Permanence in impermanence, a word jumble by Hope.

There are so many words jumbled in my head right now that I want to put down on paper.  I want to write about entitlement, and how following that feeling of being entitled to your own opinion, expression, action etc, despite how it affects others is one of the problems I see in today's age.  I want to write about how record breaking temperatures, floods, sink holes, fires, and climate extremes are our normal, and still people choose denial and continue to heavily contribute to the problem getting worse.

I want to write about guilt and how people use it instead of accountability and growth.  I want to write a response to all of those who say people are too sensitive these days, and point out it's in fact the opposite, people aren't being sensitive enough. I want to write about what really matters vs what's a distraction. I want to write about the thousands of feelings I am experiencing so I can be able to articulate them and then run far the fuck away from them.

I want to write about the fact that I cry and laugh each day, it's no longer one or the other, it's very much both.  In fact currently, it's everything at once.  I want to write about the magic mother earth is giving me despite her also totally revolting, and how it's all symbolic to the beauty and tragedy that coexist at once.  I want to write about the importance of acknowledging duality, and how there's literally 500 contradictory ideologies of how to see life.  Is it that things just are, or do both sides exist, or does it have to be one or the other?  Who decides this? 

You see my mind if overflowing with words, ideas, ideals, processes, and too much information.  It's not just what is happening currently in our lives, with Steve being told his antibiotic resistant infection not only will not go away, but will just get worse; that's rendering me unable to write or speak many complete thoughts.  It's not just summer heat making my brain feel like it's melting in this swelter, or the information being fed to me on screen after screen.  

So what is it?

It's OVERWHELM. Too much information, too many opinions, too much noise, too much to do, too many ideas, too many people to please/respond to/help/update/change..... too many problems to overcome, too many complications, too many things to figure out, too many images to maintain, too many words to untangle Too. Fucking. Much. 

So why write anything, I suppose you're wondering?  I wondered the same thing, but I just needed the very act of typing words on a screen.  Something to break through the blank white box staring at me.  Something to acknowledge where I am and where I want to be.  Accept what is, while doing the work to get to the other side.  Sometimes I have these needs that lead me to do things that don't always make sense to the outside world, or even myself.

Like last year, I had to have a tattoo.  It wasn't so much a want, even as strange as it sounds, it was like needing a dose of medicine to overcome an illness.  My cousin's wife had drawn this bad ass peace sign, that I messaged her saying, I wanted that on my body permanently somewhere.  She graciously gave me permission, and the minute I had someone to stay with Steve I booked an appointment with the closest tattoo artist I could find.  I showed him the drawing and when he came back with his sketch I didn't even compare the two (a very rookie mistake to make for a not so rookie).  Sitting in the chair I was levitating as he was tattooing me. It wasn't until I got home and compared the photo and the tattoo that I realized how drastically different the two were. I then had an existential crisis about the whole thing, and cried for three days about it.  Because yes while I realized in the world we live in a tattoo that didn't turn out how you wanted IS NOT a serious problem at all; It is however how I felt, so while understanding this was not a crisis I allowed myself to cry.

Instantly I was given the medicine I needed and it's taken me this whole year to learn to love the tattoo for what is is.  Which is what this blog is for me today.  That tattoo was the permanence these words are currently offering me.  The time I got the tattoo last year was around the time Steve began to seriously teeter with "am I done with this shit (ALS) or not". Well, currently we are looking the, not by choice, impermanence directly in the face, so that's why I want to write any words down that can permanently mark this moment in time for me. 

I have also been wanting to find a way to share these beautiful photos my friend Jeremy took for me, for no reason other than I asked him to.  My small time playing model helped me realize that it wasn't the act of playing pretty that led me to loving being in front of the camera, but it was the act of capturing permanently a moment of creative expression.  To perhaps remind me in moments of feeling uninspired, that there was this time I was so inspired that it is held beautifully in a permanent form like a photo.