All In Rhythm

I have finally put pen to paper, so to speak. I've come up with the idea to title my book, All In Rhythm based on the idea that life itself is rhythm and keeping in rhythm is crucial to living a fulfilled life. Going back home to Chicago tomorrow and lots of changes have occurred since I left Chicago. My thoughts might get deep sometimes but don't worry, I'll take you to places that are so hilarious you will fall off your chair laughing too. And well, just in general I'm going to be blogging more. Lot of good things going on right now all of which you will find out about in due time. For now, All in Rhythm.......

April 2010

When I told my dad I was going to live in Costa Rica for 3 months he told me I was crazy. I told him life is short, the world is big. There's nothing cliche nor mundane about this statement. Life is SERIOUS. Now that statement is loaded with irony. A friend and I use this phrase "that's serious" or "life is serious" when shit happens in life and then we laugh hysterically. Because really, these things that happen in life are really never as serious as they seem. I'm not talking starving or being in a war torn country, yes that kind of is serious. I'm talking like when you lock your key in your car or your hard drive on your computer crashes.

Anyway, five months later, a cultural world away still and I'm on a bus, headed to Nicaragua, tears in my eyes. Not bad, not good, how else can I describe in words tears of life. You think a large wave crashing to the shoreline in the ocean is powerful, but nothing can compare to those moments of awe I feel about life. I'm gazing out the window watching dry Costa Rican countryside fly by. Earlier today I went into my place of employment near Jaco, granted I was stoned but I had one of those moments again and I almost lost it. In one moment my brain is fiddling with worry over filing my taxes, figuring out how to keep and pay my car insurance back home, how I'm going to survive for a month when I get back to Chicago, how I can save $20,000 to pay off my debt, get dental work and go to yet another country to live for another 6 months. Because if I don't go again, I'll suffocate.

So yea, mind fiddling with worry sitting at my job waiting to catch a ride to the border with my friends, and then the wave of life hit me. I think about hugging my nephews, my sisters, my parents, my friends. I think about laying in the park by my house in the fall, gazing up at magnificently colored trees, rich hues of yellow (much like my living room) red, brown and orange. Climbing trees. The random summer nights of O.E. on my back porch, my cousin in California. Deep thoughts. The world. Growing my own food. Laughing so hard in Costa Rica I seriously thought my face would fall off. Making a conscious effort to keep things in the here and now. And everything's gonna be all right. It always is and your mind manifests what the universe provides you.

The last three statements in particular are ones I instrinsically and soulfully know to be true but have continously had a hard time actualizing in my life. Well, particularly the "everything's gonna be all right" I've always been wound up and worried about everything. Over thinking everything and carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders is serious. *insert laugh*. I can't say that I'm not still wound up, nor can I say I don't think a lot. I think about thinking. Not sure if it's a Capricorn thing or just the way I was born, but it's a blessing and a curse. I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Thank hormonal fluctuations for my extreme motions today because I've done it. I've started writing again. I don't know the first thing about what human kind is supposed to do with life, but then again, maybe I do and just don't give myself enough credit. I certainly have enough thoughts and theories on life and all it's components, both esoterical and mundane. The only memo I'm gving you about my writing is that I'm ADD as hell and a stoner. So sometimes I'll run off on a tangent, or switch subjects only to come full circle and finish what I was previously talking about. Truly everything me is quixotic, neurotic, erratic, non-static.

July 2010

I had no intention of waiting this long to begin writing again. I haven't even read what I wrote for three months. You're not going to even believe this it sounds so fictional. In three short months I've managed to somehow find a job that I can do online, anywhere in the world. I am renting a beach house on the Pacific in Costa Rica. I am going home to Chicago in two days after being gone for 7 months and I'm coming back to Costa Rica in August to live in this beach house with 2 incredibly amazing people I can't even begin to touch that story this early in the book. I have no phone, all my credit cards are maxed out, my student loan is three months due, I don't know how I'm going to pay my rent back in Chicago (my current job is meager pay but I got a raise and will be making enough in about six months), and I have only the slightest bit of concern. Concern that creating things back home to take care of all of this stuff and more (like packing up my apartment, selling my car and finding subletter for my apartment) is going to stress me out because I've become accostumed to a slow pace of life here in Costa Rica. I'm not concerned with how I will take care of those things as I previously would have been raving mad. How did this happen is all I'm left wondering with a smile on my face.

I came to Costa Rica seeking something. Seeking many things. I had ambition to find a purpose. Everything from birth to now is the culmination of this junction in my life. I've found more than my wildest dreams. And I found that having less has given me so much more. I couldn't help but want to share my experience with the world and hopefully inspire someone to get off their ass and do what they've always dreamed of doing.

Motion is a powerful energy. We are all in rythym. The ocean is a rythym and your heart beating and blood pumping through veins is rythym. There's a reason why humans feel the need to dance and sing and make music. Because life is rythym.

Chapter One: Perspective

Born and raised in Northwest Indiana, living in Chicago for the past 13 years of my 34 years of life, I had a great childhood. I am super blessed for the way I was raised and the love and support and sacrifice on my parents part to raise 3 smart, polite, itelligent and very aware girls. We didn't have a lot of money and of course like every other family dysfunctional in a functional way. I wouldn't trade the days of mismatched socks, thriftstore clothes or camping trips to Kanakakee River for anything in the world. We saved here and there but we got to do everything we always wanted. I was in every sport imagineable. I tried out a musical instrument one summer. All of this costs money and my parents did what they had to do to allow their children creative freedom. So if a vacation was made out of our trip to Tennessee for my sisters softball tournament then so be it that was vacation. I loved it. As long as I was with my family and we left our home city it was exciting for me. I can't say that I didn't know any better because I did. I was the curious kid whose passport was books and curiosity. Oh and VHS tapes. I remember when I was sick and had to stay home from school I would ask my mom to get travel videos from the library for me. I would watch videos about Greece, Ireland, Italy or wherever.
Anyway...enough about me.

Perspective in life makes all the difference in the quality of your life. If you are negative and pessimisti