Simplicity.

What ever happened to simplicity? I mean, it's quite a nice word that rolls off the tongue very pleasantly and often times makes you seem more intelligent than others would normally assume you are just by the fifty cent quality of it (not the rap artist 50cent). I often try to take moments out of my day to stand back and assess things; How am I feeling right now? Am I doing right by me? Have I helped someone else today? Do I feel that I'm any closer to where I want to be?... Most days, the answer is extremely simple: yes. 

However, it seems like that word isn't really sufficient enough in itself. It seems that the simplicity, the innocent curiosity and excitement surrounding life, has all but disappeared from my everyday existence...and (I'm not going to sugar coat it) that scares the hell out of me. 

I'm so happy to see people around me growing, learning who they are and what makes them tick, finding people to share that joy and happiness with, moving forward, working hard but keeping things simple...and yet, why is it so hard for me to re-embrace that in my life? I've been told by some that I'm standing in my own way... Other times people tell me that I'm just being too picky about what I want and that I have to settle and compromise sometimes and where I want to be because "I'm not getting any younger"...which I ALSO get...but I don't know......

I came home tonight and had a lot on my mind. For the first time in a long while I decided to turn to the keyboard for some thought processing...but as I sat here getting my tunes going and firing up Blogger I noticed a small calendar sitting on top of my printer...

The calendar is the 1986 edition of the Salamanca Rail Museum's annual calendar. It was open to March. To most, the image that was chosen for that particular entry would, today, seem like something from an old history book. It depicts eighteen rail workers standing in front of a train engine. Some of the men are smiling, some are blinking, and some look like they wanted to get back to work. The year of the photo was 1955. 

You see, my grandfather was one of those eighteen men in the photo.

As I sat here thinking about simplicity and where things were for me in my little orb, I couldn't help gravitating back to the photo on that page of that calendar...thinking, "What was simple for him? Did he ever feel this way? Frustrated over the challenges that were undoubtedly woven throughout his life in those years?" 

Here was a man who had been raised in Buffalo during the Depression, barely enough food to go around let alone clothing or shoes... here was a man who had served his country during the "War to end all wars" instead of playing professional baseball.... a man who had three children by the time this photo was taken and who would go on to raise three more in a house that he, himself, built for his family in the small railroad community of Salamanca... were things simple for him?......

Things were probably never simple for him...but I'm willing to lay just about any amount on it that he made them seem as simple as he could because one thing was for sure, he wasn't going to let any of it get the best of him...he couldn't...he had a family to provide for, to raise, to take care of, and to love. Simplicity didn't exist back then, not under those circumstances. The "simple" was in taking comfort in knowing that you had given your all in whatever it was that life had handed you that day.

For me, I thought it was rather fitting that I happened to notice that photo in the midst of all of my frustrations at the moment...I'm not really one for believing in fate or destiny but something tells me there was a reason I had left that calendar open to that page. Perhaps to some day remind me that things won't always be simple...but in some small way, that's ok, because "simple" is a mindset, a mental state that each of us defines differently based on our own own specific life circumstances. 

The simple in my life hasn't disappeared...it's merely reshaped the way it looks because, let's face it, life changes, every single day it changes! And there isn't a thing that we can do about it other than embrace the new and unknown possibilities that it means for us. 

So here is my challenge to not only myself, but for anyone else who might find themselves in this same frame of mind: Don't let the complexities of life scare you off of the path that you choose to walk. Life is ever-changing and we should be glad for that. No one likes to watch the same episode of the show over and over and over...they want to see how the characters react to the ever-changing landscape of the script. 

Take a breath. Take two. And be ready to play the best role of your life no matter what scene change comes next. 

[Curtain]

 

(my Grandpa is the man standing in the front left... with his eyes closed)

Under Pressure

I feel like I've missed something...a stop or a turn somewhere on this "road of life". Maybe I wasn't looking or maybe I'm just not there yet but I feel that I should have been looking for the stop labeled "Adulthood". Or perhaps I just think that I should have seen that sign since so many of the people who are close to me are exiting the freeway to buy homes or get hitched or (dare I say it) MULTIPLY! (dun dun dun).

Peer pressure is a funny thing. As much as you've been raised your entire childhood trying not to succumb, it's in your adult years that you learn how much society expects you to "follow the herd". You grow up, go to college, get a job, find someone to love, buy a house, a dog or cat perhaps, pop out some babies and voila; you're A-OK. 

If there's anything I've learned about myself throughout my (almost) 27 years, it's that I'm not a huge fan of pressure. Of any kind. Some people are, and I tried to be at one point, but when it comes to these big stops that I know are looming just around the corner, I'd rather pump the brakes or take a detour. 

Don't get me wrong, someday, yes, I will have a house, I will have some spawn (as my sister so eloquently refers to children), and I hope I will have a job that will support all of that. But for now, I'm content to live a little more for me. I don't like to use the term "self-discovery" because it implies that I'm trying to find something out about myself and that's really not the point of all this. 

I'm just waiting for the time when it all feels right. That moment when I just know that I'm ready. And hopefully I'll be smart enough to recognize when that moment is. 

Thanks for listening folks. 

Suck it up and keep rolling.

Ok, so I literally just finished writing out an epic "I feel sorry for myself because all of my friends are too busy with their adult lives to come out and play" post, but as I sat here rereading it I starting thinking that I really don't want to waste anyone's time with self-pity stories when I know damn well that the reason things haven't been the same lately is because things change, whether you want them to or not, and you have to learn to suck it up and play the cards you're dealt because there's no folding in the game of life, only bluffs. Fake it til you make it and even then you might still have to fake it. At the end of the day the only thing that matters is that you can look in the mirror after you finish brushing your teeth (if you still have them) and be completely and utterly satisfied with the person who is staring back. 

So on that note, I'd like to dedicate this post to my sister.

On the 7th day of July in 1986 at approximately 11:04pm, Megan showed me that the world was safe and that I didn't have anything to worry about. Two minutes later, I followed her lead and was born at 11:06. In nearly 27 years, things haven't changed much. Although I've come a long way in the worry department, I still have slip-ups, and for each and every slip-up, she's been there, telling me that it's ok, it happens, and life moves on; no harm done. And she's been right, every single time. 

Recently, I've been going through a bit of a difficult "adjustment phase" in my life. Much as with the story of me coming into this world, I've always seemed to be "just a couple of minutes" behind everyone else. Never in my life has this been as true as over the past couple years. It seems like every time I blink another friend is getting married, or having a baby, or buying a house, or getting a promotion, or a great job. And as happy as I am for them, it seems like with each and every advancement in one of my friends' lives, it's just one more advancement further away from me and where I am in my world. Throw in my impatience factor and voila, you've got a grade A anxiety case.

[Enter Megan]

Between working a full-time job during the day, completing her Masters, and apparently being the all-time East Coast wedding attendance leader, she manages to always have some effective (although not always eloquent) way of telling me to "get it together and start making it happen!". And not to say that she's always the most motivational of people either, because she's still my sister and I'm still her "little brother" and sometimes heads will roll. But let's face it, it's the tough love that sticks with you the most, whether or not you realize it at the time.

To try and stay on track with my thought here, I've been struggling a lot recently with my job and have been feeling a little low on the "self-worth" spectrum. Things have just seemed to be a never-ending cycle of the same old daily routine of "praise-less" work at basically the lowest of wages of most professions in New York State (don't get me wrong, I love my work but we're just underfunded and not appreciated very much by the people we try to help). To say the least, I haven't been happy. But somewhere in the past few days, at what has seemed to be the height of my frustrations, something made me stop and take notice of a few important things in my world that I kind of overlooked in my moment of self-pity. Megan had posted several dozen photos from throughout the winter. Photos of friends. Photos of the Holidays. But most importantly, photos of family. 

Although I'm sure she was simply posting the photos because she hadn't had time to up until that point, something kind of made me feel like it was the time that I needed to see them the most, as a kind of simple reminder to me to stop and see that the world is ok, and that I'm ok, and that no matter what, the people and times in those photos will still be there.

Many things happen throughout a person's life. Some of it we can control. A lot of it we can't. But that should never be something to get upset over. It's life. It happens. And there's no reason to waste time dwelling. Suck it up and keep rolling.