How many of us are living our best lives? Raise your hand.
Ok. Lemme start over.
I sound like a preacher embarking on what is to be a long Sunday sermon.
I’m actually gonna just go out on a limb here and say most of us are not.
My procrastinating ass included.
But lately, I’m starting to ask myself another question.
Why the eff not?
Like.
Why do we do this to ourselves?
Envision one life and live another?
For me, it’s almost as if thinking about the life I wanna lead is enough.
Like.
In my grave, I’ll be happy knowing, “Girl, you thought the hell outta dem dreams. God gon be pleased”.
I know good and well that’s not how this works.
Thats not how any of this works.
Besides.
I’ve sat in enough long Sunday sermons to know that He is most pleased when you do what the eff He sent you here for.
That intuition. That little voice that says, “Thats a good idea” is usually how the universe communicates but whadda we do? We follow it up with a “but” or a “not now” and a whole buncha “what ifs“. I am the queen of what ifs.
But last month I hadda birthday, took a metaphorical look at my pocket watch & realized, “Holy shit! I ain’t got much time left!”
Ever since then I’ve been running around like the restless white rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, scrambling to create a list of reoccurring ideas that have previously gone ignored. Here is the list below along with the ridiculous reasons why I have yet to achieve them.
1. I’d Dye My Hair Pink
I’m not even a girly girl.
I have no attachment to this particular hue.
In fact, to date, I have zero favorite colors on record.
But something happened when ol’ Ms. Burke, my kids school librarian, showed up with purple hair. Since that time, I’ve been ‘dying’ to get in on this pastel trend.
That was 7 years ago.
Today, I still stand with these same “dusty’n-uneven” black tracks.
Sometimes I’ll go auburn when I’m feelin’ edgy but that’s about as far as my edge’ll take me. And not just in the hair realm either. In real life. I am adverse to risk-taking and in some weird-writer-way, I think the pale pink hair I wish for symbolizes the first semi-permanent step in having my outside reflect my inside.
The Fear:
I keep envisioning having to pull the emergency, “Get a Real Job” cord.
Here’s the scene. I’m sitting across from a judgey interviewer.
I’m sporting a beige easter suit circa 2014 with a lint-ballsy cardigan.
As the only professional garb I’ve got left, it stands as my go-to interview outfit. And there, there on top of my head is a pink bob that I curled too tight last night. Which I imagine is exactly what she’s staring at as her eyes drift from my fidgety hands to the top of my head. And it’s during the good part of the interview too! You know the one where you lie about how being a perfectionist is your weakness?
Well within this vision I’ve pessimistically portrayed here, even my best, most affluent white voice does not convince this lady that I’m bout my office business. She calls me an imposter, tells me my interview shoes are outdated and sends me right to jail about lying on my excel skills. So. Yeah, There you have it. I won’t dye my hair because of a middle aged human resources director named Debbie that I may or may not ever meet.
2. I’d Travel the World Just Me & My Daughters
This one’s still fuzzy.
But what I do know for sure is that I don’t know how to divide fractions, decimals or really long division thus creating, tah-dah, my own scientific study that school is useless pass 8th grade. I dunno. I just have a feeling that they’d be better off learning the tenets of life in Tiananmen Square or somethin’? I kinda wanna see what would happen if I replaced a traditional education with real-life worldly experiences.
I seeeeee like normal, sour patch eatin-ass kids, but with purpose, mildly-combed bohemian hair and raggedy passports.
The Fear:
I’d be a horrible home school teacher as cited by the math admission up top.
Plus, unless we’re hitchhiking, traveling could get expensive, right?
And I read somewhere that kids need things like consistency, stability, broccoli….. How will we communicate? Where will we find products to maintain our mildly-combed bohemian hair? So many unanswered questions here. Maybe I should just continue seeing the world by myself and leaving them with Grandma until I figure this one out. (Tiptoes away).
3. I’d Smile More
Smiling makes ya feel good.
In fact, studies show if you’re not feeling good, you should force yourself to smile.
It somehow tricks your brain into actually making you feel good. For the record, I do smile, it’s just not as wide-a-grin as I want. There’s like a limit on how far my brain will let my lips go.
The Fear:
My teeth are not white.
(Peers in mirror and lifts upper lip).
They’re more like an off-white woodgrain.
And I do plan to smile more.
(Peers at wall calendar and lifts bottom pages).
But not until like late 2018, early 2019.
First I’ve gotta get them cleaned, whitened and straightened.
Then I wanna save up to have whatever rapper Young Thug had done to his grill.
So yeah, issa lot. But yay I can’t wait! I’m so excited I could smile. But it ain’t time yet. (Closed grin).
4. I’d Shave My Head
I realize that my hair has taken up 2 spots on this list which means it gots to go!
If for no other reason than to ignite a journey that has nothing to do with whether my hair is brown, blue, black or has a middle or side part this month. A journey that don’t cost me an arm, leg and a hairline. I’m a spiritual-rejuvenation-junkie, getting rid of ones hair appears to be well worth all the growing that goes on inside. One less thing to worry about on what is already a hair raising passage through adulthood.
The Fear(s):
I’m way too attached to this hair on top of my head.
This hair that belongs to a Peruvian woman I do not know.
More importantly, I have no idea how to work the natural hair that lives underneath the Peruvian woman I do not know.
I’m also afraid that I’ll hate it immediately afterwards.
And what if I don’t have the right shaped head for a shaved head?
What if nobody wants to give me head with a shaved head?
I make a horrible cat eye which is necessary for these kinds of do’s.
It won’t grow back. Hair does not grow back.
Forehead too big. Nope.
I don’t even cut my split ends
I will. Just not until Rihanna does it
5. I’d Be a Street Photographer
It won’t go away.
This overwhelming need to take photos of unsuspecting people and striking images
I’m not a photographer by any stretch of the imagination.
But in one day I can see seven things that are dying to be photographed.
And in one day I can ignore all seven of them, instead making a note in my phone to return another time. This impulse has become so nagging that I now keep a file in my phone entitled, “Remind Me to Take a Picture Of”.
Isn’t this sad? I’ve developed a massive mental compartment but not the willpower to get out the car and click the dang-gone picture? Pictures of the colorful and unoccupied spaces around my city, the normal people in front of ironic or vibrant backgrounds, the couple deeply in love in the park, under the tree. Ugh, I want to capture it all! But I never do. I’m scared. (Bites nails). So what could be a blossoming gallery of photos and a budding hobby is now simply a museum of ‘woulda, shoulda, couldas‘ just hanging there with hesitation.
The Fear:
The fear of rejection. Fear of being cussed out. And the fear of lookin stupid frollickin on the side of the freeway in a bed of wildflowers for a fuckin photo.
6. I’d Start a YouTube Channel
I don’t know how to contour, build a bomb or anything else youtube teaches you these days but chile I have the playlist that’ll put Apple music to shame and a few dance moves that, well, could quite possibly put me to shame too but hey, the point is, much like smiling, dancing don’t play when it comes to dopamine so combining this theory with my unfuckwitable music library and uploading it to the tube every so often fits in perfectly with my efforts to live my best life.
In fact, Michael Jackson once said some squeaky shit bout, “The worst thing you can do when you dance is think“. I don’t remember any other quotes from this sleepy nigga but as a emotional being, this one stuck with me forever. Because all I do all day is think; I think about the future, the past, whether I took the pork chops out the freezer to thaw for dinner – all that, all day. So when I get the opportunity not to ponder, I jump on it and by jump on it I mean iiiiiii:
Give’em a lil leg, take it right back then I dip it low, turn around, put one hand in the sky and hit the floor again. See. I told you my dance moves are trash. But dancing and mouthing along to my favorite songs makes me feel so alive that I’d love nothing more than to share that honest energy with the web. No dialogue. No heavy logic. Just sing-alongs and serotonin.
The Fear:
None. Fuck that. BRB…