Busy is Better

or blame it on facebook

I think alot of my recent melancholy is caused by facebook.

Don't get me wrong, I love the fb and can only hope that they never make it so you can see who accesses your page. Because then my stalking will be significantly curtailed.

But it also let's you know what is going on with people that you haven't seen or spoken to in years. All of whom seem to have kids or spouses or other pretty things that they can take pictures of and list neatly in their profile. Its much easier to evidence a baby and a husband on a facebook page than it is to evidence a job at which you are appreciated (even if you spend entirely too much time at it) or a workout that clicks or an apartment you love or that you have a crock pot and managed to make a pot roast that fed your grandparents for 3 meals.

Sometime it takes being so insanely busy (at work and otherwise) that you can't think about what you don't have and can't change and instead learn to appreciate what you do have and don't want to change.

October is a Boring Month Anyway

I mean really, I don't like Halloween and that means October is really just time after the summer and before birthdays, Thanksgiving and Christmas.  So I skipped it, at least for purposes of this blog.  But I was out there doing whatever it is I do to occupy my days.  

In this time I learned that trying not to care works right up until you start to care.  And when you start to care, it all goes away.  Its just the way life works.  At least for me.  The transition from caring to not is harder than the transition from not caring to caring but marathon and football watching with friends makes it easier.  Right up until there is a lull in the conversation and the silence crashes down around you, leaving you to wonder how you'd explain breaking inexplicably into tears without sounding like a raving lunatic.  And sometimes if you just express how miserable you are it makes it better.  Even if you decide the easiest ear is your engaged ex-boyfriend.  Which makes you pathetic in addition to miserable but at least not crying in the bar. 

I also learned that its easier to work out before work now that the clock have changed.  Its easier to eat well when there is good food in the house.  And yoga.  I like yoga.  And as we sit potentially on the brink of a great depression and our country is faced with a decision that if made poorly will be disastrous, I just hope for the "serenity to know the difference" because if you can't control you can't change it no matter how hard you try.

On Wednesday I age another year.  I hope this past month is not indicative of what the next year is going to be.  Argh.

On Dancing as it Relates to Life

It’s not that I don’t like to dance. I do. Sort of. I’m not very good at it, but like most things involving coordination, if you watch those who are good at it and take a deep breath, you can make yourself improve. Maybe not dramatically, but at least enough to make it look like you sort of know what you are doing. Of course, when those around me are “dirty dancing,” which was often the case this summer, I’d just as soon belly up to the bar. I guess it’s the Catholic schooled girl in me, I like to leave room for the Holy Spirit, thank you very much. And so, I’m left with people thinking that I just don’t like to dance and thus I don’t get many opportunities to dance. And it’s all fine. You can find me at the bar.

Because of this, I forget how amazing it can be to dance with someone who knows how to dance. And who leaves room for the Holy Spirit, thank you very much. It’s hard for me, because I … no surprise here … tend to want to lead. Which defeats the purpose of dancing with someone who knows what they’re doing. I was fortunate enough in college to have a standby, good friends-only guy who would accompany me to dances when necessary. And he knew how to dance; but, to make this work, I’d have to focus HARD on not leading and before I knew it, we’d be dancing.

I recently had the opportunity to dance with someone who knew what they were doing, and even after a few drinks I had to focus HARD on relaxing and only doing what he was guiding me to do. Kind of like when you get a massage and they tell you to let you arm or leg go limp. It’s HARD. HARDER than you think it should be since you’re essentially doing nothing … But if you try hard enough, close your eyes if you have to, you can be led. And before you know it you’re dancing and its fun, right up until you think about it and step on his feet.

And so, that’s what I’m trying to do now. In life, not on the dance floor. To focus on not focusing and see where it takes me. Its hard, really hard. But fun. Sort of. Right up until I step on his feet. At which point, you can find me at the bar.

There's Something Happening Here

And its exciting.  I think.  I don't know for sure, because I try as hard as I possibly can not to think about it.  Its as if I'm afraid that the force of my thoughts will make change it.  So, given this state of paranoia, I certainly can't write about it here because WHO KNOWS what would happen then?

But fear not.  I plan on running a half marathon this Sunday, so we can talk about that soon;)

Later, kids.

my side of the line (aka, the irish oak)

now i'll admit that i was empowered by the knowledge that you were forbidden to see me.

but then, i was drunk on the fact that you wanted to see me.  and couldn't.

left to our own devices, we would have enforced the edict by dividing the city into quadrants.  each taking a north, a south, an east and a west.

high on the thought of passing at the axis.

but to plan as such, would have defied the edict.

and we were visitors in the familiar midwest city.  at the mercy of our hosts.

so you sent your messenger with your coordinates.  and i abided.  i did not kill the messenger.  i established a perimeter. i vowed to stay away.

i did my part.  and went to the local corner bar.  stayed on my side of the line.

in this game, you are the straight laced rule follower and i am the emotional wild card.  if i was in place, we should have been in compliance.

so it never occurred to me, that if while drinking my drinks in the front window booth i had yelled out your name, you would have heard.

despite your deviation from the plan, we abided by the edict until our groups tired of the night at the exact same time.

to say that my heart did not skip a beat and that my world did not spin would be to lie.

we embraced and muttered speechless mutterings.  we planned our escape to cover up the violation.

when i exited you looked right through me.

i realized then that i was empowered by the knowledge that you were forbidden to see me.

the fact that you wanted to see me but couldn't, or wouldn't, was heart wrenchingly crushing.

but i come back to the irony of us sharing drinks, me in the front bar, you in the back.  despite the edict.

and then, if we were afforded one more conversation i would have used it to discuss the winds of fate that led us there.  i would have expected our theories to be thrilling, captivating, intellectual.

but now, if we were afforded one more conversation, i might decline for fear that without the enchantment it would be pedestrian.  a disappointment. 

But for the grace of God.

A good friend suggested that I read Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. If you haven't read it, you should. And if you're going to read it, you might not want to read this post. But really, you can, the book's not a cliff hanger.

Anyway, I read it. And it resonated. There is a scene where Elizabeth, in her young thirties is trapped, TRAPPED in a marriage. At night she crawls up on the bathroom floor and cries. She's well off and not abused in any way but she's in this relationship that she wants to escape and she can't. So she hides in the bathroom and cries. I read this, and I realized how easily it could have been me. In a heart beat almost ... there, but for the grace of God, go I. If they, any of them, hadn't had the strength to walk away when they did it could have been me, there, crying on the bathroom floor. And I'm not sure that I would have had the strength to get up off the bathroom floor, much less out of the relationship.

Sometimes I get caught up in the race to the alter, but I read about her on the bathroom floor and I realized that I'd much rather be here than there. Of course this doesn't change the fact that if I get married I think my mother might shave her head as an offering*...but it helps. I have not read the Secret because I don't think I'd buy in, but E, P, L made me want to take control of my life ... and while I may not buy into the Secret, I do maybe buy into the power of positive thinking because since I've decided to embrace life and thank God that I'm not crying on the bathroom floor things have been good.

Sometimes I think that you need to begin a new year, read a good book and put your mind to good and what follows is So.Much.Fun. Or so we hope. Details will follow I'm sure, but for now, you should all E, P, L.


*There is a story in the book about an Indian girl in her late twenties that gets married. The girl's mother is so thankful that she's finally getting married that she shaves her head as an offering to the Gods.