The Thing in Life to Be Passionate About

Change change change and somewhere in between all of that wind and calmness there are foundations being built, parts of us that will stay. Memories, and imprints of people, and the mark of revitalization.

Who knows what the hell is going to happen in life, in our lives? Sometimes the anticipation is scarier than the actual movement, the actual change itself. As long as you find those moments of joy and being content, then whatever happens, you’ve got that going for you. I’m sitting in the backyard and it’s kind of dirty, and it’s 90 degrees, but it feels nice. I already know this is a moment I’ll look back on and miss, but I’ll know that I did enjoy it when it was the present. When it was the air I was breathing. Am breathing. Am living in.

It’s wonderful how “home” can always grow, and it can always invite in more. It can hold your chosen family, memories, feelings, experiences. It’s something you own, something that is yours. But also something you can share. And that’s so wonderful, isn’t it?

I think the Thing in Life to Be Passionate About would be… life. In however way you describe it, in however ways you want to. Whether it be laying in the grass or experiencing life in an entirely different way, or being in the hella heat and enjoying it with in betweens of going back inside to feel the AC and that moment of relief. Your passion. Change, creation. I don’t know. To live, to be. Isn’t that enough? Isn’t that what needs to be, what society needs – what we’re fighting for? A life where we can just Be. I do think that to Be, and to simply Exist as You Are, is beautiful and empowering and inspires people. To write every once in a while because that’s your mind’s work, your craving to spill out some musings. To share about yourself and your upbringing, and what you learned. To laugh. To learn, and connect, and exist, and dream, and feel. I don’t know. There are people building rockets and planning to bring people to Mars. And there are people who just has that special air about them and simply values the beauty of living day by day and being outside and working at Starbucks. Both are human, both are valuable. We’re a tiny dot in a tiny dot in a tiny dot of Time and Life and Existence and the Unknown and the Big Overpowering Universe and… if we wanna float, or fling ourselves, so be it.

Why the Hell Not. To do more, or to do less… Each has value. To resist the expectations placed upon you, that’s so freeing. Not to say it won’t have a grip nonetheless, but to resist it, to create your own Purpose… Hell yeah. I’m all for it. With this thinking myself, I’m thinking I have absolutely no clue where I will be next year. I might be working endlessly, traveling somewhere for a few years or being in a completely random place doing something completely new. I don’t know. But I feel that I have value no matter what I do, because even though I might not be doing the Academic Work I’m Destined to Do, I’m doing a different kind of work. Working on how to be a better human. I almost cried yesterday after FaceTiming with a friend and having this connection, having someone pour out their heart and tell me about their pain, and allowing me to be there for them. We were raw and angry together… I mean, that’s more than worthwhile.

I want to read books. I want to meet people. I want to just be by myself and myself whatever that means, discover what that means. I want to try new things. Stick with what I love and know. Enjoy this backyard and my little corner. Go out and explore. Feel all the things. Open my eyes and see the sky and watch the clouds move.

I am paying absolutely no attention to my grammar so there’s some errors, but that’s the thing. Imperfection! Hell yeah! Writing in somewhat frazzled sentences, run on sentences, staring off into the distance and not having the right words, or a whole bunch of jumbled words coming together somewhat… I just wrote “somether” and deleted that, but I think that’s beautiful. Words and words and feelings and feelings and layers and layers and moments and moments all at once, and with this, every day is different. I find a new corner to admire. I notice the unique texture of the wall next to me. How my right arm is slightly more hot than the other, and I’m noticing that I have more freckles from the sun. My stomach is just doing its own THANG and not sucking itself in and I think it’s hella beautiful. How you have grown, Brianna! And “have grown” is currently happening!

The trees are breezing along with the gentle breeze and that heat I mentioned earlier is being a bit more forgiving. There is always more to this, more to life, and that’s something to embrace, rather than just What We Could Do. I want to be able to say I did something with my life. But by that, I also I want to be able to look back and know I grasped those moments of living before they fell through my fingers, before I realized they were here. I think I forgot to breathe. I’m breathing. Are you breathing? How is your body feeling? All of those things we can notice, all those things we can stop and look at, all the things we can pause and hold. All the things beyond the carrot many have dangling right in front of their faces, out of reach. The carrot’s going to rot anyway, and it’s probably not even that great. Feel the wind, feel the heat of the pavement, feel the sun, feel the motion, and maybe after all it’s worthwhile to just be the tortoise, because it’s not a race anyway. You’ll win cause you weren’t trying so hard, focusing on the end prize. You were just Being and enjoying the journey.

I was just going to stop because I felt like I was saying a lot and that was enough – that’s precisely the thing that often holds me back… The burden I think others will feel. Feeling like they have to respond or equate to my amount of ramblings, or respond to certain aspects or blah. But it’s just thought after thought and a release, liquidating a bit of the abstractness of my self. That’s a vital part of me, my expression. Anyways. I completely lost my point. I’m watching the clouds move. Um.

Oh! Yeah, I continue to question the structures of this world that I thought I knew. The parts of me that maybe shouldn’t always be parts of me. Like how serious and committed I usually am to work and doing things I think I’m supposed to do. I’m starting to realize that it’s ok if I don’t obey the confines assigned to me, to the illusions of expectations. That Thing I Need to Do? So-called success, with a white picket fence and all the bread-winning, and so on? In the greater scheme of things, is it really that important? Sometimes things aren’t that serious, and other things should have more of our attention. Priorities. Our habits. Our actions. Our thoughts. I’m starting to… take it easier on myself, but also be harder on myself on other things that will directly benefit me for the rest of my life. Rules… Expectations… So much of it is a construct, so much is illusionized, and we’re deconstructing. We’re deconstructing ourselves, and that’s also freeing as long as we’re open to openness. To what’s beyond us, and beyond what we know. Beyond what we know about our entities, because we’re capable of the universe while we might just be harboring a world. You know?

Basically…. We don’t need to create products. We ARE a living product, and so why not work on ourselves and enjoy what we have? Rather than finding value in external things. Find value in simplicity, but also being open to… What’s already there, what’s already around, and inside, us. I’m starting to see things differently, in new ways. Noticing. Embracing.

You must never dull your shine or whatever metaphor it is that you would choose for yourself in this moment right now, and all moments, that makes you who you are and what you aspire to be.

Yeah. Deep breath. Enjoy your readings from the thoughts of the Brianna that lived and breathed on June 3, 2020. 😛 Stay tuned for the next episode.