sure enough…

yesterday, this guy came in to pay his bill.  as i’m getting his change, he says, “ya rasta?” 

i hate when this happens.  but having dreadlocks, i’m kind of asking for it.  so ok:

i say, “why would you think that?”

he says, “ya locked.  ya rasta?”

i say, “rastas did not invent the dread.”

oof.  in a nutshell, he said that i should consider being a Rasta, because otherwise, i am a “wolf in sheep’s clothing”. how perfect!  my last name is Wolf!  he didn’t get the joke.

i tried to explain why i have dreads to him, because i thought maybe it would make him a little less upset.  Here’s my story, short and sweet: ever since i was a little girl, every time i see dreads, i get happy.  i still don’t understand why. i realized 8 years ago that if they make me so happy, why don’t i have them?  That’s all.  That’s the story. That’s exactly all there is to my hair.

He interrupted my story to tell me that people who have locks and are not Rasta are essentially bad, and, as a customer a few years ago said, a “Rasta Imposta’”.   We (mostly he) spoke for maybe only about 3 minutes, but it was uncomfortable and one-sided.  Even when i spoke, he didn’t want to hear what i said, even if it would make him feel better!  Ultimately i thanked him for caring to tell me about Rasta, and he left grudgingly.

What hit me after he left was this: i’m the awful atheist, right?  But he, the religious one, was the one that created a conflict out of nowhere.  He, the religious one, was the one that invented intentions behind my dead, tangled hair.  

On any scale, this is what religion is capable of: judgement, accusations, assumptions, exclusion, offense, etc. The negative things only exist because of religion and its laws. You can argue that religion is also capable of good things: charity, love, compassion, etc. However, these good things exist without religion! You don’t need a bible to know not to kill. You don’t need the Koran to know not to steal.

something interesting happened today at the station:

we’re trying to book a substantially famous atheist writer for our morning show, and when one of the producers hung up the phone while working on finalizing his booking, she said something like “wonder if we should have a show about atheism during the pledge drive”.

it wasn’t what she said – it’s a legitimate business decision to make, nothing personal.  what struck me was that she said the word “atheism” quietly.  I’m sure she didn’t even notice that she did it.  I think a lot of people say that word under their breath – i know because i used to.  

lately, my atheism and my outrage for marijuana prohibition (let’s call it like it is) have made me feel like i have to live up to THEM.  How can i support my beliefs if i just keep words under my breath?  How can we talk about it if we’re keeping it quiet, like a secret?  

just a thought.  ice storm tonight, starting around 1am.  i am grounded.  :)

i remembered yesterday that my mom had told me once, “You are everything in your dreams”.  this makes sense.  it’s my brain that’s generating these images, these interactions, these circumstances.  she’s not magically popping into my dreams to send me a message or anything.  it’s all me who is consenting to participate in this dream, just like it was me that unanimously voted to wake up because i couldn’t bear to be in it anymore.

so.  i don’t know what that means.  i may be giving this whole experience more attention than it deserves, but, i am doing the best i can.

today is good.  woke up after a night of ambiguously good dreams to Momo headbutting my chin.  i have today off, and i have TONS of little errands to run (i LOVE little errands).  As predicted, I’m sort of dusting off my anguish from yesterday – I’ve got too much to do, and i know that all of you out there would prefer that i hold onto what I’ve got here and now.  Not banging my head against a brick wall with no one waiting on the other side.  Right?  Right.

Hope everyone out there is having a better day, too. 

oh boy.

i had a dream right before i woke up this morning about an ex. the ex. anyone reading this knows who she is. i’m embarrassed that it’s been five years, and she’s still not out of me yet.

to be fair, she wasn’t just hanging out in this dream, it was intimate and heartbreaking. seriously, i’d been doing really well. and my brains can’t logic me out of my sadness about this. i know it will pass. it’s just always such, such a bitter pill that i haven’t finished this, all this. i haven’t put my heart where my mouth is. i don’t know how to do it.

Here’s the thing: i know that a few days will go by, my head will clear up, and i’ll be in a more calm place.  i’ll forget about the details of the dream, i’ll have had a few deep breaths, i’ll have realigned myself, and picked back up and continued.  I don’t want to live the rest of my life haunted.  I wonder if expecting to be free of this ghost is naive.

I passed the desk of a colleague whose wife passed away a few years ago, and i felt like such an asshole.  My relativity is all out of whack after this dream.

***Update***

i feel much better now.  i think it’s reasonable that when a big relationship ends surprisingly and with zero resolve (she said she wanted to hear about my trip to Japan, and she never picked up the phone again.  I finally texted her that i didn’t want us to end in a voicemail – and sure enough, she let it go to voicemail.  after seven years.  isn’t that something?), how can you ever be at peace with it?  I don’t know what happened.  One minute she’s talking about moving back to CT between kisses, sobbing, SOBBING at goodbye, and the other minute, she’s just GONE, man.  i have no answers.  I have less answers now than i did the first time she disappeared!  isn’t that funny?  okay, not so funny.

anyway, i think about people who have lost loved ones mortally, with no resolve – no killer ever found, no remains at the bottom of the river… and they live with it for the rest of their lives, they go on breathing and all that.  while this is no mortal death, it’s still a death of something.  and as long as she’ll rest on her reasons and keep it all to herself, it’s impossible for me to ever know.

what’s funny is, why never makes a difference.  If i knew why, it wouldn’t change her decisions or what we both went through, or how things are now.  knowing why would just rest my mind, i guess.  knowing why would stop me from guessing.  

My logical brain is trying desperately to trump any evidence of this sad little part of my heart.

It’s like i’ve got all the successful, healthy, fuses in my fuse box clicked in the right direction, but one switch won’t budge.  maybe it’s because she was the last person i really loved.  and no one’s come along to – not distract, but, to be tangible evidence that love comes again.  i know i’m 28, and just like when i was 23, people would roll their eyes and say, of course love will come again.  it’s been this long, and all i have is nothing to show for it.  i don’t have explanations for my last love, i just have a sad story to tell.  i don’t have a disagreement, a someone-cheated, a we-just-grew-apart, a she-shit-all-over-my-walls (that one was for you, Lindsay!) saga… i have no idea what happened to a big, big, big love.  she’s still alive but she’s a ghost.  I don’t know if i’ll ever know what to do with that.  should i?  what’s the time schedule on things like this?  isn’t five years enough?  i know i didn’t wuss out on feeling sad – i wrote a whole album about it! so i embraced the sad, went through the stages of whatever, and there’s still some sort of ballast holding me back from being free of this sadness, even though this sadness comes rarely.  Do i live with it?  What can i do?  in my car this morning, i thought, this is stupid.   i’m gonna die some day and this is dumb.  this means nothing.  shut the fuck up and get back to how you saw the world before: full of everything you need, right here, with limitless possibilities.  crying about someone who couldn’t love you back is for pussies.  

i do keep thinking i’m done with this.  i really do.  at one point, i felt exorcised, and it was amazing.  i thought i was done.  

i wanted to let you guys know that i feel better than i did this morning. i hope tonight’s dreams are of anything else.

thanks a lot for reading, for listening.  always.  :)