things i LOVE right now

 Experiencing the same weather as NYC.

No more watching NYC splashed all over the media and wishing that I was a little closer to the warmer weather, the city lit up in the rain, the blizzards (last winter)... Oh, and friends & family, of course.  Now I look outside, check the NYC weather, and close my windows, because it's headed this way.  Love it & everything it stands for.

My mom's cooking on weekends.

Delicious.  Fresh.  Amazing.   Isn't a love for cooking supposed to be genetic?  Maybe it skips a generation?

My friends have desk jobs that allow for string emails or unconventional schedules that allow for unconventional times for phone chats.

Seventeen seems to be the lucky number that sit in the parenthesis next our names.  Mid-afternoon and mid-morning I'm reaching for my phone.  My gmail inbox & cell phone say my friends love me and I agree.  

My friends let me write emails with hash tags, three letter phrases usually without vowels (FTW!), and other social media/urban dictionary lexicon.

 And they still email me back! 

Caramel Macchiato Creamer.

I heard a rumor that there is a pumpkin spice flavored creamer.  Is this true?  Bee, can you verify this?  That may be even better, but I'm totally diggin' the Caramel Macchiato right now.  

The sheets of rain and whipping wind that make me feel cozy and safe inside.

I love rainy days.  With one exception, I have always loved rainy days.  Feeling warm and cozy in today's rain means that one exception has faded, and that may be the best thing ever.

The sound of a car outside that won't start and knowing that it isn't MY car that won't start in the rain. 

I know I shouldn't take pleasure in another person's distress, but did I ever tell you guys about the car I once had that would not start if when rained?  Oh, it was fun...  and no worries, that car outside did eventually start....

The fact that my car is parked in a garage right now, and I won't get soaking wet getting in and out of it. 

This one I'm gonna bookmark for mid-January also, when I'm loving that I don't have to clear the six inches of snow off my car every. single. morning.  (Hello, memories from Maine winter 2008/2009.) 

This article on introverts and the pages of info on INFJ career choices.

I took the MBPT my first year out of college, and it helped explain about 99% of everything I do, say (or don't say), and feel.   Although I'm a big advocate of not being boxed in by "labels", INFJ (and introvert) research helps me highlight my strengths and adjust for my weaknesses.  

This blog and YOU.

Thank you.

When Today and I Are No Longer On Speaking Terms and It Is Only 2:30 PM

This morning the toilet downstairs didn't flush.  So I popped the top and used a kitchen over-sized serving fork to try to get the chain back on the lever-thing.  I got this brilliant kitchen-utensil-idea from Alivia, and I almost smiled, because I thought of how much I laughed at her broken toilet post and how much I could relate to it.  But I don't think I did actually smile. I should have.  I pulled the chain up, the toilet started to flush, I quickly went to grab the end of the chain before it slipped back into the toilet and somehow managed to knock the tube that fills the tank with water out of the tank.  Or something.  All I know, is that in a matter of nano-seconds water was spraying OUT OF THE TOILET all over THE ENTIRE BATHROOM.  We're talking bathroom mirror, bathroom floor, closet doors to the washing machine... all. over. the. bathroom.  The dog starts barking.  I actually look to her for help.  I should have laughed.  Instead I grabbed for the tube and tried to put it back into the tank.  Which I did manage to do successfully, but not before I also managed to point it in every-which-direction and soak my entire shoulder, neck, and face.  I think I am still in shock from it.  One does not easily get over the fact that she had toilet water dripping down the side of her face, even if it is from the tank and not the bowl.  Still gross.

It's raining here and I'm scared to take the dog out, because nearby areas have a tornado watch until 6pm (who knew that they could issue watches for 7 hour durations?), and even though we don't have a watch, I am still convinced that a tornado will come ripping through the yard while I am out there with the dog.  I can picture it, because I have reoccurring tornado dreams, and yes, I know that means you feel as though your life is out of control, and yes, I am working on it.  Allow this current rant to be exhibit #7,892,984.  I am working on it, I promise.  Anyway, I carry the dog in (because I am in an almost-panic and she isn't moving fast enough on her own, but in my arms she looks at me like I am crazy and just licks my face) and try to shake off earlier bad/surprising/upsetting news that really has no direct relation to my life other than hurting my feelings and rubbing salt in a wound (but still made me cry really hard and feel utterly defeated) with a cup of coffee and an email to a friend who hears a lot of my rants this summer.  I have decided that Today has won and I surrender myself to the couch for a Sex and the City dvd marathon and lots of coffee.   I have lost all strength to fight with Today any longer.

But then I think - I have friends (you guys included!) who make me smile even when I'm crying, who will listen to breathless rants via voice or email, and I'm spending a rainy afternoon with Sex and the City dvds and lots of coffee - I'll let Today THINK she won, but really, I'm the one who wins an awesome afternoon.  Booya.

My Friends Are Wicked Talented: Exhibit 1

Remember when I told you that one of my friends moved across a few states to pursue one of her passions (art) and follow a new career path?

When I talked to her this past weekend, she told me that she was painting - which kind of freaked her out b/c she doesn't have any "real" experience with painting.  Regardless, I made her promise to share her work, because I love, love, love her work.

I may be a bit biased (as in, I think she may have hung the moon), but I think she made a GREAT life decision - what do you think?

(self portrait!)

(p.s. I bet we can convince her to share a lot more of her work - she's over here!)

(p.p.s. Did I mention that she also has her first ever art gallery opening this evening?  I'm so proud!!)

From the Organic Department

 I carry the word organic around in my back pocket.  I don't remember the first time I picked it up, but I'm pretty sure it was in a non-committal, unimpressed manner.  I bet I saw it lying on the ground like a dirty penny, picked it up, checked to see if it was heads or tails, and shoved it in my back pocket without much thought other than "maybe it's a lucky penny".  I probably recited "lucky penny / pick it up / and all the day / you'll have good luck" out of habit,  without a thought at belief, and regardless of the fact that it was a word not a penny.  So I shoved it, slightly used, into my back pocket, days and months and years ago.  I found it recently, in one of those uncomfortable situations, when I shove my hands into my back pockets, shift my weight, and try to appear casual, when really I'm feeling out of place, awkward, and uncertain - to say the least.  Organic.  I've been flipping it over in my hand and admiring it since I found it stashed away back there.  Not entirely sure what it means.  Not entirely sure why I am carrying it around.  Not entirely sure what to do with it.  But I can't let it go.

Everything comes in waves these days.  Waves of strength and waves of weakness and so many others.  Some knock me down, others lift me off my feet - floating effortlessly through time.  If I'm under water, I hold my breath until I can break through the surface again.  If I'm face up to the sunshine, I just try to ride the wave all the way to the shore and enjoy being carried for even a few moments.  I'm longing to be on the shoreline with my feet planted firmly on the ground, but I'm also trying to honor my time in the ocean.  Salt water cleanses, yes?  The pull of nature's body will always outweigh my own, yes?  I can see the shore; I am not drowning, no?  Everything comes in waves these days.

I make to-do lists and cross things off.  I make life lists, and goal lists, and daily lists.  I have short term and long term career lists.  I make lists of things that belong on multiple lists.  I write lists in my journal, on scrap pieces of paper, in spiral notebooks, here, and never ending in my head.  I apply for jobs.  (Speaking of never ending....)  I spend time on hobbies and my health and my career field and I concoct plans to get myself out of this rut without the help of a job, or a company, or a salary.  I raise my independence like a hard-won trophy and then cling to it too tightly because I'm afraid it's the only thing I have left.  I express myself too often in terms of loss and feel the weight of that trophy.  I say a silent thank-you for the people in my life.  I want to show them a parade of successes.  I repeat to myself that they are not asking for that.  They are just asking to hold my hand.  I need to let them.  I shower and dress and run an errand and congratulate myself.  I write another cover letter and take a sip of cold coffee.

I have two quotes that I have hung on to for years: “Serenity is not freedom from the storm, but peace amid the storm”  and "Barn's burnt down, now I can see the moon."  I feel guilty for the second, because I have so much.  But I still hang on to it.  I'm trying to find the peace in the storm.  I am trying to find the moon.  I'm realizing that the peace has to come first, before I can see the moon. 

I stick my hand in my back pocket and pull out that word: organic.  Run my thumb and forefinger over its smooth ridges.  Place it in my front pocket. 

From The Department of Starbucks Realizations

Starbucks at 7pm doesn't match my Sunday nights anymore, but I stop in anyway convinced that my evening cannot go on without a pumpkin spice latte, and when I walk in, there is a twentysomething girl sitting in the corner, hunched over a text book and spiral notebook.  I order, but then I'm waiting for my latte, noting that my life really no longer warrants an evening (or late night!) caffeine intake, and I suddenly miss being that "girl" sitting in the corner just trying to get the work done. 

I reason that it's my first year not going back to school (sans one temporary year) in twenty one years (or more?), if you don't count anything before first grade.  Of course I am going to feel misplaced.  But then I hear my old con law professor saying that the word "obviously" written in any opinion is a red flag that something is not "obvious" and the author just doesn't have a better explanation and wants to dismiss the need for an explanatory foundation.  (If I could cite to a case here, I would, but that's just because tonight I'm okay saying, "yes, that was my life" and leaving it (almost!) at that.)  I hardly ever use the term "obviously".  But I do frequent "of course".  And I almost groaned out loud because I had just said "of course" silently, which means now I need to find that better explanation.  So then I'm standing in Starbucks trying to decipher my feelings on September fresh starts that I haven't gotten yet, remembering alllll those exhausted Sunday nights under the florescent library lights terrified of fifty five minutes of con law Monday morning and how I used to wonder if "everyone else" in the world bakes pies on Sundays. 

So sure, that's it.  I don't need this pumpkin spice latte in my hand; I didn't get my standard September reset button; I'm running "old tapes" that don't apply anymore but still make my stomach flip with anxiety; and I still don't know if "everyone else" bakes pumpkin pies on Sunday afternoons in the fall.  I don't actually want to be that girl, drinking coffee, hunched over a book, with that worried look on her face. (And I tried the pie baking.  It only goes so far.)  But I'm getting so little of what I do want that I'm nostalgic for misery.  (I wonder if this is a worthwhile realization.)  I keep thinking "I'm too old for this" and then feel guilty, because I'm not, but I didn't know that before, and even though I know that now, I still can't stop thinking it.  I'm in a seemingly never-ending transition, and a good friend told me the other day that it is okay to be discouraged, and I really, really needed to hear that, but right now all I would really like to know is: when does this chapter end?

Salmon For Dinner

We had salmon for dinner.  I couldn't decipher salmon from fish-sticks, and I hated fish-sticks.  But when he asked, I told him of course I liked salmon.  Of course.  He popped out of the kitchen, frozen fish in hand, searched my face and said, "Don't worry, you'll like it."  If he was the chuckling type, he would have chuckled.  Instead he just smiled and disappeared back into the kitchen.  I followed.

He pan-seared it and tossed on spices I would never associate with fish.  Things other than tarter sauce.   He stated with glowing pride that he had cut butter out of his diet.  And sugar.  It wasn't healthy.   I didn't believe him at first.  One of the last meals I ate with him was pizza doused in blue cheese dressing.  He swung open the fridge door - no butter, no sugar, no salt.  Momentarily, I saw a glimpse of us as adults, rather than as nineteen and twenty-one year olds playing house over summer vacation.

It was his early attempt at a healthy summer.  An investment in healthy habits perhaps sparked by days and nights with the emergency room sick. But already in those nights of the third week he would pull me closer in his sleep when LifeStar roared above us on its way to a call.   He was already telling stories of baseball bats disfiguring faces as my fingers traced his jaw line and came to rest between his chin and his bottom lip.  Later there would be snicker bars from the vending machine for an 11:30pm dinner and swigs of Nyquil to fall asleep on the nights he could turn his pager off.  Black coffee for the nights he could not.  Later we would talk about death more than usual.  Several states north of that tiny apartment next the the large hospital, I would concede to missing him but never worrying about him, purposefully replacing concern with pride.

But that July night I stood over the crackling salmon thinking of fish-sticks and butter and “OhDearLord how am I going to choke down this meal?”  I offer to help... um, sear? the salmon.  He smirks, tells me he wants to eat sometime before breakfast, and lifts me from the front of the stove to middle of the tiny kitchen in a single, effortless, one-armed swoop.  I protest his insult to my cooking skills and the swift removal with a scrunched face, until I can't hold it any longer and give in to a smile.  He is right.  A friend and I had a chicken 'mishap' that past semester.  A 'mishap' as in we had no idea how to cook the thing, spent more time discussing what to do with it rather than actually cooking it, and nearly gave us all salmonella poisoning.  He was the one to step in and...well...fix it. So instead I mill about the kitchen, opening and closing drawers as if to memorize where the utensils are kept for the week I would spend with him.

We ate next to his desktop mac with the picture I gave him taped to the side.  I took the futon and he sat at the desk chair, and I forgot to expect fish-sticks when I took a bite of the salmon.  I devour the salmon and the broccoli without butter and then stand up for seconds.  He smiles slightly before offering to get it for me.  I had long dismissed his offer and was halfway through my second serving before I realized the source of his smile: I loved the salmon.  Years later I would order it at his college graduation dinner and note his almost-smirk, and then again at my own college graduation but this time with a heavier, almost dull, notation.  That night I just took seconds and silently surrendered to his superior cooking skills.  

I put myself on clean-up duty, if not to claim a stake in domesticity then at least to assert some form of independence.   A cultivated assertion I lean on when I can’t hold on to titles.  I can’t hold on to the soapy forks either, and I’m splashing water across the counter, out of dish washing practice.  He changes the itunes mix and joins me in the kitchen.  Stands behind me and rolls up my wet sleeves, and I’m trying to find my independent assertions but it takes too long, and I’m leaning on him instead.  We stand quietly like that for a few moments, while Bob Dylan floats in and out. 

I’m running the sponge across the second-hand dishes, admiring the chipped edges and the strength of the plate to shine in the soapy water despite imperfections, wondering if my fifty-year old hands will look like my already water-pruned hands and will we still stand like this, forgetting to worry about titles and self-protection and mismatched future visions.  His hands interrupt my vagabond thoughts by plunging into the water. 

I’m startled and automatically protesting, standing upright on my own two feet now, and hanging on too tightly to the dish I was just admiring.  He asks me if I want to finish before breakfast tomorrow (twice in one night!).  I’m horrified that he is suggesting that I cannot. do. this. by. myself.  And I’m slightly insulted that he doesn’t think I can appropriately wash dishes.   “Come on, I’ll help you, it’ll go a little faster,” he reasons and kisses me on the cheek. 

He scoops up two forks, two butter knives, and the serving knife, and washes them all together in one seamless motion.  His itunes changes to the third song on the playlist.  I glance at the two plates I have washed.  He’s already on to the cutting board and my shirt is literally soaking wet.  I’d like to say that I burst into laughter, admitted defeat, and helped him finish the dishes.  But instead I only protest that I would get faster in time, and he looks at me with that smile and says “I know.”  I decide that doing dishes well is not directly proportional to being independent and that I would make sure I had a dishwasher when I “grow up.”  We finish the dishes together.

The apartment had too many walls to call it a studio but not enough rooms to call it anything else.  The futon transformed from dinner table to couch to bed depending on the time of day and the level of the air conditioner hum.  Highest when sleeping, my nose always felt like ice.  We pop a movie into the TV/VHS combo, keep the futon upright, and assume our then May-mid-day-TV-watching positions that would roll into early January days for too many years to come.  That night I laid somewhere between comfortably worn and shiny new, between his leg and the futon, between titles, semesters, and the scared beats in my chest.  That night I laid right in the middle of a strong safety and a quiet love.  When he told me my hair smelled like salmon, I asked if he minded.  He said not at all, it reminded him of our dinner.  And I knew exactly what he meant. 

We fell asleep that night to the scent of my salmon hair, the buzz of the air conditioner, and my cold feet pressed up against his warm calf.  We fell asleep somewhere in the middle.

On Running

The last time I went for a run, I mean a "real run" from the "exercise" category, it was probably my junior year of high school.  Let's admit it - my use of the elliptical on occasion the past few years doesn't really count, and neither does that one a.m. run on the treadmill after Midnight's glass of wine.  That one certainly can't count, because the security guard kicked us out of the club house gym after we jumped the fence and swiped our card, and there were at least four of us in heels.  So, that last "real" run, over a decade ago, had long faded when I step on the treadmill determined to collect endorphins, because I need some type of pick-me-up these days - the caffiene is wearing thin, and I'm too uncertain as to whether or not this is the best or worst time in my life, and I'm trying to decide that it is the best.  Or at least for the best.

So I climb onto the old treadmill in the basement and push play on the collection of ipod gym songs that have never been played before and begin to run.  And the funniest thing happens.  The list of things I want for my twenty seventh year start to actually take form as my feet hit the black ramp (like quit the worrying habit, take more risks, and just live), and I'm convinced all these list-derived thoughts are actually tangible.  I catch myself trying to grab for them in the air and then have to restrain myself, because I might actually fall over.  So instead I take a deep breath and keep running and words start stringing together only in my head, and I'm just relieved.

When I step off the treadmill, I note, despite the personal "running" break-through, not to tell anybody my time or distance, because I remember from high school how humiliating these numbers actually are.  I take a swig of water and go directly to the town library - the reward for a new (possible) addiction, of course - which accidentally leads to one the best days I've had since June, so what else is there to do other than renew the promise to STOP WORRYING SO MUCH.  Oh, and possibly run a little more?

Tumblr Tuesday: The 365 Project

I started the 365 project on Sunday - Yay!  You can follow along here or just check out the photo from day one on my tumblr.

I'm so intimidated by the thought of a photo a day for an entire year, but I'm determined to get better at working my camera, so I will stick with it.  At least, I think I will stick with it.  I will stick with it. =)  I think I just need to stay out of my own way with this project and let the photos create themselves.  The goal is merely to finish the project and learn more about my camera - if the photos actually come out okay, then I'll consider that an added bonus! 

Do you have any camera/photography tips you could share with me?  I'd love to hear them!

For The Monday Night Ladies

I miss my Girl Time. 

Some Monday-Night-Time curled up on the couch with three or four or even sometimes five lovely ladies and red wine and those chocolate brownie bites.  I could use one of their hugs or all of their hugs, because they are all so good at hugging.  Warm, and comfortable, and supportive.  And rather than sit down tonight and type out that moment in time when they saved my butt with a hug and a bottle of champagne and a toast to failure (because, come on, failure does need to be toasted, it's important that way I've learned, and maybe they knew that then?) and then celebrated friendship with me when I hadn't had the honor of their friendship for very long... or rather than write coherently about the times we indulged in teenage delights with pride and enthusiasm and homemade sparkle underpants... or rather than list the thirty five nicknames (or more!) we have for one anther... well, tonight I'd rather just say that I miss my Girl Time and let that phrase hang in the air with all of its potential.  And, oh, is there potential, because these girls, these women, are extraordinary. 

And yes, collectively, we all have others that we would call best-friends.  The ones that we call snot-nosed sobbing when our world is ending (ending I tell you!) or that finish our sentences because that's just the way it has been for years.  (I'm lucky enough to have one of mine in this group - she can pop out my sentence before I've even formed the first word.) But together we're a tidal change to a bad day, professional stress, the pile of dirty dishes that never seems to disappear, and some of those relentless difficult decisions.  

These ladies swept into my life unexpectedly with style and grace and kindness and I miss them.  Every one of them separately and all of them together.  I'd love a few hours with them on the couch, around a table, next to the bar, walking down the cobblestone street... just a few hours of lessons on hair, shoes, boys, real laughter, kindness, joy, love...

So on this Monday night, I'd like to send out this poorly-written, rambling, public display of affection for the ladies I miss so much and leave it at this:  XO XO!

Silence

Her roommate moved out during the third week of that fall semester.   I always believed Res Ed knew how impossible it was to squeeze two people into that room when they didn't assign her another roommate.  She had a single for the rest of the year.  I lived across campus with the other third of our threesome.  Down the street from our Friday/Saturday night home but a long, cold winter walk to the rest of campus.  She broke up with her long-term, long-distance boyfriend without consulting her other two-thirds the first week of that semester.  Quietly, independently, she broke her own heart only to have him break it again weeks later. 

She got up every morning, went to her morning classes (including her 7:30am teaching seminar, on Tuesday mornings), and completed our threesome for lunch on MWF.   During Tuesday lunches she participated in the dissection of Newsweek, gritted her teeth at opposing political comments, laughed at humorous tales of the day, and picked at her food.  She went to afternoon classes and completed her homework, because that's what we did.

On Friday nights, we piled into the basement of a campus house down the street for beruit games against the backdrop of Guster and Coldplay.  Dirty, white, brick walls, exposed white piping, and concrete floors with a large piece of plywood in the center placed over an old, wobbly table.  There were a couple of chairs arranged around the table, but most of us piled onto the mattress on the floor next to the table.  Let me say that again: most of us piled onto the mattress on the floor next to the table.  It didn't phase us that we were sitting on a mattress with an unknown history in the dirty basement of a house that once a frat called home.  We loved that basement as only nineteen year olds could. 

Four of our group didn't drink much on Friday nights.  We had to be on the quad at 8:45am on Saturday morning to do community service projects with middle school students.  Saturday mornings are a story for another time, but I will say that we loved it enough not to drink on Friday nights and to drag our un-showered, heavily-caffeinated selves to that quad every single Saturday morning.  I saw her smile more on Saturday mornings than any other time of the week.  Her Saturday morning laugh had a different source than her Newsweek Tuesday laugh.   I didn't worry about her on Saturday mornings.

She drank on Saturday nights.  While the PBR, or whatever beer we were able to get our hands on for that weekend, turned up the volume on our friends' stories, laughter, screeches, cheers, song, she felt silent.  While the others drank beer at all the designated times, she downed mixed drinks and asked for another.  These were the nights I worried about her.  Not about the drinking, but the silence.  I worried about her silence.

Our threesome always went home together.  Walked past a campus house, and a non-campus house, and through the wet, night grass until the snow fell and we had to walk down the sidewalk.  I don't remember the first time we fell asleep together in the same bed.  If I had to guess, I would choose a night during our first year of college when we were waiting for one third of our threesome to come back from a protest in D.C., and we fell asleep in her bed watching a movie.  Perhaps at some point after the first Friday night in the basement I declared, "I'm tiny.  You'll sleep in my bed." and she did, and the rest was history.  On Friday nights I felt asleep comforted that her silent single across campus was empty, and she was safe with me.  On some Saturday nights, she would try to tell me how fast the room was spinning, and I would fall asleep glad that she broke her silence.  On some Saturday nights, we would sit together on the bathroom floor, and she would tell me not to rub her back.  Sometimes she would cry or get angry, and I was so, so, so grateful for everything that was coming up and out.  Anything but the silence. 

We didn't dress up for Halloween that year.  I was selfishly grateful, because I hated Halloween as much as she would in the years to come.  A couple of days after Halloween, I went up to her single mid-week and found her stash of alcohol.  We joked about her becoming an alcoholic because she was drinking alone, midweek.  I knew that for her it wasn't a sign of alcoholism but a sign of devastating heartbreak.  I also knew that she wouldn't talk about it the way I would - which she found out the next year - so not knowing what else to do, I slept in her single that night.  She had two lofted beds, one empty, but we fell asleep watching a Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen movie on VHS in her bed. 

We missed our other one-third.  My room across campus had four windows and three doors and an attached deck.  So she slept in our room, in my bed, almost every night for the rest of that semester and the next.  She would get up each morning, drive up to her single, and start her day from the dorm on the hill.  At night she would finish her work and drive over to our side of campus in her comfy pants and sweatshirt and end her day with us.  The times when her day would end after ours, she would walk through our unlocked front door, slip through our unlocked room door, and climb into bed with the lights off.  Quickly I became a habitual right-side of the bed sleeper, and on those late nights, when I had already fallen asleep, she just had to climb into her empty space and fall asleep. 

She never talked about it much, but after a while (months) her silence dissipated, as did my worry.  She had to work through her decisions and her heartbreak and her life alone, but I always felt lucky to stand next to her while she did that.  Lucky to have a friend willing to let me in when it went against her nature, her experiences, her coping skills.  She let me in, even if it was just to stand next to her.  In the years to come she let me in more often and with more communication.  And I let her in.  I let her stand by me, support me, and carry me in times when it felt terrible to stand alone.  Some of my favorite time with her are from the times when I felt like life had left me alone.  We have had so. much. fun. together. over the years, but I've always cherished it when she let me in on her hard times.

She's fallen silent.  Months ago.  I can't invite her to sleep in my bed, or note that she's picking at her food, or watch for a private stash of alcohol, or listen for a Saturday morning laugh that lets me know she will be okay.  She pushed me away.  She won't let me just stand next to her or join her in her silence.  Share her silence.  Carry it for a while, if she'll let me.  It's breaking my heart, and I don't know what to do about it.

For My Twenty Seventh Year

My Twenty Seventh Year Shall Look Like This:

• I'll just put this up at the top to get it out of the way - employed with health and dental insurance.  (A dream come true!  Ha.)
• Honest writing consistently.  (Does this list count? Ha, again. )
• Quality time with best friends. (Quality rather than quantity b/c we're far away & busy!  of course the internets help with that.)
• Lots of puppy kisses.  (She's a love bug.  So am I.  It's the perfect match.)
• Books and books and more books. (And drooling over kindles and ipads.)
• Adventures in NYC.  (If I'm not living there, there's always Metro-North & I have lots of couches to crash on!)
• Large quantities of family time.  (Making up for years spent living hours away.)
• Community service.  (I always get more than I give.)
• Many clicks of the shutter.  (This is already a certainty.  I'm determined.  Click here.)
• Quit the worrying habit. Or at least scale back. (It's a habit, I swear.)
• Work in my career field, even if I'm not getting paid for it.  (This is how I know the past 4 yrs were not a massive mistake.  #truth.)
• More flirting than the past five years combined.  (This is not as lofty a goal as it appears, trust me.)
• Enjoy holiday seasons!  (No more finals ever, ever, ever.)
• LOVE HARDER.  (I love hard.  It's time to embrace it.  And it's time to love harder.)
• Dismiss the opinions I think others have of me.  (So much easier said than done, right?)
• Take more risks.  (It's worth it, I know.)
• Lots and lots and lots of lists.  (Visual prioritizing - totally works for me.)
  
• Hang out more in the blog community. (I'm learning how a-ma-zing and inspiring the people can be in this community.)
• Enjoy the moments I have been waiting years for. (It's true.  I've put my LIFE on hold for too long.  I have 365 days of my twenty seventh year to change that.)
• And that word up there in large letters.

A couple of weeks late in sharing, but I know, I know, I know that I will make this year a good one. I have been waiting for you, Twenty Seven.  Welcome to my life.  =)

To Give To The Light

I'm dancing in the sunbeams streaming through my bedroom window.  Warm, soft, bright.  I have a slight bounce and a small swivel propelled by spontaneous joy.  Not to be confused with rock-hard movement anthems designed to pump-myself-up.  This movement feels airy and free.  My speaker wires sprawl out over my bed and my computer rests too close to the edge, but I'm dancing, dancing, dancing.

I spend the afternoon with the windows open cleaning out the (figurative) cobwebs and dark corners of my teenage bedroom, preparing it for this next step.  Exorcising stale high school energy.  Stripping my bed of the pillowcases that held my tears earlier this week, earlier this summer, earlier this year.  I've declared "a new beginning" time and time and time again.  And I'll declare it again, because tiny new beginnings still move time forward.  Still move me forward.  Make heavy feet feel lighter.  I hold tighter to hope than I did the last time I grew in this room. 

I found the light of my situation here, in these sunbeams, bouncing off the hardwood floor.  I'm soaking them in and promising to release them when someone else needs them.  I'm bringing in this new season with love and light.  "Dar la luz" - to give birth in Spanish - literally translates "to give to the light."  New beginnings, sunshine, and hope - Just keep me where the light is.

Holiday Lights and Statute Books

Saturday night dates held hands under chandeliers.  The white lights bounced off the restaurant windows, competing with the holiday lights hung by the city.  We had missed the tree lighting ceremony in the haze of all the days after Thanksgiving.  Long days that passed too quickly but merged into one another, never ending.  We spent countless afternoons that turned into nights under the buzz of the florescent lights in the school's basement lounge.  We each had our place on the ratty couches next to the water fountain that reminded us of its existence with a loud roar every thirty-five minutes.  Or whenever somebody stepped over us to use it.  We tried not to glare, but the nights got long and we got punchy - our filters disintegrated.  We laughed when I ran upstairs to get us play-dough, but we pulled the colored mounds apart piece by piece when the statutes tangled themselves together and refused comprehension.  We ran on anxiety, adrenaline, and caffeine.

When we stopped counting the days after Thanksgiving and started counting the days before exams, we moved into her tiny apartment and brewed pots of coffee to calm our nerves.  Hours measured by days of class notes and pages in our outline.  Taking turns explaining what the others didn’t understand; shifting places - from the couch to the chair to the floor and back to the couch; cursing at google docs for reformatting, pinwheeling, rejecting edits.  We would negotiate end times, but two against one usually meant one a.m.  Sleep, shower, and a Mister Bagel pick-up before a 7:30 a.m. arrival.  Some nights, when the class included only two of us, we worked until 2:30 a.m.  I slept on her couch and woke to the alarm at 6:30 a.m.  A coaxing boyfriend helped pry us out of deep sleep.  On nights when I returned home, I would crash into bed without seeing the pillow.  The nights I didn’t, I watched the walls close in on me.

Winter came early that year, and the weather guaranteed us a snowy day.  So we hauled our text books and our code books and our laptops and our sweatpants to her tiny apartment intent on feeling cozy and enjoying the snowfall.  Days into reading “week” and days from its end, we could fill the day with comforts and ignore some of the anxiety.  We laughed that day.  Drunk on late nights and early mornings, coffee light and sweet, hours of tax statutes, days of sweatpants, and the sight of falling snowflakes, we belted out in hysterics.  When the sun set and she made coffee for the hour, we crowded into her kitchen, opened her backdoor, and took turns grabbing fists full of the snow piled on her porch railing.  When it became hard to reach, she held me by the waist, and I reached out farther than gravity allowed to grab handfuls for the three of us.  She would pull me in and we would collapse in hysterics.  I remember holding my sides on her kitchen floor.

I don’t remember the number of places we called hoping to print our outlines in color.  Open note exams meant extreme organization, labeling, and detailed notes.  Colored copies of our fifty some odd pages became an urgent requirement.  Dinner became a secondary priority as we tried to find places still open.  We settled on a place downtown and piled into the car of the only one willing to drive in the light snow.  It never occurred to us to change out of our sweatpants or brush our hair.  I’m not sure if we had even showered that day. 

We had a hard time finding parking.  The holiday lights strung above the streets reminded us of the festivities that we were missing again this year.  The snow smeared on the windshield made it hard to see.  We climbed out of the car with heavy feet.  December wind ripped through our sweatpants.  We trudged by a restaurant window filled with cheery faces and couples holding hands under pretty white-light chandeliers.  I realized it was Saturday night and begrudged them their free time and dinners and love.  My reflection in the window fell over their cheer.  My eyes vacant, my mouth taught, messy hair, sweatpants too big tucked into heavy snow boots.  I put my head down and kept walking.  I didn’t need to see any of that.

When we got to the store, it was closed.  Lights off, door locked.  Of course!  It was Saturday night!  We had lost our days weeks ago, forgotten that the world still ordered itself around times for work and times for rest.  We stood there and looked at one another in silence.  She checked her phone for the time - we could get to the next place if we hurried.  “Run!” someone shouted, it could have been any of us.  We ran.

A jog at first, but the we picked up the pace together until we reached a sprint.  I don’t know who let out the first screech, but I felt its release.  We turned our faces up to the snow and squealed and screeched and clamoured down the sidewalk.  Belly laughs erupted and the peaks and valleys of our squeals turned into sustained screaming with bursts of laughter.  We ran by the restaurant window and the diners turned to watch.  This time I saw our reflections in a flash: my smile and our eyes lit up in the street lights and the falling snowflakes.   Sheer joy.  For this moment, I knew the better deal was on our side of the window.