I've been doing a lot of reading lately: books, magazines, old journals, other people's blogs...Sometimes when this happens, when I go through one of these phases the line between what I read and my real life experiences begin to blur. Like some ladies talk about what's happening on their favorite soaps as if it were gossip in their own lives, I begin to think about what I'm reading as if it's happening around me. It is, I guess in a way, just not in a physical way. This is why that whole 'Harry Potter' episode of my life this summer was difficult for me to emerge from. Because I'd allowed myself to be submerged. It becomes an entire experience, the act of reading. Do we all do this? I hope so. If it's a good book, I hope we all feel some transcendence. But I need to remember to balance all this reading with a bit of real life too.
I just finished reading a book by Pam Houston a week ago. (listed on the sidebar) She writes about things I really relate to. Not always things I'm happy or proud about relating to, but so it goes. There was a line in this last book that got me thinking about how I approach this idea of having "hope." I mentioned my "hopefulness" in a recent blog post. She writes:
"I'd spent my whole life convinced that one sure way to not get what I wanted was to hope for it, out loud or even to myself..."
I think I do this??!? I'm trying to figure out how often I use "indifference" to avoid hoping out loud as a way to ease my disappointment when what I really WANT falls through. How often have I lost out on what I really wanted b/c I couldn't bring myself to admit the wanting or the hoping? YIKES.
All this talk lately about 'The Secret' and asking the universe for what you want, and I'm sending a big shoulder shrug and "I don't care. whatever is cool" out into the universe??
Well....shit.
So, how do you make that shift? Really, I'm asking. If what I want is to have the life I hope for and imagine...how do I stop protecting myself and start risking instead?
