City of Angels... Guide me, please.

I feel empty inside.

We rushed across the country, hardly stopping at all because we wanted to get here... and now that we are here, I don't know what it is I was hoping for.

I feel ridiculous somehow that I wanted to see Dave so much. That I thought we'd have some time to catch up and play together and it would be just as it always was.

But things have changed.

Ryan and Dave are already actively pursuing their acting careers, going to classes almost all day and searching for jobs in between.

I feel regret and confusion.

I don't know what was in Tulsa, but something was calling to me, and I ignored it.

It seems that I failed when tested to follow my heart.... just like with Dave.

Part of me still loves him. A big part, in fact. Maybe this is my karma, to know how it feels to see the person you love and have them not at all interested in you. He is with someone who cares for him, who loves him and didn't break his heart... 3 times.

I have a lot of guilt inside of me.

How do I let it go? How do I stop listening to my mind and follow my heart?

I am so angry at myself. But I know that doesn't help anything.

I wish I had just listened to my heart.

I must find a way to tune in more, because I feel lost, and low.

I know that there is a plan for me on this trip. I know that there is a reason I am here. I know that there is more than just me driving Max across the country.

Maybe I am meant to come to terms with my love for Dave, and let it go.

Maybe I have to learn to love Max more... we have simply not seen eye to eye. I wanted to explore, walk around this lake in Texas, and Max yells at me to get in the car. I wanted to stop and see the world's largest rocking chair, sort of as a joke, and he said no. I wanted to stop in all the cities and explore, but he was so intent on reaching LA, I didn't want to get in the way. Then he made fun of me for NOT wanting to go see the Grand Canyon, but the truth is, I didn't want to just get out of the car and then leave. I wanted to meditate, and relax, and walk the Grand Canyon... and I know that Max simply wasn't up for the same adventure as me. Even at the hotel, when we went swimming in the morning, Max just jumped in and then refused to hang out and swim laps with me - he was out of there. And I feel GUILTY dragging him along, almost.

He wanted to stop and see a bison, which we did - and next to it was a Native American store - I bought a couple books (one on sage and Native American wisdom) and a dream catcher and a post card... when it came to $40 thought I freaked out, and went back and returned everything.

WHY?

I felt guilty at wanting something and paying for it. I NEVER do this on my own. It's like I'm afraid to WANT anything.

I realize, to myself, that most of my clothes are hand me downs, gifts from friends, or items my mom has bought me or given me of her own.

I feel really uncomfortable about money. I don't know how to spend it, because I don't think I can buy what I really want with it.

I don't want a couple books and a dream catcher - I want WISDOM, and GUIDANCE.

I feel like I may be a little judgmental of Hollywood - of the call to be "seen" and "heard" but maybe I am jealous? I want to know my calling, I want to follow my dreams.

I am so furious that I didn't go to Tulsa. What was in Tulsa? What am I looking for? What am I doing here?

I want an ANGEL.

David once told me that he was my angel - now I feel ridiculous for even thinking about him. What we had was so long ago, so far away.

But I remember asking Nancy, who communes with spiritual guides, if Dave and I were meant to be together... "It seems strange, and I don't understand it. Maybe you can figure it out," she said. "They are saying that you are meant to be together, not NOW, but you WILL BE. Does this make sense to you?" she asked. "Yes," I said. "Dave is younger than me, and the timing seems to always be off" - (which it still is, obviously) and she said, "You've got a lot of karma to work out, Eliza. There will be some hard times ahead. Nothing you cannot handle, but hard times..."

I wish I could WAKE UP! Life feels like it is passing me by... like it is flying by without me even being on board, sometimes.

I don't want to get in the way of anyone's dreams. I don't want to hurt anyone. I don't want to hurt myself. I just want to know the truth, to figure out my own truth and follow my heart, and stop feeling like I am doing something WRONG. When I am really just trying to figure it all out, just like everyone else.

Discernment.

I am sitting at in a Best Western in the middle of Oklahoma.

Last week I never would have thought I'd be smack dab in the middle of the United States on a road trip with my brother. As fate would have it, all that talk about "wanting some time for myself to travel and explore" actually came to fruition.

The opportunity arose and I jumped at it.

Leaving merge and Buffalo yesterday, I initially felt this wave of excitement and freedom as I pulled out of the 427 Delaware parking lot. I literally smiled and screamed "wahoo!" and I was elated at the prospect of an adventure.

As the first day passed, I had a lovely time, mostly singing to music and laughing at odd road signs, posting each state as my facebook status as we entered new territory.

My mind frequently drifted to Paulo Coehlo's Alchemist, and to Xi-Balba and L'amore's travels, looking to their examples trying to see this trip, and life in general, as more of a spiritual journey. But it wasn't until Tulsa that I started to feel any sort of intuitive "calling."

It was about 10:00 this evening, as I started passing Tulsa, my head was saying, "We can definitely get another two hours of road time in before we crash for the night," and for the first time on the trip, I questioned, to my heart "Should I stop in Tulsa?" and immediately I heard my head/heart say "YES, stop in Tulsa" But by this time, we had passed the exit, and I was thinking, why would we stop now? I have two hours left of driving, and we can make it to Oklahoma City, where I can stop and get breakfast at a health food store tomorrow. But my head/heart kept saying, "Go to Tulsa, go to Tulsa." But at this point, Max and I are singing all this harmonies and songs together from Glee and I was really enjoying the moment.

But as we kept driving, I felt this sort of wave, almost like a nausea wave, wash over my body saying "Go to Tulsa." And I immediately said out loud (I had been questioning in head whether or not to say something) - "Something is telling me to go back to Tulsa." Max's immediate response was of course, "What? Why would we go back?" He pointed out, "We already passed it. If we were meant to be there, we would be there now. I would have taken a wrong turn or ended up there somehow."

I understand this, as well, and now I am questioning if I am simply crazy, and indulging my "head" and not my "heart."

But, Max, seeing my strange reaction, offers to go back to Tulsa if I really want to.

At this point, I am completely indecisive, as always. I am questioning if I really am feeling these things because of eating differently on the road, or just sitting and having so much time to listen to my own head today, or if I'm really being called to go somewhere.

I feel a bit overwhelmed, almost trying TOO hard to believe something, instead of naturally letting life take me in the flow, I don't want to push against the current that brought me here. I suppose I can take from it the lesson that if my heart says something to me, I shouldn't tune it out, I should immediately listen and respond without worry.

I am going to wake up early tomorrow, swim in the pool (outside the hotel here) meditate and try to feel out where I am meant to be. I know that there is a force driving me on this journey. I am so happy to be driving Max to LA, of course, but I know that there is much more than assisting his travels that is carrying us on this journey.

I know I can, and will, discern the thoughts in my head from the calling in my heart.

Tuning into my SELF.

Feeling a bit like Clark Kent, in disguise, hiding my true identity from the world. I actually bought a pair of fake glasses yesterday. They are big and red and completely nerdy and they do not make me look at all attractive, but there is something so wonderful about putting them on. I feel like I become a new person. I am looking at the world through red frames, and it makes me feel like someone else.

This is pathetic, I know.

I keep eating cookies and avoiding cleaning up my place... although it is screaming at me, and I feel like I am going insane avoiding the work at hand any way I can.

I just want to throw out all my stuff, get rid of everything that is weighing me down, including these red glasses... so I can finally see clearly WHO and HOW I really am.

I smell of sweat and fear and desperation.

I'm going either going to pull myself together and make a change or I'm going to pull my hair out with anxiety from the stress and love-hate relationship I have with my job and with my current life.

I keep dancing around it... but I want to leave. I am not happy here.

I am going to do it.

I'm going to make a change.

I am alive, I am young, I can and should do what is in my best interest. I want to live my life, for ME, not for a business so that others can find balance and happiness in their lives.

I am simply not happy focusing my whole life around merge... and closing myself off from the world in every other avenue.

I am lonely.

I am very confused, and what I need to do it tune into that feeling, understand it... and stop running way from it.

I know that I have the strength to face it. But I keep turning to old habits of "sedation" to tune these uncomfortable feelings out. It's ok... to feel this. It's ok to have emotions. It's acting irrationally that may be the wrong thing. Or is it?

What is logical may no longer be what is right for me.

I don't want to feel ashamed or embarrassed about myself anymore. But it hurts in a way, trying to talk to people about my beliefs or feelings when they simply don't understand or look at me like I am completely crazy. I put too much value on the opinion of others.

Maybe that is the lesson I have needed to learn all along. It's not about what "they" think. It's about what I think is best for me, and for MY life, for MY SELF.

Over-whelmed.

I feel stuffed.

With longing, I keep overfilling myself with things I do not need. Physically and mentally, I have been buying or eating things I don't really need in order to try to feel a little bit better about myself, or change the way I feel, change my identity. I do find excitement - moments of pure ecstasy when things work themselves out, or I feel like I have made accomplishments or I take time to look around at the beauty in the world around me.

Other times, I feel overwhelmed and lost in confusion over the longings calling me... to be FREE - to sing, to run, to dive in the waters and plunge into the waves, swimming for as long as I can... without even worrying about coming back to shore.

I feel very conflicted between my very "grounded" place in life, in Buffalo, in my family, in my relationships and yet I somehow remain unattached to them all at the same time. I could just pick up and go if I truly wanted it. I don't know if it would just be a quest for inner answers, or a journey to explore the world beyond myself, but I often feel like I want to get away, to just leave and go off following the "flow" for a while.

The idea seems so grand, to take time - consciously make positive decisions, surround myself with positive people, and make positive change in myself... so that maybe I can bring that back to Buffalo in the end.

I don't know if I would go to cities or country, travel in the states or abroad... It would just feel beautiful to "let go" and follow my heart for a while.

I think I am holding on so tightly to my life here, that I am choking it. Suffocating myself with the idea that things have to be a certain way, or I have to be a certain type of person. I am not certain about anything at all.... except that there is something calling me to be more, to reach higher, to push myself farther, to realize, to see, to look beyond...

Maybe I CAN do that here. I wonder if it's me just taking Buffalo for granted or my past fears haunting me here that makes me want to escape sometimes.

I see ex-boyfriends, ex-friends, ex-lives. Changing so much in such a small space, with so many people seemingly watching my every move, can feel embarrassing. In a way, I am still a little girl who is conflicted between wanting her independence but also feel completely paralyzed and afraid to make change.

Sometimes I feel like I am still waiting for life to begin. I feel like I'm asleep at the wheel... watching the world go by.

I want to wake up.

I want to get out of bed... get out of my comfort zone.

I'm at the point where I feel like moving my apartment again. It's only been 3 months this time. I was averaging about a year in each place for the last 3 years around Buffalo.

I kind of see myself on the brink of either diving in here, buying a house, getting married, having a family, and digging deeper -

Or uprooting, and replanting (or maybe just being a hanging, portable plant for a while, haha). But is the grass just greener on the other side? I would still have to deal with all the healing that I need to do, I would also feel guilty most likely for leaving my "baby" - merge - when she so desperately needs my love. I just don't know if I can give her the love she needs, or maybe I need to give her a better care-taker with more experience...

The amount of options in life can be overwhelming and exhausting. But maybe I'll realize that I'm either already in the right place and I'm able to find everything I need right here, or I'll realize that Buffalo doesn't need me as much as I feel obligated to be here, and I should go travel - while I am young and free and not stuck in my ways or in the routine restaurant life forever.

I know that the answer lies within.... dormant - kind of how I'm feeling lately. I need to shed the layers that have built up in my life again. Pair down to the bare essentials and get back in touch with what is real, what is here, what is NOW.

What's in a name?

In coming up with a name for this blog I find myself blocked.

I want to define my quest for knowledge, sharing, communication… my search for meaning and truth itself.

I figured that writing some thoughts out might help me better define my own truths. I have heard it said that when we lay out our vision, formulate our goals clearly and concisely, they have more basis to grow, develop, and ultimately come to fruition more easily. I am hoping to use this blog for my own soul-searching, path-clearing, and thought flowing.

I suppose that in opening up to the “flow,” we tap into the true source of all creativity. I am merely a vessel for experiential learning. The “flow” or the source of life as I see it, is what drives us all, where we come from and where we shall return. We can tap into that “flow” and source everyday in each moment by clearing and purifying our minds, bodies, hearts.