Unreality

I sit on my windowsill, listening to the sounds of the rain slowly turning to snow as it hits my room. Ukelele music softly plays from my speakers and I am content, safe from the fierceness of the winter mix and from thoughts of reality and truth that creep across my subconscious. After years of careful practice, I know the exact things to do to shut my brain off and only allow thoughts of peace and, surprisingly enough, determination enter my mind. Determination gives me peace, though a paradox that may seem. Giving myself a purpose gives me the peace that I am accomplishing what I need to feel ok. It's like...the possibility of satisfaction is some sort of satisfaction in itself.

My poetry book, staying warm in its leather binding and wrapped with my feet in this blanket, calls to me tonight.

Before I create on paper, though, I must create my thoughts into their own being on this page. I have had an inordinate amount of insecurities the past while, and, most recently, those insecurities have been in the person I can rely on the most, the one person I know best and trust innately. They have been in myself. It disappoints me that I am still able to lose some of the faith in myself that I am so proud of, that makes me the confident person I constantly have to fight to be. When uncertainty mixes with reality, you can certainly be in for a mental wallop. I'm learning, every day, to grip those things I must hold close and let go of the rest that will never be within my control. I'm learning that I have limitations, and they are never the things I expected them to be. With that, I am also learning that I have a vast number of capabilities that I never thought possible for me. Even to myself, I am not who I seem to be.

Bringing myself out of my own stream of consciousness, however, I guess I just realize that the little phrase "It's unreal" that I have been using has more relevance than I realized. You know how people say you create your own destiny? Well, as we learned in Perception and Behavior, "reality" doesn't really exist except in your own understanding of it. You create your own reality, your own world, and more importantly, you create your attitude and actions in that world. No matter the peer pressure or environment or the awfully heavy weight of loneliness that can seem to pull the most self aware person into a self defeating vortex, you are still powerful. You are still in control of your own reality and what you make of what you have. Life is given to you, a gift, in whatever form that may be. You can abuse a gift, abandon it, or you can embrace it for the fruitcake that it is and try to make it into your own miracle. Even the worst gifts, the ugly sweaters, can be styled right and look like a fresh new fashion statement.

I can't stand a lot of things. I can't stand my generation, common customs, social norms, even the fact that I need so much sleep to function. I can't even stand myself sometimes. But I try, every day, to choose a reality that I can stand. To make what I have into something that is tolerable or, better. It's hard being different in that way, in wanting to actively affect yourself into something better, someone more motivated and more compassionate and smarter and kinder. Mostly, we steer towards constant contentment, and that is often comfortable. I guess I just expect, or want to expect, something more out of myself.

Uncertainty, meet unreality. I'm making them both my own.