{"id":48280,"date":"2013-02-16T21:11:51","date_gmt":"2013-02-17T05:11:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=48280"},"modified":"2023-09-23T15:02:29","modified_gmt":"2023-09-23T23:02:29","slug":"go-west","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=48280","title":{"rendered":"Go West!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I listen to this song over and over and memorize the lyrics and march out into the world singing &#8220;Go West&#8221; and then when things don&#8217;t work out, when I don&#8217;t get the exact foods I was hoping for, no guacamole, I crash and depress and don&#8217;t feel like talking to anyone.<\/p>\n<p>The other day, I left my house feeling grand after four listens of the above song. I walked to shul singing: <\/p>\n<p>(I love you) I know you love me<br \/>\n(I want you) How could I disagree?<br \/>\n(So that&#8217;s why) I make no protest<br \/>\n(When you say) You will do the rest<\/p>\n<p>(Go West) Life is peaceful there<br \/>\n(Go West) In the open air<br \/>\n(Go West) Baby you and me<br \/>\n(Go West) This is our destiny (Aah)<\/p>\n<p>I have this vision of my talking to my 12-step group and then climaxing my presentation by chanting this song. I imagine I&#8217;m talking to a shul and I climax my lecture by singing this song. And then I see us marching around the room arm in arm. It&#8217;s magnificent!<\/p>\n<p>I march into shul feeling grand. I&#8217;m ready to love and teach. After davening, I&#8217;m so excited about dinner. And then there are none of my favorite dishes &#8212; no guacamole, no humus, no Israeli salad, not enough egg salad, no potato salad. And the salad they do have? It&#8217;s covered with fish. I&#8217;m vegetarian. <\/p>\n<p>My mood crashes and though I&#8217;m surrounded by people, I don&#8217;t feel like talking to anyone. How did I go from feeling sky-high to low low? <\/p>\n<p>I keep telling myself, &#8220;I&#8217;m not directing my life anymore. I made a mess of things. I&#8217;m turning it all over to God.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I hate to make accommodations for other people&#8217;s feelings. I feel determined to say my piece. I will not compromise. And I wonder why I feel like a pariah everywhere I go? My desire to offend is often stronger than my desire to fit in, and it seems to take just a few offensive remarks, sometimes just one, and you&#8217;re written off and left alone on the ice flow.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not directing my life anymore. I made a mess of things. I&#8217;m turning it all over to God.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I listen to this song over and over and memorize the lyrics and march out into the world singing &#8220;Go West&#8221; and then when things don&#8217;t work out, when I don&#8217;t get the exact foods I was hoping for, no &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=48280\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48280"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":152587,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48280\/revisions\/152587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}