In the play of my life.

Every once in a while I hear my internal monologue running and I think, 'Who the heck is that talking?' I've lived a number of mostly fictitious lives; you know like if they wrote a play or a book about me I'd have several distinct acts. It's not until you've lived through something that you can usually look at through the playwright's gaze. I think my internal monologue takes on what I would be like in that play from each of the acts. Not usually an accurate depiction of who I was, but the voice I might use to tell a story about that time in my life?

In case there are interested parties I'm willing to sell the rights to my life story. Here's an outline.  I'd totally be into an edgy musical, but you know whatever you're interested in.

Act I: Middle class family forced to send children to public inner-city schools. White children are the minority. (Gasp)
          Enter Real Life got into magnet programs at public school; had excellent teachers and intelligent peers.

Act II: High School - Struggles to fit in at school literally lined with guns and gangs rule supreme; finds a lifeboat in music.
          Enter Real Life continued in rigorous college prep courses. Was in show choir [read: not Glee]. Friends played Apples to Apples in my basement. Didn't party or go to any sweet underground clubs [read: not Save the Last Dance].

Act III: College - Swept away to a quaint college town in the south. Can't fit in due to cultural differences and backward thinking. Teaches the white privileged kids at school what acceptance is.
          Enter Real Life figured out how to live as a psuedo-independent young person. Made friends and talk about some important stuff. Had fun. Learned some stuff.

Act IV: Teaching - [See Freedom Writers]
          Enter Real Life went too far away to do something that's real hard. For real. Thank a teacher today. Cried like a baby.

Cote de Pablo must play "adult" me in the movie adaptation per my father's request.

These are a few of my favorite things.

Have you ever tried to sort your life into mountains and molehills? Unsurprisingly when your looking at everything on its own, it all looks like a mountain but when you start to step back and bring more into focus you start to notice that maybe it's not just the two and there are nearly as many mountains as you originally thought. In my experience it starts to shape up to look a whole lot more like the rolling hills of central Kentucky.

Every once in a while it's important to step back and reevaluate the important things in your life: look at what you have, what you need, and then sort out the superfluous. I'm working on the superfluous  and for now I need some simple things like love and support from friends and family, a little validation from my lover, and the ability to make myself feel like I can be heard. I have so much that I can't even start to list it all. Every once in a while I think that I should just donate the bulk of my stuff and be a minimalist but I've come to terms that that won't be happening any time soon.

As I was considering all the things I have and continue to accumulate, I've started to come to terms that I like to have my stuff around me.  While hopefully staving off hoarding impulses I thoroughly enjoy feeling surrounding by things that mean something to me. I like to have them out where I can look at them not necessarily to handle but just to be reminded that they're there. I first started to realize my (probably irrational) connection to my stuff my freshman year of college.

We moved the summer before I started school and I remember unpacking then painstakingly sorting and repaking my possessions to take to school. Of course I had some cool new stuff, a beautiful new quilt for my dorm bed, my first computer, you know the usual. But I remember sifting through posters from plays, countless nicknacks from trips, photos, hair ribbons, old journals trying to pick out just the right stuff to bring from my old life to my shiny new college life. When I got to school I painstakingly arraigned my old posters on the walls and filled in any remaining space on my side of the room with the hundred pictures I had deemed important enough for my new adult life. My roommate who came several days after me was a completely different story.

I remember being in awe of how beautiful and new all of her things seemed. She had a color palette that she stuck to and everything seemed to match. Even more I was amazed at the restraint she showed. She kept putting things I figured would go up on a wall away into her desk or a dresser drawer. I still don't get that all the way. I love my earrings they're colorful and beautiful and I want to see them. I still keep my earrings out where I can look at them. I understand the concept of jewelry boxing but just don't do that well with implementation. When I put thing into a box they seem almost lost to me, hidden in another universe out of my reach.

I like to be reminded that I have a lot of stuff and while it's easy to salivate over organizational systems and fancy boxes on Pinterest or in a magazine ultimately I want it where I see it every day. I love that I can walk around my apartment and pretty realistically count my blessings where they sit, even if they're busy watching Netflix on the couch.  I'm so lucky to have the things and people I do in my life and maybe I just subconsciously know that I need that reminder every once in a while. Who knows.