This bird is a farmer!

This summer marks the year I become who I will become. I can FEEL it in my bones. This is the year my life begins. I am on my own, READY, and coming of age. Last night, a friend asked me if I wanted to meditate to discover my spirit animal. I've always figured I was a bird, but I accepted his invitation. (As a comedian, I've learned- you take any opportunity because any experience can lend itself to new material). The exercise asked me to envision myself in a field, to represent my connection to the earth. Suddenly, an animal comes toward me and gives me a gift. Now, these are all things that come to me from my subconscious, so in its own way, this vision is entirely dependent upon my imagination and my willingness to employ it. The animal that approached me was a blue bird. Now, it didn't fly to me, it walked on long bird legs. And then, the gift it gave me... was a turd. Not bird poop, no. A turd. From another animal. I laughed during the exercise as my friend spoke because the exercise said "hold the gift to your chest, take several deep breaths, breathe it in". Most people get something spiritual or enlightened, like a stone, or a butterfly. But me? No. I want turds. I and the other spirit animal crowd laughed about this, and I went home for the night. My friend texted me at 2:00 AM to relay that "I thought I should point out... turds are fertilizer. They help things GROW". Solid point. So here I am, a grounded bird ready to fly, ready to grow. Ready to BECOME!

 

Do I look like I have any time to be sad? NOPE! Living and loving!

So where I am going? Ireland. I'm changing my life with each moment. Becoming happier, wiser, more excited about my beautiful life. I am happy to be free. And damn it if all the turds I've been given in my life aren't helping me to grow! Thank you for EVERYTHING!

How are YOU growing? How is your life changing? Are you fighting the current or are you letting life take you where you must go?

A change would do you good.

I'm sitting here at an Aveda Salon school about to get my hair dyed by a friend of mine, who is a student at the school, and I cannot wait. No matter how it looks, it's a change. It's different. It's new. I'm excited!

that's one rosy heap of trash.

It is hard to offend me. It is hard to really hurt my feelings. And I've found that as I've gotten older, it has gotten easier for me to lick the wound and move on. But when someone close to me throws me under the bus, it really rips me up. I know we will all fail one another- I have certainly failed many in my life- and I've had to learn to apologize. I've had to learn how to empathize. It's easier to be less shitty when you put yourself in someone else's shoes. I have also learned that just because I have learned doesn't mean everyone else has. Someone recently said to me "Amanda, I think you think everyone is like you, or should be". That idea has been swarming my head. He was speaking of one particular conversation in which I said I don't understand the negative nancies of the world, the "fml" people. I don't understand why people "fuck" their whole lives because something doesn't go their way. He was, of course, one of those negative... neds, and I'm afraid I made him feel as if his feelings were insignificant. I have known pain in my life, and I know what it feels like to be made small in that experience. So, I extended his observation into my deeper human experience. I think, in many ways, it perplexes me that people are they way they are. I know we are all different by design (and thankfully so!), but a lot of things, to me, seem like common sense. Why not move on and be happy? Why not let life have a rosy tint even if the picture is a pile of garbage? That conversation is haunting me now as I contemplate the butthurt feelings I have toward a close friend of mine who did, indeed, offend my dainty little feelings. Do I hold her insensitivity over her head? Not because I'm petty or because I'm bitter, but because I want to offer her the opportunity to empathize, to stand in my shoes and change the climate. We gotta move on and be good to one another. We have to say we're sorry, and mean it. We have to deal with one another in compassion and openness, with the WILLINGNESS to be wrong.

I don't expect an apology, but I've said my piece and it's in your hands. We can move on when you're ready to walk in my size 9 shoes.