It's been a while. From blogging almost every other day a few years ago to once every 4 or 5 months to radio silence. Work has taken over. I never ever thought I would write that, but my life now is all about work.

I guess it was about time I found something to pour all my surplus passion and energy into. Traveling and "modeling" and reading and living the 'gypsy life' did not really fit with the life I set to surround myself in. (If I could find the courage to move to an island faraway, I would. But here I am in San Francisco. Ambitious and amorous. Full of life but full of pedigree that dictates social caste.) Wherever I am, I have this incredible desire to succeed of my own merit. So I got a job in July, a real one with a 401K and everything. It's been about four years since I've had one of these. They are a world of their own, with their own language, etiquette and power dynamics. Two months later I got a promotion. Now there is rumblings in the office of a bump to being Director.

There is also this fear that I must acknowledge...

Of being in the working world I find that there is this fire inside of me that wants to succeed at all cost. There is also this fear that I must acknowledge, that I try to outrun every single day by overworking myself. The fear of failure, that all this could be lost in a split second and I need to build my ship so I can float when the deluge does occur.

Anyways, old friend, I truly have not had time for anything else outside of delving into my exhaustion as soon as I come home. I collapse into a heap of tiredness and just want to nap. After napping, my brain is empty. Too empty to write. What happens when a writer does not write for a long time?

She loses herself and cannot distinguish her voice from the other voices inside her head. When a writer fails to articulate all her dizzying thoughts, they turn into screams. She becomes neurotic. A ball of nerves and insecurity. She's lost herself because she's lost use of her words. I am my truest self when I write. And I forget this sometimes all the time.

Someone showed me kindness the other day, and said,
"You are unkind to yourself. You are beating yourself up when you are at your best."

You know that Facebook memories feature? I hate it. Four years ago I used to post all these quotes, I would post inspirational thoughts next to spectacular landscape photos from my travels. I would post candid, but flattering, images of myself (enough to convey a sense of free-spiritness but not without a slight sense of premeditation) with quotes from Rumi or Pablo Neruda or Anais Nin to distract viewers from the fact that it was gratuitous self-promotion. I look at them now and I cringe.

They were absolutely pretentious and narcissistic. Nowadays I just admit that I am. But back then, to veil self promotion behind the illusion of depth...oh it was so cheap. And it reeked of desperation for attention. We are all going through our own journey of pain, loss, self-discovery. But does your self discovery need to be broadcast on social media with a Valencia filter and a Gandhi quote? It makes the whole thing disingenuous, premeditated.

My heart breaks for Paris, but it is constantly breaking every day for those dying around the world. This is not to trivialize what happened in Paris because it took a tragedy like this (this = a tragedy in a developed city) to bring so many people around the world together. Perhaps it will make others aware of that human right travesties that occurs every day in less developed nation or the ones in our own backyard. These things shouldn't have to happen to open our eyes, but now that our eyes are wide open, how will we let this affect our outlook of the world?