Julia vs. Stuff

I am an anti-hoarder. I love to throw things away. It's like a high for me. I get a trip out of tossing something triumphantly into the trash. "You don't have any hold on me you transient worldly dross!"
It's freeing. I try to convert people all the time, but humans are surprisingly attached to their stuff.

Secretly, I would LOVE to be a professional de-clutterer. Getting to throw people's crap away would be exhilarating. This is how I feel when I chuck something into the trash:

But like I said, people are attached to their stuff and the chances of me getting seriously maimed would go way up.

"You don't need this ratty sweatshirt from high school."

"But I like it."

"But you don't neeeeed it."

*Tosses it smugly into the trash*

*Gets beat up*

The only sentimental thing that I keep is notes from people. If you write me something even just mildly personal and kind, I will keep it.

On the flip side, I am also a tightwad. So the things I do keep, I use sparingly. My mind has decided that there is some special occasion coming up in the future that I need to save my nice things for. What that special occasion is, my mind has yet to inform me. Usually this applies to perfume and nice shoes, things that will either run out or get worn out if I use them too frequently.

When there is a special occasion that I might use my nice things for, I usually forget to use them. I buy perfume and because I worry about it running out, I don't use it. So it's essentially like I don't have perfume. WHICH IS THE PROBLEM THAT I'M TRYING TO AVOID IN THE FIRST PLACE. Sometimes I really don't think that I raised my brain.

Even though we live in a world of scarcity (thank you Econ 110 and Dr. Kearl) I am trying to live abundantly. Not wastefully, but abundantly.

I've realized that each moment can be a special occasion because "this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure" - Oprah Winfrey

Cheesy, but true.

So my advice is this: use the dang perfume and then throw the bottle away.

And here's more Soul Train because there are few things greater in this world. The last one is my personal favorite.

"Their Eyes Were Watching God" - thoughts

For those who are familiar with my blog, you will quickly realize that this is not one of my typical posts. This is not a story about something that happened in my life. Instead it is my thoughts on a book that I read. Since I didn't have anyone to discuss it with, I wanted to discuss it with myself. So if you fancy that, read on.

I'm a sucker for literary titles. I have to admit, that is one of the reasons I was drawn to read this book by Zora Neale Hurston. I didn't know much about it except that the title seems to contain a whole world in one sentence. "Their Eyes Were Watching God." It tells the reader almost nothing, but ignites questions. "Who are they?" "Why are they watching God?" It implies some sort of struggle. It implies humans interactions with a force greater than themselves.

So with this curiosity, I started to read.

I found that this book was exactly about struggle and forces greater than us. And yet, it is not a sad story. It contains, among other things, sadness and even worse than sadness, apathy, but I closed the cover feeling enlightened, wiser and with a desire to live my life with more purpose. As Janie Crawford, the main character, says "You got tuh go there tuh know there." I want to go "there" now. I want to have experiences and live and not be afraid of the struggle.

Janie's experiences at first stifle her thoughts and her voice. Then, partly because she meets Tea Cake, her third husband and the man that propels her forward towards her horizon, she rediscovers herself. One great symbol of this is when she lets down her hair from the constricting hair wrap that her second husband forces her to wear.

I love how Janie learns to put what people think of her into perspective. She wants to be true to herself, rather than be true others. This is illustrated poignantly at Tea Cake's funeral. " No expensive veils and robes for Janie this time. She went on in her overalls. She was too busy feeling grief to dress like grief."

As an INFJ, I frequently feel that my actions conform depending on who I am around. Janie encounters this too. With her grandmother and her three husbands she changes how she behaves and how she loves. She compares love to the changeable sea. "Love ain’t somethin’ lak uh grindstone dat’s de same thing everywhere and do de same thing tuh everything it touch. Love is lak de sea. It’s uh movin’ thing...it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore.”

Each marriage that she has is a shore. Most importantly, at the end of the book, she arrives at her own shore and is able to love herself and her voice.

To put it in the words of Peoby, Janie's best friend,  “Ah done growed ten feet higher from jus’ listenin’ tuh you, Janie.

Swamp Drugs

They say that to find trouble in Provo you have to go looking for it. Well, I'm here to tell you that sometimes it finds you. 

It was my friend's birthday and she had had a rough day. It would have been bad regardless, but it was especially bad because it happened on the day that everyone was writing on her Facebook wall "Hope you had a good birthday!" 

We were trying to decide on what we could do that would turn around a crappy birthday. We determined on going to the hot springs. Nothing like sitting in warm sulphur water and mud to celebrate your life, right?

This is the actual hot springs that we went to:

(Side note: I believe that is a shark in the water.)

We didn't leave until 11 PM. We had to walk through the creepy woods in the dead of night. Let me explain to you how creepy these woods are: They are creepy. 

Luckily, we did not get abducted by cult members looking for a sacrificial victim. (That is a legitimate fear I have every time I walk through there.) We did, however, find a group of youths having a party next to the hot springs. I'm not talking about a balloons and streamers party either. We shrugged our shoulders and decided to get in anyway. 

After listening to lots of grammatically unnecessary swearing and enjoying the warm water, I noticed that one of the youths put his head on the ground and started blowing on something. I said in my normal volume voice "What are they doing??" My friend shhhed me and informed me that they were making a bong. Sure enough a thick cloud of ganja smoke wafted over the smell of the sulphur springs and it was at that moment that we decided our hot spring birthday celebration had ended.

They always warn you about the naked people at the hot springs, but they never warn you about the drugs.

I can now say that I have been to a "real" party. Accidentally, but I was definitely there.