Growth

I recently splurged and bought myself a giant canvas painting of a tree.

I had my eye on it for a while, and I decided that it was time to reward myself for starting to take the necessary steps toward self-motivation. Maybe this seems a bit backward, and I really should have waited until I actually accomplished something before I rewarded myself, but I'm telling myself that having this picture in my room will actually help to motivate me.

I was really undecided after I actually went and made the purchase - it was fairly expensive, and even though I loved it I wasn't sure it was going to actually 'go' in my room. But now that it's hanging above my head at night, I feel so wonderful about its presence that I know I made the right decision.

After staring at my tree for what had to have been an hour, I realized that it's a silver leaf maple. This hits close to home - literally. There is a giant silver leaf in the front yard of my parents' house, the house I grew up in. I used to spend hours, days, really, sitting outside in that tree, doing everything from spying on neighbors, to playing a child of the wilderness with my friends, to kissing boys - I loved that tree, and even though I had to help my mom rake the hundreds of thousands of leaves that accumulated every fall, they made the best piles to jump in. If I needed to escape the world and be alone, I always had my tree to sit in.

Trees are amazing motifs. They symbolize life, and the ever-conflicting concepts of staying connected to the earth, rooted in the ground, and branching out, standing tall, reaching for the sky. But perhaps the idea that I connect with most is that of growth. I've always believed that my quest in life as a human on this earth is to learn as much as I can - to grow, and keep growing, no matter how much time goes by or how old I get. I feel as though it is something that many people forget about. They hit a certain point and they plateau, as though  there is nowhere else to go. But one can always keep growing, in all areas of his or her life. And I love that this tree will serve as a constant reminder to me that there will always be more knowledge to reach for - knowledge of the world, knowledge of craft, knowledge of others, knowledge of self. I'm thankful that this silly painting has found its way into my life.

30-Day Blogbuster Challenge

I've been bad. You know it, I definitely know it, it's just a fact that I've been trying to fight for a while now - but I'm coming to terms with it: I haven't posted in forever.

I made excuses - 'I have nothing to write about', that was the first one. Then I up and moved across the country, witnessed a thousand different life changes, and it was 'I have too much to write about' - I didn't know where to start, so I put it off, wondering how I could avoid a 2,000-word update, and I didn't even want this blog to be a bunch of bullshit about my life anyway - I was ashamed that that's how it's been turning out.

I make excuses for myself every single minute of every day. "I haven't started my acting career because <insert excuse here>." "I don't have enough money," "I don't have enough time," "I don't know enough people," "I don't have enough experience" ... When am I going to have enough of anything? I told myself that if I waited to move until I had enough money and resources, I was never going to do it. So, I just did it. I mustered up every last bit of vivacity I could, and I packed my whittled-down belongings and my little dog Toto into my air-conditioningless Saturn and I drove my ass for 20 hours across the mountains and the desert and arrived in the City of Angeles, Los Angeles, California, dripping in sweat and high on Redbull.

Wow I Suck

I'm sorry to say that I'm already hardcore sucking at being a blogger.

It's just that not much has been going on lately.  I go to work.  I come home and go to bed.  I wake up the next day to do it again.  I understand why people get so totally bored by their lives.  This cannot be what it's about.  Right?

The truth is, I haven't been my usual cheery sarcastic self lately.  And it's not because of work, because I know that my job is my job and not my life.  I suppose it's because I don't know what I'm doing with my life.  Boo hoo, right? Everyone says that - my mom still does, and she's 57 years old.  But I guess I use that phrase so loosely.  I do know what I'm doing with my life.  Right now, I'm living with my parents trying to save up money to move somewhere else so I can hopefully pursue an acting career.

I think I dislike adulthood because there's no solid goal to work towards.  "HAPPINESS."  That's my goal.  But what the eff does that mean?  It's not, "a paper on global warming," or, "get a 4.0," or even "graduate from college."  Nothing is definitive, and boy do I like definitive.  I like to have goals to work toward, not overall LIFE ones, but just smaller ones.  So you think I'd be happy knowing that I'm working toward moving out.  Not a big philosophical life goal, but a practical, next-step goal.  So why do I feel so restless?