dancing across space

There have been times in my life where I was absolutely sure of where I stand in his life. Or so I thought. There have also been times where my resolve to force him into some sort of standardized role in my life has made me numb. None of it ever works. For some reason it is those moments he picks to reveal whats really inside and my resolve shatters. I am tired of dancing though. My patience, a quality in me that he says is undying, is wearing thin. Without him in front of me I can see it waver and realize that someday it may come to never saying goodbye, just making a decision and walking away without letting him know that this is it. What he doesn't realize is that when we are face to face I think would patient forever. When we are apart it is another story.

This might not be the right time...

At some point I will have to grow up. I really will. But for now, I quite like the butterflies it gives me when he calls and tells me sweet things. It is moments like those that keep me hanging on to the vast space and time between visits. When we are together, it all makes sense. When we are not together, more and more all the time, it still makes sense.

The challenge is justifying the rest of it. And finding the point at which common ground exists, in which we actually live in the same place.

After so many years of being in this place, I think I am almost ready to admit how I feel, and for it to move along. Even if just for clarity's sake. I am getting impatient. And scared.

Someday...

I have recently ended my relationship with my significant other. This was a very painful process. Not only because it's painful anytime something important ends, but because some of what he was, was everything I thought I had wanted.

And yet, I felt suffocated. I was yearning for time of my own. I had forgotten what it felt like to spend an extended period of time doing whatever happened to cross my mind at any given moment.

What I am now facing within my head, is that desire to have the intimate companionship and dealing with the fact that I feel like I want it only on my terms. I wonder if there is a place in me that will be ready to compromise. I am ok with not doing that right now. I am excited about this phase in my life. I just wonder if someday....

Indulgences

This weekend is the first weekend I have spent doing whatever I please in way too long. Sure there are a million things I should be doing, most of them work related, but something the new crispness that fall has left in the air makes me more defiant than usual, and the result has been lovely. I had made plans earlier in the week out of a feeling of obligation. When the weekend rolled around I just couldn't do it. So what precisely have I been doing?

I read Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk while laying in bed and eating bread and cheese until three am.

I crafted two items for a swap I am in on Craftster, and finished a baby blanket for a friend.

I went craft shopping and overindulged, which felt exquisite.

I started a hat for the aforementioned baby.

I sketched a magpie for a painting.

I have been drinking a lot of tea.

Lots of pajama wearing.

Had lunch with an old and amazing friend.

Had breakfast with a friend.

This morning I woke up on my own at 8am-ish, and layed around for a few hours reading Eat, Pray, Love. And so far the book is amazing. I can tell it is going to spur one of those periods of utter spirituality seeking in my life. I am ok with that.

I had conversation with someone who lives too far away, and who soon, will be even farther away fighting in a dessert.

Now, I am going to plan a trip to Seattle, and paint a magpie. And maybe crochet a hat.

Tonight, I am going to demonstrate just how crazy I am by taking 12 youth to the haunted corn maze and I am going to love every single moment of it. Especially the part at the end when I make up my mind about whether to get the kettle corn or the caramel apple.

Frustration is bound to ensue...

Me: *rolls eyes as I pass by the Students for McCain table

Pompous ass at the McCain table: You registered to vote?

Me: oh yeah

Pompous Ass: Got a minute to hear about a man who stands for change?

Me: Nope, sure don't!

Chick at McCain table: How can you as a woman not have a moment in this historic election to give it a thought?

Me: Oh, I've thought about it. I am just pretty damn sure I'm not voting for McCain/Palin.

Chick: Why wouldn't you vote for her? The first woman vice president! *tune it all out, don't want to hear about it* mavericks!

Me: Did you seriously just say that? Maverick? Did you know that while she was the mayor of Wasilla, they started charging rape victims for the rape kits they use to treat them in the hospital?

*Chicky's mouth drops. Whispers something into Pompous ass's ear*

As I am walking away, I hear him say "It's in Alaska"


This is what scares me folks. The number of women out there voting for McCain/Palin just because Palin is a woman. Does this make them feel like they now have their "gender equality badge"? Because if you check the number of institutions, environments, social mindsets that are women friendly in the country you would find that we all fail....assuming that putting a woman in the white house just because we feel like it is a huge step up for women could be the greatest mistake we as voters could make. Just because she has charm does not make her fit for the white house. I mean, I can be damn friendly when I really want to, throw in a wink or two and I am downright pleasing. That doesn't make me a good candidate. But I certainly wouldn't make victims of sexual crimes pay for their own damn treatment kits in the hospital before they receive any treatment! WAKE UP PEOPLE!

In the last 24 hours I have come into contact with numerous people from my past. This always seems to happen in waves. I realize this is partly due to the fact that internet social sites spread information like a disease and what not, but its still a little strange. One of these people is 'the first love' figure. Now, there is an angsty and torrid history there that involves lots of gossip, making out, indecision, and someone losing their virginity in the back of a van at a conference to a girl the other person had a crush on. (go figure). Curiosity is getting the best of me and making me wonder what it's all about. Not just him, but all of them. I mean, I regularly think of certain key figures in my past, but I just figure that was more just me being a human rolodex that clings to memories. (And I mean that in the most endearing sort of way...) I guess I never figured that I would be in someone else's mental rolodex...

In other news, I start the couch to 5k program on Thursday, who's excited? The closer it gets, the louder my inner-whiner is getting. It's a lovely battle raging inside me.

life don't need an air-o-plane to chase you down

I have been noticing that lately, I get frustrated a lot easier than normal. My guess is that this comes from sitting at a computer all day long and not doing shit in the way of exercise, with the exception of yoga (which, by the way, kicked my ass last week). So the new conclusion is this: I must get some real exercise. And I am too cheap to pay for it. I have always had this wierd admiration for running. I am more in love with the idea of it, then with actually doing it. But it occured to me that maybe that is because I have been going about it all wrong. It's like learning to ride a bike, or having sex for the first time-it just akward and sucky. But eventually it gets better. I can't just start running right out of the gate, I need to ease my way into it. I have a friend that is following this couch to 5k program with rave reviews so I figure-eh, why the hell not-it's worth a try. SO! Here's the deal...over the course of nine weeks I will gradually work my way up to running three miles. Which sounds ridiculously overwhelming right now. But like I said above, start slow...
Week one consist of three days of a brisk 5 minute warm up walk and then 60 seconds of jogging and 90 seconds of walking for 30 minutes. I can totally do that! Right? We'll see...I start on Thursday morning...

my yoga teacher

is not who I was hoping she'd be.

It's a lesson in communication. That is how I am choosing to look at it. We walk into the studio, and there is way too much incense which automatically gives me a headache, luckily she puts it out before we begin. However, this being the first class of the session, you would assume that an instructor would spend time asking questions like "do you have any injuries you are recovering from, or sensitive areas?" One would assume that you would certainly do this before going and stepping on someones hands while in downward dog and shoving their shoulders in and up.

Golly gee, thanks, I had totally forgot what it felt like to make that shoulder injury flare up, thanks.

I did have a little chat with her. I was nice, I was polite. Which was a big feat considering how neaseous I felt.

We will see what happens next week. I am pretty particular about my stress relieving techniques NOT causing more stress, yes I know, outrageous standards, but what can ya do?

time makes you older/children get older

Stepping into the church I was hit like a battering ram into the stomach with memories haunting me. Memories from a past I can't let go, and memories from a past I don't want to remember. How do those two become so intertwined?

I sat in the courtyard with a group of people that has not sat together since I was 15. That was more than 10 years ago. Ten years. What have I been doing since then? A lot. More than I could put into a 20 minute life update a memorial allows for. I walked away from that circle filled with questions about these dear people I don't keep in touch with, and a yearning for these connections to maintain between the weddings and funerals that seem to be increasing in frequency.

I was struck by the maturity of his 5 year old daughter, who requested to be the first to light a candle in his honor. She walked up there and told everyone how much she loved her dad, and that no amount of missing him, and wishing he were back, would actually bring him back. But that she would still always love him and he would always love her.

This man filled the world with music and love beyond wonder.

if you see my reflection in the snow covered hills...

Death does not scare me. It is inevitable. No matter what path we are traveling, we will all end up passing through that gate. What happens beyond that, I am not sure. The timing of things fills me with sorrow and questions. Today I received news that a friend of mine from my YRUU days has passed. He wasn't older than 25. He has a child right around my daughters age. He was my waiter at Olive Garden what felt like two weeks ago. And now he is gone.

I hate the way the voice on the other end of the line sounds. The one, that when you pick it up and say hello, you can tell by the way they ask "How ya doin?" that they aren't really hearing the answer to the question they just asked because there is something terrible leaping up their throat and dying to get out.

I am filled with sorrow.

And maybe a little bit of guilt. That I never got back in touch. That I never reached out when I knew he probably needed someone.

"They won't know what caused it for a few weeks still but it looks accidental."

Intoxication loses it's fancy when that is possibly what helped kill a friend.

I want to hug him one last time. Thank him for his kind words that night and tell him how much the memory of them got me through. I want to whisper in his ear to hold on. I want to hold his child to comfort her, and I have never met her. I want to cry. I want to sit in that house with his parents, to bring some sort of solace, but I know I wouldn't be able to. What could bring comfort to a parent at a time like this?

It's either really late, or really fucking early, depending on how you look at it. I have spent a lot of time the lasts few weeks contemplating my decision to not be a student anymore and work full time. I was so excited to go back to school, but as time wore on the excitement for academia could not overpower the extreme need to financially be a responsible person. (the background there is I spent a good few years before I learned my lesson being very irresponsible with my credit rating, which coincidentally is now shot to hell.)

But I had this whole "took me so long to get here gonna see it through till the end" mind frame to contend with. But because I was so ass poor, I HAD to be taking a full course load to get enough financial aid to pay for everything but some portion of my rent. (Thanks mom!) So, plugging right along, I took summer classes, and instantaneously regretted it. It was hot. It was sweaty. It was hours my time spent trying to understand the excitation-contraction process and all the little enzymes and what not that go into making me a human being capable of digestion. (By the way, I still see those pictures from the textbook every time I eat or pee, thank you very much.) I felt that by halfway through the term, I was doing that whole army crawl thing that kids learn to do before they really crawl. I was dragging myself toward the finish line. I had not had to motivate myself to even just get out of bed so severely since high school. It was depressing. And speaking of kids, I feel like I never got to relax and appreciate my time with mine because my inner dialogue was all about which muscles were there, insertion points, synergists and the like. By the second to last week of the term I felt literally ill every time I even thought of school. I changed my grade options in my other classes so I could skate by with the very minimum and I quit going to them. I quit reading my textbook for anatomy. (Boy that made the days preceding my final just AWESOME!)

Then Dave sent me that glorious text message that made me hear the heavenly choir itself singing me down some salvation. The job proposal went through and he had an offer for me. Dammit, that would come through the week after I had set my mind to forgetting about it and committing to stay in school.

When I was offered this job I didn't hesitate to accept. Wait-no, that's not true. Inside of me, I had already accepted it, I made myself wait to tell them that. I wanted to sit on it for a few days and at least be aware of the possibility that I wanted it just for the financial security and way out of school it would bring. But then as my first week approached I not only felt sad that I would not be coming back to school (this was a huge shock) but I began to feel the weight of my hefty job description and the fact that this ain't no entry level restaurant position began to weigh in on me. I sat through nine hours on my first day of taking notes as my new (and nerdy hip) boss talked and then set me loose. As I sat in what will be my office until I find a permanent one I became so bogged down with a list of stuff I HAD to get done that I was literally stuttering inside my mind about what to do first.

Well-my first week is over and I still think I made the right decision. So there. At least I still have confidence in myself, right?

And by the way, A in anatomy bitches...

WAKE UP! Its real.

I am constantly frustrated at others (and my own) inability to step outside their own culture and understand other peoples' ways of life. Are we really so stuck up to think that our destructive and selfish american lifestyle is that much better than someone living a life that may have more experience with poverty and not as much access to what we have? Because when it comes down to it, our consumer-oriented materialistic society is going to be what destroys the world. It already is. Look at how much land and how many natural resources we have dried up for our own selfish needs. How many species of plants and animals have been displaced or run to extinction because we needed more trees for houses, more petroleum for plastic, oil, fuels, and whatever else we find to pump it into? How many lives have been destroyed, and how many habitats have disappeared due to our societies hunger for coal? More power, more toys, more machines, is not necessarily better. Its getting harder and harder to ignore the increasingly frequent warnings from scientists about the climate change, and how its all our fault. Yes, its scary. Terrifying really. So what are most people doing about it? Nothing! We are buying more cars and building more unsustainable houses, we are paying even less money to even more impoverished countries around the world for a product that is not meant to last and only use up more of our increasingly diminishing resources. In the process the rich may be getting richer but the poor are getting poorer, the number of people living in poverty is increasing and its not just because they are privileged enough to be a rich white person. WAKE UP PEOPLE! Its time to take this seriously. Stop trying to go back to sleep and dream the world back into the state of the "American Dream" because it doesn't exist. It never did. We have been slowly killing the globe that sustains us. What a way to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Ever have so much to say or have an opinion about that it wants to all come pouring out at once and makes you silent?

Something New

So I realize that my life may not be all that interesting to outside parties, but to me, it is momentous and dull and exciting and ordinary and dull and extraordinary and worth taking note of. If even to be able to look back and see that life has brought me joy and sorrow to be thankful for, and force me to open my fucking eyes and notice that I have been going places since the day I was born and to keep learning from the experiences thrown my way so its not all a waste.

So here it is. A new blog for a new chapter that has open in my life. A new start. With less bs and more BS. That made sense inside my head...really...