2 years later

Two years after I have decided to return to school for a degree, things are wrapping up. I have one final paper to write- that I have been putting off for about a week now, because when I finish writing it I will officially have nothing else to do- and then I will feel even less secure than I do at the moment.

I don't remember being this nervous about life the last time I graduated. I moved home for the summer- saved up a bunch of money-and moved back to S. California where I knew that any old job would work for my needs- I started out by temping and finally got into accounting full time an was making a decent salary in three years time- but I was unfulfilled and unhappy, so I went back to school, and here I am again.

But this time- with a lot more debt to my name- and a job market that looks bleak to say the least. I tell David that I am worried and scared and he says that it won't help me at all to worry. I agree. I won't help. But I can't help it.

Now, not only do I need to find a job to pay my bills and my rent- but I also have to find a job to prove to myself that the last two years of my education and my debt were worth something to me. I mean in reflection, of course they were worth something- but when I enter the job market and don't feel as though there are many openings that relate to my field- what is it really worth. It seems scary that two years after leaving the accounting field, I am thinking that accounting doesn't sound too bad- IF I can get a job doing it...

In all actuality I know that something will work out and something will come up and that worrying won't help- It's just that two years later this is all a lot to think about. Being on the precipice of adult life once again- I always thought that it would be hardest to transition from working full time to going back to school, but I am starting to think that the harder transition is going to be going from being in school full time to working again.

Funny how it works out that way.

I'm Home from Europe, and Also Mexico- and My Life is Complicated, but Okay

I have so much to say about the end of my trip. Mainly about how I made really good friends with two great girls, and we drank two liters of gin and tonic and then two liters of rum and coke in one night, and I feel like right about now I might be missing them. Also about how my mom had a wonderful time in Ireland and Scotland. I think I might have enjoyed Scotland the most, and wasn't the biggest fan of Dublin, and found out the O'Neill clan was Ulster (N. Ireland- Union Jack) and that kind of bummed me out, but I think I need to devote some time over telling some of those stories on my blog in the next few weeks before school starts. (Blegh- school, so not excited)

This last week has been particularly complicated in the area of my relationship with D, which has been very difficult. I actually fled to Mexico for several days to be with Jare who is my best friend and a wonderful one at that, who supported me and just listened to me and sat with me when I was having a really big emotional hardship.

I am back in the States now. D and I have resolved to try and work things out once more, but with major changes this time. Most of them seem really daunting, but also extremely necessary, and I can honestly say that I am excited to address issues that have been holding me back in life. I cannot say for certain that I know that things will work out for D and I, but I can say that I do know that any growth that I can experiece within or out of the relationship is going to help me learn to be an emotionally healthier adult, which is a pretty exciting thing in the wrong one.

I wish that things didn't sometimes have to hit rockbottom before they get better, but I feel like maybe this is one of those instances. I guess only time will tell.

All I know is that I feel like I need to put away things from three different trips at this point, and I am thinking of renting the other room in my house when my roommate moves out in a few months, rather than having to clean or organize this one. I am only kidding, but I kind of wish that I could move in the other room to get away from this jumble of collections from different places.

Ink and Sand in Spain

I didn't have my tattoo very long before I came to Spain, and I am wondering whether or not people will stare at it in the States like they do here. I would say on a normal day here I see 40 people look at it, 10 stare at it, and about three tap their friend on the shoulder and point to it to tell them to look at it- every single day. I don't know if it's just a huge tat and something that warrants being looked at all the time, if its weird because I am a female with one here, or if this is going to happen for the rest of my life- Europe or no. I don't really have any strong feelings about it either way- I like it. I think it's a good piece of art and that people should look at it, I guess I have just been overwhelmed by the response...

Also, this picture was taken on the beach of Tossa Del Mar on the Cost that is north of hear and is on the coastline in the way up to France. The water is beautifully clear there, and very salty, so it's easy to float and wonderful to swm in. My only gripe is that there rocky sand HURTS--- it's like little sharp pebbles in your foot everytime you take a step- that combined with the heat of it made it almost unbearable the other day, but well worth it to swim in the clear cool Sea.

Too Much

4 classes, while working and attempting to be an intern is too much shit going on at one time to stay sane.

I think that's maybe part of the reason that I have been such a poor communicator in my relationship lately. It's like this general sense of being overwhelmed spills over into my personal life and I have a hard time separating eveything into neat little piles. This is the pile where you are overwhelmed by school and this is the pile where you love your boyfriend and you want to have a happy weekend with him without making all of these little conflicts out of nothing. If you saw my room right now, you'd see all the piles are pretty jumbled, and such is my life at the moment. (This kicker this weekend was really bad PMS)

Anyway I have things to look forward to.
1. Concert with D this weekend
2. Two concerts with Jare in like two weeks
3. Going home to see my family
4. and Summer Semester in Europe.

So if the next 4 weeks if a blur because of school I guess I am just going to suck it up and roll with the punches and hope that I keep my piles a bit more organized on the weekends so I am not so bitchy and conflict causing.

Relationships 101

I have been with D for like 2.5 years now, or something like that, but I feel like I am still learning to be someone who is compatible with someone else. I need to be someone who is sensitive enough, but not over sensitive, interested enough, but not too nagging, etc. I guess that's to say that it is something that requires a constant tweaking of balance. Especially because we are not in the living together stage, we are still in this part where we are not completely involved in everything else the other one does yet, but still are interested- at least I think he is interested in my stuff to. ;)

Last night when I was taking a break from school work I was thinking about how one thing I need to work on it the ability to not feel responsible for someone else's feelings. I have always been the friend who feels like if you are sad then nothing more than my friendship should be enough to serve as a reminded that things will be okay, but this doesn't always work. Sometimes people have hard times and struggle with happiness and even if you are a part of that person's like you are not going to the instant thing that makes everything better. My problem is that I think I should be an instant fix. And then I tend to get a little bit angry at the other person when I am not their instant fix- not angry as much as frustrated, but I feel like I sit in front of D sometimes waving my hands and saying "UMMM BUT I'M Great!!!" and then get mad when he is not instantly happy again. I think that I realize that this is pretty silly and a little self centered. While I want him to think of me and our relationship as a positive thing to reflect on, I can't expect to be the cure all of everything, and when I do I am just going to let myself down.

And hell, I know plenty of women who are married, and have unhappy husbands and they are fine with it- in fact it doesn't seem to get them down at all. Okay, that's a joke. When you care about someone it is hard to not be attached to all of their emotions, but I am still seeking a healthy balance in this area. Maybe I am getting closer.

My internet addiction is not porn...

I realize it's been several weeks of not blogging. I have been busy people.

Last few weeks included

• Waiting for my sister to arrive
• Finishing up every assignment that I have for school besides the ones that have to wait until finals week
• Trying to figure out how to pay for school next year, and getting some good feedback
• Seeing a friend I haven't gotten to see regularly for years on an almost daily basis
• Doing a "homeless ministry", witnessing a fake seizure, and buying hand sanitizer after holding hands with a man who insisted on praying for us
• Having a bed made up with fresh rose petals
• Working at a citizenship fair and helping 40 people complete their applications
• Dreaming in Spanish
• Planning a cruise for that I am going on with my family in two weeks from tomorrow
• Buying my plane ticket from LA to Spain to Dublin and back
• Feeling really good because I have so much free time on my hands (if only I had free money as well)
• Becoming totally addicted to shopping for travel on the Internet

Yep. I am completely addicted to expedia, priceline, kayak, cheaptickets, carnival, you name it, and I have probably spent a few hours on it. If only I had the motivation to research school funding as much as I did trips that I might never get the chance to take....

So the next few weeks include a cruise to Mexico, a trip to San Fran, and a trip to Baja Mexico to a much anticipated orphanage where Jare is, and eventually I will be spending my third Easter weekend in Julian with David, and you know what that means? Apple pie, delicious food, lots of birds (including turkeys), and Friends. Wooohhoooo.

Looking forward to breezing through the rest of the quarter and enjoy mi hermanita mucho.

Beach Birds

This morning in meeting I finished a book by Severo Sarduy called Beach Birds. The explanation says that it is written in a Baroque style, and while that is not something I completely familiar with, I can say it was a rather abstractly written story about many sick people living on a Island in a hospital and dying from a disease that is probably AIDS. The language was beautiful and the plot many times a bit hard to follow, but the main thought in the story that resonated with me is how all of these characters are fighting so hard against death. Immortelle, one of the dying, fights to hard in a search to regain her youth through the use of fashion, romance, sex, exercise, and alternative medicines, when the sad truth is she will never regain her youth again.

As the characters reach towards death one of them ponders what the afterlife will hold. There is discussion of how the hope in death is that it will be this wonderful, final sleep- that death will be this utter cessation of being. There will be no colors. There is will be approval or judgment. There will just be a lack of being. No more energy to expend. Rest.

I talked to someone very close to myself about this concept some time ago and we expressed the peace that may come with knowing that one's being would cease after death. Others who I am close to have expressed that they would feel so sad to have all of these things in the universe continue to happen without our knowing about them. And if life is really only the years that we have on this earth, then what does that ultimately mean? Does it mean that nothing we can do during those years can really have that big of an impact on what happens when we lay to rest? Or does it mean the opposite?

I thought on this for some time this morning. I don't have any answers. I do find something beautiful in being able to live fully in the years we have on earth and getting to rest fully after those years have past. Then I thought about those I had lost and whether or not I will think of them as a cessation of being of a continual spiritual presence in an afterworld. In one way I feel that those who came before us do continue to exist through the ways that they influenced us. They exist in us. I feel happy to think of those who are no longer on earth as achieving this ultimate rest. To have no more struggles or emotions, but just to return to the earth from which we came.

It's sad and at the same time it's not sad. It's certainly a mindful.

Because endings are hard...

My sister is graduating. I just listened to her last radio show, and she sounded emotional, which made me cry for some reason. I looked up an old blog entry from around the time I graduated, and it makes me realize that I have forgotten the overwhelming feeling of leaving my college life behind. I have forgotten how much I valued my college experience and my friends and how hard it was to leave them. (It was so hard that I moved back 4 months later)
So I guess this post is dedicated to my sister with both congratulations for finishing, more of a communication that I understand where you are right now and I think you should embrace your last days with your friends as much I tried to when I realized it was all about it be over and that I had to move one.
I know my sister will go on to great things and that there will continue to be endings in life that are difficult. It's good to look back and think about how things felt at certain times in life, because remembering them is powerful.

Sunday, May 01, 2005
i stared at her image in the side view mirror. the wind blowing and knew that we must be living in a different realm. and i kept looking at the face. hair blowing. sheer beauty. and i just wanted her to smile and be happy and know that she was loved. i wanted to know that the beauty in her heart and soul just shines. shines. shines. and i wanted to say that everything was okay and that whatever was going on in that mind would be resolved. but i couldn't. so i just looked in the mirror and took in the beauty of the experience. and though i saw her face it was almost as if i could read her heart. and i almost cried. so i shut my eyes and let the music language that carried me. and i knew that this was eternity in the back seat.
can i put you in my pocket and keep you with me always? i don't care if none of us grow, so long as we don't grow together. i don't care what happens as long as you promise that we can be friends forever. FORVEVER. that nothing will ever change and that you will always love me. always.
i cried so hard today. i felt out of control. i still do. no one seems to understand. its weird and it is hard and i am not sure if i am going to make it.
my friends. my friends. my friends.
my heart is breaking. breaking. shine forth sweet sun and melt all these cares away. i promise i will not falter. i will love.

Mircoeconomics and Sex

Today in my Micro class the teacher was telling the class how it would be really difficult to work out a certain problem that he had given us and that it was going to take a substantial amount of time and effort, and that we might find this to be an annoyance, but it is what he likes to call learning.

He then proceeded to say that the first time it would be long and difficult, but all the following times you could get it done much more easily and a lot faster. But he reiterated the much easier and faster thing several times.

I started laughing a lot, and someone looked at me like I was crazy, but all I could think of from his explanation was sex.

I mean I guess the first time doesn't always take a really long time, but it could be really difficult, no?

Hmm. I don't know if you see a parallel, but I definitely laughed in my micro class today, which is a rarity, so I was happy.

Friday Night- Fighing with Myself

I think that the major beast I am fighting tonight is exhaustion, and I should just go to bed, but I am sitting up here looking at my best friend's stuff that is all over the living room, and I am thinking about how starting tomorrow she will no longer be my roommate, and how it's a very sad thing for me.

I have most certainly taken for granted the fact that I had such a wonderful living situation living with my best friend. I have two other roommate besides my current roommates, and although they both remain friends neither one of them was my best friend, like Jare is.

We wait for each other to get home and catch up with each other at home almost everyday. We have gone to Portland together twice and San Francisco together once. We have never had any major drama in our relationship, and I think that we have always been very honest and open with each other. Although we sometimes have really insightful wisdom to offer to each other, we mainly just listen to, empathize with, and share with each other.

I didn't even meet Jare until I was a senior in high school, but when I moved out here she helped me move into my house, and basically put my bed together for me. She is awesome, strong, smart, and has an amazing heart, and I am so happy that she is going somewhere that she needs to be, but at the same time I might be crying a little bit because it's hard to realize how much you take people for granted until they are leaving.

So I am really sad, but happy at the same time. I know we will email and keep in touch, and really she is only about an hour (I think) across the Mexican border, so it's not like she moved that my farther away than David did. I need to get over my fear of driving across the border and just do it.

So maybe I am not going to sleep because I am sad, and wishing that she would walk up the steps to hang out for a little bit on the last night that she lives here, but I think it's late and she probably spent the night at her home in Riverside.

I'm pretty sad, but very thankful that I have been so blessed by amazing friends (who feel like family) like Jare.

Also if you are interested in donating to her or just learning about what she is going to be doing in Mexico there is a link to her blog here. Again, she has an amazing heart and will impact so many people in the future. The kids at this orphanage are going to love her so much, but I don't know if they will love her as much as me.

Intolerant of intolerance...

I am pretty embarrassed of how emotion and angry I have gotten lately over Proposition 8. I think that I am mainky ashamed because I feel like reacting in an overly angry way because in some ways I feel that this puts me in the 'warring' mode that the people I am opposed to seem to be.

But really when I see bumper stickers or signs or when someone mentions that they plan on voting yes, my blood boils and I have to take several deep breaths and try to calm down.

At the heart I feel that is a civil rights issue and that by not allowing same sex couples to get married we are denying them of a basic civil right that other adults who are straight have. I think in a few more decades we will look back on this issue and see that our current treatment of homosexuals (as implied by the propositon proposal) is similar to the way we treated african americans several decades ago. Maybe some people will just think that's rhetoric, but I really think this proposition implies separate treatment that is not equal.

I get so frustrated by the fact that the church feels that this should be a public law enforced issue. I don't think that they shouldn't be able to impose their moral codes on their own members, but to try and make the general public be accountable to their faith's morality just seems like a too much to ask.

But I don't think itls really something anyone would want to get me started on... I just needed to vent a little.

Ironic

My screenname isn't catbonny for nothing. I am 110% a cat lover, and can remember being one since I was in diapers. (I literally have a picture of myself tackling a cat while I was still in a diaper.)

We had cats for a little while when I was little, but when my father was out of the picture we didn't have any more cats until I adopted a neighborhood stray that has been with us (or is still with my mom) for about 8 years now. She started as an outdoor cat, and became more accustomed to the house, and then got a litter box, and now that my sister and I do not live here I am pretty sure she has the run of the house.

The ironic part of the whole cat situation is that I am also extremely allergic. I went to spend the last weekend in SD with D and spent the whole time sneezing, blowing my noes, and rubbing my eyes or taking benadyrl and getting all stoned on it...

And yet, I really think I can take the allergies because of how much I love them. Also, I tend to build up immunity to them after I live with them for a while. I just think it's silly that I have been so attracted to them for so long, and that my body goes crazy when it exposed to their dander and hair. It's kind of sad, and makes me wonder what it will be like when D and I get a cat in a small apartment or house some day and it will make me all sneezy all the time...

I still pick them up, kiss them, and cuddle them in bed, but man do they make me feel sick.

When life gets exciting...

Most of you know I am a major stress case. I have spent the last several weeks stressing about various things, and one of those things is going from a decent income to a zero income and a negative income that involves paying expenses with student loans.

So I have been spending time looking at tutoring, admin, and random part time positions, and that's not really the most fun thing I have ever done, but tonight I looked at the UCI Planning, Policy, and Design website, and was taking a look at all the great places their students have interned at, and that made me feel really excited.

Because there are so many cool planning organizations right in my back yard, and this really is the perfect place to work on a career in Urban Planning with a focus on environmental sustainability. I guess maybe I just get scared that I am waiting for this program to have everything fall in my lap, but I don't think that's really what I am doing.

I am going to be getting a really good starting point, and foundation on something I really want to do and something I am passionate about, and while there are common day stresses to think about I really should be sitting on my couch thinking about how excited and how fortunate I am to have an opportunity to pursue the education that it going to give me so much opportunity in a field I think I might just love.

It's also exciting that my love is doing something very similar.

And I guess in that way I am way less stressed and way more excited than I have realized in a few weeks.

Odd Jobs, and Some Really Odd Jobs

I have been working since I turned 14 (which was totally legal in Maryland). As I have been spending the past few days looking at different part time employment opportunities, I have been thinking about some of the funnier and weirder positions I have had over the years. Most of them were during college...

• I worked a temp position as a temp worker (really kind of a paper-folder) for a big convention for People Soft at the Anaheim convention center, and on the night they had their big gala type thing with lots of free delicious food, I stopped working for a bit to enjoy the festivities.


• I was hired as a house cleaner, but wound up being more of a post-divorce friend a counselor for a lady who had divorced her husband about a year before she hired me and had not cleaned her house since. This was sad, and also very disgusting. It was just gross things like not cleaning your bathroom sink or changing the sheets on your kids bed for a year that kind of got to me. But most of the weeks she would send me home having worked less than she hired me to work and paying me our agreed price. So that was nice.


• I was a care-taker for an elderly woman who needed someone to stay with her while her live-in friend and caretaker had some time out on the town. One activity that she liked was reading the paper, but a few weeks into it I realized it was usually the Sunday paper and she wanted to look at every single section including the ads, and she couldn't really hear me when I read them to her so I had to repeat myself a lot. I started disassembling the paper before we read it to avoid the business section. I tried to take her to get milkshakes at Ruby's once, but she got very scared on the car ride there, so we had to go home.


• I was a nanny for one of the member's of Dave Matthew's Band and they put me up at the Ritz Carlton in San Francisco for a week. That was a totally random/fun/awful/experience.


• I nannied for a lady who let her three year-old hit me in front of her without saying anything. Needless to say this was pretty awful and I had no control or respect in the relationship with the little girl. I dreaded going to this job.


• I worked for the Gallup Organization taking telephone polls, and while this was supposed to be a really great job and opportunity, I had a hard time trying to keep people on the phones for twenty minute surveys when their child was crying in the background. I only lasted about 3 days, and when I quit the lady basically told me that I would be a failure in life if I gave up so easily, and she made me cry and to this day I am still trying to prove her wrong.


• I had a guy on craigslist allow me to come to his house babysit and drive his daughter around without event speaking to me on the phone. We had only emailed, and while I am really trustworthy person I thought it was really scary that someone would trust their child's life in the hands of a stranger.

At least I have a lot of good stories to tell. Some possible jobs that I might take in the next few months are working in flue clinics at different retail stores or participating in a phone fund raiser. It will be weird working for ten bucks and hour again, but hopefully my next job will be something fun rather than data entry tedium.

If you were watching the security video...

If you happen to be watching the security video from the Kinko's located at UCI from about 11:00 am this morning, you would see two adults come in with three bags brimming full of Farmer's Market produce.

You'd see the female walk over to the copy center and head right for the free scotch tape. She would have been tearing off long pieces and sticking them to the palms and fingers of her hand and then ripping them off one at a time. The male you'd see walking over to get some not free packing tape with he offers to the female, but she declines. Then she take some more tape and wraps it around 4 of her fingers, two on each hand. She wonders of she should leave them there because they make her prickly fingers feel better, but decides not to and asks her partner in crime to remove the tape from her four fingers. She then wipes here hands and few times, and gathers her bags, removing the greens from the top of her bunch of beets and puts them in trash receptacle. She has been laughing for the entire duration of this time in Kinkos.

And you'd probably laugh too if you saw the tape of David and I in Kinkos this morning as I tried to remove the teeny tiny hair like spines that had gotten into my hands from the cactus fruit I bought this morning.

I am not sure after all that that I will be able to eat the fruit without first having rubber gloves to handle them.

Lots of laughs and a little bit of ouch.

Why I am cannot be a part of a traditional, conservative, faith (Christian) tradition, and why I like being a Quaker.

After reading several different posts about the LDS (and many other conservative Christian) churches response and actions based on Proposition 8 I have felt really thankful to be a part of the faith community I am currently in.



Maybe Proposition 8 has been less on my radar than it should be. I know that I was stoked when gay marriage was legalized in the state because it seems to me like it's way over due.



But maybe I also choose not to think about it because I remember when I was in college one of the professors I respected the most (and still have a relationship/friendship) with three years after college graduation tried to convince his classes that gay marriage should not be legalized by the government because it opened up doors to all kinds of evils. I remember him saying on numerous occasion that if the state sanctioned man and man or woman and woman marriage what would keep it from also sanctioned man and rooster or man and child marriages?

And I can't exactly pin point how I felt about this at the time or how I responded, but maybe I thought that he had a point, and maybe I didn't. I am not sure, but I am sure that it is this kind of thinking (among other things) that caused me to run quickly in the other direction from evangelical Christianity. I think what strikes me the hardest about it is the unwillingness to respect and more so accept the life choices of mature adult people. One thing that I struggle with so much in religion is the boxed in worldview is tends to give people- the worldview that says that it's my way or no way, and I cannot respect or accept that people are really happy outside of my way because even if they think they are happy now, in eternity they will be damned. To me religion seems to be more of a focus on the after death than there here and now, I am am living now, so that's what I want to focus on.



Blegh I feel like I could verbally vomit a lot about religion and the use of church as a political machine. I could say yes I know there are exceptions in all cases. I realize that not all conservative Christian places of worship are talking about these issues from the pulpit, but I think I just have little tolerance for it because if I was put in that situation as a member of a congregation I would just leave.

Because of John's post about this I have thought a lot about what I could do to 'support and validate' those who are struggling within Conservative Christian congregations and while I feel like holding up signs and pointing out the close-mindedness of these institutions could at least send a message, I feel more inclined to just flee in the other direction (like I already have) and to take struggling people with me to the Quaker meeting. I mean I say this with much sarcasm, and I totally support and respect those who fight closed-mindedness from within their institutions, but I find this kind of thing totally frustrating- and it makes me feel pretty helpless.

Stress Busters

I realize today that something I have known for a long time. I have a really hard time not letting the pain/stress of someone I love become my own pain/stress.

But I am working on changing that, because it makes me a healthier person...

So my stress busters for today included

• Freshly chopped watermelon from the Farmer's Market.
• Having an Italian Dinner at The Soprano's (with Jare) while doing my wash at the laundromat next door.
• Swimming laps for about 25 minutes at an apartment complex's pool. (close to me)
• Losing myself in the final book of the Twilight series at lunch and after my post-pool shower.

I think I will sleep well tonight and that tomorrow will be a good day because after work David will come over, give me lots of hugs, and play TtR with me until I am ready to snuggle.

Oh, so much to look forward to...

A Friend speaking my mind.

I feel like my friends have experienced and overwhelming amount of trouble in this past weeks...

Jana's post has been all too helpful to processing all of the grief, hurt, sickness, and change that has occurred in lives around me. I like her take on blogging and interpreting the things that 'have to be done in life'. I feel like my blogging tends towards celebrating and lamenting certain events/people/experiences in my life. It's like every few days I get to remind myself and others of my existence by showing them pictures of my life and sharing brief funny snippets or long scattered thoughts.

I'd like to make everyone around me feel whole and healthy, but instead I think I will just encourage them make peace with their daily struggles and to get through the things that we have to do, and that we unfortunately have to go through during rough patches in life.

I wish I could say it was well as Jana did, but I feel really drained, and just very thankful that friends like her speak into my life when I need it most. It is so refreshing to hear the thoughts of others and to know that they are working just as hard as you to interpret the events in their day to day life and their day to day struggles. (And joys)

I lack much insight right now. I feel overwhelmingly happy and centered in my own life position, and I am oh so grateful that life is that way at moment, and at the same time I feel a little but off kilter because I see the world shaking for so many people around me.

Not so eloquent...

I feel like I have been riding a calm wave in a tumultuous sea that has been roaring around me...
I am ready for school.
I am ready for David to move, because I think visiting him will be like my new vacation spot.
I feel good, loved, and calm-overall.
But I also feel very inadequate because I don't seem to have the right words right now to provide great insight of make people feel better.
I feel a lot of pressure to be the perfect friend who is always there, makes everything better, and solves everyone's problems.
I have felt like until this morning I have been detached enough to not feel for inadequate, but like I sort of reached a breaking point this morning.
And it kind of makes me feel like crap, because having your own emotional issues in the midst of someone else's does not help anyone.

So I think I am not looking for the right words, or phrases, or answers or actions. I am looking for the strength within myself to not feel guilty and insecure and inadequate because of what's going on around me. I am looking for the strength to be at peace with my surroundings, and to be the best friend I can be for those in my life. I am looking for the actions and time to be the best partner I can be for David as he transitions into moving. I am looking within to be able to keep a calm and steady demeanor and to be happy and guilt free.

It's difficult for me.

Buck tradition...

I feel like everyone around me is getting married, and while I am really happy for them I think I have a hard time with all the ceremony surrounding weddings and marriage.

I recently acquired a new bridesmaid dress that will not be unused because the wedding will be no longer. And while the gown is brown I have been seriously considering having it seriously altered and saving as a wedding dress for a future date. I don't need to wear white.

And bridal showers are cute and everything, and it made me so happy to be at my friend's today and to see all the great stuff she got to move into her new place with her new hubby in a few weeks, but I think that I am not going to be whole scrap-booky person when it comes to a shower. I also think it would be cool to have something where you don't have a real registry per se, but maybe a general list of things you need/want and then encourage friends and family to help you find things at good will, free cycle, or craiglist. I know I would probably love a whole bunch of new kitchen gadgets, but I also think that I'd be thrilled if my roommate just let me keep the cast iron (I think) pots and pans with the really 80's yellow outside that were in the apartment when we moved in.

As for ceremony- I am thinking something small and outdoors with a BBQ/potluck.

I mean I'm not getting married any time soon, so it's not a huge thing, but every time I experience/ hear about all the planning and ceremony etc I just think it's not really something I am interested in for myself. I guess I should revel and have fun with other people's events and not keep thinking about how much I want to buck tradition. (But it is a little fun to think about.)