Fillefrancofun is not just a phase Part I

Tags

feminist, happy, life, love, travel, twenty something, woman

Today I watched Lara Croft Tomb Raider and Don’t worry he wont’ get far by foot. I realized that I am covering my pain and with it my gift with so many false identities.

Sure there is no fixed self and we are always changing, but despite the fact I’ve fallen out of love with Paris a lot recently, and my MBA self has been scoring points against my bohemian self, it’s my “gypsy” self that always wins. All I really want to do is be a gentlewoman explorer. I think that’s my real calling, and I’m afraid of it.

I’m afraid to be my real self with the world, to be so intimate as to take off my masks. I am afraid to wear my heart on my sleeve, and make love without labeling as either marriage or a one night stand. I’m afraid to live with “feeling,” to let my intuition, and not my fear and practicality and the voice of conventional wisdom win.

I don’t know if I will ever really be done living in Paris. Each time I get bored and think there’s nothing new left for me, the city shows me a different world which embraces me more tightly.  Just when I thought it was time to move out to the suburbs, and who knows, maybe I still will, I went to a club I actually enjoyed. And while I was dancing with one guy, another looked at me with what I thought was envy for my partner, but I realized as I was passing him in the cloakroom that it was actually me that he was sad to see me in the arms of another. Sometimes I feel my beauty like a radiant light.  I feel humility at the gift.

I have an intimate friend now, who knows all about me and my ADD and my messy room and many flaws, and he still loves me anyway. He’s not my boyfriend, and this is the experience that has taught me not to put too many labels on things. I don’t love him like I would hope to someday love my husband, but I am happy to be with him and I miss him when I don’t see him. And that my friends is a blessing.

I was filled with fervor to write  a post about meeting almost the French guy of my dreams, and then realizing I don’t want almost anything and I don’t actually want a boyfriend that badly, and I don’t want to organize my life around the hope of being a wife and mother and the hope that this will fulfill me.

Recently I’ve been going through what might be a phase of wishing I was a calm and controlled person and thinking if I changed my location that would fix me, or if I changed my field, or any number of other things.

The truth is that , adult life I think is always going to be hard for me. That’s just the way it is. And I’ve been trying to fit a circle into a square, and most of life is super square, and since I’m intelligent and have so much potential and everything I’ve always felt like I should be the squarest of squares, but as per a private reference between me and my friend about our teacher who would purposefully choose to cut out cloud shapes from construction paper making every one unique so she wouldn’t make a mistake. Mening we are all perfect as we are and God makes no mistakes like Lady Gaga says.

This isn’t just a phase. THis is the real me. I’m not going to wake up one day and finally be a good adult. My shit will not come together and then leave me in a much better situation. I do think I will get better at coping and managing.

Also i don’t think I’m going to stop liking or valuing travel, or that it will become less important to me than creating wealth or building my career. At least my current career, and any career I do should have travel and international stuff in it.

I”m ready to stop bullshitting myself and really take inventory. Instead of being disappointed at where I am now as opposed to wear I thought I should be and wanted to be at 30, look where I am.

I’m not killing it in the ways I thought I should be in the career or money department, but I do have a very good and steady job and even if I’m still finding myself professionally, I’ve learned a lot about myself and have really grown as a professional. I’ve visited 45 countries. I don’t have a boyfriend and I’m hopefully not going to get knocked up in the near future, but I have had a lot of wonderful men in my life, even if things didn’t work out in such a way that I got a ring on it. And being honest, there’s no one I truly knew well and wantedto p t aring on it. Bu tI’m convinced he’s out there.

 

 

 

 

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My dream

Tags

dreams, expat, life, travel, writing

My dream, my Personal Legend, may just be that ridiculously simple:

I want to write and travel.

Things I’ve tried to deny

Tags

commitment, couple, expat, fear, feminism, guilt, life, love, marriage, motherhood, relationships, shame, travel, twentysomething, who am i

When I think about becoming a mother, I think about losing everything I am and ever could be. I think about the loss of my freedom and my body. If I had to choose between never traveling again and never having a carefree day in my life, I don’t think I would choose to be a mother. Being a mother is different than being a father. You are on the hook in so many ways. I don’t think I need to have a child to give my life meaning. I think adventure, exploration, the search for truth might be the meaning of my life. I know I want to experience great love, but this is also something I may only want because of rumors I’ve heard about how great it is. To be perfectly honest I kind of love the way my life is now. I don’t need a steady partner, and I’m far from ready to be a mother. There is so much more world out there to see. I’ve been seeing the world in a frenzy thinking of the day I would have to make some choices based off biology and circumstance and in my mind, if I had a child I would have to give up traveling. Financially, that would be the case if it happened tomorrow, and that’s not something I want. I know that theoretically, hopefully, there would be someone there to bear the burden with me, but honestly, I have absolutely no interest in having a child if I don’t have the support of another parent. I am not someone who would use a donor or go to some other somewhat extreme to get pregnant without a life partner. I love babies, and I love children, but besides biological urge, it’s hard to picture myself doing the day in day out work of being a parent without regretting it. I have the image from my mom that being a mother is constant drudgery. And i don’t think sacrifice is the only meaning of life either. I’m not a martyr, and I don’t want to become one. I know that a fair amount of people manage to travel and do interesting stuff even while having multiple kids, but no matter what, your life is different and your resources of time, money, and energy, sometimes even health, are diverted from yourself necessarily, and you no longer get to be your own first priority. Maybe reproduction only works by ruse. If you had a completely fulfilled and happy life, why would you want to turn it upside down by having a child? Right now I can’t picture either having the kind of partner that would make me want to take that leap into the unknown. I guess another way of thinking is that everything you gain you do so for your children and it takes on new meaning, and I’m sure it does, but honestly I think it’s ok to just consume what you manifest yourself and leave a bit to nourish the world, right? I don’t tink I’m against having children, although I know I’m perfectly against having children with a partner. I don’t know if life has begun to or will one day begin to feel repetitive without having a child and having that greatest adventure of self sacrifice and love and responsibility, but at the moment I can’t contemplate having a cat or buying a car or even leasing an apartment for three years. I know if I had a kid, I would raise to the occassion and really love it. But I don’t think I will ever need it, and I don’t know if I will ever want it enough to disturb all that I’ve got going on now. My logical hunch is that having a kid never really makes sense in the long run, although I’m sure you do get to grow as a person in new ways. I doubt that having a kid is ever “worth it” for the mother if she’s already fulfilled in her life. And yet, I know a lot of women who seem pretty happy and still decide to have kids, so maybe there’s something about being with the right guy that changes things. I’m so enjoy my Aprodite and Artemis archetypes that being a mother feels like it would be sacrificing literally everything I am. I feel like I’ve got it in me, and my body is begging for it, but besides taking care of another person to avoid confronting life, the universe, and everything I’ve got going on within myself, I don’t see the point. Maybe this is the dirty little secret of feminism, and why European birth rates are so low. Or maybe there will be a day when love will win over reason, and somehow it won’t need to make sense anymore. But it would have to be a great love, and even greater trust.

As for men, it’s true, I theoretically want to have kids some day, and more to the point for these days, I do think I want to be in a relationship. But again, why risk having someone break your heart, or even more painful, breaking theirs, if you can get along just fine on your own? If I struggle to imagine owning an apartment (mind you, an apartment and not a goddamn house with a lawn, etc to maintain) because I might have to give up a trip because something needed a repair, how hard is it to imagine genuinely sharing your life with another person, and how many goddamn vacation days you would spend visiting their family when you already don’t exactly begrudge but are a little stingy with the time you accord your own, because you would rather be off adventuring, most of the time?

The real thing that kind of made me start wondering if it would be worth it is thinking about having less passion potentially over time, no matter how creative and romantic you are (also look at what science says having kids does to your relationship), and if you already have respectful and happy relationships in your life, and deep friendships, and high quality lover (s), what can a man really add without taking away quite a whole lot? Would the benefit ever be worth the risk? I’m not afraid of going to quite a lot of countries a lot of tourists shy away from, but I am terrified of choosing the wrong person, and being hurt again, and probably even more terrified of doing the hurting. I want to know or at least have the strongest possible feeling it will work out and that it’s worth it come what may, but I don’t think you “just know” all that very often. And I have fooled myself into just thinking I “just knew” enough times that I know how little my mind can be trusted. Also how much do I actually want love versus just the validation of having someone? To what extent is it lazy to go with being a relationship as the main form of companionship versus cultivating others if in the end, you aren’t sure if you are biting off far more than you can chew?

I am not in a relationship not because I don’t love myself, but because I am terribly terribly afraid of them. I want to come close to the fire without burning myself. I am chicken of all chickenshit because I don’t want to take emotional risks. I may have been to my fair share of therapy, but I don’t want another person in my life to disappoint or hurt or be disapporoved of. I know my family loves me as I am, and they ahve come to accept my role as a wanderer, but damn.

The truth is that I have very rarely, and pretty much never without shame, really let myself be who I wanted to be. And having a man or baby seem like a perfect way to put a muzzle on my soul, toss it in a box, and throw away the key. Fuck you, Personal Legend, put a bun in the oven, get back in the kitchen and take off those shoes! Not to mention a house. The homeowner dream in lieu of the man/baby dream, whether it’s a McMansion in in the burbs or a Hausmanien dream in the City of Light, while it might seem appealing at times to have one’s own “home,” the sky is already all mine.  The road belongs to no one, and yet, by naming myself for the wanderer that I am, I claim every mile for me, and me for myself.

Is it really a new adventure to truly love someone? Is it really so much of a great new world to have a child? Is it childish and selfish not to jump on board for these commitments and the life experiences they offer? Is it silly to even think like that, and to realize you bear children for the human race or your community or to propagate your own genes, and any satisfaction you get is a side effect of that?

When the world loves you without asking for anything back, is it not silly to put your heart in fickle human hands?

Whetther I ever love a man or have a baby, I love myself, and I love this world. I need no other justification or joy.

I love my fire. Fire might consume nearly everything it touches, but it also brings light and heat to the world. I love my fire.

Au revoir for now

Tags

being, buddhism, calling, christianity, existence, expat, journey, life, love, philosophy, process, seeker, transformation, travel

I’m not really sure why I’m not writing as much here. It could be that I am more busy and much less lonely, and it oculd also be that maybe I’m growing beyond fillefrancofun as I had claimed so many years ago soon after I started the blog.

I think a lot of my demons have vanished into a puff of smoke, and while I definitely am in the experience othe Buddhists call “groundlessness” as in, I’m nto really sure which way is up and I have no f not no but not so many fixed beliefs and hangups,

I think with Buddhism I have found what I was looking for, and in France I’ve gotten a somewhat blank canvas to decide who I want to be.

I also think a lot of my healing is done. The scars are disappearing, and there’s a new person here I didn’t know before

A girl who likes mountains, surfing, and deadlifts;

A shrewd non-self hating business woman who doesn’t hide behind self contempt and fake moral outrage over the global capitalist system;

A woman who accepts her past, warts and all;

A single lady, and kind of fucking proud of it;

A person who is giving her gifts to the world, and in healing herself, helps others find their path

A self transformation junkie always searching for the final door who realized at long last that the path doesn’t end and once you are on the journey, you never real come back, or cross the finish line

A seeker who has learned to live, not comfortably, but bravely, in the questions and no longer obsessed with a response

A native daughter of middle class Catholic central NJ who is now a certified wanderer, a global citizen, and who has seen too many tribes to take her own seriously anymore

Someone who has lost her identity too many times to count, plans to lose it again and again, and has learned to find peace and comfort in that

There will be no settling, no final destination, no moment where  I click my heels together to go home. There will be no person, no love who justifies my existence or who comforts me in my existential woe. There is not even a spirit in the sky of a God who hears my cries, nor a dumb materialist universe without poetry either. There is cause and effect, the infinite wisdom of the compassionate heart, the free play of space, and that’s all there is. And to know it, and accept it, is enough. No nothing will ever comfort my sad ego need to know everything, to be in control, to be the center of the universe, to have something outside of myself save me and make sense of everything.

 

Self responsibility is about more than paying your bils on time, and it’s more than taking a leap of faith and accepting the consequences. Self responsability means accepting that even you yourself are a construct, a product of the mind, and that training that mind to do no harm is your highest duty.

Yes, to live a full life on earth, even if joy is suffering, to have a full human existence, sparing the less pleasant bits as much as possible, that is something to aspire to as well.

And maybe they are one and the same, the punk rock post colonialist explorer and the blissed out monk neither taking the world too seriously but aware of beauty, inside and out.

This blog was about France, and mostly about Paris. It was about my renaissance as a thinking human being, coming of age in the cradle of post modernism, finding my passion and still being depressed, healing the wounds from feeling different and unworthy, not pleasing enough, and most of all, getting over the existential fear in not believing dogma, but rather trusting one’s own experience.

The sacred is a glorious human invention, and it exists as much as anything. As love, as romance, as glory and grandeur. But like any form of meaning, it does not exist from any objective viewpoint. It exists because we choose to believe in it.

We search for God, but instead we find the seeds, the raw material beauty in a pit filled with offal. We look at the stars, at Van Gogh’s starry night, and we know we are here, and that’s it, and know we are neither alone nor is the mystery and grandeur of the universe something that comes in a box. God cannot be separate from His Creation- as we created God he created us.

Yes this world is an illusion, and full of pain and suffering and maddening impermanence, but i is the free play of space, and so are we. And I love it, in open hearted surrender, knowing my heart will be broken again and again, that the ground will shift beneath my feet, that every castle is built on sand, that one desire will always succeed another- I will keep climbing mountains just because they are there and I want to know what’s on the other side, I will keep spinning the globe and going to wear my finger points, that once every calling is answered, every Grail Quest is completed, another will spring up like a mushroom in its place. I will russle up the courage to create even though today’s creation might seem like crap tomorrow and will never in any case match all that I imagined.

I surrender to the creative process of life, the joy of connection, and the bliss of the journey.

 

Namaste and thank you for following me.

 

 

What it means to write your own story

Tags

buddhism, business, career, catholic, depression, expat, family, happiness, life, MBA, seeker, spirituality, travel

Five years and one day ago, I moved to Philadelphia to begin business school. I had been interning in DC, and I envisioned having a career that touched on public service or at least public affairs. I had met a man that I thought would be the love of my life, who would fit into my family, religion, sense of humor, even though inconveniently he hadn’t wanted to pursue a long distance relationship and showed some signs of bro-iness I didn’t love.

I remember moving into the apartment hotel where I would stay for six weeks before moving again to Paris, where I would study for four months before returning. I remember feeling completely overwhelmed by the much greater work experience of everyone there, and the stark contrast between my life as an English teaching assistant in the French countryside and an intern paid just a bit more than my rent, and my experience-seeking, idealistic, slightly do gooder self compared to the seemingly cold nad corporate world I was about to enter, which had never held a lot of interest for me. And yet, my greatest mentor had suggested to me to come to business school, I applied to programs with a connection to France, and was accepted with a large scholarship. I was the second youngest and the least experienced of anyone in my group, and I had never held a full time permanent professional job, but perhaps I was also the bravest and most open.

A few weeks into the program at Philly, just before going to France, there was a cocktail party, as is often the case in business school, and we talked about where we would end up after. I said Washington DC was my home, I had never felt better anywhere, and I had a strong conviction I would return to live the life I’d planned and this was just a last taste of France before becoming a real adult.

Within a month of uttering those words, I was deeply in love with Paris, despite having visited it several times before without forming any great attachment. I felt truly at home and like I belonged for the first time in my life, and I nearly left the program to stay there and just get a French degree. I didn’t take that leap of faith, and was plunged into a crisis of whether I had completely abandoned my ideals, and what those ideals were, as I found myself in America feeling like a misfit more than I ever had before, going to school with people who did not see the world in at all the same way as i did, which made me fear for finding my professional path through business.

About a year later, I returned to DC and it was just a ghost of the city I had left, feeling both provincial yet oddly particular in its obsession with politics, which I at that point realised are not the center of the world for the vast majority of its citizens. I got a job offer in NYC to work for a think tank dedicated to studying corporate responsibility and globalization, but I turned it down, because I wanted to continue the search for something to bring me to Paris.

I was willing to take anything, even another crappy English teacher job.

Out of nowhere, an offer to work with a blue chip French company came along, and I took it.  It took six months to get the visa and I seriously considered abandoning the offer.

But I wasn’t happy. I thought of leaving. All my friends had gone and I never saw the boyfriend I had during study abroad. My best American friend seemed like a bit of a lost soul, and I continued to wonder if something was wrong with me for wanting to live outside of where I was supposed to, for rejecting my country and abandoning my family, and not being the person I planned on being. My mom made it really clear she was not a fan of the move, although she supported me, and I lost yet another cherished role- dutiful daughter.

It took me a long, long time to finally come back to the surface, and I”m almost there now. Depression is no joke. Therapy is the best investment I’ve ever made. And through it all, I’ve struggled to be my best self, because I wasn’t sure of who that was or if I was truly the second string player I believed myself to be.

In short, I’ve been afraid of my greatness, and it hasn’t been pretty. I have made a lot of mistakes along the way. Depression has colored many memories that had all the elements to be beautiful and enjoyable at the time. And yet, it was my human experience.

The feeling of losing my ground as Buddhists say really affected me. I am not the person I planned to be, and my greatest fear has been the changeable nature of myself and my desires, and the fear that everything I worked for was in vain.

This journey has taken me a long way and will take me farther yet. On Friday I’m going back to India, which was one of my dream destinations that I really enjoyed during business school. I am going in large part to decide whether I want to commit to the path of Buddhism.

Something of my Catholic self remains, and the Sermon on the Mount is engraved upon my soul, and I don’t think that’s such a bad thing. And yet, I don’t know if I can pretend to go along with the Catholic hierarchy anymore, and to what extent i want to remain culturally Catholic. Can resurrection and reincarnation cohabit? I don’t know, although I can say I’m pretty sure my beef is not with Jesus.

In the meantime, I’ve come a long way from sub clinical anorexia/compulsive dieting as a teenager to binge eating as an adult to CrossFitter, sometimes with or without the overeating, binge eating, and emotional eating issues. But now, I am an athlete, that’s for sure, and i want to be healthy, I want things for my own good.

Through all this, I have pondered every road not taken, and tortured myself with what ifs. If I had become a teacher, if I had stayed in the US, if I had become a digital nomad blogger person, anything and everything. It’s just this week I put the digital nomad dream to rest. I want to travel, but I also want to build a home in France, and my current job allows me to do that. And that’s why I haven’t taken any real steps in that direction, despite a bit of talk. Yes, I would like to hav ea travel blog and all, but it doesn’t have to replace my daily life. I don’t see it with rose colored glasses anymore. Same with taking a long pause from work. It could change something, but I dont’ think th echange I need is so dramatic.

The change I need is just to take care of myself, eat well, sleep well, work well, have friends, have lovers, and hopefully find my one steady boy someday. And continue to travel! Just keep grinding and moving and dancing to the beat of my drummer, who did not indeed lead me astray.

so today I have to clean my apartment, wash clothes, and get ready for India. I have to breka through the mess I’ve creaed because I couldn’t deal with the pain from all the unfounded regrests and all the fears.

Throughout it all, I have to say my desire to find love has not wavered. And my faith is slowly coming back.

For the past few years, I have felt a victim of change, and my shifting desires.

But now I know, I am the one writing the story- not in charge of everything that happens to or for me, and many thngs are out of my control. But I wrote this story, and I do have the life I want most of the time. It’s not radical change, just a shift in perspective that is needed. There’s no where I would rather be…

And so dear readers, wish me luck !

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Love without clinging Part III- Bliss

Tags

bliss, buddhism, children, clinging, dating, deciding to be a mom, digital nomad, happiness, letting go, life, love, motherhood, philosophy, travel, twenties, vows, wanderer

I take to the internet, asking a group of digital nomads the eternal question-

Should I stay or should I go now?

Stay, and build, and get citizenship maybe. Go, on a new adventure, hoping that somewhere else is better, and maybe a bit better paying.

The answer was overwhelming “STAY”

A kind soul took the time to message me directly- “It’s not about France, it’s about you. What do you really want to do? Write that memoir. In the time it takes to get citizenship you can have sold the book and be planning book tours.”

And i can get to be a hotshot in content marketing and social media and enhance my professional reputation and pay off date and get that passport that will let me come back to France, always. Because I still love it and always will- even if at some point, I let go.

I talked to my good friend, who has also read the Alchemist a thousand times.

“Right now you’re the shiney shop guy who wants to go to Mecca, because you are comfortable and it might be good or bad”

So what is my Mecca- everywhere and nowhere, the road.

Space without center or limit.

Freedom.

Living out of a suitcase.

Being able to experience the world in all its diversity and beauty, and owning next to nothing.

At least for a time. To go, and support myself as I go, to have roots in the earth itself-

after having spent my youth in France incha allah.

 

As for the man and the  baby? If they come to me, when I am my full, lovely, enchantress, free spirit, arms wide open, travelling fool aspiring surfer girl and mountain mama self, why not?

If someone can take me with my philosophy, with my Buddhism, with my extraversion, with my sensuality and all my fire, YES.

But I am done trying to fit into a box- whether it be for a man or money or motherhood.

I am not an earth creature. I come from the fire, I fly in the sky. The earth is my friend, not my property. I flow like the ocean, in big waves, and sometimes in alpine lakes tucked high in the clouds.

I write and I speak and I tell my tales.

So I realized I’ve been to forty countries, and I hadn’t even realized it at the time.

“Your blog is about seeking and finding,” said my wise friend, my guardian angel.

I would rather have forty countries than forty blocks of gold. I want to be rich, yes, rich in experience and luxury and full of abundance and true prosperity.

YES money, but so much else.

So maybe I don’t want a cat and or a baby in such desperation as I thought before, even if I think babies are cute.

And as for a lover, I’m ready, but I’m not waiting for anyone.

I’m not a nun or a monk or anything like that, but I am vowed to the sky quand meme.

I am radiance, come what may, and that’s more important than trying to snare a man or rushing to be on time for a baby.

If they are mine, they will come.

And maybe I won’t be in the mood to roam forever.

Nothing is forever, all compounded things are impermanent.

And I am a Buddhist, whether I have taken refuge in the Buddha or not.

I have taken refuge in the sweet sad impermanence of the beauty, ugly, and ever changing world. I take refuge in the path, that never leads exactly where we think. I have taken refuge in joy and wonder and most of all, surprise.

I have taken refuge not in a country, but in liberte, egalite, fraternite

Joyeux fete de la Bastille

May we storm the prisons of our minds and gain victory every day.

 

Namaste

MJ

 

 

I’m Rich

Tags

abroad, buddhism, career, competition, expat, happiness, life, livelihood, travel

In the past week I’ve had two conversations with North American women of my age who make a lot more money than I do. One of them had also traveled more, and that made me feel a little sad. Until I realized helicopter tours of Victoria Falls are not the reason I travel anyway, and the idea of sharing a tour around the most touristic sites in Bulgaria, a pretty chill country where English is widely spoken, didn’t seem that exciting much as it would efficiently enable me to check the boxes off.

They both expressed some kind of concern, and maybe even pity for him, though at least with one, I’m sure a sense of competition led her to emphasize her financial accomplishments to get a sense of satisfaction from being better.

In the same week, the universe has seen to it that I didn’t book my planned trip to South America, and instead I’m going to India again (by way of Kazakhstan so as to avoid needing a Russian transit visa or paying a mint through another airline- pls I wanted to see Kazakhstan, because I enjoy comparing post communist places and I’m interested in Central Asia and the Silk Road).

The truth is that I had gotten into my mind I wanted to travel to all 6 (or 7 if possible) continents before turning 30, which would indeed be a wonderful thing. But now I recognize it as just another accomplishment I was aiming towards to justify my life, and also driven by the fear that once I find marital love and hopefully also have a family, my life will be over, I will have no more freedom, and my life is a race against my biological clock.

But a three day weekend in Bulgaria showed me what I needed to know- that I’ll go where the wind takes me, and that’s that. That is what I am most happy with. I had some ideas in mind for what I wanted to do, I packed my hiking boots and wanted to see beautiful nature, but in reality due to weather forecasts of rain (which were not true) and warnings about bad visibility and mud on the mountains, I didn’t actually get out of the cities at all, and the one city I travelled two hours to get to I only saw for 30 minutes or so as I met a lovely fellow traveller and kindred spirit and spent the day talking to him and having lunch instead. And what a wonderful trip it was! It reminded me why I travel- for atmosphere more than for sightseeing, and that rarely is there a specific thing which seeing it gives great satisfaction. Sometimes yes, but only when the desire is somewhere deep in our imaginations or souls and from a guidebook or travel blog.

I travel so I can learn how to live.

I actually realize this is one of the first times I’ve ever written about travel on this blog, which maybe is a sign I’m ready to write about travel, which I’ve been wanting to for years but feeling blocked. Yes, I want to do it to get some things sponsored perhaps and build a readership and get money but also to be of benefit, and I was a bit blocked. but maybe not so much now! Hahaha I love this blog, and I love you for reading it.

So anyway, my point is that if anything i pity the North American girls who see their value as a reflection of their career and bank account more so than what’s inside, even if they value me for my character and experiences or claim to. I could be reading it completely wrong, but just recently instead of thinking I’m the pits and that people who bring me down are right to do so, I’ve realized that sometimes people are genuinely jealous of my life, and I guess that’s the best compliment there is in a way.

Although a bigger one woudl be if someone changes their life in order to like it better thanks to my inspiration and empowerment.

I feel compassion for them because they seem so stuck and rigid in their habitual ways of thinking, and caught in black and white. If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you will know how much I suffered from this until very recently, and it really wasn’t pretty or fun at all. it’s only recently I’ve learned to let go of expectations and take happiness where I find it.

And yes, I do intend to manage money better and manifest money better, but I realize finally that the fact that I for example, didn’t follow my taxes on time in a silly oversight doesn’t make a bad person or constitutionally irresponsible. It just means I messed up, and if I have a habit of messing up, it’s just because I haven’t found the right system.

But what I can say is that I have absolutely no regrets about the times in my life I followed my heart and made it work even if things were a little tough. In those moments, I chose my own adventure, took my life in my hands, and exercised my radical freedom. I might have more money or be more comfortable if I didn’t do those things, or I might be stark raving mad and depressed and more self destructive than I already was for the relatively reasonable compromises I made. i would hate for my life to be a tightrope walk of needing to always perform well and follow the rules in order to be happy or value myself. That is no fun at all. That said, money and skills and some amount of rule following can bring freedom, and that’s important to. It’s important to play the game well, but not let the game play you.

Live to love your life, not to work or earn or play in the sense of pursuing only shallow pleasures. Play in a larger sense of everything in your life being on the board. Enjoy the ups and downs, play to win but let it be fun, realize it’s only a game. Don’t take things too seriously, and my hunch is you’ll find that things start to go your way more often.

So in other words, I’m rich, and we’re all in the process of winning.

Draping nude on the page

Tags

buddhism, expat, growing up, happiness, life, travel, twenty something

Back in high school I used to write poetry and publish it on message boards.

I haven’t written a lot of poetry since, but one of the comments I received has stayed with me, “you aren’t afraid to drape nude on the page,” and I think this blog is living proof of that.

That’s also been a big part of how I’ve lived my life, and my turn to Buddhism is a big part of that.

I don’t think I’ve ever done something that felt more subversive than doing a vajrayana meditation practice alone in my hotel room one night. I felt like the Buddha slipping out on his wife and child, and far far from my family and home and the way I was raised.

And yet, every sound is a mantra, every being is a Buddha, and we are all on the same path.

So that’s been a big part of what’s been going on with me.

I’ve also had ups and downs of feeling like, o, i did the right thnig getting on the management track, and actually I should travel less and focus on building a home more.

But now, I am back to writing and travel, though both in balance with home and my current job. And there’s nothing wrong with either.

I’ve been put to work training/mentoring a colleague who is also a close friend and incredibly emotionally mature, but not always professionally so. It’s been a challenge emotionally to keep myself under control and remain kind and patient. I dedicated my last meditation to her, that I would do the best job for her.

I’ve accepted I am on the path, and I always was, come what may. And that’s ok wherever it goes, even if i don’t hit those milestones as expected, even if I don’t get everything I was pretty sure I wanted out of life. It’s even okay that I was dpressed, gained weight, spent too much money and let things get completely out of control. That too was part of the path. And I can have compassion and forige myself and just keep moving forward.

It is such joy not to be depressed anymore. It may be afternoon ad I’m still not up and dressed as I was before when depressed, but ti’s not because I have no energy. Right now I am just recharging, and I have faith in myself  to get things done. Even if everythign is not perfect with a snap of my fingers, even if everything never will be perfect, it’s all good, and I’m growing. It feels like my car has finally stopped hydroplaning, and my tires have grip and I’m moving forward instead of stuck in slush, or quicksand.

 

Love you all and Namaste,

MJ

I know I need to change my life

Tags

abundance, adventure, career, contribution, job, love, passion, profession, travel, twenty something

“It’s a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you’re ready. I have this feeling now that actually no one is ever ready to do anything. There is almost no such thing as ready. There is only now. And you may as well do it now. Generally speaking, now is as good a time as any.”- Hugh Laurie

“For what it’s worth… it’s never too late, or in my case too early, to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit. Start whenever you want. You can change or stay the same. There are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you’ve never felt before. I hope you meet people who have a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of, and if you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start over again.”

― F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

So I want to do something amazing in addition to my regular job, something that comes from the heart, and I want to improve my regular job, and probably change within a certain period of time. I want to work from the heart. I want to do something I am proud of on my deathbed. I don’t want traveling to be the only thing that keeps me going, and I want to have wow moments in my professional life. I don’t want to struggle financially, and I want to have everything I want and need. I do believe I am incredibly blessed and things are quite abundant, but I could use a big more abundance ot become debt free and have more money to travel and save and do interesting things with like invest in projects that are important to me. I want that money to come to me and I want to keep it, or invest it wisely.

I’m not really sure exactly what I want to do, but that’s an exciting thing. I am coming from a place of openness. I am likely to make some discoveries along the way taht could change everything. I want my life to be full of surprises and adventure and yes, abundance.

There is more to me than I give the world now in my professional life, and I want to make a bigger contribution, and receive more abundance starting now to help me make that contribution and pass it on to others.

My life is really good, but I want to really make it rock and give it my all to live consciously happily abudantly andjoyfully.

Truths that are hitting me like a ton of bricks

Tags

breakup, buddhism, christianity, compassion, friends, learning, life, love, sex, travel, truth, twenty something

So I am probably going to end up going full-on Buddhist. I went back to the group that one of my commenters recommended, and I am scared shitless of falling down the rabbit hole of another organized religion and being a white chick doing yoga type of spiritual materialist and all those other judgey things, but mostly of going to hell, and what my parents will think (hint- the same thing). The truth at this point is that even if my parents said fine and dandy it’s’ awesome, the younger and harsher versions of themselves that parented me at 3 are still crying out NOOOOO in my head and shoving Cheerios in my mouth to make me shut up at church and mostly just wanting me to be a good girl and a good example for my younger sister. Those parents (in my head) have hated me since the beginning of time since I ‘m not perfect, and always will, so I guess I should tell them to fucking go to hell instead.

So basically the cornerstone of my life is rocking, and it’s quite a ride! My ego is going insane, secretly, silently, kind of in denial. WIll I completely turn my back on Jesus and GOd and the Catholic Church? Probably not, but I might google something like “historicity of the resurrection” and learn about Gnosticism and how early Christian ripped off the Neo Platonists to make us hate our bodies and those crazy Cathars and all that jazz. It might be a wild ride.

ANd then, and then, and then, I have to face the truth that not only am I not fulfilled in my job and not challenged and that’s one f the reasons I love vacation so much, but also that I do have a pretty good idea of what I would like to do in my life. Thing is, I do want to be an executive, but not in the kind of structure I currently work on or dealing with the products Icurrenttly work with. CMO hell yeah especially if I get an assistant to deal withthe paperwork but mostly yeah, I love marketing and communications, and even business, it’s just that I care about where my efforts are going and even though I am a good girl who follows the rules really, I should not spend my whole life in corporate. Mostly because, the structure is holding me back from giving my best rather than really supporting me. And I don’t feel I can be anything close to my whole self there, and I dare beleive there is something better.

Next, I am scared absolutely shitless of making any kind of move, because maybe in a year I”m in line for a promotion and I love my boss and overall things aren’t bad at all and overall I like what I am doing. It could be much worse, and I have hella vacation days and work for a well known company and have a retirement plan and all that and a bag of chips. Seriously. And the other thing I realized with a start a few months ago in the psychologist’s chair was that I like spending time with the people at work more than my actual family to a large extent and the one thing that’s been constant in my journey since moving to france has been working for a long, stable, trusted corporation, the kind that when you say you work there people know you have done something right in your life. And yet, I have the feeling that some but not all among them are blocked creatives in some way, and when I got an opportunity to do something with a start up on a part time basis I went nuts and realized how much more I could do. Not in terms of hours, in terms of contribution, and that no, I wouldn’t work for free for my current firm nor spend money to work there, I even sometimes resent the money I need to spend to keep my image just so, and I can’t beliee myself that I work in such a structured place with such a feeling of scarcity that it takes a year to get a promotion through during which I will have already been doing the job yet not receieve the pay or wahtever.

So there’s that. I’m terrified of changing to the point that I let my LinkedIn profile look like shit and I don’t market myself as well as I could by a very long shot.

Ok so another not so fun fact. I travel constantly because I am not happy with my social life here. It seems more useful to go do somethign amazing rather than just stay here and be sad I don’t have that many friends or at least not that many of the caliber I want (more on that later). I love Paris but have spent the last two years avoiding it. At some point I am not sure if I want to live anywhere, and I do miss the countryside to an extent and I do have good friends and may not wnat to move immediately and stuff, but yeah. I haven’t found back the atmosphere that drew me here in the first place, but facing these unconvenient truths should be a good start. Paris has really challenged me.

Next, I broke up with one friend because I realized he’s depressing and controlling and posessive during my trip with him to Ukraine, and he’s another blocked creative that no amount of money in the bank nor paid off debt will ever free, and he’s actually kind of a bumme rto be around a lot of the time which is why when I try to combine him with other friends it doesn’t work. e was my best friend at work, and blocked creative is a great way to describe him.

And then there’s the friend I am about to go meet, who helped me find my first apartment in Paris and who s still delusionally in love with the city around 9 yuears on despite not having an active social life nor purpose for being here. Maybe some things in life don’t require purpose, but while I am exploring Buddhism, she’s experimenting with party drugs and claims not to want a long term relationship, so there’s that. Psychologist thinks she’s home away from hom enad remind sme of my family (who she thinks I need to limit my exposure to because they bring me down in subtle and not so subtle ways) and I should limit my time with her. Pretty much every time se suggests to do something I”m late and or have something else I would prefer to be doing so I guess that sums it up.

O, and I finally saw Y again, and he’s beautiful and sweet. But still not returning emails, so fuck him but not really because apparently he’s sick. I don’t know what his deal is, but he has a girlfirned and thisis probably never going to happen and that’s a good thing. He’s great but he’s not the right fit for me except when he was a beautiful stranger, when he became my beautiful lover he wasn’t that keen on trying to switch things up in be,d not that I was that forthcoming, so guess I can’t blame him entirely, but yeah it’s no coincidence it took us four years practically to see each other again and he hasn’t responded to my emails in about three weeks. There’s always something to blame but come on, my first insinct that I didn’t want to go repeating the past with a dead end thing with no future was spot on.

And yes, I want a man and I want babies and I keep picturing myself in a small cute house in the mountains and a locaiton independent job and a chill life and no more masks and no more bullshit or very, very little of it. I guess that’s all I can hope for myself.

Also I think I should probably make an attempt t o make a good man through a shared activity or interest, not necessarily travel because that’s a way of finding an incompatible relationship that will never work, r is likely not to and to avoid being in relationship and being happy with someone to snuggle with.

I don’t actually want or need crazy sex stories. I need someone to have crazy sexy love with, and to commit to despite knowing what the future holds and that they are an imperfect being as am I, and that is heartbreaking.

 

I need to fucking getdown to writing my travel blog or at elast my other blog.

PS I need to clean my house so bad and deal with all my paperwork and bills and budget for the year and make a calendar and go grocery shopping and do laundry and attend to all the pesky details of life that keep screwing me up and don’t let me be my best.

And to do that I need to chill the fuck out about traveling. Iwill be well served if I can just put that money towards a bigger trip or lower debt. I shouldn’t have to travel constantly to feel sane and happy.

I should be happy in the place that I live, that I work, with the people near by to me, and I just need to chill the fuck out and accept who I really am.

 

Love you all. Namaste.