition. I don’t. Since I was a kid, I’ve always wanted something else, something more and I would push against circumstances to get it. As a little kid, I wanted to earn my own money. I had lemonade/popcorn stands, I scrounged things from house to have garage sales, I did extra chores. I started formally working at 14.

In school, I pushed myself to make good grades so I could get into college. When I started working as an adult, I’d continue to push myself to earn promotions and raises, because I wanted to be able to support myself and my kid. I wanted to put myself in a position where I wasn’t worried about money all the time.

There was this energy, coming from inside me, that was pushing me, ultimately towards independence, but immediately towards the next steps that would get me there.

I’m perplexed by those who don’t feel the same. It’s not that I can’t intellectually fathom that the world is made up of different people. Of course it is. That’s what makes this place so interesting. It’s what makes family dinners either entertaining or painful. I know that everyone does not think like me - and I can accept and understand that - with this one exception.

From my observations and experience, if you are not growing then you are deteriorating. That’s the rule of nature. There is no standing still, nothing exist in a vacuum. If you don’t consistently work your muscles, they atrophy.

If you’re not building upon your skills, they become obsolete.

This is the rule.

On Beauty

noreply@blogger.com (Shayla) — Thu, 16 Mar 2017 07:30:00 +0000

I’m not sure why someone would call themselves ugly.

I can understand having days where you don’t feel your best - bad hair day, bloated, etc. What I can’t fathom is consistently insisting (out loud to others or in your own mind) that you are wholly unattractive.

Why on God’s green earth wouldn’t you be your own biggest fan?

This isn’t a rhetorical or facetious question.

Why would you be so hard on yourself that it’s borderline abuse? Think about it. If you saw a husband repeatedly call his wife ugly (or fat or stupid), you would think he was an abusive asshole. You’d tell the story to your friends with horror in your voice. You would think that woman should get away from that creep as soon as possible.

I don’t understand why that behavior is justified when you’re doing it to yourself in your own head. It seems worse. At least the poor woman can walk away and she won’t be able to hear the asshole’s voice anymore. If you’re doing it to yourself, where are you going to go?

I’m not talking about conceit, only a basic belief that the container for your soul is worth loving. Hell, even the confidence that you clean up nice is better than nothing. Fat or skinny don’t matter. What matters is what you think and the record you play in your head on repeat.

What you think gets projected to the rest of the world. What you think gets projected to you.

The record you play? It’s all your choice.

Your playlist should only be that which will build you up.

Letter to My Daughter

noreply@blogger.com (Shayla) — Tue, 14 Mar 2017 07:30:00 +0000

March 8th was International Women’s Day. In celebration, a publication asked several high profile women to write letters to their daughters. I thought I would do the same.

Dear Lorren,

As of today, you are about five short months from turning 18. You will be finishing high school in a couple of months. This fact is incredible to me. It wasn’t that I didn’t think this day would come, of course I did. It's just that I can still remember being in the hospital, holding you and feeling so overwhelmed with love and at the same time scared shitless.

I think we’ve done OK. I count it among my greatest accomplishments that you survived - especially that first year. I didn’t have any idea what I was doing, I only knew that I loved you more than I loved myself.

As you get ready to go out into the world, please keep your mind open to the possibilities of what you have to offer the world and vice versa. Be wary of absolute assessments - of yourself and of others. There is an entire universe of gray between black and white. It’s in the gray that we find ourselves.

Hard work will be the source of your success. There will also be some dumb luck, but you won’t be able to capitalize on the luck unless you’ve done the hard work.

Despite popular belief, the hard work will not stop. There is no magical place you’ll reach in which you can now rest, except for death. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that things get easier with time. They don’t. New challenges come once you’ve figured something out and you’re back to not knowing what you’re doing. This is what’s supposed to happen.

Don’t shy away from the hard things. Facing challenges is part and parcel of a life well lived. Keep the promises you make to yourself. Continue to be kind, loving and accepting, but when people show you who they are, believe them.

I wish you every happiness that life has to offer.

I will love you forever.

Mom

Crushed Nuts

noreply@blogger.com (Shayla) — Thu, 09 Mar 2017 08:30:00 +0000

What is the deal with all these men age 35 and under with theses tight ass suit pants ?

What. The. Hell.

It's the same look over and over - blue suit, light blue shirt (like a chambray color), a narrow tie, brown shoes and funky socks of some kind. It's not terrible, but some of them are wearing their pants entirely too tight.

Nut huggers is what they'd be called where I'm from. I really don't know how comfortable that can be. Or how you’re affecting your future reproductive prospects. Or why in the hell some of the pants are not only tight, but high-waters as well. If your pants hit an inch above your ankle, they are capris.

Here's a Cliff Note: Capris are not pants that are made for dudes.

I understand the premise of current fashion, I just don’t understand why you’d want to walk around like your nuts are in a vice. Don’t they need to breathe?

Amor Fati

noreply@blogger.com (Shayla) — Tue, 07 Mar 2017 08:30:00 +0000

My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it—all idealism is mendacity in the face of what is necessary—but love it.

-Ecce Homo, Friedrich Nietzsche

Amor Fati is latin phrase that means ‘Love of Fate’, which can be interpreted also as ‘love of one’s fate’. It is a notion that presents the ultimate emotional/mental challenge when what appears in your path brings you to your knees. When the something that happens makes you want to tell Fate to go fuck itself with the business end of a .45.

At first glance, loving whatever comes your way sounds like lunacy, right? A truly awful thing has happened and you just want me to accept it? Not only accept it, but love that it has happened. Yes.

That seems like a stretch, right?

The way I see it, there are levels to this, just like with any type of mastery. You start small, like with everyday life. Long lines, getting the wrong order, traffic.

You start with the understanding that nothing in life is inherently good or bad. It’s the value that we assign that makes it so. You decide how you are going to react to what is happening. You can decide to go completely apeshit and bemoan the fact that the world is indeed against you, or you can decide to look at things as opportunities for a different experience.

When I was in Seattle last month, I lost my wallet. On the airplane. It was completely my fault. I didn’t put it back in my purse properly, it landed on the floor somewhere and I walked off the plane and out of the airport without my ID, a couple hundred in cash, my debit and credit cards. I didn’t realize what I’d done until a couple of hours later, when I reached in my purse to pay for something and there was no wallet. It was late when I the discovery was made - after 11 pm.

There was the initial heat of panic. I’m not a person that loses things frequently; this wasn’t a situation I was happy to find myself in. I took a breath and remembered, that getting mad wasn’t going to change anything. I was visiting relatives, so at least I wasn’t trying to stay at a hotel with no ID and no way to pay. In that moment, I decided that while I would do everything I could to get my wallet back, if I didn’t, then I would just roll with the situation. Getting home via airplane with no identification? I would figure it out somehow. I knew I wasn’t the first traveler to lose their wallet during a trip.

The first call to the airline that night yielded no results, but it turned out that mine was the last flight for that plane for the day. That was a plus, but I was sitting near the front of the plane, so that meant that no less than 50 people passed my seat. Any of them could’ve spotted my wallet and helped themselves to the contents.

A second call to the airline the next morning meant another small wait, while the helpful contact reached out to the morning crew to see if anyone found my wallet. I waited an eternity - about 7 minutes - to finally hear my cell phone ring.

They found it.

I picked my wallet up from the Virgin counter at SeaTac airport and everything was in there. Cash, license, credit cards - everything.

Without a doubt, I was ecstatic that I got my wallet back.

I was even prouder that I didn’t lose my shit. Did I love what happened? Hell no, I’m not at master level with this, but I decided not to descend into complete panic.

The way I see it, if you can live this principle, you become impervious to the vicious turns that life can take. Almost like a super power. It does not mean that you don’t have any feelings about what has happened, nor does it mean that you cannot make moves to try and improve the situation. It means that you recognize that your reaction to these circumstance is always a choice.

This is acceptance in its truest form.

Knowing that what happened cannot be changed and life must continue, even with this event as part of the timeline. It’s where you can release it, so it has no power over you. It’s you letting go of the notion of what should or what you wished had happened, instead accepting the reality of what did happen.

This is a lifelong journey. One you have to bring yourself back to daily. The longer you are here on this plane of existence, the higher the probability that you will experience something potentially devastating.

None of us is getting out of here alive, but we all have the power to decide how we’re going to spend the time we do have. We can decide how we’ll react to our fate and whether or not what happens gets the best of us.

On Armageddon

noreply@blogger.com (Shayla) — Thu, 02 Mar 2017 08:30:00 +0000

I’m not trying to shit on anyone’s religion. Really, I’m not.

There’s just one thing I cannot wrap my head around: If an imminent date has been identified as the start of the rapture, why would you then give all of your material possessions away?

I’m serious.

This happened during Y2K and then again a few years ago . Again, in response, people gave all their stuff away. This last time we were driving Lorren to a Tae Kwon Do tourney and a news story on the radio came on about "today" being the day.

I was thinking how pissed off I was going to be if this indeed my last day on earth and I was spending it in a sweaty gym watch preteens try and beat the shit out of each other.

But I digress...

These folks are giving away good shit, like TVs and speedboats and cars. The whole thing defies logic. If the world is going to end, then your neighbor won’t be able to use your flat screen either.

Think it through, people.

Enjoy your toys until the bitter end.

Label Maker

noreply@blogger.com (Shayla) — Tue, 28 Feb 2017 08:30:00 +0000

Doesn’t everything about living feel a la carte now? TV choices (cable v. Netflix v. Roku), investing, even your gender identity/sexual orientation. I didn’t quite realize this until my daughter told me I was cisgendered.

Say what now?

After an exasperated sigh (which no one can deliver quite like a teenager), she explained that it means that my insides match my outsides (in contrast to transgendered). I identify as a woman and the body I was born with matches that identification. It made my head hurt. You know why? Because she went on to explain that being cisgendered has nothing to do with my sexuality. That’s yet another set of labels - heterosexual, homosexual, pansexual, asexual, bisexual.

There's also something called gender fluidity. Fuck if I know what that means specifically.

Shit.

I don’t know if I can keep this all straight (no pun intended). I can barely piece together all of the labels that apply to me. I definitely cannot keep up with what other people are.

I think I’m the vanilla version of what these labels are. I don’t know how many of them it would take to describe rocky road.

We should just stick with the label ‘human being’.

That’s fair and that covers everything.

A Small Rant

noreply@blogger.com (Shayla) — Thu, 23 Feb 2017 08:30:00 +0000

I don’t give a fuck about traffic, but every single day it seems like someone insists on talking about it. With me.

Here is a recent conversation:

Them: Did you ride the bus last Friday?

Me: Ummm…yeah.

Them: Did your bus take Freeway A or Freeway B?

Me: I don’t know, I was asleep.

Them: Well they closed Exit X on Freeway B. Traffic was horrible.

Me: Ummm…ok.

What am I supposed to do with that information? Who gives a fuck about traffic that happened in the fucking past? I explained that I was asleep. This isn’t the first time I’ve explained to this person that I either sleep or read on the bus. I wouldn't know if the bus driver took surface streets or hitched a ride in the back of a semi like we were fucking Knight Rider. Besides, traffic is the bus driver’s problem. That’s why I pay for a bus pass - to be able to let go of bullshit like traffic. Being aware of it or fretting over it changes absolutely nothing. When I drive, then traffic is my problem, but I still don’t want to talk about traffic that happened days ago.

What I’m simply saying is that you don’t have to fill silence with chatter. If we find ourselves in the same place at the same time silence is perfectly acceptable. Acting otherwise only does us both a disservice. It makes you sound inane and I get a headache trying to hold a passive expression on my face instead of it morphing into one where I’m looking at you like I don’t understand why you are fucking talking.

The Whip

noreply@blogger.com (Shayla) — Tue, 21 Feb 2017 08:30:00 +0000

In a marriage, do men really need to be ‘trained’?

I was having a conversation with two people - a man and a woman, both of whom are married - and the answer from both of them was a resounding yes.

I wasn’t surprised at the woman’s answer, but had to do a double take when the man agreed. The conversation felt like it was taking place in decades past, like when someone asked me if I thought they looked fat. Since that’s not the narrative in my house, I didn’t realize that women (and apparently, men) still thought that way.

The entire ‘training’ setup sounds objectionable on so many levels:

It assumes from the start that something is wrong with your man. Circus animals and dogs are trained. Your man should be your partner. He’s already been raised and that cannot be undone. I’m not saying he can’t evolve and grow, I’m just wondering who died and made you the final authority on how to behave. If he’s that terrible, that childish and inept - why would you fucking marry (or stay) with him?

Instead of a partnership, you create a parent-child dynamic. If you feel your role in the relationship is to regularly monitor, critique and correct (read: control) the other person, that isn’t an adult relationship. That’s a mother and child. Just a word of caution here, shit could get lonely if you insist on taking this route. No one wants to fuck their mother.

Under the auspices of ‘training’, there seems to be a focus on all of the things the poor bastard is doing wrong. With the ongoing correction regimen, most of the talk centers around all the things your man is not doing (or not doing right). It negates anything good he does, because instead of feeling appreciative, your main focus is on what he needs to fix.

There’s an assumption that somehow your shit is all together. You need no changes, right? If you’re going Emily Post, Queer Eye and Fashion Police on a dude, it must be because you're perfect, right? There’s nothing about you that he’s turning a blind eye to? Personally, I think the crusade to ‘fix’ a man (or anyone else) is a big honking distraction from the real work - yourself. Besides, the basic rule is, you cannot fix other people, you can only fix yourself.

Taking out the trash is a life or death situation. The dishes were still in the sink. Laundry wasn’t folded. Bed wasn’t made. Annoying? Perhaps, but not a capital offense. Under this protocol, the trainer absolves herself of any responsibility for her behavior. If she goes absolutely apeshit over a perceived infraction, well that just the way she is. She can’t help it. Bullshit. Every single action we take everyday is a choice. While we don’t choose what happens to us, we definitely choose our responses. Assigning high emotional values (e.g you don’t love/respect/value me because you didn’t do this chore) to inconsequential activities is not going to make him wake up and see the error of his ways. It just makes you look nuts.

I’ve been married for nearly 14 years. There is no doubt in my mind that I’m a much different woman than the day I was on my wedding day. My husband would say the same about himself. We’ve grown together, but I went into the relationship not wanting to change anything about him. Iyanla Vanzant said that in one of her books - and I'm paraphrasing here - but she said that when you meet the man you don't want to change, you know you've met the one. It made complete sense to me, because I'd spent my first marriage hoping he'd change into someone I could actually be with.

That's not love. Not really. It’s love with strings - if you become the person I want, then I can really love you. It’s not the love promised in your wedding vows. It's a facsimile of a relationship that only exists in your mind - because that's where the fictional version of your man lives too.

Love him or leave him alone.

I'm Clearly Dying

noreply@blogger.com (Shayla) — Thu, 16 Feb 2017 08:30:00 +0000

I’m pretty sure I think about dying too much.

Ballpark estimate? 20 times a day.

I'm not even sure why.

Sometimes, I get these ‘pulse’ headaches - like in my temple. There isn't any pain, just a slight pressure, for less than 5 seconds; however, in that moment, I am absolutely certain that I’m going to have a stroke and die.

A few months back, I was having heart palpitations. Regularly. I went to my doctor several times. All kinds of tests run - blood, urine, x-rays. More than once. Apparently all my blood work, etc. is fine. She thinks it’s stress. I’m dying and she’s insisting that all these episodes are stress related. I’m not sure I entirely believe her. Even though my palpitations have stopped since I started meditating 2 months ago. That’s just a huge coincidence. The heart attack is still coming.

I sometimes imagine my commuter bus careening off of the side of the highway. Me and the other 30-odd passengers being tossed around like rag dolls, breaking every bone in my body. Buses don’t have seat belts. I’m guessing it would take them at least 24 hours to find us, especially as it gets dark and we’re at the bottom of a 40 foot drop. I'm going to slowly bleed out from the bones jutting out of my body.

Less frequently, but still as frightening, I imagine myself waking up and finding a strange man standing over me. He's going to do unspeakable things to me before choking me to death. Yep, good times.

Why am I letting my crazy leak out? Again, no freakin' idea. I just know that I feel a little bit better.

This is going to sound strange, but I don't actively fear death. I like to use these thoughts as a way to help me appreciate whatever life I have left - even when they come to me completely unbidden.

Maybe from now on I'll try to imagine myself peacefully passing away in my sleep...

To My Knees

noreply@blogger.com (Shayla) — Tue, 14 Feb 2017 08:30:00 +0000

Nothing brings a singular focus to your life like illness. It trumps everything else. I’ve spent the last 6+ days getting my ass handed to me by the flu. It wasn’t as bad as it could be - I wasn’t hospitalized, but everything hurt. My body was incredibly sensitive to touch, temperature and sound. Nothing else mattered to me except feeling better - in any way possible.

I don’t think I’ve ever had the flu best me in such a vicious way. Really. Three days was formerly my max and I went to work on the third day. Nope, this time my body had been ravaged like the first Thanksgiving.

I realized a few things as I lay in bed, fighting for a comfortable position within my body:

I could actually rely on my baby sister to take care of me. We were visiting family in Seattle. On the second full day of our visit, I dropped like a sack of rocks. I was in bed from Saturday, until Tuesday afternoon, only because we had a flight home to catch. For days, my sister propped me up with drugs, tea, water and Jamba Juice. She bought a thermometer and took my temperature. She made me eat. She plied me with loving looks and a warm hand on my forehead. Physically, I was a mess, but she nourished my soul (and got herself sick in the process). It wasn’t that I didn’t already know that she was a caregiver, I did. She took care of our Nana during those last, painful years. I just didn’t know that she was going to have to take care of me.

Thank you Leslye. I love you.

Any of the remaining shit I continue to fret about is unimportant. When I was intermittently conscious, I had some time to think. I couldn’t even read - it hurt my eyes. Illness was my entire world, to the exclusion of everything else. When you're sick, it's quite a simple process to figure out what's important and what isn't. I did have the fleeting thought that if this is the way I was going to die, then that would be shitty. Know why? Because I’ve wasted a lot of fucking time while I was healthy not doing what the shit I was supposed to. I'd spent lots of time watching TV. Plenty of time shooting the shit. More time than I'd care to admit thinking instead of doing. It was terrifying. I was sorry - for all the time I’d wasted while I was healthy - doing nothing but bullshit. Fretting about crap. Being too much in my head. Being lazy.

Besides my immortal soul, good health is the most valuable thing I possess. I’ve always been healthy. My body has always felt like it’s been on my side. I got pregnant and although I had five months of morning sickness, I only had four hours of labor. I only gained 30 pounds and three weeks after giving birth I could fit back in my pre-pregnancy jeans. My body has been my great friend. I cannot say the same. Not enough sleep. Not enough water. Shitty food. No exercise for years on end. Smoking (!). My body is still trying to be here for me. Now it's my turn to be here for it, after all we are in this thing together.

More to come. This is just the beginning.

The Void

noreply@blogger.com (Shayla) — Thu, 09 Feb 2017 08:30:00 +0000

Why one reads is important. If it’s just for escape, that’s all right, it’s like taking junk, it’s meaningless. It’s kind of an insult to yourself. Like modern conversation – it’s used to keep people away from one another, because people don’t feel assaulted by conversation so much as silence. People have to make conversation in order to fill up this void. Void is terrifying to most people. We can’t have a direct confrontation with somebody in silence – because what you’re really having is a full and more meaningful confrontation.

Marlon Brando, Playboy interview, 1979

Most people - at least the ones I come across - seem truly uncomfortable with silence. Truly. Me? I like it. A lot. I appreciate that every silence does not have to be filled with sound. It's a respite. A welcome respite from the noise and confusion of the world. A chance to think and recharge.

Silence gives way to thoughts. To strolling around unsupervised in one's own mind. Not such a hot idea. I’m misquoting here, but the average mind is basically a bad neighborhood that no one would ever willingly visit alone. Obviously, because that’s where all our shit lives. All the bad, scary voices. All that baggage from childhood. The failed relationships. Our brokenness, our imperfections, the parts we hide from other people (the parts we hide from ourselves).

The modern world does not make it any easier. There’s always something waiting to grab your attention - some flickering glowing screen that is demanding it’s due. That’s just distraction. Sometimes I think people talk so that they don’t have to be alone with their own thoughts, but that’s a fools errand; I just don’t think it’s possible to live a fulfilled life without taking the time to visit the scary places.

You have to make friends with your monsters.

You have to become comfortable with being uncomfortable.

You have got to learn to live in the void.

The Best

noreply@blogger.com (Shayla) — Tue, 07 Feb 2017 08:30:00 +0000

I’m not into perfection. In fact, any declarations of perfection make me wary ("This has to be perfect." or "I'm a perfectionist."). It seems kind of silly; perfection isn’t possible.

What’s more intriguing and swoon worthy is doing one’s absolute and uncompromising best.

What sounds better - and more attainable? Being the perfect wife and mother OR being the absolute best wife and mother than I can be? Perfect is always someone else’s idea and we feed and worship it until we actually think the pursuit of such a notion makes sense, but in that place we are never good enough.

I'm convinced that the idea of perfection is a ruse designed to make perfectly good people behave like insane assholes, to themselves and others.

Getting to the place where you sincerely believe without a doubt that you've given your absolute best to something...well, that's real perfection in my book.

The sooner we can make peace with our best being enough, the soon we can get to the good stuff.

Living.

Time Bandit

noreply@blogger.com (Shayla) — Thu, 02 Feb 2017 08:30:00 +0000

A few recent experiences have me questioning exactly what the fuck I do with my time:

I reviewed my 2016 goals and realized that I had not accomplished ANY of them. No, not one. That was a nausea inducing punch to the gut.
I looked at my annual credit card statement. Christ on a cracker, did I really spend that much on Amazon?
I realized that I have 27 (yes, twenty seven) physical books sitting around waiting for me to read, most of which I was supposed to have read by the end of summer, 2016.

Fuuuuuuuuuck.

I’ve got to get my shit together.

Wait, this isn’t a pity party. Not by a long shot. It’s not like I did nothing in 2016. At my 9 to 5, I was part of a team that launched our new client-facing and internal website. I also spent time traveling to other offices around the country, training people on the new website. I was accomplishing my work goals…just not my other ones.

I’m not really a person that goes for the whole New Years Resolution. Not in a formal way. I don’t give up anything for Lent. However, going into 2018 with 1, 2 and 3 remaining the same isn’t an option.

I think number one hurt the most because it included important writing goals and I never even got out of the gate. I started slacking on my blog posts because I was “too tired” and the research I was doing for another project just fell to the wayside. I also finished writing a short and I was sincerely interested in getting things together so I could make my film. I have to write. I need it. When I don’t write, I get a little insane. Instead of writing, I spent most of my weekends in 2016 falling asleep on my couch while trying to catch up on the shows on my DVR. I rationalized that I was using my weekends to recover from my work week. I told myself that “next weekend” I would get back into the swing of things, but next weekend turned into months.

I’m not saying that I don’t need some form of recovery time or that I don’t need to sleep. What I am saying is that I leaned into that excuse for too long and before I knew it, it was the end of the year and it had been months since I’d posted anything on Brick Sandwich and I was no further along on my writing projects. Realizing that broke my heart a little. It felt like a failure.

Number two? Well obviously I was on my computer - not writing. I was too busy trolling Amazon looking for shit to buy. I have a great job and very little overhead. I’ve spent more time in my life counting my pennies than not, but I think I’ve now become a little too free with my discretionary income. A while ago, I figured out that I wanted to be a person that values experiences over things, but the boxes with the creepy arrow smile, that looks vaguely like a penis, were still showing up on my doorstep. I will announce loudly that I don’t like to shop, but that really isn’t the entire truth. I like to shop, but only online. I hate trolling stores. I loooooove books (hence problem #3). Not all of the purchases were frivolous and I don’t have any credit card debt, but despite my hard work, I don’t feel completely comfortable with my improved financial circumstances. Crazy, right? Back when I was newly divorced, with an infant, about $25,000 in credit card debt and having to move back in with my parents, this - my current situation - was always my goal. Back then, I’d see something I’d want and just dismiss it completely out of necessity. I went years without buying anything new for myself. I didn’t even have a cell phone, because I wasn’t spending $50 a month on something so frivolous. If it wasn’t for my kid or on my debt, I wasn’t buying it.

I’m grateful for that experience. I learned soul changing lessons. I never want to go back to that place again. Ever. It’s just that now that I can buy most things without really thinking about it, and…well, I don’t like that either. It’s not that I haven’t earned it, I have. What I don’t like is the unconscious spending. I like it and I immediately click ‘add to cart’ or ‘buy with 1-click’ (damn you, Amazon!). I feel out of control. I’m setting myself up on a budget.

That’s brings us to number three. I read a lot. A lot. Mostly on my Kindle. It’s great for my long commutes to work, but not so great when you’re trying to be an active, engaged reader and highlight passages and make notes in the margins. There were several books I wanted to read for that purpose and I completely dropped the ball. Same old excuses and no discernible plan. The pile just kept growing. For this, I’ve made myself a pledge. I typed it up, listing every single book with a completion date of August 31, 2017. I’ll cross them off as I finish. These books cost money - but it’s only money well spent if I actually read the books. Looking at them sitting on a cabinet in my home office - well, that just feels like another failure. Another broken promise to myself. Not cool at all.

The problem is the same: waste. Wasting time and wasting money. Neither is good, but at least you can make more money. I cannot ever get back any of 2016 and that weighs heavily on me. Nothing can be done about that. What I can do now is recognize the problem and take steps to eliminate the distractions.

I’ve committed to posting twice a week on Brick Sandwich for 2017. I’ve downloaded an app that allows me to turn off internet access to my computer for blocked periods of time. I’ve shut down my Facebook account. In the past, I would have insisted on relying on willpower, but that isn’t enough. I’ve gotta set myself up for success and if I can’t get on the internet for 4 or 5 hours while I’m supposed to be working, then I’ve got no choice but to either write or get reading on the next book on my list. So far, it’s working. These are just the first steps. I’ve got a lot further to go, but at least it feels like I’m moving in the right direction.

I was reading a quote recently from a retired Navy Seal, Jocko Willink, who was featured in Tim Ferriss’ book ‘Tools of Titans’. He said “discipline equals freedom”. When I first read the quote, it made no sense to me. Discipline is rigid and full of limitations. Freedom feels easy. But all I have to do is look at what happened with 2016 and I know that he’s exactly right. Discipline would've gotten me a lot farther with my goals and I wouldn’t feel so shitty. He also said “If you want to be tougher mentally, it is simple: Be tougher. Don’t meditate on it.” I spent so much time last year feeling guilty about not writing, but never really doing anything about it. Just more meditating on it and more broken promises about writing the next weekend or when I got home from work. It was a vicious cycle.

In my heart of hearts, I long to be a good writer, but a prolific one too. I need practice to get better, not excuses. I admire people who can seemingly make a dollar out of fifteen cents, but with time. That’s what I’m looking to do. If I have 15 minutes - what can I do now? If I’m waiting somewhere, what can I do right now to move things forward? I may not always get blocks and blocks of time.

What I know for sure is that the perfect time (when I’ve gotten enough sleep and nothing else needs my attention) will never come.

I’ve got to make the most out of what I have right now and see where that takes me.

Character Counts!

noreply@blogger.com (Shayla) — Tue, 31 Jan 2017 08:30:00 +0000

This has been an incredible week in American politics. We have a new president and he’s wasting no time at all implementing his limited and short-sighted agenda.

I did not vote for Donald Trump. I just couldn’t. He doesn’t come across as someone who is reasonable or intelligent. He just talks a lot of shit. He’s got the temperament of a 5 year old that needs a nap.

What still perplexes me, months after the election is this: As you know, I work a 9-5 job. Our division (comprised of just about 140 people) has a president. If he did even half the things Donald Trump has done during the campaign, he’d be fired. If these antics are not good enough for 140 people, why are they good enough for an entire nation?

I recently came across a site called Character Counts that focuses on cultivating character in our young people. One of the highlights is the Six Pillars of Character, which I think serve to explain exactly what’s wrong with our current president:

TRUSTWORTHINESS: Be honest • Don’t deceive, cheat, or steal • Be reliable — do what you say you’ll do • Have the courage to do the right thing • Build a good reputation • Be loyal — stand by your family, friends, and country

He hasn’t yet released his tax returns and there is no definitive indication that he has suitably divested himself of his personal business interests. Besides, anyone who has declared business bankruptcy five times clearly games the system.

RESPECT: Treat others with respect; follow the Golden Rule • Be tolerant and accepting of differences • Use good manners, not bad language • Be considerate of the feelings of others • Don’t threaten, hit or hurt anyone • Deal peacefully with anger, insults, and disagreements

Tolerant? He said in his campaign that he was going to ban Muslims from entering this country. He hasn’t been in office two full weeks and he’s done just that. He doesn’t deal peacefully with anyone or anything. If you dare to disagree or challenge him, he’s quick to threaten and/or insult you.

RESPONSIBILITY: Do what you are supposed to do • Plan ahead • Persevere: keep on trying! • Always do your best • Use self-control • Be self-disciplined • Think before you act — consider the consequences • Be accountable for your words, actions, and attitudes • Set a good example for others

If his Twitter account is anything to go by, self-control is a foreign concept. So is ‘thinking before you act’. He put the travel ban in place but never thought to consult the other parts of the government that would need to implement and enforce the ban. He just went off, half cocked.

FAIRNESS: Play by the rules • Take turns and share • Be open-minded; listen to others • Don’t take advantage of others • Don’t blame others carelessly • Treat all people fairly

Don’t blame other’s carelessly? Yes, it’s the media’s fault that the turnout to his inauguration was much lower than he insisted it was. It’s also the media’s fault that millions of women protested his election the day after the inauguration - by the way, that crowd was definitely bigger than his.

CARING: Be kind • Be compassionate and show you care • Express gratitude • Forgive others • Help people in need

Apparently he’s got a list of enemies and retribution is coming. There is no forgiveness or compassion in this White House. He’s isn’t even grateful to be elected president. He’s too busy whining and crying about how millions of illegal immigrants voted in the election, which is why he didn't win the popular vote.

CITIZENSHIP: Do your share to make your school and community better • Cooperate • Get involved in community affairs • Stay informed; vote • Be a good neighbor • Obey laws and rules • Respect authority • Protect the environment • Volunteer

He won’t cooperate with anyone who doesn’t share his opinion. He’s the president and he’s not even interested in staying informed…there’s no need when you have alternative facts.

I don’t support this President. I can’t. I don’t think his supporters truly understand the fact that when the rights of just one of us is in jeopardy, then ALL of our rights are in jeopardy. He promotes dissension and mistrust and unfortunately, it feels like it's starting to take hold. He doesn’t want unity. He wants us suspicious of others because they don’t look like us. Although, as a black woman, I don’t feel like I’m included in the ‘us’ either.

He signed an executive order and instituted a nation wide travel ban on Muslims entering this country (except of course, for the Muslim countries in which he does business). What’s to stop him from picking up the same pen and repealing the Civil Rights Acts? What’s stopping him from reinstating a ban on gays in the military or a ban on gay marriage?

While he was elected by democratic means, this bull in a china shop approach feels strangely like a dictatorship - my way or the highway - and I worry that, as great as this country is - what’s left of it after Trump is done will have me considering a move to Canada.

This Is Me

noreply@blogger.com (Shayla) — Thu, 26 Jan 2017 08:30:00 +0000

Developing self-awareness is one of the greatest gifts you can give to yourself. Truthfully, I don’t think there’s enough focus on it in stories that are written about a successful life. People will talk forever about hard work, vision and persistence. Undeniably, those are part of the mix, but self-awareness is about being in tune with yourself and your capabilities. It means not wasting time focusing on things you will never be or never do simply because it fits in with some else's vision of what a life should be.

Let’s say you’ve got an incredible facility with numbers and technology. You want to be an engineer. However, you’ve been born into a family circus performers. There’s a place for you in the family business as soon as you’re of age. Your family is counting on you and you don’t want to let them down, but neither your talents or passions lie with that choice. Your family thinks that college is a waste of time and that you’ll end up with a boring life, chained to a desk. What follows are pressures and insults and perhaps not so veiled threats that should you actually leave the circus and go to college, you’ll be on your own. That’s some scary shit. Most people acquiesce under the mountain of pressure, but there are a few that don’t bend, even at the cost of their closest relationships. They know what is right for them. This is an instance of self-awareness.

Accepting who you are and what you need to be happy in this life is nearly equal to having a super power. There are so many messages, coming from everywhere, telling us how to live and what’s constitutes a good life. Being able to ignore them and walk your own path takes courage.

Self-awareness is also being honest with yourself about your strengths and weaknesses. Despite appearances, no one excels at everything. Lying to yourself about what you do and don’t do well is a recipe for disaster. That doesn’t mean you can’t reach for the stars, or push yourself. The point of being self-aware isn’t complacency or a resignation to mediocrity. It is truly understanding who you are and what you can do. It usually involves a dose of humility, because you have to recognize your weaknesses as well - and sometimes that means asking for help. That’s tons better than being a bullshit artist, hoping that you aren't found out as a fraud.

Self awareness has been a journey I’ve been on a long time. I suspect that the discoveries will only end when I do. Every year on this earth, I keep finding out more and more about myself. One of my early gems is that I don’t respond well to needy, clingy people. You know, people that need you to call them all the time or insist that we hang out several times a week just to maintain a friendship. Thinking about it gives me the shakes. I’ve got a busy life and the introvert in me relies my alone time for the sake of my sanity. There was a time or two, earlier in my life, when I hadn’t accepted this about myself. I even thought something was wrong with me, that I needed to change who I am, so I could fit.

Just no.

Besides, I wanted to be liked. Meanwhile, I was uncomfortable and annoyed. I’d countdown the minutes until the interactions were over. Truly, it wasn’t the other person’s fault; it was on me. I was in this situation in the first place, because I was not in acceptance of a basic truth about my personality and was trying to please other people.

I think that’s what self-awareness forces us to do. When you know, in your bones, that a situation, a relationship, a career is not for you (or it is), you can act accordingly without regret or reservation.

Other people may not understand, but they don’t have to live your life, you do.

Ego Sickness

noreply@blogger.com (Shayla) — Tue, 24 Jan 2017 08:30:00 +0000

One of the most refreshing things about dealing with dogs is that they have no ego. They want affection and their basic needs met. There is no posturing, no elaborate revenge plot or checking for haters. There is no embarrassment or grudges. They always seem to be present, giving full attention to where they are now, instead of replaying old hurts on loop. They love without fear of rejection. I want to live in that world.

When I say ego, I mean that part of all of our psyches that unreasonably insists that we’re the bomb dot com. It’s way beyond confidence. It’s the part of us that believes because of our talent, looks, money, power, etc. that we truly are more important than other people. Ego desperately needs constant validation from outside and lashes out when someone has the nerve to disagree or point out you’re wrong. It’s not healthy. I think it’s a sickness. An at heightened levels, it makes you act insane. Watergate scandal, anyone?

Ego is an equal opportunity destroyer. A newly minted shift supervisor at Hardees is in just as much danger of succumbing to ego as a CEO of a Fortune 500 company. What’s key here is perception. All leadership roles have some kind of title, many of which sound incredibly important and impressive. That’s fine, that’s what titles are supposed to do. The problem begins when we internalize them (and the things that go with them) and believe we are more valuable than other people and as such, not subject to them same rules as everyone else. This is where shit goes sideways.

It’s what truly worries me about the new administration. President of the United States is an incredible title. So incredible that only 44 other people in the history of our country have held it. It’s the pinnacle of leadership. Unfortunately, our brand new leader has an ego the size of a solar system. He reacts to tweets. To fucking tweets.

I take that back - he reacts to everything. Nothing rolls off of his back. He lets nothing go. Everything is catalogued and stored for later personal and pointed retribution. Through his campaign, he offered one insult after another, but no concrete plan as to how he was going to really improve the country. I think he’s missing the fact that although being POTUS is the most powerful position in the world, it’s also the zenith of public service. He’s now a public servant - and that public includes people that are not white or male or straight or christian.

His ego can’t even handle the fact that, despite photographic evidence, millions of people did not show up to his inauguration. He’s taking the media’s reporting of this as a personal attack, instead of using it to acknowledge he’s got a lot of work to do to unite the country.

What’s even scarier are his cabinet nominations and advisor appointments. A number of these people have leanings that are intolerant at best, outright bigoted at worst. The Chief White House Strategist, Stephen Bannon, was the chairman of Breitbart News, a site dedicated to the extreme right with not-so-subtle racist leanings. This guy is a trusted advisor to the president.

I respect the office. I am proud to be an American. The people I’ve voted for haven’t always made it to the Oval, but with the results of this election, I’ve never felt so unsure about what’s going to happen to our basic civil liberties.

I’m concerned that Donald Trump has more ego than sense and his time in the White House is going to propel this great nation into a breeding ground for mistrust and divisiveness. Or worse.

I hope that I am truly wrong and this man turns out to be the breath of fresh air his supporters believe him to be.

If not, less than four years from now, we’ll get another chance to make a new choice.

The Wrong Question

noreply@blogger.com (Shayla) — Thu, 19 Jan 2017 08:30:00 +0000

"Does this make me look fat?"

I actually had someone ask me this in the last few weeks. I was a bit stunned. It’d been so long. I’d actually relegated that type of question to “olden times”, like someone asking me if I’d like to drink a Tab. They don’t make those anymore. I didn’t think people asked those types of questions anymore either.

Why women, why? Where's our Girl Power?

I’ve had ladies of all sizes ask me that question - including someone who regularly ran marathons and volleyed between a size zero and a two. No, insanity does not discriminate.

Yes, it’s in-fucking-sane. Really. First of all, it’s a trick question. Millions of men know this. You can’t win, no matter what the answer is. Everything about your response is being scrutinized: how rapidly you answer, the level of enthusiasm and the inflection of your voice. If it doesn't meet the asking party’s carefully structured criteria, then you have insulted them.

In my simple mind, there are only two categories for clothes. Flattering and unflattering. No body type is exempt. Some of us have long torsos, others have short legs or broad shoulders. The combination of attributes is nearly endless. Even if you’re skinny as a rail, every style will not look good on you.

I’d like to state for the record that spandex looks good on only 1% of the population. Read: Olympians. Anyone who buys or sells spandex outfits to anyone other than for the purposes of performing in an Olympics should at least be ticketed/arrested on a level commensurate with a DUI. Period.

We ask the entirely wrong question when we wonder if something “makes” us look fat. We should be asking ourselves if we feel healthy or powerful or whole. We should be asking ourselves if our clothes feel good on our bodies. If you feel pretty in something, then not much else matters.

If you feel uncomfortable in your frame right now, that’s fine too. Start doing the things that will get you there. Eat healthy. Exercise. Meditate. Stop giving a shit about what other people think. After a while, you will notice changes, even if no one else does.

I don’t think we take attitude into consideration nearly enough. Attitude makes the clothes too. Body language conveys how we feel about what we’re wearing. If you’re always tugging or adjusting your clothes (or your hair, or your makeup) that’s a big bright neon sign that you’re uncomfortable. No es bueno.

Wherever you can, conduct a little experiment. Walk down a hallway or a block and pretend, for 30 seconds, that you’re on a catwalk. Pretend all eyes are on you as you strut through work, or down the aisle in Target. Feel it, damnit. You. Look. Fierce. Own that shit, regardless of your dress size.

You don’t have to worry about ‘looking fat’, you're too busy looking good.

Eight and Nine

noreply@blogger.com (Shayla) — Tue, 17 Jan 2017 08:30:00 +0000

I’ve had my birthday in the last 30 days and it’s a new year. There’s always tons of reflection that I do during this time.

Just this past week, I got my eighth and ninth tattoos.

Say what now?

Holy shit, I have nine fucking tattoos.

This year, Ray & I will be celebrating 17 years together. 14 of them married.

I told him that my tattoos are symbolic of our relationship. He had this puzzled look on his face. What do you mean? He asked.

I told him it’s because when he met me, I only had 1 tattoo. On my back. A small sun that hardly anyone could see. Now? I have 3 tattoos on one arm; two on the other. They definitely can be seen - especially on a summer day when all I can stand are tank tops. I have 3 on my back and one on my foot. This was not the woman he married. I told him that I doubted that he looked at me walking down the aisle on our wedding day and thought man, she’s going to get a lot more tattoos!

He laughed.

The tattoos are a physical manifestation of the growth and change in our relationship. We are not the same people who met in 2000. I’ve been blessed to feel like not only have the changes we’ve both made have been accepted, but the process has also been honored and celebrated. That wasn’t the plan, per se. There was no plan, except to spend the rest of our lives together.

Communication is a huge part of our relationship, so when I realized my own feelings about it, I told him I was going to start getting tattoos - with the likely conclusion being that I would eventually have full sleeves. He didn’t flinch. Told me to go for it. I asked him if he was really OK, because I knew that marking my body in such a way - while it was something I absolutely needed to do - was going to be something he’d be looking at until one of us died. Besides, what if it turned him off? It wasn’t like I was getting ‘ALL ABOARD’ tattooed above my ass, right? I wanted my ink, but I didn’t want to stop getting laid. Again, without hesitation, he told me that I had his support - so much so that he got a tattoo right along side me that first time. Six years later, he’s still rooting me on; he designed tattoo #8.

The acceptance that exists in our relationship sometimes astounds me - and I’m living it. We met in our mid-twenties and are worlds away from those two wonderful souls who decided to lean in to their inexplicably strong feelings. I’m so grateful to them for making a pact that it was just them against the world. I’m so glad we’ve seen each other through the last half of our twenties, all through the thirties and are now nestled together in our forties. We’ve raised a family. We’ve lost family members and dealt with serious illness, together.

He’s never, not once, tried to change me. I don’t have to conform to some kind of standard. All I have to do is be me. That’s all he has to do too. It’s what makes the relationship our safe place in the world.

More tattoos will be coming. Without a doubt, I’ll get the itch for more and I’ll hit double digits. As I told him all those years ago, this will go on until I’m on to that next place. There is something inside me that compels me to do this. It’s part of my evolution, I know it and I accept it - even if others in my life don’t quite understand my ‘why’. I do and he does.

That’s enough.

Goodbye Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (Shayla) — Thu, 12 Jan 2017 08:30:00 +0000

Dear Facebook,

I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to quit you. For good, this time.

It’s not you, it’s me.

This is precipitated by that consistently nauseated feeling I get when I think of you and all those useless, insipid posts that people put up. When I think yet again that I need to pare down my friends list to people I actually consider friends and/or people that will not repeatedly invite me to join them to play your stupid games. I can’t figure out if they keep inviting me because they assume I made a mistake when I hit the decline button, or if the grand plan is to wear me down.

I really detest posts like “8 Ways To Know if You Have a Real Man” or “Repost if you Love The Lord/Your Grandchildren/Your Dogs”. If you need Facebook to tell you whether or not you’re in a relationship with a man or an overgrown child, then you have more problems than eight bullet points can address. Those repost request are always for the most absurd shit. Why do I need to declare my feelings for the rest of Facebook? The religious ones seem to consistently have some shaming element to them, often with a veiled threat. You don’t think so? I actually saw one where it reminded people that they don’t want the Lord to be ashamed of them on judgement day…so they shouldn’t deny him on Facebook. Really? What a crock of holy shit. Besides, Jesus is on Twitter. He won’t see the post.

I don’t have the urge to post personal things anymore. I don’t want people to know where I spent Christmas or how drunk I was for New Years - all anyone needs to know is that it wasn’t as drunk I as would've liked. You’re right, I did post the photos from our family trip to New York. That was just a few months ago in October. My heart wasn’t really in it. I’d finally taken the opportunity to use the photo editing software on my computer and I loved the results. That’s really what I wanted to share - my newfound photo editing skills, not much else.

The obvious answer to all of the issues I have is to ignore them, right? Just get on, see what I like and then get off. I have been doing that for the last year, but still being on Facebook feels like I’m contributing to the problem - like those people who slow down to look at a wreck on the freeway and only cause traffic.

I do like seeing photos of the babies in my family - especially since I don’t get to see them as often as I’d like, but maybe our breakup will be the push I need to keep in touch with them in the real world, where I can snuggle and play with them.

I know my one small withdrawal from your world won’t really make one damn bit of difference. You have millions upon millions of users and won’t shed a single tear over my exit. But we’ve had a long relationship and some good times. It seemed wrong to simply disappear without a word.

Maybe when the world gets a little less crazy - or I start making ‘friends’ with less crazy people, I’ll come back.

Take care,

Shayla

The Fair Game

noreply@blogger.com (Shayla) — Tue, 10 Jan 2017 08:30:00 +0000

“It’s Not Fair!”

This phrase evokes such righteous emotions. It’s a point of view that we’ve all been taught.

You probably have agreed with such a declaration, or even uttered it yourself a time or two. But after 41 years on this planet, I’ve come to a conclusion:

Fair is for fairy tales.

That’s where most of us got the notion, right? Maybe not strictly fairy tales, perhaps after-school specials or Saturday morning cartoons, but it’s thread into our culture. It’s the balance that our parents tried to keep in our homes growing up - especially if you had siblings.

Though, when you think about it, the concept of fairness kind of fucks your mind up.

It is a lofty premise. An aspiration, really. It’s a utopia, where evil deeds are punished and we all die peacefully in our sleep at 102.

You leave childhood expecting fairness in the world, only to find out that the ‘real world’ couldn’t give two fucks about maintaining that balance. If you’re lucky, you figure this out relatively early and are able to adjust.

If not, you find yourself unhappy. Mostly because your belief system is not based in reality.

Why? Because no matter how it was packaged for you, ‘fair’ is in the eye of the beholder. It’s a perspective and definitely one that is usually invoked when things aren’t going your way. It’s not necessarily based in truth. How do I know this? Because the truth does not change. Truth? Water is composed of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. It’s also wet. Water being anything more than that is a matter of perception. To a drowning man, it’s a killer. To a woman dying of thirst, it’s her savior.

Fair is based on belief. Belief is based on perception. Perceptions can be wrong.

Fair keeps us in a victim mentality. Unfairness is invariably inflicted upon us by forces outside our control and our declaration of this affirms our acceptance of that power.

Instead of squawking about what’s unfair, we can take the situation and figure out a way to use it to our advantage. We can look at our circumstance like a crime scene investigator and see where our responsibilities lie. We can decide whether or not this situation is really as important as we’re making it. We can make the choice to forget about the whole thing and just let it go and move on. Few things deserve an upgrade to DEFCON 1.

All I’m saying is that you should be really careful about declaring things unfair. What you’re really saying is that you didn’t like what happened and are completely powerless to do anything about it and this also may be a mini-tantrum.

Trust me, that isn’t a good look.

Ho Ho Ho...No

noreply@blogger.com (Shayla) — Thu, 05 Jan 2017 08:30:00 +0000

I’m really glad that the Christmas season is over. Really.

Every year, I see the insane footage from the Black Friday sales, which mark the official start of the Christmas buying season (also known as 6 pm Thanksgiving). These bargain hunting power shoppers appear downright feral. People have been killed, either for what they managed to get into their baskets or trampled in the rush to get into the stores. It’s pretty vicious.

There are so many reasons, most of which would take a doctoral thesis to cover, but at the very heart is our culture’s over-identification with stuff. We’ve somehow got the notion that if you have the most (or most expensive) stuff then you’ve won something. Or that you’re a better, more powerful, beautiful, skinnier version of yourself. At least that’s what the advertisements need us to believe. It’s why the average American household is over $16,000 in credit card debt. It’s why our landfills are full of shit that will take hundreds, if not thousands, of years to decompose. Personal storage is a $22 billion/year industry - for people who have so much stuff that it will no longer fit in their house.

When you’re a kid, Christmas doesn’t have all these headaches. For me, it was all about family and giving a list to my mama of things I wanted from the Sears catalog. I know, I was seriously lucky. My parents (and grandparents) worked really hard to make sure that my sister and I had wonderful holidays, including an elaborate set up in the living room of our gifts from “Santa”.

I don’t think I appreciated the effort it took to pull that off I had kids of my own. Just like my parents, I initially went in for the big, extravagant blow outs. I remember one Christmas in particular my daughter actually started crying because she was tired of opening presents. On top of that, my kids only played with a few of the toys we bought. I could put the rest in a closet and pull them out throughout the year. They thought we’d actually bought them more new toys!

That’s when I started to re-examine my take on Christmas. I have to admit, my foundation was shook. The way I’d known my entire life just stopped making sense. My husband and I decided that we needed to make some changes. The very next year, we pared the gifts way down. It was funny to realize that it hardly put a dent in the kids’ fun. Ours is a blended family. Each of our children had (at least) two distinct Christmases, plus all the grandparents, aunts and uncles. Gifts all over the place. They hardly needed us to re-create Toys R Us in our living room.

As they got older, and Santa Claus’ true identity was revealed, we stopped buying gifts altogether and just gave them cash. It may seem cold, but I find nothing heartwarming or personal about fighting people at the mall to buy shit. It’s pretty demoralizing, especially when this whole season is supposed to be about family, gratitude and love.

Another thing I didn’t realize when I was a kid: The guilty gift game that adults have to play. Guilt because they got you something and you didn’t get them anything. Or, guilt because their gift to you was way more expensive than what you bought for them. It can drive you insane. Or, my least favorite is trying to buy a gift for a distant relative you might see on Christmas, but you have no idea what they like - but you have to get them something. They have no idea what you’d like either, so you end up exchanging gifts that neither of you like.

Peppermint-coconut scented body spray? Jeez, you really really shouldn’t have. I mean, really.

For the most part, my family and I have agreed to stop exchanging gifts - for the adults. I can’t tell you what a fucking relief that has been. It’s not about the money. Instead of buying gifts for each other, we adopt a family through a program and spend our holiday gift budget on them. It’s totally sobering when you’re buying things for folks and they’re asking for simple things like school supplies or pajamas or blankets. Doing that makes me feel joy. Like I’m living in alignment with the Christmas spirit - which includes helping others - and I don’t mean helping others get a bigger TV.

There’s nothing wrong with giving and receiving nice gifts for Christmas, but for me it was turning into a gift card exchange. It just felt like a race to complete this running list in my head, which included figuring out a reasonable amount to spend on someone you may or may not have any real affection for. Besides - and I may lose my woman card over this - I loathe shopping. It’s not a pastime for me, it’s a chore. Most of what I buy is online. Going into stores…trying on shit…going through racks or bins of crap? That’s hellish.

All I really want for Christmas was the health and safety of my family and friends. I make a good living. I want for very little. Throughout the year, if see something I really like, I just buy it. I don’t need more things. Not things that money can buy anyway.

Don’t get me wrong, I like stuff too, but it’s not everything. It can’t replace the connection that we are all craving.

I’m not shitting on Christmas, at least not in its entirety. Outside of the shopping centers (and connected parking lots), I do notice a kinder, gentler spirit that seems to abound during the holidays. I just wish we could bottle that up and spread it around the entire year. Instead of going into January thinking about how to pay off all the crap we just bought, we would take the memories of the time we spent with those who mean the most to us.

IDGAF

noreply@blogger.com (Shayla) — Tue, 03 Jan 2017 08:01:00 +0000

I try, in my life, to limit the number of things I actually give a fuck about.

Really.

Mercifully, I’ve been able to piece together an adequate amount of self-awareness to see this clearly. I only have so many fucks to give. I wasn’t always like this. I’ve spent a lot of time (more than I’d care to admit), giving a fuck about inconsequential shit. Wasting a ton of time.

To be clear, when I say ‘give a fuck’ I mean:

Allocating your physical and/or mental and/or financial resources to something or someone - whether the recipient of this energy is aware of it or not.

There are whole industries dedicated to making sure people give a fuck about the wrong thing.

Celebrity news. Kanye had a breakdown. Rob & Blac Chyna broke up - oops, no, they got back together. The Jenner that’s dating Tyga bought him another car (damn, lots of Kardashian related shit). I’ve let myself go down the rabbit hole that is the comment section on these sites and it made me sad - for humanity. It’s an overload of vitriol. People actually seem to spend material amounts of time providing commentary on the lives of people they’ve never met - with gumption and gusto.

Conversely, the opinion of others is always another thing not to give any fucks about. We want to be loved/respected/seen so desperately that we give almost worshipful credence to what other people might think about what we do. We will willingly become unrecognizable to ourselves for the chance at validation. Fuck that noise. You only get the one life. Even if reincarnation is really a thing you won’t remember the other go ‘rounds you’ve had. So as far as you’re concerned, this ain’t no rehearsal.

I read an article recently that explained how Americans spend billions of dollars a year on their pets. This figure included clothes, toys and even plastic surgery for neutered pets that are no longer anatomically correct. That’s right, you can have fake balls implanted in your dog, all for aesthetics. I don’t know why anyone would give a fuck about their dog not having balls. A) You had them cut off in the first place and B) Dogs don’t care. They aren’t going to be shunned at the dog park. We are a nation rich enough to have elective (and unnecessary) surgery performed on dogs, but there are children who go to bed regularly without enough to eat.

I’m not suggesting that we shouldn’t give a fuck about anyone or anything. That’s antithetical to the point of us being here on this plane of existence. Just be discerning about it.

I usually start with the big picture. What kind of person do I want to be? I’d like to be the kind of person where I’m more concerned with (and well versed in) what’s going on with the worldwide refugee crisis, or the drought in California. I’d like to be a person that meditates daily and exercises regularly and eats only the the best, healthy foods. I’d like to focus on my work, continuing to push myself and reach my potential. I’d like be a great wife and mother and daughter and friend. I hope to leave my tiny part of the world better than I found it.

Anything else? Distraction.

It’s not only the mental and physical effort that it take to give a fuck, it’s the time. Time is a non-renewable resource. Whether you spend it on bullshit or not, it’s gone. Despite the cutting edge efforts of the cosmetic surgery industry, you will never be 10 years younger again, no matter what your face looks like. This ride comes to an end, for every single one of us.

I just think it will suck to get to the end and realize you gave too many fucks about the wrong thing.

Zilch, Zip, Nil, Nought, Nothing

noreply@blogger.com (Shayla) — Sat, 27 Aug 2016 05:10:00 +0000

I was 22 the first time I got married.

Stubbornly convinced that love would make all those gigantic flashing red flags irrelevant, I eloped to Las Vegas. Despite him being almost 10 years my senior, he had no earthly idea what it meant to be a grownup, bless his heart.

We were not compatible in any way. We probably should have just dated a few months and parted ways. Instead, we got married.

Our relationship was an exact replica of one of the rules of multiplication:

Any number, multiplied by zero, becomes a zero.

We fought constantly. We separated and reunited on a somewhat predictable loop.

I don’t know what number I could have offered to represent what I was bringing to the table all those years ago. What I know now is that it wouldn’t have mattered if that number was 200 gazillion trillion; the zero would destroy it.

What’s a zero? The someone or something in your life that makes all that you have going for you completely irrelevant. A cocaine addiction is a zero. Having no self control is a zero. In my case, hitching your horse to the absolute wrong wagon is a big, fat, undeniable zero.

Willful blindness persisted. I still don’t know what exactly I was trying to prove. We kept getting back together. After a year, I was pregnant. It was a band-aid on a bullet wound. Babies are miracles, not magicians. They cannot void a zero.

Looking into my daughter’s eyes during those first few months, I knew my moment of truth had come. It was time to make the gut-wrenching decision to admit that we weren’t going to make it until ‘death do us part’. It was time to admit I failed.

The answer to a multiplication problem is called a product. If you don’t want a product of zero, then you cannot have any zeroes in your equation.

My daughter was depending on me to do not only the right thing for her, but the right thing for all of us. I had to finally trust that I could handle what would come next.

It was one of the best decisions I’d ever made.

Getting rid of a zero always is.

All In For Freedom

noreply@blogger.com (Shayla) — Mon, 18 Jul 2016 04:57:00 +0000

Ray and I were getting some dinner today and I got a reminder of the importance of the First Amendment.

As we were waiting for our order to come up, the TV flashed a new story about three officers being killed today in Baton Rouge. Two other patrons (both of whom happened to be African American) had vastly different reactions. One guy basically said “that’s what they get…they’ve been killing us for years.” The other guy says “more violence don’t solve the problem. It’s ignorance like that, that’s what keeps the tension going.”

Right now, it feels like there’s some kind of killing season here in America. It’s Florida. It’s Louisiana. It’s Wisconsin. It’s every state in the union and no one is winning.

The lesson here is this: Even though we have some deep rooted problems to solve, America is still one of the greatest countries in the world. I still feel lucky to have been born here - even with this country’s shaky history with people of color.

This is still a place of freedom and opportunity. Freedom, however, is a scary thing and it is never free. Having it is like opening the floodgates; both the good and bad can get in, but both must be protected. Especially the freedom of expression.

What we all need to understand is that protecting free speech is imperative to preserving the foundation of what makes this country great. It doesn’t matter if you don’t agree with what’s being said. I thought that it was pretty ignorant and cruel that the guy in the restaurant would actually be cheering the fact that those police officers lost their lives. It seemed incredible to me that he couldn’t imagine that these people were loved and had families that would miss them. He couldn’t have known whether or not we’d just lost three of the kind of police officers we need - people that want to serve the community and put their lives on the line everyday to do so. He was looking at the entire thing as it if was some sort of perverse score board and that killing police officers meant that black people were somehow winning.

The great thing about this country is that he’s free to say these things. And the other guy is free to disagree. This is important. If one of us doesn’t have freedom, then none of us do.

I’ve had to get this lesson with the presidential campaign too. It can’t just be what I’d like to hear or points of view that I can support. Donald Trump being able to spew his populist, xenophobic, misogynistic, racist hate speech means that a Pride Parade can happen. It means that a Black Lives Matter or Pro-choice rally can happen. You and I can openly disagree with Trump or President Obama or prayer in schools or whatever else we can think of without fear of being jailed or killed.

That does not happen everywhere on earth. With all the information available on the internet, I don’t think enough people get that. We’re too busy with distractions. I’m convinced that the celebrity news that is even cycled through many “serious” outlets are the pretty, shiny things that keep us preoccupied. Journalist, writers and artists are being jailed, terrorized and killed for expressing themselves (Egypt, Syria, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Russia, Lesotho, Bahrain, Maldives, North Korea, Algeria, China, Belarus, South Korea, Indonesia, Zambia, Sudan, Kyrgyzstan, to name a few places). For blogging (Syria, China). For tweeting (Bahrain). For a Facebook post (Bangladesh).

This is happening in the world. Today. To my American ears, this sounds completely insane. Here, I can tweet and Snapchat and Instagram anything I want. It’s my right. People elsewhere have to be willing to risk their freedom and their lives to do exactly what I’m doing right now.

Freedom of speech must be protected at all costs.

We can’t censor people because we don’t agree with what they say. It’s a slippery slope. Somewhere down the line, someone will decide that they don’t like what we’re saying and the next thing you know, we’re the ones being shut down.

We are so privileged here, that we’ve imagined that our rights have expanded into other areas, like never having to be offended. That’s not in the Constitution. Folks have enjoyed their freedom so long that they’ve turned soft, or their egos are so big that insults or offensive words send them into a tailspin. People here before us existed in much harsher times and managed to keep their head, even when the attacks were institutionally backed.

We cannot react to the madness by dismantling the very things that makes us great. That’s how ignorance wins. It would be like eliminating radio because we find some songs objectionable. We wouldn’t have to hear those songs anymore, true, but we also wouldn’t hear the Beatles or the Rolling Stones or N.W.A.

There would be nothing but silence…but the silence would be deafening.