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Side note, life has calmed somewhat, so I will be making some more entries before too long. I am in my new home with husband and roommates, and personal issues are being worked through with the help of a low dose of anti-anxiety meds and weekly therapy sessions. I really like the therapist I chose, he is a very nice guy with a gentle demeanor. The fact that he runs his own practice also means he is much more loose with how he runs things, which lends a comfortable air to sessions.
Without further ado, I present Oolong Dreams.
( Two hundred years of haikus will make anyone want a drink )
I've been through a lot in the past month and a half, and between moving, school, and dealing with some personal issues, I haven't had the time, or frankly even the energy to put into writing or doing anything else besides focusing on the now.
We moved to Harrisburg! It's been an adventure, and it's taken us almost two weeks with minimal manpower and time to work on 5 years worth of "stuff". We wound up having to get rid of quite a lot of things from the old place because we simply don't have room.
But the new place is very nice, only 15 minutes from my work, and things are coming along, so we're happy with the change.
The personal issues are something I'm not going to talk about openly here. Suffice to say it's nothing life-threatening, but it is pretty serious. I've had to put donkey plans on hold until I have the emotional energy to be able to put into it like I should.
Writing has taken a backseat at this point until I can focus more. I've actually gone on Celexa for anxiety and depression issues, and it's helping a lot, with Ativan if I'm having a particularly bad moment. It's helped me function better at work and at home.
Once the flurry of the end of my school semester is finished, I'll probably be getting back into writing and posting more, but for now I am taking one thing at a time.
A year ago I was at an auction, looking for a saddle, dreaming of spring training and summer trail rides. I was dreaming of adventures with you. I was in love, and the whole world could see it.
I still have the picture of you sitting dead center above my computer monitor, and every day I look up and I still miss you. Every day, I still believe -God, the Creator, the Universe - something put you in my path, something that knew we desperately needed each other, if only for a little while.
I still have my grooming kit in my car, and I know I'm going to need to clean off the brushes soon. Time is marching on, and there are new things on the horizon. Those brushes, curries, and other things have sat idle for far too long, needing a job to do, needing something to care for.
But somehow it's hard to let go of that last little piece of you, even if it's just a few stray hairs.
I've wondered out loud sometimes if I am making the right decision. I feel like I'm taking such a huge risk. Here I am at the precipice once more, ready to spread my wings again. Last time I fell, and something sweet and precious inside me broke. I cried for a long time, and tried to pick the pieces back up to mend it, not knowing for sure if it could be mended.
Still, here I am, one year later. I still miss you. I believe there is a reason for everything, and everything happens for a reason- maybe not one we understand, or ever will understand, try as we might. I still have a hard time understanding that reason, but it is not my reason to understand.
I am scared to fly again. I feel like that precious thing inside me is still raw and tender, it's scars only just healed. The pain is a memory, but still one that brings tears to my eyes, and a twinge of hurt to my heart.
I admit sometimes I look for signs. I ask what I should do, and wait for the universe to speak. Sometimes I get an answer, other times I don't.
One such morning, I asked for a sign that what I was doing was right, that it was OK to move forward. I don't know what I was expecting - a song on the radio? A stranger to stop me in the street and tell me it was OK? Maybe a fortune cookie? Who knows.
But I looked down, on my left shoulder, as something caught my eye against the dark fabric of my shirt.
There on my shoulder lay one stray red hair, pulled haphazardly from a mane that I have not touched in what felt like a lifetime.
And in that, I believe I have my answer. It is a small one, the merest suggestion of a whisper, but one I have been waiting to hear.
Everything happens for a reason. One love leads to another, and one ending leads to a beginning.
I miss you, old friend. God and Heaven know how badly I miss you- but it is time to move on.
Still, I will wait a little while longer before I clean out my brushes. A few stray hairs here and there have never hurt.
There appear to be some folks on my friends list that think I'm vegetarian or vegan. I am not - I eat meat with gusto, love bacon, and want to someday raise/process my own meat animals. I love animals and respect their unique intelligences, and I believe food animals should be raised and killed as humanely as possible to accomplish the intended goal. I approve of hunting and fishing - frankly, those animals live better lives than many domestic livestock (or in some cases, pets) live. I grew up in a family (and married into a family) where respectful hunting is as close to an art form (and in some ways, a way of life) as you can possibly get.
There are also people that think I am overly religious because I say "Good lord", "Oh lordy" or "God bless it" a lot. I say this because half my family is from the deep south. Saying "Oh lord" is akin to saying "Oh my." You are not literally invoking the name of the Lord God himself (which in many circles would be considered sinful or blasphemous). When your grandfather sounds like the living incarnation of Boomhauer from "King of the Hill", you will understand.
I have my own beliefs, and I have grown up enough to realize that it's foolish to waste energy trying to make sure everyone you know conforms to what Enlightened Society believes is good and right. They are not hurting anyone and generally just trying to live their lives the way they believe is right, so I don't care. They give me the same amount of tolerance, and that's all I ask for.
So in many ways, my family and my own people get labeled as "rednecks" by everyone else, even if we don't share the common traits of the white trash people everyone loves to hate on (criminals, anti-social behavior, uneducated). Granted, there are some people in my family who I wouldn't want to be associated with in a debate about social issues, but that doesn't mean I approve of what they say.
They're my family - for better or for worse, I only get one of them.
My grandmother could have been labeled as racist as they come, but she is still my grandma. She is still one of my only links to a mother that died five weeks after I turned 12. Reviving my relationship with her has been one of the best things I ever did. I don't really have a relationship with anyone else on that side of the family, so without her that part of my heritage and my own past is lost forever. When she dies, I doubt I will ever speak to anyone on that side of my family ever again.
At 80-some years old, I am not going to waste what precious time I have with her dissecting her personal beliefs (however much I might disagree with them) and the way she was raised. I just want to talk to my grandma.
What I find funny is that there are people out there who hear the word "southern" and automatically think "redneck, racist, homophobic bible-thumper". People they don't want to know, that they've formed an opinion of before ever speaking to, meeting, or interacting with, because they live their lives differently and hold different beliefs.
Let us consult the dictionary, shall we?
STEREOTYPE:
a simplified and standardized conception or image invested with special
meaning and held in common by members of a group
BIGOT: a person who is intolerant of any ideas other than his or her own, esp on religion, politics, or race
Yep, that little old lady who goes to a Southern church, believes in Jesus, and has lost two out of her three children is totally worth your time and energy to hate because she just might have different ideas about the world than you do. She's southern, white, and Christian, after all! She probably hates your guts just for existing, right?
Maybe that lady has a gay relative. A son or a grandson. She might even be gay herself. Maybe her daughter couldn't get pregnant or didn't want to, so she adopted a black child, or an asian child, or a hispanic child, and she loves her grandchild with all her heart no matter what color he or she is.
Maybe she's decided that she doesn't have many years left, and she's not going to waste them attempting to control
people she doesn't agree with. Life's way too short, and she's got all eternity to figure out what's really right, if there is such a thing.
The sad thing is, I know people who would openly hate this woman just based on those three things- white, Southern, Christian, without ever having spoken to her.
After all, it's so much easier to hate from afar than to admit that YOU might be the bigot.
Yes, you.
You can call yourself progressive, conservative, feminist, traditionalist,green, libertarian, republican, democrat, non-discriminatory, vegan, pro-this or anti-that - whatever lets you sleep soundly at night.
But whenever you go "I hate people that _________" OH GUESS WHAT YOU'RE DOING. GUESS.
If you said "being a judgmental ass", you're correct!
Just like you wouldn't want to be judged by the most vocal (and insane) minority of a group YOU belong to, don't judge groups you don't belong to based on THEIR most vocal/insane minority.
I've spent a fair amount of time wondering to myself what I'd like people to take away from this entry, should they bother reading this far.
Approve of people whose opinions and deeds you consider abhorrent? No, I don't think anyone can actively stop such a social process. It's natural, and it's something everyone does. Some things should never be tolerated, no matter how much love we have in our hearts.
I guess my point in all this is that I wish people would have a bit more introspection for their own thoughts and motivations regarding other people. Consider whether it's "those people" who are the problem, or if it's really YOU that is the problem.
How much energy do you waste on things, people, and situations you have no control over, and that don't really hurt you or affect you in any way?
( Read on... )
The woman who writes this blog is my much-beloved music teacher, a very good friend, and someone who has literally helped me reimagine my life and what I want it to be. I owe her so much and love her dearly.
She is the only person that has ever made me believe in angels.
I met Pati two years ago, shortly after my 26th birthday. I'd made this decision that I was tired of just sitting at home, with no real hobbies or goals. So on a whim (and yes, partly because I'd been watching a lot of episodes of Glee), I decided that I wanted to improve a skill I had never really looked at before - my ability to sing.
I've been told in the past I can't sing. I never was told HOW to sing, or how it was that I was not good at it- just that I was. Some part of me just formed the assumption that some people are perfect singers, others are not. We're taught this lesson later, too - those who aren't perfect, right out of the box, should just stay home and not bother.
It strikes me now how half-assed most of us are when we decide to tell people what they are, and are not. We are quick to make an assumption, but when that person looks at us, hurt and doe-eyed, asking what it is they're doing wrong? We have no answers.
The true test, in my mind, is being met with no answers, and to sing anyway.
This lady has given me the courage to sing, the courage to write, to act, to pursue the things everyone else tells me are insane or don't make much sense, because they feed my spirit. In some way, she's been like another mom to me- someone safe that helped me take the fragile seed of my own creativity and give it enough sunlight to bloom.
So I might never become the world's next famous novelist. I certainly won't be any sort of Olympic rider or donkey trainer (not that they have donkeys and mules in the Olympics, of course), and I probably won't ever be a famous singer. But I will have grown, and had fun trying. This lady is the reason for that.
It's been an entertaining con, but there's a dearth of things to do during the day if you're not really into gaming or you've run out of money to shop. But it's been a pretty good trip besides.
Thursday we got up here by about 2 PM, wandered around the con and met different folks, had dinner at Chili's, getting registered and called it a night. It was definitely a thrill to see my short story in print- even if someone went a little crazy with the punctuation when editing, in my opinion ;P
Friday we wound up having to hike from the Super 8 hotel in the driving rain up what I have now come to term The Scary Hobo Path- a sad little trail going underneath the two bridges leading to the main con hotel. In trying in vain to avoid the ankle-deep puddles in parts of the path, I wound up getting a gigantic scratch up one leg from a sticker bush. You also had to duck through a brush tunnel that put me in mind of trolls living under bridges (funny, since I just watched "Troll Hunter" on Netflix not too long ago).
We kind of felt like old fogies all day Friday, but finally wound up meeting up with some cool new folks and playing a furry-fied game of Marco Polo in the pool. Afterward, we had dinner with our good friend Tikky, which wound up turning into a gigantically fun Karaoke session when the restaurant gave over their space. Didn't get to sing because there were so many people ahead of us, but we had fun nonetheless!
Saturday was kind of the same, except I woke up feeling groggy and grouchy. We hiked up to get a pizza, then I decided to just go take a nap since nothing was going on till that night. We took part in Pie Con, our friend Tikky's alternative to Cake Con, and that was a blast as well!
So today is our last day here, and we're heading home later this afternoon around 5 PM. It's been an interesting trip, and fun time, but I have definitely used up all my Party Energy for the time being! It's been good to get re-immersed in the fandom again :)
that we should just stop looking up?
Who made that starry darkness
and the wondering earth below?
I've lost so much I don't care
about the things that have no meaning
But those little ways the world turns small
Still make me smile each day.
Talking with a stranger that I've never met before
Tasting the strange delicacy of a weekday afternoon
Under an October autumn sun that burns in joy after weeks of rain
Listening to stories told
Lives lived.
Walk in mindfulness, the monk did say.
And just for today, I am grateful.
To elaborate on my last post, my short story The Nightly Feed got selected to be in the convention book for Furfright, the Halloween-themed convention in Connecticut. Its not a paying venue other than a "thanks for contributing" prize, but it's definitely an honor and a start for my writing career. The fact that everyone who attends this year (something like 1500 people) will get a copy of my short story is sort of payment in itself, and I'm just a little bit thrilled about that. If it pays me in inspiration, that's enough for me! Other work will come in it's time. I'm going to be looking for other venues to get published in, then look at possibly joining a few writer's guilds.
I finished my classes for the Summer semester. I'm still about two years from finishing my degree, so if I can get the funding to take one more class per semester, I'm going to. I didn't do as great on grades this semester, but for the degree of class that I was taking, it was well enough- A "B" in Journalism and a C in Communications Law.
The setup and running of the Law class were not really conducive to learning and were generally poorly done. It took the professor a long time to respond to questions, and he didn't seem to have a clue about how to run an online class- deadlines weren't clearly listed, often assignments weren't posted on time, and he seemed to favor people who just belched up material straight from the textbook (and I mean literally- some of the answers people gave were verbatim) rather than showing they'd learned the concept. My journalism teacher, whose classes I have taken a few of, was awesome as usual.
I have two easier classes this coming semester- Science Fads (I'm assuming it's just something dismissing junk science), and Media & Society. So I'll probably take this opportunity to blow them out of the water and pump up my GPA a bit.
In awesome news, Kyr found another job! He'll be doing help desk work for Honeywell (the people who make the appliances). It's a strange shift, with two 12-hour days, two days off, two eight-hour days, and then another day off. It also means he's going to be giving up his weekends for the forseeable future. I'm not happy about that, since the weekends are really the only time we have together some days, but it's for the best- and as a dear friend of mine whose husband has worked third shift while she is a nine-to-fiver has reminded me, it's not forever. So we'll have to start scheduling some "during the week" times that are just us.
Since I'm going to be alone most weekends in about three weeks, I'm thinking of getting a second, weekends-only job. Something to keep me busy and bringing in some extra income at the same time. I'll have to see exactly what's available.
We are putting serious thought into moving, since it would save us a lot of time and gas with our jobs being up in the Harrisburg area- but we're going to wait and see how things go with this new position. If a few months go by and everything is still good, we're going to start actively looking for a new place to live. Our friends Paul and David are looking at getting a townhouse, and have offered to do the roommate-thing with us if we're so inclined. It's something we're seriously considering, but it's going to bear a lot of thought and planning if that's the route we all decide to go. There's still time, and it more than likely wouldn't be until early next year.
My wisdom teeth have been killing me off and on lately, and I'm starting the process to have them removed soon. If I do it this year, I don't think I'll have to pay anything other than the office visit fee- I'm pretty sure Kyr's surgery put us over our deductible for the year. I'm going to try to get it done after Furfright and before Thanksgiving, especially so I have time to heal before we hit the Christmas season at work. And of course what day do they give me as a possible?
November 4th- the day my mother died. What an awesome day to go under the knife, eh? But Kyr's experience has given me hope, as his was over and done very quickly, and done very professionally. So yes, not looking forward to that, either- but it'll be a godsend to get rid of all the toothaches and headaches caused by them.
I try to find the answers to weird little questions that float through my ADHD brain when it’s in a philosophical, curious mood. This is funny, considering I hate most math with a passion. Math and I have never been friends. We might be friendly at work, even meeting for a cup of coffee outside the office once in awhile, but Math isn’t exactly invited over for Thanksgiving, or to come to my cookout. I don’t call math when things are going wrong and I just need someone to vent to.
I think about little, unimportant things that don’t matter very much, but I think they’re neat to know.
How much money do I get paid per minute? How many pounds of milk are in a gallon? What’s the surface area of the average giraffe?
(I told you I was weird)
I find these kind of numbers very meditative, and it gives me a sense of how big and vast life and the universe really are. But then again, I’m the type of person who is fascinated to death by exposed seams of rock on highway roadsides and other things that many people couldn’t care less about, so I encourage other people to view my meditations with a grain of salt.
This morning I decided to calculate the number of sunrises that have happened since the day I was born. A pretty simple calculation, if you account for leap years (there have been 7 since I was born). But since I was born In the morning, around 9:45 AM, I technically wasn’t born until the sun had already risen- so I always need to account for one less.
I finally arrived at the number of 10,226. Ten thousand times, the sun has risen above my little section of the world. Over ten thousand days I have been here.
It is indeed a wee bit of a mind-blower.
My ten thousandth day on this earth was nothing very special. I probably got up, flung myself in the shower, cussed about having to to to work again, went to work and did what work entails, came home and sat on my butt. In short, I was completely unaware that my ten thousandth day had quietly passed.
How many momentous occasions go completely unnoticed just because they’re so small and insignificant? We always note the firsts and the last, but what about those inbetweens? I think it would be pretty awesome to get some kind of small trophy that said said something like “Fifty thousand breaths!” or a plaque with fancy, curly handwritten script sedately announcing “One Millionth Heartbeat”. What would distinguish a millionth heartbeat from the next? And where would we start counting?
So here I sit, on my 10,226th day on this earth, and while I don’t have everything I thought I’d have at the age of 28, I still have a lot. I own my own car, pay my bills, I’m married. I have dreams and ambitions, and shockingly am making progress towards them as I go along (did I mention I'm having my first short story published next month? And how I'm more than a little ridiculously tickled about that fact?)
There are so many other questions to be asked and answered, all I can hope for is that I get time enough to ask all of them.
I still haven’t figured out the surface area of a giraffe, after all.
Happy Birthday to me.
