Bedtime for Me

I write to help me fall asleep. It's like taking out the trash. Not that it's all trash, but it's at least like putting away the folded laundry so you can reclaim your bed or sofa or dining room table and resume normal life.

Ironically, I've been writing for the last two hours and I feel like there's more going on up there than ever. I'll try to match up the socks:

The best things about this weekend:

1) I fixed my own damn dome light. Finally. Found the right bulb and everything. Why do we even have men? ;)

2) I put up my Christmas tree. It gives off that warm homey glow.
2a) Cinnamon candles. Retailers across the nation are learning that if it smells like cinnamon around the holidays, I will buy it. It brings me joy.
2b) Not one, but two local radio stations have started playing round-the-clock Christmas music. I heart Andy Williams and Perry Como, and I don't care who knows it.
2c) I now have a job and that means I get to buy Christmas presents for people. This also gives me joy. Let me know what you want for Christmas.

3) I've gotten three days out of my bottle of merlot. 21-year-old me would be very disappointed in 26-year-old-me, but 26-year-old me doesn't care because I get to drink my wine on my own terms, thank you very much. It lasts longer this way and doesn't make the room spin.

4) Brussels sprouts with garlic and bacon. Everything is better with either garlic or bacon. Especially better with both.

5) I made it to the gym twice and worked off those sweet potatoes. My friend made me hurt, but I love her all the same. She's a great motivator and will make an awesome trainer. And in the meantime I get to use her for free :)

6) Made it through the Sunday service alive. Running the video gives me a knot in my stomach every time, but the warm fuzzies I get from serving far surpass the butterflies.

Six feels like enough (that's three whole pairs). I think I'm coming down. Thanks for reading. Time for zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

On smelling like someone else

Yes, I realize that is a bizarre title for a blog. Let me (try to) explain.

I borrowed a spritz or two of perfume from my friend yesterday, and the scent is still in my scarf, which is currently wrapped around my neck, right under my nose. It's a scent I like. It reminds me of this expensive shampoo I used to have. Which I only bought because it smelled like "bitchy girl." It reminded me in some abstract way of the rich girls, the high-maintenance girls I'd always avoided in high school. The girls who seemed to have everything so easy. I bought the shampoo because for a few hours after my morning shower, I felt like everything was easy for me. I imagined that men turned their heads when I walked by. I set my jaw differently. I walked taller. I pretended that I didn't have to care about anything.

I knew it was just a ruse, even back then. But it was fun to pretend. Now this smell doesn't remind me of those bitchy high school girls, those sorority girls on the train, those girls at the bars. It reminds me of those moments when I got to walk down the street and find a different sliver of myself. Ironically, the strong, bold part of me had been hiding deep down in there for a long time.

My vanity drawers are now full of perfumes and lotions and soaps, and all kinds of smell-good that I've collected over the years from gift exchanges and my mother's clean-out-the-cupboards projects and whatnot. And I get to choose how I smell on a daily basis. And up until yesterday, it all still somehow smelled like me.

But now, this scent on my scarf is foreign. It's a memory; it's not of the present. It's a different-meaning thing altogether to my friend who lent it to me (though, I'm not sure I'll really quite be able to give it back-- haven't worked that one out yet), I'm sure. For me now, it's a reminder of a good feeling I used to get. But it's no longer the cause of that good feeling. I'm pretty sure I don't need a shampoo for that anymore.

Just this...

I won't directly tell you much about me. But I will tell you this: I am white. And in winter my skin becomes transparent. Translucent at best. And it's scary, to know that people can see into me if they take a moment to look.

And this sums up what's on my mind right now. Just this.

Sugarhigh

A friend (you know who you are) fed me lots of sugar this evening (okay, yes, the hot chocolate was my choice- but the sundae wasn't), and so my synapses are firing away. Here's a random sampling of what's going on up there.

First, my hands ::still:: smell like terrible, cheap rubber from the mountains of promotional mouse pads that got delivered to my work today. Soap and lotion and perfume are no match for this smell. Rawr. This. Really. Angers. Me.

But despite that, I had a really awesome evening. One that I was unsure about, going into. But it turned out to be totally great. I laughed a lot and managed not to recite every line of Empire Records, and in doing so, was pleased to discover fun little details that I never noticed before. Well, let's face it, I probably noticed but have since forgotten. Which is kind of the same thing. Notably, the movie heavily plugs Gin Blossoms, which is lovely. Though I feel kind of conflicted about it because I was really thinking hard about going to see them live tonight. It's kind of ironic, when you think about it.

Speaking of feeling conflicted, I have a lot to think about. Hell, I feel conflicted about the fact that I feel conflicted. This can not be good. Do I stand strong or do I surrender? The obvious choice seems to be "stand strong" but at what point does that become "stay stubborn?" Connotation is everything.

I have recently realized that I am not even as cool as I thought I was until recently, which was not all that cool to begin with. This is a little sad, but also very freeing. I don't have to pretend to live up to anything anymore. I can embrace my dorkiness and run with it. Which I intend to do. There are so many things more important than others' perception of me, and I intend to focus more on those things than worrying about how they will look to all those people who don't know me. Intend is the key word here.

Tomorrow, I have three four five goals: 1) take a shower that stays hot all the way through (this takes some planning. Maybe 1A should be to adjust the water heater. This will also take some planning as I have no idea how to do this). 2) Finish the book I borrowed from a friend months ago. I meant to do this last weekend, but it wasn't officially a goal, so now I'm making it one. 3) Go on a photo stroll of Bellevue for an assignment. 4) Write. Lots. 5) Sort through some of the stuff that is floating around in my head. Four and five will surely go hand in hand.

I have not yet heard back from the apartment community to which I turned in an application. This community is run by the company I used to work for, so I know how things should go, and frankly, this is not how they should go. I know I'm not a high-priority applicant, but if you're going to call every other day "just to check in" after I visit, I expect you to also call me back to say "your application was approved, just so's ya know." I'm wondering if it's a sign that I should apply at the other place I'm considering, but sense is still telling me to be patient.

Patience is something I struggle with. In general. This makes me consider things that are best not shared in a public blog, so I won't. Share them, that is. If you really want to know, you can ask me. I might be inclined to share further.

Seeing as my feet are very cold, I've definitively decided it's time to get to bed. I got a new pillow today. It's probably the most exciting thing that's happened to me all week.

Don't judge me, cool kids.

It all looks so different in the dark

I'm blogging right now because I'm scared to go to bed. Which is dumb. Not scared like I think there's a monster under my bed or anything (just a snoring cat), but just because I feel like it's not the right thing to do. I'm listening to the rain pour down in buckets, and I'm simultaneously reeling from memories of wet streets in Allston and scared. to go. to bed. with this. in my brain.

Instead I'll ramble for a bit.

.

Okay, that's not happening so much. Here's what's on my agenda for the weekend. I'll leave out the uninteresting parts like events I'm going to. What's really important is waking up tomorrow and finishing The Shack (because I really need to give it back to Nic. I mean, come on, it's been like two months.) in my jammies and fuzzy purple robe. Then warming up a piece of pumpkin loaf from Trader Joe's and enjoying it with a big mug of DD hazelnut coffee. Yes. That is how Saturdays should start.

Then I have actual design work to do. Squeeeeeee! By the way, that is my new favorite word.

Fast forward to Sunday. I am thinking about starting a new blog about my new favorite things, but first have to decide whether the first entry will be about Trader Joe's or the word squee. Difficult decisions.

Which reminds me, I just dropped way too much money on a new pillow, but if I can manage to keep the room from spinning, I will sleep like a baby for the rest of my days. Only, a baby who sleeps. Not one that cries all night. Note to self: think up a better analogy for sleeping well.

I just stared at this thing on my desk for like, two solid minutes wondering what on earth it could be. Granted, it was hiding half under my keyboard, but still, E. It's too small to be a taffy. Too big to be a crumb from aforementioned (second current favorite word, after squee) pumpkin bread. Weird texture. Something the cat dragged in? I was scared to touch it. Caterpillar? Then I realized it was this little tiny shell I brought back from Florida. It probably got kicked around when my monitor fell over tonight. Note to self: stop using the desk as a place to rest feet. Got it.

Today started out weird, and then it got kind of good, and now it's all weird again. I wish it wasn't so cold out. I could really use a walk in the rain right about now. Instead of feeling trapped in my condo, in my room, in a chair in front of a screen. I should have called ___ up. Oh well.

Maybe I just need to get some sleep. Does it really have to be all that scary? Really? I will insert some html and hope that things start to look like themselves again.

Something I'm trying to make sense of ::Part 2::

...Still trying to make sense of this. Bear with me.

"After a day as good as today, how do you go back to the same life as yesterday?"

Two days after the wedding, it was my last day in Florida. I was sunburnt and sweaty and sore from a morning jog on the beach. I'd checked out of the hotel but still had hours to kill before my flight. So, feeling somewhat homeless, I slathered on the sunscreen, purchased a half-day beach umbrella rental, and tried to keep as much of my body as possible submerged under sea level.

The Gulf of Mexico was a new body of water to me. This is significant if you know me, because I grew up always around water. I am home when I am near the water. And it's so unlike any other water in my memory. It's so calm. The waves break on Sand Key at about knee level, and after that you're left with soft little ripples that barely lift you, but just bend you and pull you around like a long blade of sea grass. And it's warm. It's so warm. I've taken chillier baths. At first, in the hot sticky Florida atmosphere, it's almost not a relief to step into the water. The waves seem hot as they break against your body. Which is just all the more reason to wade in up to your chin and just hang out and watch the pelicans glide by at nose-level. I decided on this trip that pelicans are my new favorite things ever. They are at once completely ridiculous animals but also beautifully designed and graceful.

So it was in this setting that I had A Moment. Or two or three. A series maybe, or possibly just one extended experience. It's hard to tell. I'll jump to the end because I don't know how else to explain it all, but I wound up simultaneously laughing and crying. Not in a I-laughed-so-hard-I-cried kind of way, or I-laughed-to-hide-my-tears kind of way. But in an enormous outpouring of the depths of my soul kind of way. Like emptying my lungs to take in my first ever real breath of air. It was difficult to do, standing in the Gulf sobbing while trying to conceal my laughter. But I can't even describe how good it felt.

And I don't know why I felt this way. It came out of nowhere, like the twister that took Dorothy to Oz. Maybe there was a bump on the head involved, but so what if it makes the world take on more color?

So why? I thought. What is this? Why here? Why now? What is this sense of catharsis coming over me? I wasn't looking for one. And I don't think it was just one thing. It was everything coming together at once. Wringing out my insides and letting me dry in the sun.

I think it was A___'s wedding, for one. Giving in, after 26 years, to the idea that, even all grown up, you can never lose the connection to where you came from. For all the good and all the bad that comes with that. That people can reconnect. That we all find our way back to our roots in our own way, and that's okay. That's good. No need to keep running. Stop running. Let the water carry you where you belong.

I think it was the realization that I can stand on my own. I've traveled alone before, but I've never vacationed alone. I've never decided to find the way all on my own, to be okay being the only single on the beach, okay with my books and my magazines. To enjoy being with myself. I've recently made a number of decisions like this. And I am so proud of myself. I never took the time to be proud of myself until now.

And, maybe most importantly, I found God. Or rather, He found me. I can't explain this bawling, guffawing changing of my soul because it's not because of anything I did. It, like all the small amazing things that have happened in my life recently, are just little evidences of His grace. I was so stubborn for so long. And then He began showing me how to open my eyes. And He turned my heart. And maybe, just maybe, standing there in the Gulf under a huge blue sky was the culmination of it. Maybe that was a kind of baptism for me. Maybe.

So how was I supposed to go back to normal life after experiencing a quiet little life-altering spiritual awakening that day? Not easily, I can tell you that. But this here, this writing about it? It helps.