once more, with feeling ~ redux

I never re-publish old posts ~ but once in a while I have an amazing day, or a disheartening day, and often an old post will ring true ~ again.  Sometimes I think that is a good thing ~ like keeping my emotions in check, or recognizing how I react to the same certain things, or, even better, realizing how often I have amazing days.  Other times I think it is awful ~ wondering whether I've been spinning my wheels in the mud for years, and still haven't learned my lesson(s).  I can't decide which category this week falls into ~ either way, good or bad, it has been eventful, enlightening, intriguing, and insightful.  And so, this old post, from December 2, 2004, still rings true ~ loud and clear.  The original post was written from a more dispirited perspective, after a particularly tough day ~ but the feeling I had after writing it was intensely positive.  Today perhaps I'm re-posting this from that positive perspective, but I'd sum it all up in exactly these words, in exactly this emotion ~ 1,268 days later ~ 30,456 hours of life lessons.  Back to square one?  Or 360-degrees back to the real me?  You tell me. ~

Mutts by Patrick McDonnell.

I've been told I eat my corn flakes with passion ~~ that I can talk to a tree with such fervor it'll reach out and hug me.  My past boyfriends always adored my "passion," until we had an argument and then they would simply castigate it as "irrational" and "emotional".  Me, I like my passion, crazy as it is sometimes...OK, it's often loud, sometimes disruptive, occasionally misguided ~ but never not true, never not profound, never false. Recently I was asked, "yes but aren't you just faking it?" when I expressed how deeply I felt about something; and that question cut through me like the double-edged sword on which Yin and Yang balance precipitously...deeply, emotionally...enlightening.  I've been cut down recently, the fire behind my passion has been doused with the doubtful waters of the disbelieving  ~~ last night's music and food and conversation was a bit like twine, wrapping itself around my damaged limbs, helping me hold it all together.....and so I remember that I love my passion ~ fueled by Mexican sensibility, tempered by  an Americanized sense, colored by clove and cinnamon emotions. 

If you feel passion about something, show it ~ shout it ~ share it.......and if for some reason something keeps you from feeling, or expressing, your passion, then mooch off someone else's passion until you can grow some of your own to share..... just don't cut down anyone else's passionate personality ~ our forest needs those kinds of trees.  In that comic strip up above, Earl is the lovable pup, who is always hanging out with his best friend....Mooch, the curious cat from next door.  If you can't be an Earl, be a Mooch ~ or maybe a Tom-Tom.