Epic Fail.

We're always encouraged to keep going, never stop, dust yourself off and effervescently try again.

As students, from high school and undergraduate studies to graduate school (which seems like a more favorably options with our cute little recession), we are taught how to achieve and be successful. Acquiring internships and degree-related jobs are constant goals, and sometimes, they don't work out. So can we talk about them? Is it accepting to expound about our failures?

I've had a ridiculous amount of meetings and interviews this week which gave me ample opportunities to talk about me, me and me. Of course, I chose to elaborate on the highlights of my experiences and passions. Never once did I mention my weaknesses or as to recount the blog title, my epic failures.  

An emphasis on the theory, "To fail is to succeed" definitely sounds off time and time again in my life. It doesn't mean I don't succeed. To write a blog and post it is success to me. Your success is your definition; however, I'm tired of talking myself up all the time. As I wrote earlier, to be vulnerable makes you stronger. 

So here goes my failures. 

• I had a cool job with this entertainment brand and band label company as a Campus Rep. I didn't even finish the semester out with them because I disliked it. There was no face to face interaction. It was all done by email assignments and snail mail. Surprise. Well, I didn't turn in the assignments and decided to discontinue my rep. job, and I failed at that goal in my life. 
  

I learned that I didn't like it. I need some more interfacing and connectedness with people. So I have a major "must have" in my life. I need you. I need pretty human faces as part of my success.

• I failed at owning a dog. I gave him away within 8 months. Sad but any dog (right now) is better off without me.
  
• I failed at doing a marathon. I did a half one, and then became obsessed with running and hurt myself. It was a good thing because if I hadn't of stopped running, I would have blown away with the winds the other night. Exercise AND food can't exist without the other.

There are many more.

Now, after we try, fail, talk about our failures, get some encouragement, dust ourselves off, and push from the wall again with our heads held high, you can be your very own Rocky Balboa!

 

Just a buncha Hooligans.

As I'm only moving up the ladder of the age chart, I realize that aging is not only a physical process. A simple observation, yes. We see our grandparents and parents with a few more wrinkles and gray hairs. Perhaps even in our early twenties, we have a slower metabolism and some sun spots from those days by the pool. 

But there is something more I've noticed in my friends, the people I pass on my bike or even in a cafe, and me as well. 

Our past and what we've always had is becoming much more dear to us than ever before. 

There are the holidays. Biking, driving, walking, blading down our streets, you see houses decorated for every occasion. Whether it's Easter, Christmas, St. Patrick's day, or even Halloween, we do not miss a day to celebrate and buy cheap paper arrangements or carve pumpkins. It's as if our parents send us off to become independent, but we spend these last years to relish in our childhood.  Buying puppies and baking cookies, who wants to grow up? We really are Toys R Us™ kids, and it makes me smile.

Going home, not to the house we so costly rent here that sometimes I feel as though we are modern day peasants in a 21st century feudal system with the greedy landlords as the aristocratic class heartlessly ripping us off, but to the our family and our old rooms filled with high school memorabilia. I jump out of bed each morning I'm home just to hang around the breakfast table with my flesh and blood and other dear people as we dissect life's intricacies with one, two, three cups of coffee. 

Another hands down favorite would land myself in my mom's closet. It has become the hot spot place to be. From worn italian leather satchels and vintage costume clip-on earrings to elastic waisted jean shorts and fanny packs, I don't think of  it as settling at all. It's more like recognizing the coolness of my parents I once cracked on as a silly teeny bopper. 

My best friend and I have accepted the fact that we are our mom's in a nutshell with a couple different spots and crevices yet the same shape and quality. 

So are we all to become a bone-marrow copy of our parents? We take parts, big chunks, of who they are as they did the same with their parents. We tailor our inherited defaults and independently acquired skills to breathe in and out our whole selves. 

A professor told me today, "We're constantly changing ourselves and evolving to become someone new. If  you don't, people are going to be bored with you."

As many books have been written and and leaders have spoken to many crowds, what do you want to be? Just who will you be?

Do we have to grow up to be that being?

Tiny Talk

As the bee boppin' jazz music playing dazzles my delight and strums my current heart's strings, I'm shuffling through the thoughts and discoveries of today.

Snow in Northern Alabama and brisk weather here in Tuscaloosa, in April. The lion seems to have eaten the lamb.

Italy's tragic earthquake event this morning--leaving 150 dead souls, 1,500 injured and over 50,000 with neither roof nor bed. Statistics and numbers speak for themselves. Send a prayer or some positive energy to the beautiful yet currently shambled medieval city of  L'Aquila.

In other news, there is a concert next Monday night. A free one to be exact. To be even more precise dear reader, NeedtoBreathe will be the featured band. Oh and if you don't know them, please take a moment, stop reading this silly blog, and go enthrall your ears to some musically gifted individuals with some bangin', rock-your-soul lyrics  http://www.needtobreathe.net/ 

Small talk CAN be fun but what borders and boundaries make it small?

City Lights.

Roll your head back and smile of what you thought when you first woke up.

Good or Bad. It was your thought. Your feeling. Yours to have and hold.

This morning, I remembered to say, “Rabbit, Rabbit” on the first day of the month, as the first word I said aloud of the day. Supposedly, this bit of tradition brings one good luck, good riddance for the rest of the month. It’s connected with the same rabbit’s foot luck. I might be swayed to become a bit superstitious if the days continue as this April Fool’s Day played out to be a magnificent one indeed...

Today, I opened myself up to be taught and allowed others to pour into my soul. To soak in others and connect beyond the average “Hi” and “Bye” small talk. It deepens your perspective in life of many things, if not everything. 

There is something about being vulnerable, especially with someone.

To be vulnerable with another person brings common ground and relevance between two beings. It can knock down walls and barriers. Being vulnerable can lift and release pressure. Vulnerability can heighten friendships and free bondage people remain in for so long, so wearily. 

So Happy April to you and remember next month, next first.