I had a mild epiphany last night. Epiphanies, to me, are just a sudden acknowledgement of a perspective I already had within me. Before, I could see shadows through translucent gauze, and then the epiphany! The gauze is lifted. Things are clearer. And people are wrong, having an epiphany is not suddenly knowing more about other people, or knowing more than anybody else about anything. It�s seeing something make sense to you for the first time. It�s realizing your stance in any given situation, it�s getting in touch with the �you� within you and asking it what it wants, and getting an answer, loud and clear.

Sometimes, you need to take a step backwards and really view a situation from a bit of a distance in order to see it for what it is. For too long, I�ve let others dictate my views of certain things, my position of �non-opinion, because that would be judgment, and judgment is bad, bad!� Yes, it is. I don�t like to judge. But I do it anyway. I draw conclusions, I admit it. I read people, I analyze people, and I�m left with an impression from whatever I encountered. Last night, at the club, where usually I�m caught in the mix, surrounded by friends, distracted by the center, I took a step back. I stood by the wall all night and I watched. I watched people interact, I watched body language, facial expressions, all of it. A petite, bleached-blond woman with breasts so huge they got in the way when her little arms tried to bring the straw of her drink to her lips. With an older man, who kept trying to kiss her as she smiled and went back to her straw, over and over and over. I know what you�re thinking.

Stereotypes exist because certain things, certain people, certain situations keep showing up with the same dynamics. We all have the common denominators, and some, I believe, are just easier to figure out than others. I�m not saying I�m always right when I draw my conclusions, or even that I�m right half of the time. All I�m saying, is, I DO draw them. I DO have opinions. I have a great aunt, Aunt Nelle (her name is Ellen, but she liked it spelled backward better). She�s Irish, 85 years old, something like that. 1st generation American, bright orange-red hair, just now with some streaks of silver, always put up elegantly in a bun. Born and raised in New York City. At 85, having lived her life as a party girl, knowing every bar in every borough, she�s strong, she�s classy, and she�s wise. Not a stupid bone, not an ignorant bone in that woman�s body. It�s like she can see through everything, to the core, tell you things about you that you never noticed before, but realize they�re true as soon as she voices them. Last time I visited, she answered the door to her high-rise apartment in Brooklyn Heights with a cream silk shirt tucked into tapered khaki slacks, hair up, make-up perfect (black liner, red lips, very 40�s), and a long cigarette between two perfectly manicured fingers.

The woman has stories you wouldn�t believe, speedboating with executives back in the 40�s, when she was a secretary, across the water, under the Brooklyn Bridge, just to have lunch at a favorite place on the other side of the bay� shit like that. But I digress. My point in even mentioning Aunt Nelle (who is also the most sarcastic woman I know, aside from my father�s siblings), is that when I take my steps back, when I�m trying to see a situation, I�ll occasionally ask myself, �I wonder what Aunt Nelle would say about this.� She has her opinions. She�s earned them with age and experience, I believe. Not just age, you see, but experience, what she�s learned from experience, because that is far more valuable than any number of years in my eyes. She likes to enjoy herself. She likes to live life. But she does so with a class and glamour and take-no-shit attitude that I rarely see anymore in the world. I�ve always wanted that mixture of glamour-meets-bitch-meets-good-at-heart.

So my epiphany? I looked at things around me, situations, and trying not to judge, I suddenly recognized my opinion. And I realized that things, people I�ve been around in the last year or two do not perpetuate my growth. I feel stunted. I feel like I�ve taken a step away from ME to get caught up in things that I would usually not give the time of day to. I never did watch soap operas, always thought they were stupid. There�s a question I ask myself before I do anything, anything at all. Before I go out, before I have sex, before anything. The question is, �Why am I doing this?� The follow up question is, �Who am I doing this for?� If the answers are not �because I want to,� and �for me or someone I truly care about,� then I will seriously think about continuing before I do so.

I don�t think a lot of people I know ask themselves these questions. If they do, I don�t think they�re digging deep enough for the REAL answers. We are amazing beings, we can fool ourselves so well, I know, I�ve done it many, many times. I could have myself believing all sorts of things. It�s easy to say, �Well, I�m doing this because I find pleasure in it, of course, isn�t that the right answer?� Do you? How do you feel after the pleasure? Was it worth it? I ask myself this, I check in with me, find out how I feel. If you ever have conflicting conclusions, if your mind says your fine with a situation, but your body tells you otherwise, whether through tears or a sullen mood, your mind is the liar. Go with your feelings. Because that�s your perspective, regardless of what you tell yourself.

And my perspective, the way I felt when I thought about certain things last night, talked about certain things, told me a lot. I sent my mind to bed and I listened to the me that doesn�t rationalize, the me that doesn�t judge or tell me what it�s okay to think about and not okay to think about. I just listened. And you know what? I learned a lot. I learned that I have been fooling myself, though I thought that no longer possible because I�ve been down that road so many times. About what? Well, that doesn�t matter. The fact remains, I�m more in touch with me now, and I have a clear perspective. It�s not about anyone else, it�s about me and my part in everything. And well, I just know now that the part I play in life has been too passive, and the part I play in created surface-drama has been way to active. So I�m pulling a switcheroo. If I don�t act from my true self, if I�m not sincere and clear about where I stand on things, what my opinions really are, then I�m just a hypocrite like everyone else.

Too heavy for you? Don�t bother trying to read into it, it�s hardly making sense to me at this point. I�m just hoping that it gets clearer with age and experience, and that someday, I can be a sharp, see-all woman like Aunt Nelle. If no one shoots me first.

-Barbarella

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