The last few weeks have been all about life goals – I need to start up an organization intersecting disability and mental health! I need to create an umbrella with built-in UV lamps! I need to see Alaska in summer to pretend I know how the Alps live when in reality I’m just visiting their glorified vacation home, because winter in northern Alaska is when all da shit gets real… wait, I just called them Alps! I’m sorry for my disgression; and if you’re an Alaska native – Yupik, Inuit, or Alaskan Athabaskan, for instance – and you’re reading this, you have every right to hate me, close out of this page, or… whatever it is you need to do.
Anyway… what was I saying?
Oh, yeah… life goals! At some point in my life (doesn’t matter when), I need to take a vacation to Switzerland. Maybe there, I can breathe European mountain air for the first time in my life. Maybe I can have the opportunity to see a completely different way of life than mine! Or… or… or maybe… I can see what it’s like to live in a land known for its neutrality, despite being in the middle of everything.
I’m in the middle of everything.
Smack dab in the middle of a city I actually don’t care for all that much. Smack dab in the middle of a job search that has taken years and years and years for me to take even the smallest of steps forward. Smack dab in the middle of therapists, job coaches, and organizations that are all trying to help me get better in different ways. Smack dab in the middle of two people I love with all of everything but who can’t love each other. Smack dab in the middle of political views, religious views, and every kind of view that seems to be tearing America apart lately.
Smack. Freaking. Dab.
My therapist once told me that the autism in me makes me feel the need to fix things that appear to be broken. I can see where she’s coming from; if you’re in the middle of something and it goes wrong – be it a project, a friend group, or a damn good song – you want it to be fixed. And since people on the spectrum tend towards obsessing over the little technicalities sometimes without being able to just step back, see the big picture, and logically figure the problem out, I see what she means.
How do I feel about that?
Frantic enough to mumble things that don’t even make sense. Let down enough to shout “Fuck you!” at Jesse Lacey and his stupid Soco Amaretto Lime. Broken enough to sob endlessly to a playlist of inspirational songs for the year on repeat, because hey at least it helps get the feelings out there. Ashamed enough to get exasperated with myself for constantly writing blog posts that make me look like I have no positive outlook on life. Tired enough to crawl into bed, snuggle with a paper plate that held this evening’s leftover pizza dinner and an almost-empty bag of cyinamon toast crunch cereal and sleep until half past one this afternoon.
- Feel. Glorious.
“You do?” you ask. “Really? Sounds to me like you’re being sarcastic! Or… maybe just losing it. You know what they do with crazy people, don’t you?”
“Oh, what do you know? Shut up and let me sleep!” I mumble at you, my face firmly planted in my pillow – but wait, it just hit me that nobody has said any of these things to me, and “You” is just a character I’ve made up in my head to complain about me… so, I guess you can say I’m complaining about myself and hiding it behind a veil of imagining it to be your responses to… some may call this writing. Either way, I’m probably overthinking this and should probably get to sleep. I’m also probably hugely ripping off Furiously Happy and should probably apologize for my lack of disgression.
“You’re also saying probably way, way, way too much,” You points out. “And you also just used the wrong verb conjugation, man – seriously, and you call yourself a writer?”
But what You will never know – ha, I used the right conjugation that time – is that feeling glorious isn’t always a Hallmark happy feeling.
Sometimes, “glorious” is the taste of chocolate cake on your fifth birthday, the first warm day of spring, or a mountain view from the window of a landing airplane. “Glorious” could also be the sweat on your face after a long walk in the summer heat. “Glorious” can be the pounding in your head the morning after a long night with friends. “Glorious” is admitting that you make mistakes, and maybe you ain’t really all that perfect… but every imperfect night’s tomorrow might be a best day of your life.
Glorious is imperfection. It’s raw, it’s loose, and it’s so distinctly human—
We are glorious.
You are glorious.
And if it takes losing your mind for the night, falling asleep to the robin outside your window at 4:00 AM, or creating your own metaphorical Switzerland to escape an argument for a while, then… do it!
Be glorious you.
The Minneapolis Mentality 