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Text of the page (random words):
te anything in the past or will ever again in the future i said something along these lines to my friend right before she said jen it s time so i wrote my dating profile for okcupid it was kind of fun it made me laugh i thought this is good and i can write inspired by my success writing my dating profile i dipped my toe further into the writing pool and wrote an essay about writing my online dating profile then i wrote a few more things like this and this it felt so good to be back i was on a roll sort of i still start and stop write take a break struggle with writing self care balance passion working hard rest being consumed by creative projects having a life i write but then i have to take mini breaks because i work full time and have activities and commitments almost every night after work and i get t i r e d and need to rest not be so busy and striving all the time just be last sunday afternoon i planned to write but i was exhausted so i took a nap instead by mid week i was aching to write i m doing it today i may need to take a break tomorrow taking breaks from writing can be good self care and necessary periodically but still s till if i go too long without writing i feel really shitty sometimes i need to take a break from writing to pay attention to how i m going to pay my rent but when i m not writing inevitably i hit a point where i start to get angry and filled with resentment i feel invisible unseen unheard disempowered like i have no voice and the only way out of this is to use my voice and write something i need to be writing all the time and i need to take breaks both are true tags balance finances self care well being writing breaks writing life writing routine comments 3 comments categories goals inspiration self care writing if you feel stuck it could be your voice 26 sep i get stuck a lot tripped up in fear anxiety obsessive worry paralyzed by perfectionism waylaid by depression and absolute apathy where i can t muster up the motivation to do or care about anything not even writing sometimes i deliberately take a break from writing to focus on more responsible possibly more remunerative pursuits but whether it s deliberate or not if i m not writing i often sink into depression fear stuckness i don t give a shit about anything ness i feel like i m alone without a voice this invisible forgotten forsaken person even especially when i don t feel like writing the way out of this apathy and despair is usually writing this reminds me of a time 10 years ago when i decided that i was going to give up acting and write instead so i quit acting for a summer and was totally blocked and couldn t write a word that september i signed up for an acting class and soon after started writing my heart out so inspired by the words in the scenes i was memorizing and performing i wrote monologues and scenes and plays until the only words i was performing in and out of class were my own sure then it was acting that unblocked me and gave me back my voice and today it s writing but the message is still the same the thing i avoid is the thing that sets me free i get very despairing when i feel like i don t have a voice when i feel like i m not heard when i feel like i m all alone in my obsessive worry and depression this is not a fun place to be a few weeks ago writing and i were on a little break i put it on the side burner or maybe even the back burner it s not you it s me i just need some space to focus on other things and then that familiar despair crept in i didn t want to do anything didn t care about anything day in day out my life felt like drudgery comprised mostly of crying and naps you know how exhausting crying can be what s wrong with me i thought even though this has happened before longing to give a shit about anything at all to feel even the slightest desire to write again crying on the subway something that used to be more of a regular occurrence but i hadn t done in a long time after getting off the subway i stopped at a starbucks red and puffy eyed i knew i was nearing a bottom and something had to change when the barista rang up my water bottle looked at me sympathetically and said feel better so i decided to end my break and go back to writing i had to make the decision first before i felt like it but it didn t take long for what i felt like doing to catch up to want to write again to feel inspired and idea filled and excited and energized to remember what it feels like to have a voice to not feel invisible and powerless anymore to be strong and unstuck writing once again is the solution that thing that i sometimes avoid resist resent and can t even find the tiniest spark of inspiration for is the thing that makes me feel better this doesn t last if i stop writing though whenever i feel like i don t have a voice i m on the path straight to despair to claim my strength in the world to get unstuck to feel like myself i have to go back go back and go back again to writing i have to remember that i have something to say and say it i have to return to my voice and use it as if my life depended on it tags anxiety depression fear getting unstuck writing life comments 1 comment categories inspiration writing i had the time of my life at dirty dancing 26 jul yesterday my friend invited me to see a movie at mccarren park that night my usual m o is to say no to fun plans especially last minute fun plans because they re inconvenient and take me out of my routine and a whole host of deeper psychological reasons to be explored at another time in another post but i m trying to say yes to fun plans to bring more joy and spontaneity into my life plus this particular friend had recently invited me on several fun plans all of which i d said no to and i was a little afraid that if i didn t start saying yes soon she was going to stop asking what really put me over the top though and convinced me that i had no other option but to say yes was that the movie was none other than dirty dancing my all time favorite movie symbol of my adolescence and the unofficial theme to my bat mitzvah so last night inconvenient and spontaneous as it was i met my friend and her friends on patchwork of pieced together picnic blankets to watch dirty dancing which as it turns out is tremendously fun to watch with a crowd of fellow brooklynites the opening shot of baby and her family driving down a catskill road listening to cousin brucie and big girls don t cry on the radio immediately transported me back to 1987 and my 12 year old self the crowd screamed and cheered at all the places you d cheer in your head when johnny decks robbie she s like the wind plays and baby finally does the lift during the finale everyone in the audience jumped up and danced to i ve had the time of my life and the announcer said that that was without question the most magical moment he d ever seen in the seven year history of summerscreen throughout the night i leaned in towards the group piping in with little tidbits of memories and associations i had with the movie i love your history with dirty dancing one of the girls said as we were walking to the subway afterwards thanks i shrugged remembering back to when it all began in 1987 i sat on the family room floor leafing through the movie section of the local paper i flipped to a full page ad for dirty dancing with jennifer grey and patrick swayze in the same pose that they re in in the picture above and my breath caught in my chest i have to see this movie i thought shortly thereafter my bffeae best friend forever and ever beth and i went to see it one night at a movie theater on central avenue in yonkers someone s parents must ve bought us tickets because we were only 12 and the movie was pg 13 i was mesmerized and it instantly became my favorite movie ever of course bffs that we were beth loved it too and our bond was strengthened by our mutual obsession with this movie seeing it once was not enough i had to live it i got the record and listened to it all the time when the follow up record more dirty dancing came out i got that too i saw the movie over and over again with beth my parents and anyone who would go with me and rented it multiple times when it came out on video in between classes beth and i would practice our dirty dancing moves with invisible partners around the middle school hallways occasionally enlisting beams as stand ins for patrick swayze there was a dirty dancing concert tour at radio city music hall featuring eric carmen and the back up dancers but sadly no patrick and beth and i went with our mothers having dinner before the show at hard rock cafe and each buying a dirty dancing t shirt afterwards dirty dancing filled with music and passion offered the promise of sex electrifying to the mind and body of a 12 year old girl in seventh grade i d gone to spin the bottle parties in jack howe s basement but i hadn t yet french kissed a boy or gotten to second base like some of the other girls in my class but dirty dancing brought the hope of more further down the base line of someday having sex with or making love to a muscular shirtless dancing patrick swayze lookalike as cry to me played in the background that at 12 years old was my dream anyway it might not come as a surprise that at 36 as of yet that has never ever happened as electrifying as that first sex scene between johnny and baby was it was also mortifying one of the many times i went to see the movie was with my dad and i wanted to die during that part it was like watching tv with your dad when a tampon commercial came on mort i fy ing that year i was planning my bat mitzvah and it was a no brainer what my theme would be but some might not think that dirty dancing was an appropriate theme for a religious rite of passage for a 13 year old so it was my secret theme my official theme was 5 6 7 8 dance but i another curly haired jewish girl named jennifer knew the truth my real theme showed up in the photo on my sign in board in which i was smiling at the camera wearing my t shirt from the dirty dancing concert tour with jennifer grey and patrick swayze on it in the same pose as they re in in the photo above except with more clothing on it showed up when i ve had the time of my life played at my party and beth and i jumped up and down with excitement and like all good theme songs returned during the closing slow motion montage in my bat mitzvah video then as often happens in middle school my bff became my arch nemesis jealousy and resentment drove a wedge between me and beth as we moved on to other friends but we d always have dirty dancing in 2007 as soon as i heard that dirty dancing was going to be in movie theaters for its 20th anniversary i emailed beth whom i hadn t been in touch with since high school to ask if she wanted to see it together she wrote back right away saying yes and that she d been planning on getting in touch with me to ask if i wanted to see it the night of the movie i arrived at the theater early to get good seats and i scored two towards the middle a group of girls arrived before beth did and asked me if i could move so they could all sit together pointing to an empty seat in the corner nobody puts me in a corner i thought holding my ground and refusing to move the girls talked shit about me through the whole movie adding to the feeling that i was back in seventh grade again afterwards beth and i caught up over drinks you look great she said you haven t changed at all i was wearing a jeans jacket so that helped my transcendence of time but still i felt like our 20 year feud was finally over our wounds and resentments healed united as we were in our love for dirty dancing five years later 25 years after i first saw that breathtaking full page ad in the paper dirty dancing still has the power to create magical moments watching it still fills me with hope possibility that pure joy that is natural at 12 and harder to come by at 36 and the feeling that as long as baby and johnny are still dancing somewhere all is ok in the world names have been changed tags brooklyn dirty dancing mccarren park middle school nostalgia outdoor movies comments 1 comment categories 5 6 7 8 dance pop culture my essay on the huffington post 28 jun i have an essay on the huffpost women section of the huffington post why i had an affair with a married man tags the huffington post comments 2 comments categories articles writing just write the next thing 24 jun a few weeks ago i wrote a blog post about how i stepped on a rat and then met my favorite singer maxwell i loved this post and not just because i love maxwell i loved everything about it it was an unbelievable miraculous story i wrote it well the twists the turns the dramatic arc the culmination in a life lesson i felt like it was possibly the best thing i ever wrote or would ever write again i wanted to relish it and bask in it and savor it what i did not want to do was write the next post i always want to go out on a good note quit while i m ahead like being the one to get off the phone first when i m talking to a guy i have a crush on right after i ve said something charming and adorable and funny and before i turn tired and boring and run out of things to say i wanted to freeze my writing with my maxwell and the rat post hold onto it so everyone would think that everything i write is always that perfectly crafted the thing to do in this situation is to just sit down and write that next thing get over the hump break through the resistance so i sat down and wrote about going to a vision board party i liked this post it was honest open there were some funny parts and a pretty kickass playlist it wasn t the most amazing thing i ve ever written would ever write there were lots of reasons to scrap it there always are and they all seemed valid they always do like posting my vision board felt like taking a picture of my journal entries and publishing it like nothing spectacular or miraculous happened adam levine didn t show up at the party and make out with me or anything but it was a solid post and the most important thing was to get it down disregard the reasons to hold off and wait for some elusive bigger better idea just write the next thing and then keep writing the longer i go without writing especially after writing a piece i ve fallen madly in love with the harder it gets to write that next thing the more of a big deal it becomes the more i need to have some fabulous idea or riveting story or life changing lesson the more i get bogged down and stuck rejecting every possible topic that is anything less than off the charts incredible the more i don t write for writing to not become a big deal looming dauntingly in front of me it has to be a regular part of my life something i am consistently doing even on those days when i m not sure what i m going to say and in those moments when i question if i have anything to say writing my next story or post or kernel of an idea i write my way throug...
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