From Memes, to Memories, to Meanings

        Sometimes I struggle as one who serves in the "inspirational" genre, especially on social media.  It can be hard to be a struggling empath with a quirky, sometimes sarcastic and/or dark sense of humor when trying to balance honesty, inspiration, light, and syrup: oh those memes, quotes, misquotes, plagiarism, and one of the worst: cliches!

        People sometimes forget that quotes, metaphors, and/or cliches often have to go hand-in-hand, particularly with and within context, and the blending of them takes such skill that I'm not particularly fond of cliches, in general, because if you can make a cliche customized to the situation, you can say what you mean your own way, with an itty bitty bit of extra effort and perhaps with a smidgen of help.  

        I think being honestly yourself is going to lead to your own way of being fed in return, whereas doing something that isn't "you" is eventually going to lead you to burnout, as you see with a lot of people and their careers, but applies to pretty much everything in life.  The PB Project has sort of morphed along with my own transitions in life, and I happen to like that, because it means that the people who have come and stayed a while were the ones who resonated with who I was at the time, and we fed each other in positive ways; it also means that as things shift in life, so do we, so those who are no longer here are parted as friends who have shared something beautiful for a while.  Just like life!

        Perhaps I'm thinking about this because I stumbled across one of the last posts of my original, personal blog project that mentioned that I was in a transitioning period that was leading to the PB Project, the FB part of which was created 10 days later, though I didn't know it would be, then, and I certainly didn't know what would become of THAT!  I just knew I was, "scaring myself in good ways," ways that were leading me to creating something potentially beautiful that I could only feel were going to be amazing.  I had no idea what that meant...it was just a feeling of anticipation and knowing I had to do what I could to get ready for something I couldn't anticipate.  

Frustrating?  Sure, sometimes.  Worth it?  Totally!

        But I'm also thinking about it because that blog project was an expression of my weirdness and humor, which often played with ideas, words, and my own foibles, and playfully challenged the very parts of me that are at once complementary and paradoxical, while sometimes gently poking fun at societal or cultural things people don't often consider.  At that time, 2013, my life was headed into storms of types I couldn't do much to help, including more serious downturns to my health and searching for answers, among other things.  My humor was becoming difficult to replicate, as it sort of evaporated in the struggle to survive my physical, mental, emotional, and other challenges.  

        On the other hand, the newer project was reflecting my struggling toward hope, light, and life, and the understanding that life is hard sometimes, but it can also be beautiful.  Both reflect parts of me that are wonderful and I honor and treasure them.  They just happened to be stronger at their own times and seasons.  I still have a quirky, nerdy, dry, and sometimes dark humor, as you sometimes see here and there, and I'm glad that hasn't entirely left me.  

        I'm also glad that I have the other parts of me you see, here, as well as the ones you don't - believe it or not, like it or not, I may only appear in pixels and text in a variety of places you see, but I do exist in other forms, elsewhere, and I'm grateful to have had the experiences that put me here, now, whether I like here and now at the moment, or not!  I've lived and experienced things on both ends of the "awesome and awful spectrum" over my lifetime that few would even believe, and many things along the spectrum, here and there.  I guess I face my future knowing that whatever will become of me, and whatever has become of me, I can say: "I've lived."

        I lived, and loved in many, incredible ways; laughed and cried so hard I could hardly breathe; I have had priceless gifts and devastating losses; came to love myself inside and out, and had it challenged every step of the way.  I've enjoyed joy and endured patience.  I've worn a body in which the world came to know me, if not by name, and I've had it slowly dissolving all around me.  The story of my coming here was crazy but insignificant in many ways, but I'm trying so hard to make my having been here worthy of dignity and significance.

Isn't that what we all want, even if we seek it in different ways?

A life of meaning that we can look back with dignity and say we've lived?

        Yeah, so I actually dared to finish and post this one. And you actually read it, whether I get to know that or not. The universe - and algorithms - work in mysterious ways.

        Better days ahead, my friends!