Contrary to the Core...

I don’t mean to be.  I don’t TRY to be.  I just am.  If you tell me right, I will go left every single time.  It is so dumb...and it isn’t that I can’t listen, I do listen, I just have to go my own way regardless.  It is like there is this rebellious molten core of me that erupts whenever someone else tries to tell me what to do.

True story:

I used to go to this Buddhist meditation group in Jacksonville, Florida.  There was a period of sitting and then a walking mediation portion.  Everyone assumed a certain posture during the walking portion. Except me. I wouldn’t do it the way they wanted me to do it. The leader guy kept telling me I was doing the walking part wrong, but I wouldn’t change it.  After a little while of him being dead set on getting me to conform and me silently ignoring him, I stopped going.  I mean, how meditative is it to go and fight with the Instructor?

I am the kind of person who signs up for one of those healthy, organic and already made meal plans and then gets the food and has spent a lot of money on eating healthier and then eats ice cream for dinner!  Who does this?  If I want to eat ice cream for dinner, FINE!  But don’t spend hundreds of dollars on food that you are are going to avoid eating! FUCK!**

Whenever I go to a retreat or convention, I am the first one that starts actively avoiding things that everyone else is doing...”oh you are going to that session, well I am going to the pool!

I once went to a writing retreat in North Carolina with a writer friend, as we were driving up to the retreat center, I had this moment of panic about if they were going to make us wear name tags!  I told her, “I am NOT wearing a name tag!” (Completely irrational, I know, but I hate name tags, if I want you to know my name I will tell you!). My friend, after moving through all the facial expressions one might expect from a ridiculous statement such as this, said, “well, I am not wearing one either, if you aren’t!”  I said, "well if they MAKE us wear them, or have name badges, I am going to say my name is Uh, uh...”  She was like, "well I am not walking around with Uh uh all weekend with a name badge that says “Elizabeth!”  We laughed and I said, “You can be Nope.”  Thankfully, no one was made to wear name badges which was a good thing because the hell of my rebellion against name tags would have been raged against them!  Poor unsuspecting bastards!  So lucky they avoided all of that!

It doesn’t miss me that all of this rebel without a cause bullshit, is just bullshit!  I don’t know why I do it.  I just know that I do and no matter how stupid I know it is, even in the exact moment I am doing it, I am still going to see my line in the sand behavior as preposterous but still do it anyway.

For better or worse, I am forever like a dog at the door, if I am outside, I want in. If I am inside, I want out.  This is a very descriptive metaphor for my dating behavior!  If am in a relationship, I spend all of my time trying to figure out how to get out.  And if I am out of a relationship I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to get into one.  Well, that is how I used to be but not so much anymore.  I haven’t been in a relationship for almost two years...and have found a great deal of contentment and peace in my life just doing things on my own.  I am not relationship averse today, I am just not actively looking for anything anymore. I figure if God wants me to fall in love again, the person shall appear and I will know what to do about that when the times comes.

I do not WANT to be contrary to my core.  I just am.  About a great many things and as much work as I have put into this trait, defect, whatever, of mine, I can only claim marginal progress.

My mom and I were thinking of going to this Buddhist writing retreat in Colorado this summer.  We looked at it and the attendant cost and decided we would both think about it...and we both thought, upon further reflection that we didn’t want to go.  Something about apples and trees...

I guess I like my own thoughts and ideas and being stuck in the middle of a group think is my personal hell.  I need to be free to do my own thing.  I don’t want to join the masses.  But there is this other asshole that lives inside me that thinks that things like Coachella or retreats are a great idea...and then we get there after spending all that money, and I am like, “nah, thanks, I am gonna sit this one out! I will be at the pool, come get me for dinner.”  

So dumb!

I have gotten better though, I now sit with things long enough to allow my inner rebel to start panicking and throw up all sorts of roadblocks to the idea of a group activity!  And I let her unfurl herself so that I can better assess how much resistance we are gonna get on this one.  And sometimes, the fight is just futile!  But other times, I let my inner 13 year old out and I let her fly her furious independent streak all over the place and she burns herself out and we are able to go to the group activity without further incident.

I am a peaceful person most of the time, but even though I may glide through life with relative ease, please know there is a lot going on under my proverbial hood.   A lot of random ass shit swirling in my pretty little head.  There in the confines of my mind, a battle rages, it has since the beginning of my time, and so it would appear, shall it forever rage on...

Again, still, forever...

**I am doing better this time around on the above...I ordered the food and I am eating it, but make no mistake the struggle is real because I want to eat ice cream with every fiber of my being.