Step One

How mysterious and both intriguing life is that it works in the most peculiar ways sometimes...

Someone I love recently asked me to write him a list. “Write down a list” he said “with your goals and dreams. Who you want to be, what you want to do with your life. Write them down one by one; one two three; including the steps you can take to reach them as well as any difficulties or obstacles that might be in the way. And I don’t want you typing them in the computer, oh no. I want it by hand baby (he didn’t actually say baby, I just like the way it sounds). Take a blue pen (yes, I’m not kidding, he did say blue) and a piece of paper and write it all down.”

I’m not gonna get into details as to why this person came to ask me this. Trust me it’s a looong story which I will probably tell you some time in the near…distant?..let’s say distant future. Maybe never. We’ll see… Anywho, I did agree in writing this but of course I wanted to do it on my own terms. Being the stubborn person that I am, at first I said “Hey, I’m gonna write this in the computer and then rewrite it on a piece of paper once it’s ready. That way it will be neat as well! Plus I won’t have any smudges on the back of my hand from writing...and sweating.”. I gotta admit most of the times when I write something, it usually is on the computer. When I’m already inspired that is. Huh. What do you know.. A writer who doesn’t actually write! Hah! That’s cool. So anyway I sat down, opened my laptop and got my fingers ready for typing…. Blank… Blank!.. Nothing came out. I sat there trying to remember one by one the things that I would actually love to do and I couldn’t remember any of them apart from my dream job no1. No it’s not princess nor an astronaut!... It could be though!.. Nah, too boring. The thing is…. Well, actually the thing of it here is… Gosh the thing is I’m not inspired at all right now! God damn it! Isn’t it frustrating when you have an idea inside your head that you know is gonna be great and even though you take notes of certain thoughts to kinda keep you in track for this new project of yours, when the time comes for you to sit down and start writing these paragraphs, the idea might still be there but it doesn’t come out the way you want it to! It doesn’t have the same style, the same attitude, same accent. And plus am I the only one who is inspired mostly when I’m taking a bath? Seriously am I alone in this? Why is it that whenever I’m in the combining process of soap and water that all these thoughts come up and the fact that I’m wet at that point doesn’t really help in writing anything down even if it is on my iphone which I gotta admit I do not want to get wet! Ugh it’s so irritating! Even now as I’m on full speed here (Yes I’m typing. Typing! Not writing. But in full speed, yes), the only words that tend to come out of my fingertips are those concerning the fact that what I planned to write at first just doesn’t want to work right now. And I’m pissed! Does anybody else have this? Anyone? Raise your hands if you do!... I was actually expecting some to pop up on my screen right now… Ok. Relax. Just chill. What was I talking about? Oh right..

(After a few hours...)

(Actually more like days…)

Seeing that I had no penly vision (pen-ly : as in adj of the word pen) of how to get out of this emotional writing tantrum, I left it all aside to rest and start clean again whenever I felt ready. So having began writing it on December 5^th I now continue to write it on December 11^th. Quite some time, huh? I gotta say I was kinda skeptic at first whether or not to change what I have written so far since I did somewhat lose my train of thought, but, after a bit of butting-in-tervention and nosing around of that special someone who actually gave me a compliment on my new project so far (and who doesn’t like a compliment? Not me!), I decided to keep it the way it is and just keep going. Besides, I have already told you guys of how crazy and how much of a rambler I am so what better way to let you see it by yourselves and appreciate my high end craziness? Kidding! Jeez!.. On with the show…

As I was saying before all this, I sat down the other day planning to write my much required list regarding my goals and dreams as well as steps to take to reach each one. Laptop open, MS Office on the go aaand type… Nothing came out. I wasn’t inspired I couldn’t write a thing. Then it hit me. What if I actually wrote instead, just like I was asked to? There was a time back when I did actually handwrite my original thoughts and once it was all nice and ready I would then type them in the computer. So who says I can’t do that again? Without a second thought, I left the laptop aside, grabbed my notebook and a blue pen and started to write.

At first I wanted to write him an introduction, an explanation of why I agreed in doing this, writing down all this just for a guy I hardly knew (about a month and a half to be exact). So I wrote, and I wrote, aaand then I wrote some more… Wrote about two whole freaking pages. Jeez I mean.. Anyways, once I was done writing this supposed-to-be intro, I then finally came to the part of writing down these goals of mine. Things that I would like to do. The first one was easy, being my favorite and all. Wanna know what that was? I don’t care, I’m gonna tell you anyway. Voice acting! For movies! Well animation movies to be exact. And more specifically in English. Not Greek. Yes, I am Greek, I have mentioned that before. Which you would know had you read my first piece. Oh go ahead and read it now, I can wait. Seriously it’s rather good! Alright fine.. So. Voice acting. Wrote it all down. Where I could start from, obvious obstacles in pursuing this blah blah blah etc etc. Then I moved on to dream job no.2…

I was so frickin pissed I couldn’t remember anything! I couldn’t remember what I wanted to do! I mean seriously?.. Hell yeah!.. Luckily I had written in that very same notebook a few months ago a list of the things that I could and would wanna do for a living. Seriously that was even the title of it. “Things I could do for a living”. All dotted. One by one. Thankfully I remembered so I gave it a good look… It was like reading a frickin revelation. It was like an apocalypse! I remembered once again all about me! My dreams no matter how “stupid” or not they might be, my passions, everything! And then I got so disappointed...in me.

I had forgotten all about me. I had forgotten myself. How could it be any worse than that? To forget one’s self. To lose one’s self. And then you realize that the reason for that is nothing but your own freakin choices. When you choose something else or someone else over yourself. When, perhaps out of fear or maybe out of doubt in yourself and luck of personal strength, you choose the easy way. You choose that which looks safer, more certain and more likely guaranteed to give you what you want, to get you where you want sooner and without any bumps in the way. In two words? The easy way (well, three if you count the article “the”). And that is something that I have been doing for quite some time now. I’ll admit it always feels right when you do it since you see how fast and how much you progress in a rather short period of time and that makes you feel good about it but, it is after you’ve dealt with the consequences that you see how much this whole choice of yours has cost you. How much this has affected your life as well as others whose lives intertwine with yours. And how much you’ve lost along the way including yourself. If that doesn’t blow your mind just now, don’t worry. It might. Some day. When you’re ready to learn. Hopefully not the hard way like I did. It’s never too late to try to make amends. However, no matter how much you want and are willing to try and you do indeed make the effort to put everything back the way it was, there are some things that cannot be fixed. Not anymore. And that sure hurts..

So in the end, that list actually helped me more than I thought it would. I actually didn’t think I had anything to gain from all this other than the reason for which I wrote it and what I hoped to achieve in doing so. And yet once again writing got back to me. Because that list did help me. It reminded me of me! It reminded me who I was and what I wanted to do for me. What I wanted to do with my life. I have no idea whether and if I’ll ever be able to truly go after my dreams (well, top dreams) or settle for one that I like but not as much (not the easy way! Gotta point that out) but acknowledging, well, some �" not all �" of my bullshit sure is a start. And most importantly, remembering and knowing once again what I want to do, what I really like to do is a rather large step. The very first step…

I never gave him the original list. The one that said why I agreed in doing this. I do tend to overanalyze stuff and get easily carried away by my thoughts and once that happens, I could write a whole frickin novel about it. Something tells me you had a tiny bit of sample of this a while ago. And besides he never asked for that part. Still, I did give him a decent paper. With a few smudges here and there but overall a rather neat one. I have no idea whether he ever read it or not but what I mostly care about is the fact that in the end, writing down that list actually helped me. Regardless whether that was his intention or not. It did help. It made me find my way again. The part of me I had forgotten. And that is just…priceless... Getting lost in the path of easiness and comfort is easy (said easy twice) and finding your way back is more difficult than you can imagine mostly because you have to want it. You have to want to change. You need to have the will to get out of this. Cause if you don’t, you never will. And who doesn’t like comfort?.. That’s the tricky part right there my friend. However, acknowledging it counts as something I guess. So, having remembered myself again what could be step two?

Coming soon…

Reviews

[Geo Hard]

I must be one of the few who got dragged into your whole Greek story. Although I reviewed your profile and previous writting i still have unaswered queries especially on this bit: "The easy way . And that is something that I have been doing for quite some time now. I’ll admit it always feels right when you do it since you see how fast and how much you progress in a rather short period of time and that makes you feel good about it but, it is after you’ve dealt with the consequences that you see how much this whole choice of yours has cost you. How much this has affected your life..." What are you describing in the above paragraph? Drugs? Alcohol? Stealing? Prostitution? Is that somekind of a "Greek habit" that readers cannot understand?

[The AshKat Projects]

i'm so glad i got you dragged into this!hehe.however, i'm afraid i can't answer your question. for now at least. it's a long story and a rather "heavy" one. maybe i'll share it some time but,till then you're gonna have to make do ;)