I try to do a lot with very little. My apartment is cozy, but spartan when it comes to comforts. My walls and most flat surfaces serve as shrines to the people and things I love (including myself), but they double as places where my stuff (like mail and schoolwork and magazines articles waiting to be mailed to friends) sometimes piles up until I have more time to cull thoughtfully. More comfort-driven people would find my apartment (and my life) very hard and confusing. They might not understand the things I choose to keep or spend my money on versus the other things that are more typical, which I forego. For example, I bought myself a dangerous, difficult-to-ride $300 bike in April, blowing almost half a month's rent, but when my front porch bulb went out several months ago I decided it was fine to come home to a dark porch. (I finally changed the bulb on Saturday so that we could grill outside for my birthday party.) I almost never go to the movies because I don't care about things I don't know I missed and I don't have cable television to tell me what I'm missing. But I bought a snowboard that leans against one of the few open spaces on my walls for most of the year. I rode it twice this year and will probably do no more next year. It is worth it; movies and television are not.
I'm also very extreme in my thoughts and feelings, but not in the way one might expect. A lot of the thoughts I keep to myself are very severe. I judge people harshly because I hold myself to high standards. But I never force my expectations on others unless they have in some way made a commitment to me or to something that affects me directly, so most people never find this out about me. At the same time, the people who do understand my severity would be surprised to see how much beauty I see in the world, from the tiniest of things to the big picture. I like to put things in perspective as often as I can afford to, and I like to feel hopeful and as if I can do anything. (This is not hard for me on most days.)
A lot of the things I find easy seem to be very hard for most other people, but I think this is because I have built up a habit of expecting things to be impossibly hard and for me to be able to do them anyway. I also have a less established habit of doing things that are hard for me, or that I'm clumsy at, not just in spite of my difficulties but because of them. I spend a lot of my energy trying to get that habit further ingrained in myself. I spend about an equal amount of energy optimizing the pace of my life. While I actively seek out challenging things, I also look for the path of least resistance so that I can do as many hard things as I can squeeze into my time here rather than waste lots of time fighting for something that really isn't worth the time compared to the dozen other things I could have accomplished in that time. Then at the end of each day, I try to forgive myself for not being perfect at that last part. I often remind myself that I'm not sorry I spent a few years of my life stubbornly spinning my wheels when I should have moved on because once upon a time there was a me who could never get past that kind of regret. It becomes truer every day, and it's part of what lets me see so much beauty in life.
I still struggle with all of the usual stuff - stress, strained relationships with family or friends, etc. - but I relish the hard times for they are every bit a part of this one-time happening that is my life as the good times are. And then I think to myself,
BOO-YA. Not everybody is at peace with this kind of stuff. Way to be. (Because who else is going to pat me on the back?)
