What works.

(Blogger is inserting random underlines in my blog. These are not my doing. Ignore, read on, enjoy)

If there's a lesson we can all take from Hollywood, it's that we should just go with what works. This is why every Tom Cruise movie is really all about his hair (its gorgeous...have you noticed?) and his sprinting skills, and every John Cusack movie will feature a scene where Cusack is sad, in the rain. It just works. Directors know this stuff going in, and so if there's a script out there with Tom Cruise in it, he simply must say to his underlings, "wait, where's the running scene? Write that in, and let's have an extra camera just for his hair."


Being at an in-between chapter of my life, I feel like I'm somehow more likely to get unsolicited advice. I've heard just about all of the catch phrases and pick-me-ups aimed at single women over thirty, and I feel like people don't believe me when I say, "no really, I'm good..."

All in all, I'm not bothered by the friendly punches to the shoulder a la "go get 'em, champ" and the advice to "get out there" and "you're still young, you have time," and I wasn't even bothered by the generous offer of semen. Yep...semen, like, "oh, it's it about that time...here, I know how to help." The thing that bothers me the most is when people say, "whatever is meant to happen will happen."

First off, there is no comfort in thinking that your path is all paved out in front of you. I don't like the idea of predestination because it's sick to think that I'm already doomed into some fate that was written for me by a conspirator somewhere in the ether of eternity. I know this is meant as a comforting phrase somewhere along the lines of 'it'll work out in the end."

But it's not. It's putting your faith about the future not on your own decisions, not on your own efforts, but in the idea that we're all coasting across the stage of life hung precariously on puppet strings. I think back to when my cousin and I used to play with Barbie dolls, and even at 9 or 10, commenting on how weird it would be if there were someone invisibly directing our lives as we did with our dolls. Even then it creeped me out, and that feeling never left.

As I get multiples of the "whatever is meant to happen will happen" phrase, I wonder...do people really believe that? Do they allow life, or pursue living?

I can't deny anyone their philosophies on life, and hell, maybe this shit is more scripted than I'd like to believe. However, for right now, I'm going to stubbornly cling to the idea that I'm writing this as I go, relying on the tried-and-true patterns of my own behavior to lead me and guide me out of this cavernous and confusing chapter in a comfortable fashion that works for me.

And now to illustrate that going with what works is an equation for awesome:


 
 
Which leads me to what works for me...which isn't to believe "what ever is meant to happen will happen," to decline any of the offers for baby-making, or to feel like I require anything whatsoever other than my own acceptance of self. 
 
And now, off to watch Say Anything.
 
Skeptically Yours.