To Be Myself Completely

Well, the start of a new school year deserves the traditional "insights and evaluation of myself and my life at this point in time" (read: I'm about to cliche the crap out of this post). Luckily for me, it's a very positive one at this point. Although the summer has been one of a multitude of mixed emotions, activities, outlooks on life, and so on, things are just going as right as they should. So right, in fact, that I wonder how in the world I qualify for all this right. I'm back at the school I love taking classes about subjects I genuinely care about and am hungry to start learning more about, as tough as I know it will be. I have a job that I actually really like and is a pretty perfect fit for me. I have a great new apartment within walking or public-transporting distance of people and places I love, which is also helping me along on the path to self-sufficiency. Best of all, I am full of a sense of calm and happiness which is deeper and fuller than any I've ever felt because it stems from a sense of self-worth that has previously been so elusive, slipping in and out of reach throughout my life in an ongoing internal struggle, but that I now feel I have a firm grasp on. I feel that I know who I am and who I want to be stronger than ever before, and that has made all the difference.

Today was, in a word, relaxing. I slept in till ten, lazed around a little, then went shopping with one of my new roommates, spending more than I should have on some new clothes and getting to know her better. After that, I crashed on the couch for a few hours, which was followed by some heavy-duty clothes ironing and watching Stranger Than Fiction. Then some yoga, a well-balanced dinner of half a box of mac and cheese, half a cinnamon roll, a whole ear of corn roasted in the oven like a champ, and some raspberries, while I read up on some laboratory animal procedures, and finished up with a midnight hike to Ensign Peak with some friends of my roommate. It was a Friday about nothing, but for some reason (and I am actually really embarrassed to admit this because I'm not used to saying stuff like this out loud or even to myself, and it might make me sound narcissistic, but I'm telling the story like it happened ) at one point during the night I looked in the mirror as I passed it and the thought came into my mind "I will be loved one day" (which of course has resulted in the Maroon 5 song getting stuck in my head ever since). It was kind of startling, out of nowhere, and kind of a weird thought to have, but then I realized I had it because I looked into the mirror and liked what I saw. I looked without finding all the faults and the flaws, wishing I could change what I saw, without avoiding eye contact with my reflection. I guess I thought that I will be loved because I could finally see what there is to love—not suddenly all that moment, but throughout the time I've been putting in to become the best me that I can be, just coming together at that moment. And because I have been feeling more than ever that there already are people who love me; my family who I have always known love me, and my friends who I have learned to trust that they do as well without negative thoughts clouding the truth. And although I know this will continue to be a life-long process, I feel that I'm one step closer to reaching my maximum lifetime happiness level.

In conjunction with this self-realization, I have decided to solidify something I have been thinking about for a while, inspired by something my sister told me about called "The Happiness Project." One idea from this wonderful lady, to which the link will take you, involves creating a set of commandments for yourself. The idea seemed like a good one, and has stuck with me in the back of my time for around a month now, almost subconsciously assembling this list. And to put my own personal twist on it, these commandments have been inspired by and/or augmented by song lyrics (surprise surprise). I'm guessing these will evolve and be added to as I live, but I thought I might as well give it a go right now.

1. To Be Myself Completely. From this Belle and Sebastian song of the same name. (To be honest, it's the only line I know and they are usually deceptively cheerful sounding songs that turn out to have dark lyrics, but it's whatever.) I have always brushed off sayings like "Be true to you" and so on because I didn't really get them, but now I think I do. I want to be me, 100%, and do the things I want to because I want the consequences. I'm done with doing what I think I should want to, or what I think other people want for themselves, and I'm ready to be myself completely.
2. I'm starting a new beginning, suspiciously like the old one, only this time I'm ready. Good old Typhoon, they always know what to say. And I know I've blogged about this song before. In my life, there really hasn't been a lot of drastic anythings. So the changes and new beginnings that I've had have often been suspiciously like the old ones. But what I have learned, and I need to keep learning to avoid frustration, is that it is never too late to start over, or start anything new. The trick is just making yourself.  And that is what is great about life, the constant promise of fresh starts that are there if you'll only take them.
3. I'll Take Care of You: If you ask me to. Or if you don't. This commandment kind of has two parts. First off, I need to take care of myself. To function optimally as a human being, there is a certain amount of focus I need to spend on myself, from eating healthy to exercising to sleeping enough (no amount of sleep is ever enough, to be honest) to flossing and on and on. But I also want to make it a goal to take care of those around me as much as is in my power. We all just need to take care of each other, I think, and I'll try to do my part. Service and happiness make a joyous cycle and I want to jump in.
4. You're Not Obliged to Swallow Anything You Despise: The Shins frontman James Mercer is a man a consider to be one of the greatest lyricists that I have had the pleasure of listening to. This line has come into my mind at somewhat surprising times, usually having to deal with my moral standards. Or any kind of standards. If I have a problem with something, I need to fix it, or distance myself from it, or fix my own outlook on it. There is no reason for me to be swallowing anything I despise. We all need to do things we don't want to sometimes, but I think the distinction is that most of those things have a long-term consequence or benefit that we want. But dwelling on negative thoughts? Not going to help anything. Ever.
5. I won't let love disrupt, corrupt, or interrupt me anymore: I know I've blogged about this one before. But guess what? I've got a whole new outlook on it. Before, I was taking it as rebelling against, or maybe sticking it to love, because I didn't need that crap messing up my life. But that right there was the problem. I ended up letting "love" mess me up by messing up love myself. From now on, my new policy is to love everyone—I may dislike a lot of people, but I can love them all the same, no matter what they do. And my goal for this semester (besides "get good grades" and "everything else I've been rambling about for pages" I guess) is to find love. That will more than likely not mean "fall in love and be fallen in love with" but I just want to find love in everything I do. It's crazy how loving things is a self-perpetuating cycle, a positive-feedback mechanism for those more medically-minded (for those that aren't: examples are childbirth, blood clotting, and lactating; once they start, the product or action they create or cause in turn stimulates the original process to increase and continue. Did I just want to show off some knowledge there? Well, yeah. It's not like I get to bring that up very often in daily life. Sue me.)
I'm ready to love you, world.
6.Just Be Patient, and Don't Worry: Enough said.

Well, those are the commandment I have so far. I will most likely be posting more if I create them, these are just the things that were on my mind that I genuinely wanted to change about my life and do better on. New school year resolutions, I guess.
Hopefully this time I'm ready.