I’m a terrible texter… there, I said it.
Maybe it’s because I feel this weird disconnect created by phones. It’s ironic considering the whole purpose is to connect – especially over long distances.
There’s a tension in the rhetoric you’ll find online, people going back and forth in subreddits and Facebook comment sections about whether or not its ethical to completely disconnect from your device or wait to answer messages until you have the mental energy/capacity.
I think of myself as an introvert but people often tell me they percieve the opposite – something I chalk up to secretly being an ambivert who doesn’t take enough care of himself.
Basically, I’m not an introvert or an extrovert but some secret third thing.
And, isn’t it interesting I’ve always subscribed – even unknowingly – to what Siobhan’s father describes as “The Third Way”?
It almost sounds like something from a Star Wars film, I know, but bear with me.
I’m talking about something we as a species need to keep in mind moving forward, especially with the fight ahead and the fight already happening.
While we North Americans mourn our dilapidated democracies like a bad car crash on the world’s stage, war displaces and extinguishes life to the East – not that either are unrelated, mind you.
Corruption abounds in this world.
But, we keep space, we make time to mourn because it is necessary to feel it all.
The Third Way is all about feeling – feeling and connection; these are two things I’m still working on within myself.
In a sentence, I am reminded of an old Elton tune I love (huh, pun not intended but welcome).
Elton sings, “A man like me is dead in places other men feel liberated.”
I’m, like, 99 per cent sure I’ve quoted that line in my prior musings. It just holds so much weight for me and the healing journey I’ve been on over the past three years or so – even the traumas incurred just before that.
There are still pieces of myself I’m trying to reclaim or rediscover.
In some cases, I’m still discovering things about myself I probably would have years ago… it’s funny (for lack of a better word) how much we as human beings can influence one another’s lives.
Y’know, one of my favourite films is The Truman Show (1998). I’ve loved Jim Carrey since I was a kid – for obvious, comedic reasons sure but also for the man’s serious dramatic chops. The Truman Show showcases Carrey’s range for all to see.
Every damn time I watch that movie I bawl like a baby at the end when [SPOILERS] Truman finally manages to escape the dome he’s been living in.
I think a part of me always felt like my life was a movie.
I liked attention as a child (and let’s face it, I still do). I also loved performing! The idea of getting into the shoes of another character always drove me wild.
After every dinner at my grandparents house around Christmas or Thanksgiving or whatever holiday we happened to be celebrating, I would force all members of my family in attendance to sit and watch me put on a play or a variety show (depending on what the mood and my imagination called for) using various action figures and toys I had at my disposal.
In some ways, it was creativity and childlike imagination in full force but, in other ways, I can also see how I was looking for a way to escape – not from my family but from existential dread. I didn’t know it at the time.
You ever have someone call you an “old soul” when you were a child?
Another case of irony considering I wanted to be on TV and Truman, in contrast, did everything in his power to escape the limelight. Of course, it’s not just a performance to Truman it’s his life. Whereas I just genuinely enjoy acting.
I think if cameras were on me at all time, I’d be some heightened/exaggerated version of myself anyway. That always seems to be what happens on any reality TV show.
The truth is entertainment is growing more and more artificial, even as I write this post.
The point of this post isn’t to be somber, though.
But that’s the beauty of the Third Way, isn’t it? No, really, I think it is.
The good comes with the bad and vice versa, light and dark and light in dark and dark in light.
Just like us – and certainly like me.
No, not just because I’m biracial but there’s some obvious, low-hanging fruit there I can’t deny that.
Instead, I’m referring moreso to the “Shadow Self”.
All of us are born with and harbour the potential for great good, inexorable evil, or anything and everything in-between.
I see my Shadow Self (and have had it explained to me) as a reflection of myself comprised of all the ‘negative’ traits or ‘darker’ aspects of my personality. Not to suggest everybody is just one bad day from becoming Walter White or The Joker but also… kind of, yeah!
In all seriousness, do you want to know what my biggest takeaway is at the ripe young age of 28?
Well, as I verge on the twilight decade ahead of my 40s, the lesson I always come back to is something so simple it’s kind of silly really: take care of yourself.
I’m being real here. I know it sounds funny. Do I look like I’m laughing though? What do you mean you can’t see my face?!
What I’m really trying to say is that if you take care of your body and your mind they will, in turn, take care of you.
Have I perfected a routine to do any of this myself?
Not quite yet, no… but I’m getting there. And, what’s more, I’ve been reminded about taking care not just of my body and mind but also my SPIRIT!
In the face of uncertainty and shifting vibes, people no longer being in my life who I once considered family, the loss of my Grandpa, and facing the realization that I still have a ways to go healing-wise, I feel like I’ve actually come out of it all stronger and more resolute than I ever was before.
Protect your energy.
There’s another valuable lesson I wish 16-year-old Austin could have learned sooner.
I’m determined in a way I haven’t been in a wee while. My sails had been a little deflated.
But that was before 26.
Now, at 28, I feel like I can weather most storms with a modicum of alacrity, a sense – beyond sass and sarcasm – that everything might just actually be okay.
Still, I try to remain considerate of those around me and the person I have chosen to share my life with.
Still, I remain a work-in-progress.
Oh, whoever can’t say that anymore has some real reflecting to do.
But this is a place of mad musings, creative long-shots, outbursts and word-vomit-as-updates. Here, I can safely share and remind you that there is at least one other humano screaming into the void alongside you. I guess it’s subjective when I say “real” reflecting.
In a weird way, it all comes back to that idea of connection.
Love is what makes the Third Way tick and, while I can’t say I love you the same way I love my forever person, I can confidently say I love you for being you, for existing, for trying – I love you for waking up and facing the day – I love that we get to be alive at the same time on this crazy rock – I love love.
Okay, there it is. The Austin Manifesto: Love love and love each other. Don’t be cruel or mean. Do unhealthy things in moderation. Share Lego accordingly.
On texting, I promise I will do better. Same with calls.
I always say that and I always mean it. Levels of success vary but such is life. I’m not perfect – I’m some secret third thing: myself.
I struggle to strike that acute balance between introversion and staying in-touch, especially as someone who actually loves people (again, clearly an ambivert but who needs a label anyway?).
My hopes for this 28th go around the Sun?
- Live as happily and as healthily as possible.
- Get The Book of Naz fully edited and ready-to-publish.
- Finish wedding planning and pay off all small debts.
- Keep up my creative endeavours (acting, writing, singing, performing, etc.)
This is not an exhaustive list, mind you. Just something to keep myself and my goals on track.
I’m taking it one day at a time.
But I’m not alone – and I feel that. I feel a community around me. I feel the presence of love in my life and opporunities to reaffirm and invest in that love.
Honestly, I’m just honoured and grateful to still be here.
I’ve learned, through all of the things I mentioned previously – all of the adverse or downright sad things that have happened over the course of a year and change, that I can’t let anyone tell me who I am or who I should be. I’m allowed to have boundaries. More than that, I have the power to maintain and assert those boundaries.
If 27 did anything, it brought me closer to a much deeper understanding of myself, my needs, and what I can accept.
Though boundaries shift, people change, and everything is fluid, our actions remain just a portion of a reflection of who we really are. Many of us have the tendency to cast ourselves as the heroes or villains of our own stories and others.
But therein lies the power: we decide – when we focus on what we can control.
At this very moment, I’m focussing on enjoying the now without obsessing over what comes next.
I’m not making promises I can’t keep anymore. I’m learning to listen to my body and a mind that has been trying to slap some sense into itself for awhile.
I’m growing and aching and yearning and learning – and still being a poet from time-to-time, as you can see. Here’s to keeping that up, continuing to put myself out there, and seeing where this life takes me.
This is The Fro, signing off… for now.
thatfroninja. 