It’s a Brave New World, Sort Of

What is this blog about? Me. Who cares? Not it! Ok, I do but I’m trying not to. 

Here’s the thing, everyone has a blog these days. Everyone has a niche. I don’t. I honestly don’t. I am funny, I’m daring, blablabla, and I’m also a failure. I am so beyond OK with that last bit though! I sort of suck at a lot of things. I am really good at a bunch of stuff, I give myself nice little pats on the back for it, but the stuff I sorta suck at is where it’s at! This is a world where everything online is perfect, and everything in my house is a goddamn disasterpiece! It’s not always a failure per se, sometimes it’s just realistic. It’s not picture Pinterest perfect. There is so much fun in failure and mediocrity. There is a sense of accomplishment in my mediocrity. Some days I feel like “mother of the year” because I put a happy sticky note in my kid’s lunch. How much fun is there in that failure, and mediocrity, and let me just add, normalcy, when you share it with people? We are going to find out.

We all have a negative ego. We all have that part of ourselves that keeps up from doing things that we love, and doing things we are passionate about because we are afraid, or because we are brave, BUT our negative ego whispers in our ear like Jiminy Cricket, “Nobody needs to see that”, or “Nobody cares”, maybe it’s “They’ll judge you, harshly! GO BACK!” “It’s not perfect, never mind”.  We think this little tiny voice is so helpful sometimes! We justify backing down because it just makes sense and we aren’t scared anymore. We are being “logical” winky winky! Logic is NOT the same voice. Logic IS helpful.  “Sweetie pie, do NOT wear that half shirt to Wal-Mart!” That is logic, not the negative ego. I equate the negative ego to being like schizophrenic voices. You know, I’d ignore anything inside my head that said, “Hey let’s go burn down the house!”  With that in mind, I am going to start ignoring my negative ego a little more.

LUCKY FOR YOU! You are getting to read to this blog because my negative ego told me you don’t want to see this so I’m doing it anyway. You may not think you’re that lucky. No, really. Like my sister, just look away. You don’t want to hear some of things I am going to make fun of myself for here. Celebrating my failures and mediocrity may be offensive.

This is my big warning paragraph! If you’ve made it this far you can still turn back if cursing offends you, dead people scare you, poor grammar irritates you, if you are a stickler for punctuation, you think sex talk is too much information or in bad taste, or maybe if you like wearing half shirts to Wal-Mart because I have already offended you. I am offensive. I am weird. Strange things come out of my mouth and they are going to appear here in type. 

My story is pretty simple. I have lived a pretty “typical” life. Had a job, had a husband, 2.5 dogs, and a kid. I pay my taxes, and do all the things grown ups are “supposed” to do. The only exception is, as one person said, “You are the weirdest person I know disguised as a normal person”. That was the nicest compliment I was ever given. 

For soooo many years my negative ego and other people told me not to do things that I really wanted to do. I listened to it, I listened to them. I was like one of those country songs about “life out there”, or something. Psh. All I could sneak in was a few daily or weekly revolts by using my china on a Tuesday, or wearing heels to the mall (gasp!). All of that changed over a year ago. 

My husband died, I went back to work, back to the life we had built, and slowly I had this crazy idea that I could just do what I loved. I could go back to school, I could write again, I could do what I was passionate about. My daughter, Gwen, was right there with me, braver than I am with NO negative ego!

Gwen wanted me to spend more time with her, and I missed spending time with her. She’s 10 and a bundle of fun, smarts, wit, and daring. So here we are. Having a little experiment with not listening to our negative ego. One of these days I’m sure it will morph into a post on not listening to logic because I drove Gwen to school once in PJ’s, and we were almost late. Thank Oprah I can drive my car like I stole it because I got her there in time, and I didn’t have to do the walk of shame in floral long john’s, UGG’s, and a ball cap that says “I heart NORGE” in sequins. No one knows who Norge is. Or what. The heart is actually a Viking hat. I’m off topic.

If you didn’t read my last post, I’m going to take a second and introduce Mason. He’s my fiancé, biggest fan, and responsible for beating down my negative ego. If you ever see me in a half shirt blame him! He is probably going to come up a lot in here because he’s my partner in crime now. His wife died right after my husband. We’ve been friends for a long time and thank god for that. I can still talk with my full around him, and I don’t have to do that thing call, “I’ll have the salad” when we go out to eat. We are both charging forward, bravely, happily, and I am SO glad I have his hand to hold while I do a bunch of this scary shit, even though some of it involves him.

In six months alone the adventures I’ve had have been amazing. All because I went ahead and did what I normally wouldn’t do. What else have I missed out on because I was listening to that stupid little voice? The adventures I am about to have are already lining up! Maybe some of them are misadventures, but they are usually funny nonetheless.

This experiment may be a failure, or it may not but it will be FUN. I will learn a lot from it, and I’ll be braver for it for sure. I already am. Will YOU be braver because of it? I hope so. What is YOUR negative ego keeping you from? Stop listening to that voice. We have enough negativity around us. As one my friend so wonderfully put it, “be kinder to yourself”, you’re not alone in your struggle