progressus in opere...

I am a work in progress dressed in the fabric of a world unfolding - Ani DiFranco

I realized at about 6:08pm last night that the odds of my actually getting something written for my 30-day writing challenge were about 1 in 6 trillion in happening. Now sure, I love competing with the projected debt load of the big, beautiful bill that has been shat upon us for the next 10 years as much as the next person, but I still said fuck it anyway and blew it off to recoup from an insane day and binge watch a bit of "Evil" on Netflix. I almost wish I could say I regret it as I even had to reschedule a friend's session with me, but I don't, and I tend to pride myself on my honesty, so there ya go. (Seriously...Evil is awesome and there are only 3 seasons, but I highly recommend!) That being said, I would be lying if I didn't suffer a small bit of that plague many of us have enabled and prided ourselves on, of constantly doing "something," but in the end, I, as in "ME" won out. After taking care of garbage, recycling etc, (husband is traveling for work, cats are lazy freeloaders, and I am not a total deviant!) I put on my Star Wars pj's, got my chips and Pico de Gallo and settled in for a few hours of delicious oblivion. Zero regrets, it was fucking amazing, seriously, I followed that was 3 more hours of reading...pure bliss!

As I awoke to a new day, after patting myself on the back for not hitting my snooze button, I started to contemplate how to get back on track as I fed the furries 4. Still no regrets, but I realized writing something after I had cleared the cobwebs would be a good plan, so I settled in to do just that. Fast forward 1.5 hours and I am now starting because my desk needed reorganizing to accommodate the desk organizer that got freed up with yesterday's labors and clearly needed to be integrated immediately. What I want to focus on for now, is that I got here eventually. Which is exactly what my entire life has been like, and I am learning how better to navigate the ride. My autistic heart needs to emphasize and point out the use "navigate" as any allusions of controlling my life, have long been thrown out the proverbial window.

Although I am years beyond being a blank canvas, too many dents and dings and splotches of color have been amassed, but I have come to view each day as being that canvas, eagerly awaiting whatever I choose to throw at it that day and reflect at the end of the day as to what stuck. Which as I grow older, I am honestly beginning to embrace as exactly what we humans should be allowing ourselves to do. Sure, adulting needs to happen. Bills need to be paid. Groceries purchased to nourish these shells we walk around in. Friendships maintained and not taken for granted. Minds fed so that we may continue to grow and expand. But we often forget PLAY. Ya know that thing we watch children do with abandon (or at least us Gen x'ers did before tablets and phones) and we wistfully remember our own experiences, hopefully smiling at the memories. The remembrances of laughing so hard we would hold our stomachs for fear of them falling out, scuffed knees and elbows from doing something without thinking it through, making up games that we truly believed were real and acting them out, staying up too late, and laying on the grass figuring out the secret messages and images the clouds were trying to convey.

You see my theory is that for all of our so-called advances and brilliant delusions we have created, we have failed at maintaining the best part of being human, playing. For the simple joy of playing. Now, I am not so Polyana that I actually think, nor desire to remain children, oh, hell no. (you literally could not pay me 10 million dollars to redo childhood) I simply mean we have forgotten to integrate and maintain play in our lives. Which honestly is hilarious as for all of our complaints about not having enough money or time for things we desire, play is FREE. Not only is it free, its limits, are bound only by our imagination. Shit ton of laundry to do? Why not play fun music and dance whilst doing it? Bills to pay on limited funds? When setting up or making payments why not role play a little and pretend, you're a millionaire and have a shit disturber side and are merely choosing to only pay off portions of what is owed for shits and giggles. Overgrown yard and weeds need pulling and if in a Cloverdale summer it's freaking hot out? Imagine you're surviving a zombie apocalypse, and you have recently found out they only attack houses with weeds. (I know zombies could care less about weeds, but we are using our imaginations people, focus!) The point is, just about the only thing in life any of us actually has "real" control over is how we choose to respond to what life throws at us, or what we inadvertently stumble into by choices we have made.

Now, I can almost hear some of you gearing up to whine at me, it's not that simple! Life is hard, we all have our triggers, our childhood traumas, things others couldn't possibly understand about us (please know this is 100% Gen X sarcasm here). I get it. I have those things as well. Well, perhaps not triggers as that seems to afflict millennials more, but you get my point. If history has taught us anything I think we can all agree that no matter what generation, you are in, life is hard. Life will always be hard. Humans are complicated. We will always be complicated. Each generation learns something new that is vital to our evolution. Each prior generation mocks it as being ridiculous because they are on some level uncomfortable with the truths being discovered. One thing I believe all humans have in common is that we are at some point in an eternal circle of existence. Sure, the details, the minutia of our individual experiences are multitudinous, but the core of that circle is the same. We are born, we live & then we die. We don't get to choose our parents, our race, our social strata at birth, and we certainly don't get to change our genetics of being human. So why I wonder is it, that we continue to allow play to be beaten out of us? Why do we create such narrow hallways to force our children or ourselves through to fit in, or feel safe? Sadly, I have none of the answers. All I can offer at the altar of contribution is perspective & a bit of a challenge. Play has a place in each of our lives, and I cannot state, nor remind of this strongly enough, it is free to each of us, no matter the details of our current existence. This is my permission slip to all, if not ready to accept play into your adult life, at least consider allowing it. Imagine the difference it could make. For you. Today. Because like it or not, we are all in fact: progressus in opere. For those not as fascinated in Latin as I am, it means a work in progress.