The Story of Only Children and Walls

I am an only child born to older parents, my birth circa their early 40's--it's a miracle my mother survived the ordeal considering her petite stature and my fetal weight. Most of my time spent with peers was in school, at church, or at the park. Regardless, I spent countless hours playing and entertaining myself in my room, alone, with my toys to the extent that my stuffed animals became my friends, and protected me from vampires when the lights were turned off. But that is inconsequential.

If you've ever lived alone, you might find yourself having conversations in your head, often saying the same things many times over, or recalling the same memories or people until you find something else distracting--like sitting in front of a wall. The only response to your call into the abyss of human absence is silence. Consequently, you start to intuitively know yourself very well and become comfortable with me, myself, and I.

Topics that would normally suggest, yield or require discussion become monologues. It is very easy to become close minded and trapped in the room that is your isolation. It isn't that a person in this room keeps everyone else on the other side of the only door in, it is more that no other human is sitting on the carpet with you, sipping tea, as a matter-of-fact.

There are a lot of stereotypes about only children. But I have found that their independence means being unafraid to be alone. For some people, the absence of a loved one (or potentially another person in general) feels like a piece of your world is missing. For me, my world was never missing a piece to begin with, it was simply fuller when others were around. It is easier to cope with absence when solitude is something you have known your entire life.

This blog is a dialogue presented in monologue. A dialogue about an only child, young Buddhist woman traversing American life while not compromising her many identities. Sometimes I wonder how I'm doing...

Middle Way

Definition of eight winds:

Eight conditions that prevent people from advancing along the right path to enlightenment. According to The Treatise on the Stage of Buddhahood Sutra--Bandhuprabha's work that was translated into Chinese by Hsüan-tsang--the eight winds are prosperity, decline, disgrace, honor, praise, censure, suffering, and pleasure. People are often swayed either by their attachment to prosperity, honor, praise, and pleasure (collectively known as "four favorites" or "four favorable winds"), or by their aversion to decline, disgrace, censure, and suffering ("four dislikes" or "four adverse winds"). (The Soka Gakkai Dictionary of Buddhism 八風 definition)

For most of my young adult life, I have been using this as a guide to keeping calm almost. To me, being calm doesn't mean keeping myself from expressing excitement, joy, or agitation at all. It is more be able to keep my negative emotions under wraps and only expressing the uplifting, endorphin promoting emotions. But that isn't to say I'm necessarily a positive person, because many things I say, think, and feel are in fact pessimistic in nature. 

This concept has also been instrumental in reminding myself not to sweat the small things, something that can be difficult because I'm a perfectionist by nature, and slightly obsessive compulsive. If someone doesn't like my work, that's ok, I can fix it. If I don't get a call back for that interesting job opening, that's quite alright too, everything happens for a reason. If anything, this idea lets me be more relaxed about my life while still focused on my goals and not beat myself up every chance I get. This idea is so important to me, that I inked it on myself.

Things I Like

It seems I only complain about the things around me I don't like. So I decided to write down things I do like, seeing as even I don't really know what they are...

1. Golf
2. I Love Lucy
3. Romantic comedies
4. Sherlock Holmes
5. Billiards
6. James Bond movies
7. Papercraft
8. The Sims
9. Handicrafts
10. Politics
11. Indie music
12. Beer
13. Vodka
14. Long walks
15. Bodies of water
16. Admiring bodies of water from afar
17. Cats
18. Cleanliness
19. Macaroni and cheese
20. Simple, elegant, understated fashion
21. Androgynous people
22. Old movies
23. Smart phones
24. Comedy in general
25. Nature documentaries
26. C-Span
27. Baking
28. Examples of Murphy's Law in action
29. Talking over coffee
30. My daily planner
31. Tinkering
32. Discovery Channel shows (Deadliest Catch, Auction Kings, American Chopper)
33. Fixing things
34. Legos
35. Reading classic novels
36. Hot dogs
37. Stuffed animals
38. The sound of ticking analog clocks
39. Making lists
40. Collecting quotations
41. The smell of clean laundry
42. Pictures of flowers
43. Puzzles
44. The news
45. Vans shoes
46. Skinny jeans

A friend pointed out that most people don't find out this information until several years into a friendship with me. I should work on that.