AllisonMaddox.com

I am many things. I am a woman, I am anxious, I am obsessed, I am thoughtful and I am undecided. This mixture of traits can be beneficial and it can also be explosive. I haven’t decided which road it has taken yet in my current situation. It may be burning up old stones and creating a more interesting path for me. However, in the time being, I have beaten myself up; I have abused my mind, body and soul because I know how to do it so well. I can’t help but think, “What did I do wrong? How could I be so stupid and unfocused and unprotected?” I’ve spent 24 years of my life adapting to being me and now I feel like I have to start all over again.

I wish I was comfortable with myself, but again, I think that is an undesirable trait of women all around. I wish I was as strong as I seem, I wish I had courage to take that step into the deep end and be confident enough not to drown… But I know I will drown. I am not a good swimmer. I will have to start over, start with water wings and a flotation device, and perhaps someday I will be brave enough to leave them behind and do it on my own.

Posted: February 01, 2010 at 2:20 pm

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I have recently been given an opportunity to finally leave this comfortable life of mine and the more I have thought about this opportunity, the only reason I can think of to not take it is driven by fear. I have a bad attitude about leaving my comfort zone, yet I am miserable in it. I have proven to myself that when I’m put in these uncomfortable situations, I can try to reject it and have a bad time but these experiences are the best for me and I always end up having an incredible time. I have this inner adventurous side of me that has been peeking out for a couple of years now. I have half-assed followed through on these adventures and now it is time for me to commit to them.

I am dejected in my life and I have been for a while now. My intentions to leave my home were made clear years ago but I have settled for far less than what I wanted. I feel my potential lies elsewhere and rather than riding the opportunity train that has passed by a few times, I just waved at it. That is what happens to everybody as time goes by; you say you will do something, want something more and as the days grow shorter and then longer, you think of excuses not to do whatever it is that will make you happy. I have no more excuses and neither do you, whoever may be reading this.

I pick up aspirations from time to time whether I find them in a fortune cookie or a popsicle stick. I like to think that those words have found me for a reason. Recently, I read my Virgo horoscope that I usually pass by in the newspaper and it was extremely fitting toward my current situation. It read:

“Your time is up, Virgo. No further stalling will be allowed. We need your answer now: Will you or will you not take advantage of the messy but useful offer that is on the table? Don’t ask for an extension because you ain’t getting one. Please take advantage of this chance to prove that you love yourself too much to get hoodwinked and abused by perfectionism. Be brave enough to declare your allegiance to the perspective articulated by the mathematician Henri Poincare. ‘There are no solved problems. There are only more-or-less solved problems’”

Do I believe the stars align and astrologically predict what will happen in my life, what decisions I will make, whether it will rain or snow? Absolutely not, but this horoscope contained thoughtful words that made me think. I need to make decisions in my life for myself, I need to go on an adventure that will help me learn more about me, I need to bring my life to life. What if this horoscope is right? What if my extensions are over? What if this is my last chance to ignite the fire beneath me? I need to do something; if not take this opportunity, create another but one thing is for sure; I need to do it now. I cannot go on much longer with my strings detached from a lot of responsibility and I cannot stay in the position I am in right now, knowing I have more potential and wanting so much more.

This may not be the journalistic piece that you thought you would be reading: that’s the point. This is a thought of optimism written by an ordinary person that wants more. I am no different than anybody else; the focal goal of this article is to inspire, if it be only myself, than that is one more person in the world willing to be extraordinary.

Posted: October 01, 2009 at 2:22 pm

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I talk to more people now than ever who do not know which direction they want to point their life toward and I guess the only gratitude I can offer them is that they are far from alone. I’m sure that if I were to make a detailed plan of my life right now in which I will make the best decisions and have the best outcome and abide by this for the rest of my days, I would still question whether or not this was the right choice. I think that the human species spends more time questioning and planning than actually doing, which is a very sad idea. Do these questions even matter? What will they affect after each day goes by?

Will I have the chicken or the steak? Well, the healthiest option is the chicken, but this place makes a damn good steak, but the chicken doesn’t contain potential mad cow disease and won’t be undercooked, but on the other hand I’ve heard that processed chicken can carry harmful toxins…. Do you realize that you have just wasted 5 minutes of your life on a meal that will take you 15 minutes to eat? Shut the hell up and order the steak!

Pick a path and follow it, if it doesn’t work out, retrace your steps and start over again. Simple as pie.

Posted: September 20, 2009 at 4:10 pm

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Life is full of questions, more questions than possibilities I think. When I was younger I was led to believe that I could do anything that my heart desired, the world was endless with possibilities. Why is it that grown-ups always lie to us like that when we are naïve little children? If I would have grown up with the ugly, harsh truth, I don’t think I would be stuck at a discouraging crossroads. I think we all expect the little pieces of our lives will fall together in time but for most of us, they don’t. You have to work hard at it, you have to force those pieces, and often times they don’t fit and there will always be awkward gaps in your life’s puzzle.

I know a few people (and I’m sure everybody does) that literally make me sick because of how often they seem to happily land on their feet. Somebody that you love but envy because of this lucky trait that they possess. This envy is probably dim-witted of me to feel because I only have a peripheral view of their lives and they probably have as many internal issues that I do but I still wish my life was more at ease as theirs seems to be.

What I am trying to say is that I wish that I wasn’t so rational and I wish that when I chose to be irrational it worked. I know that if I come upon some spontaneous moment in my life where I used all of the pennies and nickels I had to run away, I wouldn’t get very far. I wouldn’t be living life in worriless bliss, I wouldn’t be living in paradise, I wouldn’t be doing whatever it is I want to do. No, none of these things would happen. I would become a penniless bum, I would be tracked by creditors and loan officers, I would virtually be homeless. I would be a drifter, but the bad kind of drifter, the one that towns buy one-way bus tickets for so you can be somebody else’s problem.

The questions of life are not relieving and there is no right answer to them, there are multiple answers and it just depends on what it is you would rather do at the moment. Or not what it is you would rather do but what it is you HAVE to do. It makes me wonder why people go through such hell to live life when their life doesn’t seem to be getting much better. Why do we spend so much time and energy keeping up the pace with life rather than try to make it better? We stay at our miserable jobs just to bring home a steady paycheck but why do you even want that steadiness if it is just going to be mediocre? Why do we settle for contentment? Why don’t we try to make it better? All of these questions either go unanswered or the answer is too depressing to face… Maybe we are just too scared to plunge for happiness, maybe we are masochists, or maybe we are just too comfortable. This is just a depressing realization but I’m hoping it will have the opposite affect on both my readers and myself. Encourage change.

Posted: August 25, 2009 at 1:50 pm

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Sometimes I just want to run away. I want every rationalized thought in my head to disappear and I want to do something really stupid and unstructured. I have spent a good portion of my life at a job that I had not intended to keep after college and, though I know many people suffer the same disappointment, I feel like I am on the verge of snapping. I was sitting on the rooftop of a parking garage the other day with a friend watching the sun go down, and even though the sight was beautiful, I couldn’t help but think, “Why am I still here?” My friend and I talked about our lives as we had known it, how we are imprisoned at a place that we are miserable at and how we have come to be that way. I heard somewhere that a person either enjoys what they do for a living, or enjoys every other aspect of their life; rarely can a person obtain enjoyment for both.

I enjoy my life for the most part, with the exception of all of the “adult” responsibilities that 95% of the world has to deal with but I also think that 75 hours a week is too great a portion of my life to dread and resent. I have been on the threshold between self destruction and rational reality for many months now and as soon as I get a few drinks in my system, especially with that particular rooftop friend of mine around, not one thought in my head is coherent. She and I have reached certain bitterness toward our jobs that shouldn’t be mixed with any amount of alcohol.

One of these days, we are going to be fulfilling the mediocre tasks of our jobs, eating our mediocre sack dinners, discussing the mundane events coming up in the next few weeks and then BAM… down go a few tequila shots and before we know it we are half way across the Dakotas in a semi-truck driven by a man named Jim whose life is more sad than the ones we just left behind. The scenario I just painted for myself may not be too safe and the chances of me going through with it (or surviving it) are slim, but who knows? Maybe that is how great adventures begin.

Posted: July 09, 2009 at 1:34 pm

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I envy impulsive behavior, yet every time I get the opportunity to act impulsive, I think logically and the risk that could have been the greatest experience of my life passes me by. I do not think I am a cowardly person, only incredibly anxious… all of the time. I say “what if” a million times in my head every single day and I’ve learned that these thoughts cause nothing but stomach issues. By the end of the day, I lay in my bed calculating all of the ridiculous possibilities that flew through my head which, in turn causes insomnia. This vicious cycle of self destruction has worn me down time and time again and I am tired.

I recently stepped out of my comfortable bubble of delusion and security and took a leap of faith on something as uncertain as spring weather. While something like this would normally freak me out and send me into hiding, I decided to take a hit and maybe get hurt. I did this because I realized while living in my security bubble, I was in fact protecting myself from life’s tortures, but I was also missing out on its greatest pleasures as well. I cannot heal without feeling pain, I cannot laugh without frowning first and I cannot experience life if I do not allow myself to do so.

I am about to do something very unlike me. Instead of letting this moment pass me by, I am going to take a risk, even if the end is potentially hazardous to my well being. I might come back from this experience broken and devastated, I might regret it at the time, and I might crawl back into my comfortable bubble for a while. All of these things MIGHT happen, but this experience might also be nothing but incredible… and that is the risk I am finally willing to take.

Posted: July 01, 2009 at 10:22 pm

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Once upon a time, a girl got on a plane… This is the setting of a not-so-fairytale story but a fun one to tell. The girl (if you hadn’t guessed) is me and I had been going on my 12th hour of travel time to reach the other end of the country. I sat down in my designated seat on this very uncomfortable plane in which I received the news from the pilot that we would be sitting there for a lot longer than expected. While minding my business as best as one can on a small plane, I noticed this fidgety man across the isle from me; I discreetly turned my head in his direction to see what the hell was making him so restless but my subtle peek ended up being a very indiscreet gaze. I was immediately attracted to this edgy man in the blue. I instantly turned back to what I was doing and just passed the moment by like I usually do.

An hour went by before we were in the air and the fidgety man finally spoke the forsaken words, “what are you going to Virginia for?” The conversation never paused for the entire 90 minute flight and before we knew it, two incredibly awkward conversers were exchanging phone numbers. It turned out that his fidgeting wasn’t a mild twitching disorder; he was actually just trying to summon the nerve to talk to me which we ended up laughing about a few days later.

Three days in each others company resulted in a very spontaneous weekend. The securely independent girl who never steps out of her shell went far, far away from my body and I allowed myself to lust over someone I had only known for days. I never give relationships a chance and I don’t really know why. Maybe it is because I have seen so many of them fail or because I see how broken people can become because of them, or maybe I reject them because I hate vulnerability. Whatever reason it is that I discard these feelings was not strong enough to save me from breaking this time. I am broken, and I like it.

Posted: July 01, 2009 at 11:32 am

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I am twitter petted. This feeling comes very seldom for me but I have been quite literally been swept off of my feet. For those of you who know me well, this is probably a weird and awkward side of me that you are unfamiliar with. I am not going to toot my own horn (or his for that matter) but my independently secured soul has currently fled from my body.

By no means am I declaring an idyllic future for myself and this certain person; only time can tell what will happen, but since this seems to be the dominant emotion in my gut at the moment, I figured I should write about it…

And if you do not know what twitter petted means, you are a lost soul and I cannot help you…

Posted: June 30, 2009 at 12:44 pm

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It’s been a while, but instead of explaining my nerves again, I am just going to go at it with a running start and pretend like I never stopped writing. Life is crazy sometimes, I know we all know that but have you ever stopped to think for a minute just how crazy it is? I have been living at such a fast pace lately that when I finally paused for a second, I realized all of the things I was missing out on. Now that I have had that revelation, I am having the most difficult time stepping back in. I feel like I have slowed down so much that if I put one foot back into that fast paced life of mine, I will get hit by a bus.

Until recently, I loved being independent and I was very proud of the fact that I can juggle so many responsibilities at once; and then I take one measly little vacation and I fall apart. I can’t get my head in place, I lose focus once I get there and I just really don’t care anymore if I’m doing a good job or not. I’m sure I will regain this integrity that I have lost but I’m kind of enjoying its absence.

Posted: June 18, 2009 at 1:45 pm

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There is a lot you can learn from being poor, like how to make use out of the things in your refrigerator that you are normally afraid to touch, and how to wash your hair with no or little shampoo, or that it is not the end of the world if I have to wear my glasses more often to save on contact solution. When I was younger, my family went through periods where we would have to use all of these survival tactics. Usually this time occurred toward the end of my mom’s pay period. My mom called this “famine week” and since I had no idea what the word “famine” meant, this roughly translated into “really bad food week”. I am grateful that my mother taught me so well on how to survive real life. It is because of her that I survived off of a jar of peanut butter and 3 packs of Top Ramen during the roughest stages of my college life… that and her care packages with entire loaves of homemade banana bread. Mothers have a way of keeping a watchful eye on their children, even when they are hundreds of miles away. Recently, I went through my very own “famine week” and with a whole lot of help and charity from my beloved family, I got through it fairly smoothly. It is hard to starve to death when I have 7 aunts stuffing food down my throat and occasionally in my purse when I am not looking. I’m not complaining; they are really good cooks. So this is life I guess; bills, school loans, grocery shopping and occasional weeks of famine. Lucky for me I have been well taught on how to survive it with a little bit of dignity.

Posted: April 25, 2009 at 8:30 am

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	A Step Back February 01, 2010
	Diaries of a mad 20-something year-old October 01, 2009
	Guidance... or not September 20, 2009
	Questions August 25, 2009
	Irrational Thoughts July 09, 2009