Day Off from My Brain/ The Hang-Over

Today I woke up and felt old. Well, let's be clear about the facts- I was hung over, extremely hung over, from a really fun night out with friends, where I drank more than I'm used to drinking. So I woke up today, head exploding and stomach turning, and as I nursed my evil hang-over, I thought, "Golly moses, I used to drink much more in college, and then get up and go to class at 9am looking like a super-model. Right now I can't imagine leaving my bed before 4pm and even then I'll still look like a drowned rat. I think this means I'm getting old."

So I went through the rituals of dealing with hang-overs: drank a gallon of water, took four tylenols, took a 20 minute shower, stuck my head in the freezer, had a fried chicken sandwich, and drank a cup of coffee the size of my head, the whole time thinking, "I will never drink again. Until I forget why I said that."

And as the day went on and I could literally think of nothing but how miserable I felt, things that I care about and think of every day became completely unimportant due to my inability to do them. I didn't avoid carbohydrates, I didn't go to the gym, I didn't go to yoga, I didn't meditate, I didn't do my crossword puzzle, I didn't read a single thing (didn't even want to read subtitles on a foreign movie), I didn't take out the trash, I didn't fold the clothes I wore the previous day, I didn't make my bed, I didn't look in the mirror and tell myself that I am beautiful and powerful, I didn't try to not think of any ex's (or to not think any negative thoughts in general, for that matter), I didn't de-clutter my inbox, I didn't check the mail, I didn't write in my journal, and I didn't even comb my hair. I probably wouldn't have even brushed my teeth if the action weren't so automatic for me. All these things that I "have to do" every day because they essentially make me feel better about myself, my space, and my life were completely ignored today. It's like I got a day off from putting in any effort towards expanding my happiness and well-being. All I wanted was to replace my brain with ice. And you know what? It was kind of a relief.

As it turns out, I put a lot of my energy, every day, into "feeling good". Into keeping the rhythm of my life the way I think I want it. Into making myself and my home look good and welcoming. I didn't even realize that it was all actually quite draining, and getting a day off from all of it could feel like such a relief.

Usually when I'm in some kind of pain I try to breathe through it, feel it but not get overwhelmed by it, not get sucked into negative thoughts and actions, and find a way to see some light in every situation. But when it's as overpowering as my hang-over was today, it just takes too much effort to try to see the good in it and feel better. I just wanted to hang out with how bad I felt and lay there feeling sorry for myself. And that's what I did.

I found that it was actually very relaxing to just feel like crap and not try to change a damn thing about it. By the end of the day, I feel like I got a break from my own brain, and every one needs that sometimes. My brain, my body, and I work so hard to keep me balanced and happy, it actually seems a little bit unnatural now that I can contrast it to a day of the complete opposite. Maybe I don't need to work so hard on myself. Maybe I can give myself a break, not monitor every thought and action, every day.

Positive energy is a powerful thing, and I'm starting to suspect it can do a lot of the work on its own- it doesn't need me to try so hard all the time to turn everything into something good. Even this blog post is the perfect example. I started writing it thinking, I'm not gonna try to put a positive or conclusive spin on anything, it's my day off from my brain, I can just write about how miserable my day was and how different it felt from every other day. And now, as I finish writing it, it turned out to have a positive and conclusive feel to it anyway. I think it's because positive energy, like anything else, only needs us to meet it half-way. It travels the other half of the way on its own. I don't need to take the whole trip on myself. Just being open for a shift in consciousness can be enough to welcome growth and insight into my life. Essentially, I don't have to try so hard to be happy.

What a relief.

Me this morning, feeling like death.

My Truth about My Lies

The first time I got really sick at school and had to be sent home I was in the second grade. I had a fever and got dismissed from school, which at first made me sad, until I got home and it turned out that being sick meant I could stay in bed all day watching cartoons with my mom by my side, who took care of me and gave me her full undivided attention. I registered that experience as feeling special. As soon as I returned to school the next day, healthier, I felt a deep desire to go back in time so I could have that feeling again. Since I couldn't go back in time, I figured out that I might be able to re-create that experience by being sick again. But I wasn't sick anymore, and I didn't know how to get sick. It took some planning, but a few weeks later, I went to my teacher and told her I had a stomach ache, the only illness I came up with that I could "fake". I was lying. It was the first time I ever lied to my teacher, and it may have been the first time I ever consciously lied to anyone. I was one of the best students in the class, so she didn't question me for a moment. She sent me to the nurse. The nurse, however, was used to children who wanted to go home to their mothers for the day, and told me I was fine. I could have given up then, but I was longing so desperately for that feeling of special again that I was willing to risk my credibility and reputation as an exemplary student. I went back to my teacher and told her the nurse didn't think I was sick but I still felt sick. My teacher actually got mad at the nurse, telling her that of all her students, I was the one who would never ever make up such a thing, and if I was claiming to be ill, it's because I was. I got sent home, and my teacher personally called my mom to tell her the story and to defend my honor. I had never lied to my mom either, so she believed the whole story. She actually seemed proud of me, proud of the fact that I was such a good, honest student that my teacher would take my word over the nurse's. I was put in bed and she sat beside me. All had worked out according to the plan. But the feeling of special wasn't as strong this time. There were new, overpowering feelings surfacing. I felt like a bad girl for lying, then I felt somewhat powerful for getting away with it, and then I felt endlessly scared that someone would find out I had lied. I had gotten what I wanted, a day in bed with cartoons and my mom at my side the whole time, but it didn't feel the same as the first time, when it was all genuine. Something had been accomplished, and something had been lost, though I couldn't quite figure out what those things were. However, I learned an important, very adult-like lesson: If other people think you're an honest person, you can get away with anything.

I would use that lesson to my benefit over and over again. It became one of the primary masks I would take on: The Honest Person Mask. I mastered the line, "How can you not believe me? Have I ever lied to you?" It would embed itself so deeply into my persona that when asked what one of my best qualities was during interviews I would automatically reply, "People always tell me I'm a very honest person."

Of course lying never felt completely "good". It was a way to survive. Since I couldn't simply demand things like, "I want to stay home with mom today instead of going to school and I want to be the center of her world", or- later- "I want to kiss other boys and not have to tell my boyfriend about it," and "I want to go to a rave without my parents knowing so I won't get in trouble," I had to come up with ways to get what I wanted, and those ways often involved, at the very least, some concealing of the truth. And, for the most part, there were never any major consequences either, other than internal ones that I wasn't mature enough to understand.

Then, one day, something new happened. I was in mid-conversation with a friend, talking about a guy I'd been involved with for a year, saying something along the lines of, "And he loves me. I know he does. Even though he doesn't say it," when my friend said, "Larissa. Stop it. Stop lying to yourself. You've been lying to yourself for a year. He doesn't love you. He doesn't want to be with you. You're going to waste your life telling yourself this lie." I was shocked. I hadn't noticed that I had gotten so good at lying that I had managed to lie, in a massive way, to myself. I wanted to be in a committed loving relationship with that guy, and since that wasn't the reality of the situation, I had thwarted the truth to fit my fantasies, and, as my friend pointed out, ended up wasting a year of my life with my own dishonesty.

Now, I know that women do that a lot. Women create whole relationships that never exist and deny mountains of feelings in order to believe they have something with someone when they actually don't, all because, well, we want to be loved and chosen. Blah blah blah. I'm not trying to say my experience was particularly unique, but it was a new realization for me at that time. I hadn't known the power I had to mess with the truth so that it suited what I wanted, nor had I ever been present to its real consequences in my life. It was as though at that moment, with my friend's words, I became aware of how little control I had over my ability to lie. Since it had become a way to get what I wanted, I hadn't really realized that I actually wasn't getting what I wanted, I was just making the circumstances look like what I wanted. When I lied to my teacher and the school nurse and my mom and pretended to be sick, I did get sent home, but I was seeking my mother's concern and attention, which were granted, but not to me- deep down I knew I was healthy, and so my mother's attention was actually being given to the lie I had portrayed, and that's why the experience didn't fulfill me. It looked like what I had wanted it to look like, so I figured it must be what I wanted it to be. But it wasn't. No matter how we set it up, even a lie that looks identical to the truth is not the truth.

It's like when you look at certain couples that are supposedly happily married. They live in a nice house, they have matching furniture, they have pictures on the walls where they're smiling, they have their set of activities and routines that they do together, etc., but something feels off. And it often is. They are playing house, acting out their parts, for whatever reasons (societal pressure or an unexpected pregnancy are popular ones), and so it all looks exactly like what happiness and matrimonial harmony tend to look like. But it's a lie, and everyone can feel it. And these lies are made of glass, it takes a lot of effort and specific organizing to keep it together, but one strong push and it will all shatter. Thus modern time's divorce rates.

As we say in Portuguese, "A lie has short legs," meaning it won't run very far, it will eventually get tired. I go so far as to say I think there are no inconsequential lies. No matter how it's justified or who it's protecting, it will do some kind of damage somewhere along the line, and it will never feel completely "good". A lie actually takes up space in our hearts and bodies, because we must then live with our knowledge that we have deceived someone, whereas the truth creates space. When I was telling myself that the aforementioned guy was in love with me and we were in a real committed relationship, I was carrying a lie in my heart, and it took a lot of effort and concentration to maintain it. As soon as I let go of it and told myself the truth, I had to deal with the pain, of course, but there was suddenly new space in my life- space for a truthful relationship. The simplicity of it surprised me- all the time that I was spending pretending that this guy loved me was time I could be spending with someone or in search of someone who actually would love me.

Of course, there's one dirty detail. The truth can be lonely. Once I chose to live by it, I broke up with that guy, and then I was single. I had no one to pretend to be with, which meant I had no one to be with. I was actually single for two years after that. And I'm not gonna lie (hah), it was lonely and it was hard. But you know what? Being with someone who didn't actually love me was also lonely and hard, and it was coming at a high cost. The payoff of honesty turned out to be the removal of inauthentic set-ups in my life that I had created in order to hide the empty space beneath it. I'll tell you what, though: that empty space, although sometimes lonely and hard, is real, and doesn't go away when we cover it up with lies. The only way to build upon that space in a way that creates more space is by living in truth and honesty. That is how we learn. That is how we grow. That is how we not only look alive, but feel alive, and our lives start to belong to us, rather than to our lies.

"The truth shall set you free."

My New York City

Memorable New York City moments....

- A little girl, maybe 3 years old at most, in sparkling gold tights and very dramatic pig-tails, sits next to me on the subway just like a grown-up, with no help from her care-taker, and happens to sit on the edge of my coat. She doesn't notice, of course, but I feel a significant pull on my right side, and for the rest of the ride try not move too much so as not to disturb this little person, who sits quietly observing others in the subway, more like a grown-up than I've ever known myself to be. I am relieved when her stop comes before mine, so that I won't have to disturb her when I have to get up, and she gets off my coat and walks out with the same self-importance with which she had sat down on my coat earlier. I smile.

- My first day at Yoga to The People. Donation-based yoga (essentially, free yoga). Forty people in an unpretentious room, sweating, chanting, breathing, creating, moving, being moved, opening themselves up, all together, and all alone, with different missions but the same movements. I feel a sense of belonging and independence all at once, with such intensity I start to laugh, loudly. And no one, not one single person, judges me or asks me to be quiet. Most of the people around me, in fact, without knowing why, join me in my laughter.

- A spring day, always a relief after winter, and Washington Square Park is crowded as can be. I sit on the grass, get out my lunch, and eat it while soaking in the happiness and relief that surrounds me. Then a bunch of people get together, and start singing songs and playing instruments. They are fantastic, and crowds gather. A very old man is dancing along. Everyone is happy.

- It is summer in Bryant Park and on Monday nights they screen old films for free. I get there early, before the grass opens, and stand around, with hundreds of other people, all of us holding our blankets out, waiting for the grass to open. No one steps on the grass until the guard lets us. And as soon as he announces, "The Grass is Open", we all rush out, screaming, running as fast as we can to get the best possible square foot of grass that lets us see the screen. I sit close to the screen, I spread out my blanket. I pull out my pic-nic, my book, and take off my shoes. It's only 5pm. The movie doesn't start till 9.

- I perform a Greek Comedy throughout the parks of New York one summer, for free. We are wearing togas and many layers of sunscreen. It's hotter than anything I have ever known. We have been rehearsing this play for several weeks, we have songs and dances and jokes and many cute moments. There are people gathered in the grass waiting for us to perform it. They're sitting in the shade. We're under the sun. We do it, and the crowd loves us, even though our only thoughts throughout the whole performance are "Please, God, don't let me pass out". It was that hot.

- My friend Ashley and I go out drinking one night. We are looking for boys. We decide we're gonna pretend we're southern, because new york men love out-of-towners (they have commitment issues, see). We tell people we're from Tennessee. I think I'm even wearing my gold cowboy boots. People are intrigued. But we don't meet anyone. We laugh really hard though, because everything is funnier when you say it with a bad southern accent. We come home and my other friend, Kerri, who is staying with me during that time, is sleeping. We try to be quiet but we're still talking in a southern accent so everything is funny. The next day Kerri says she dreamt we were speaking in southern accents.

- I have friends over for election night, 2008. We are not very talkative. We are nervous. We eat cheese and crackers and drink beer. And then. Just like that. Barack Obama is elected president. No place on earth, I think, is happier than New York. The city literally explodes in screams. From the 14th floor of my building, we can hear people screaming all over New York. Most of us are crying. We walk to Union Square, and the city is a party. There are people on lamp posts. Everyone is so happy, so genuinely and purely happy, there's no choice but to join in the vibrations of the night. We know we are living through a unique moment in history, and we will be the ones to tell about it.

- I decide to go for a jog. A very unusual event. But it's a nice day, and I am inspired. So I go all the way down to the river and start my jog. It feels good. Then, with no real warning and quite suddenly, it starts to rain. Then it starts to pour. There is absolutely nowhere for me to seek shelter. So I keep jogging. And then I start running. I am running through the rain and it's thrilling. I run all they way back to my apartment, and when I get to my building, soaked and confusing my doormen ( I apologize a hundred times for dripping everywhere, but they're laughing at me), I feel like my soul has been cleansed. It's amazing.

There are hundreds more. These are just a few. In essence, I love New York. And what I love most is when it surprises me with moments of connectedness and truth.