storyteller
we were sitting around the passover table and under florescent lights. the middle table located in the middle of the room - i always seem to fall in the middle of things. the loudest and the smallest person the room must stand in the middle in order to be seen whilst being heard. those among me laughed and shared memories of past moments, from childhood to present. somehow two of my favorite stories were inserted into the mix: the "that makes me horny" story and the one about my 4 foot 3 inch grandmother humming. (if you are familiar with neither of these, then we have yet to spend much time together) we were so loud that others around the room came to join out of curiosity or maybe annoyance of the unconstraint in our volume. my friend, malik, says in his cool london accent, "miriam is such a storyteller, hey?" i grin. but in my mind, i know how God-aweful this truth can be sometimes.there have been stories in my life that i have told that were completely false. yet i told them in confidence - to get a rise out of a crowd, to receive sympathy in my sporadic depression (the kind in which the details are too painful to go into, so you do what you can to get people's attention. or maybe this is just me, eh?), to simply prove that i could. whatever the reason, i told the stories and people believed me. some have been complete truth (as absurd as some of the true ones are), some are exaggerated, and sometimes i'm just a lying asshole.
disclaimer: before you go on and disregard me (or any story that i have every told you), know that this doesn't happen often anymore, save the few times i've fed a professor a sob story to get off the hook.
the thought came to me this morning, after going through my morning ritual of stretching, meditation, email, twitter, facebook: "be true to yourself." sure, for some, this thought may not be worthy of iconoclasm or my own show on CBN, but think about it for a moment. through the lens of heaven, through the eyes of the One who formed me and shaped me and loves me most, be true to yourself. i don't know about you, but this thought could very well be weighty to me because i have yet to be true to myself fully. maybe you've got it all together and i'm just effed up.
in any case, i've paused. i've scanned over the top of my life, and i've found that there is hardly life there most of the time. there is an imbalance, a disconnect. and the only way that i have been function has been the pulling and pushing of those around me. i have some good friends that light me on fire every now and then, and inspiration comes - to create, to ponder, to be present, to be spiritual. and still, there is not steady pace, like a new driver in the seat of a manual car.
i feel deflated. and often times, i feel far away. from what? i dunno. to use professional terms, i fear that i am suffering from an unhealthy work/life balance. the problem with me is that i have tried to make those things that bring me life also the things that bring me work (aka make that paper). there are those who have done this and thrived, and i'm sure it's all going to come together for me. but for now i'm in limbo.
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