To The Magnificent Little Monkey Man

Joey Joey!

I can't believe you are already a year old. You are a beautiful little boy who is loved beyond measure. It was one year ago I saw your face for the first time, and how I loved you from the first glance. You are a child who captivates even the casual admirer, not to mention the aunt(s!) who could never spend enough moments with you. You are a beautiful mix of your mother and father, and I only wish that I were there to spoil you and love you like I wish I could. Like I should (but haven't). You darling boy, were in the dreams your mom and I shared as a teenagers, the manifestation of lives yet to come - the hope and the love of all that was to be. Dear Joey, you are an amazing culmination of many dreams and silent prayers. May your life ahead be an amazing journey that is beyond imagination.


Happy Birthday sweetest boy and all my love to you in your many years ahead.

Hints & Expectations

In my reflections of the past few months, I've realized that I have unfair expectations of people. In turn, I think this gets in the way of a lot of the things I try to do to move forward in my life. It's almost as if the optimism in me says - oh give it a few moments more, surely they'll come through - because isn't that what people are supposed to do? Someone will reach out their arms to save me. Someone will understand that I just need them to be there. But rarely do they ever. And what happens is I end up feeling defeated and destroyed. I can't help doing this. I have done it all my life. It drives some people crazy about me, while others think it's a fine quality to have. I personally, sit somewhere in the middle.

One of the things I like best about me is that I am an eternal optimist. I see the glass half full about 90% of the time. It's only when I'm in a deep blue funk that I see the glass as empty, cloudy, or not nearly full enough. This happens to be the case for me over the last few months. Four to be exact. I've been teetering somewhere on the edge of manic depression since the end of April. Masked well, smile ever present. Behind closed doors a total freaking disaster. Waiting for someone to notice that I was doing everything wrong as it pertained to dealing with my life. People don't notice unless you don't function. I'd like to think of myself as a reasonably functioning disaster. She who spirals down farther and farther into her mind and empty bits of her soul, giving pieces of reason for the actions that are no longer reasonable. Afraid to do anything to help myself. Easier to cry because crying means acknowledgement, crying is a sensation you forgot for like, seven years of your life.

It's hard to fool the outside world, but it's even harder to fool yourself.

And finally, after months of solitude and reflection one day the light switch turns on and everything is illuminated. As cliche as it gets, you wake one day and the drops in the glass seem to add up again, instead of being taken away. You begin to have clarity and resolution. No longer wanting to be afraid or holding onto the illusions of the past. It seems the reigns have been placed firmly in the palms of your hands, and you willingly take the lead. So much change has left you tired and in need of the calm only your spirit can bring. Somehow you see what you've come through - like a hazy fog, a distant memory. You know you can be better, and you want to be.

My divorce was final two years ago this week. And it's grasp, his grasp, has loosened but the earthquakes still continue hit. Two years, it has taken me to wake up and to stand firmly on my own two feet. To get it together. To understand who I am and who I want to be. Who I don't want to be. Each chapter tiny aftershocks inside me, each step forward leaving me in a better place. I have made many mistakes, but they were mine to make. I have been to hell and back, you might not realize it, but I have. The difference is that I'm no longer looking back. I'm no longer waiting to be saved and I'm no longer scared. I no longer need to have affection to prove my self worth. I know that happiness is a choice and a choice I wish to make.

I know that the hope that overflows within me is greater than any fear I may ever have. I know that people are inately good, and I choose to believe that. I choose to have high expectations, and I choose to be a positive person. I choose to be happy and forgiving, of myself and of others. To have passion and desire, and an unquenchable thirst for something more. I choose to be thankful and to love longer and more than I should. I choose to believe in possibility and not complacency. I choose this wonderful life I have made for myself and to maybe even become a joiner.

Perhaps these two years, perhaps the last four months have defined me. But in no way have they defeated me.

Restitution is officially paid in full.

Connection

I was scrolling through some old posts today. Funny how they can transport you right back to the time and place their relevance used to hold so tight. As if you can remember the hours in which you wrote their words, the way the day felt as you let them wash over you, the way in which certain juxtapositions formed the greater part of that time and place. So long ago now. Such a far away place and time...

In my query, I stumbled upon a quote I had posted from the movie Shopgirl. Almost instantly, it took me back exactly to the moment I first discovered it. It was a summer evening. A relatively typical Friday night for me. I ordered a pizza and dove into my Netflix. That night, I watched Crash, and Shopgirl. The lighting in the Hobbit House was dim, only the table lamp and it's soft amber glow to light the nooks and crannies of that otherwise dark room. I remember talking to my friend, online. Taking it easy, I lit several candles, turned out the lights, and retreated to my favorite place - the extra-long bathtub in the otherwise extra-small bathroom. I read from Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, a fourth edition paperback with it's pages yellowed from time. I was drawing pause that evening, and surrounding myself with words and images from months of needing and wanting to be a part of something bigger than myself. Months that lagged on without resolution.

That night, while watching Shopgirl, I was able to find some words that offered me the comfort I needed.

Words that I haven't looked upon in just over a year, or thought of since. Somehow these words that rang true that vivid July night, are even more noteworthy all these days and months later. Their relevance still stings me, though this time for very different reasons. This time the words take hold for all of the moments that have come to pass, and all of the goodbyes that came too soon, quite possibly because of a few stolen moments that led me on the greatest journey. Most definitely because he never meant to hurt me. These words echo a profound and familiar strangeness somewhere deep inside. Strangeness this time because I am no longer standing in only her shoes, but the shoes of both Ray and his Mirabelle, looking back at the world through each others eyes.

Ray: Just so you know. I'm sorry for the way I treated you.
Mirabelle: I know.
Ray: I did love you.
Mirabelle: All right.

As Ray Porter watched his Mirabelle walk away....he feels a loss. How is it possible, he thinks to miss a woman whom he kept at a distance so that when she was gone he would not miss her. Only then did he realize how wanting part of her and not all of her had hurt them both and how he cannot justify his actions except that...well...it was life.


This time it is the prose of a thousand conversations that have come to an end. The knowing, and acceptance of many mistakes. It is the beauty of trying anyway. The helplessness of running scared, and being paralyzed by fear. Of unexpectedly falling in love with someone who knew he could not love me back. Of being loved by someone who I would never love back. It is the split second reactions that cost me everything. A million tiny moments where I feel my world around me growing bigger, and smaller with every breath. It is the sum of the successes and failures. Of all the good and bad.


It really is life.

Saving the world, one company at a time

So.

I just completed the big presentation. Biggest presentation of my relatively young career. It couldn't have gone better if I do say so myself. I'm scheduled to present to the CEO, President, and all the VP's the first week of September. This is a good thing. This is the kind of thing that opens doors and leverages all those years you've spent building credibility. This is the thing that takes you places.

So the three weeks of work, really long hours, and Sunday's spent developing may pay off. Yay. It'd be nice to make a difference and bring around some much needed change. It'd be even nicer if it paid off, for the company, and of course for me at the company. It is definitely the right direction to be headed, and I'm proud of myself for it.

So tonight, I will not work late. I will go to the gym and maybe watch a movie. Just relax and take a deep breath. Good work today.

Good work.

I Seriously Have Issues

Just sitting at my desk (at home, not at work of course), and was going to reapply some lipstick after lunch. What I discovered in my purse was that I might have a problem. I mean, six lipsticks, three glosses, and three liners? If my very limited math skills are correct, that equates to twelve seperate units. I am only one person. There are only seven days in a week. How much lipstick does one need exactly? As you can discern, I am not a brand loyal shopper (for the most part).

Here we have many major brands represented. For example, the trio of lipliners from Revlon (Mocha colorstay), MAC (in Whirl), and the newest by Lorac (number 8). Gotta give a shout out to my lipsticks from L'Oreal in the essential staple shades of Naked Ambition and Fawn Fatale (ooh la la), as well as yesterday's Wearable Rose from Bare Escentuals, the super slick and shiny Raisin Cane by Benefit, a recent add of Lancome's Amande Sucree, and today's special by Nars in Masai. Of course one can never have too many glosses, and my preference for lipgloss is always Lancome. It's the only kind that actually stays on my lips for more than 6.2 seconds. My favorite is Dreamsicle, (only second best to the staple Miracle that was recently purchased and then promptly forgotten in an Anaheim hotel), and we also have Berry Bold. This little sample from Clinique is called Camisole, and it tastes like poo.

I think maybe my makeup fetish may need to get in check. How can a young hipster like myself (fantastic play on words) ever fulfill her dreams of being rich if she keeps spending it on $16 tubes of rose-colored bliss?

I may not be rich but at least my lips look good. And if they don't, I only have myself to blame.

Cheers!

Coincidentally, this is my 200th post, because I'm sure that should be signifcant somehow

I'm going to see The Cure. I think this is significant because they just seem like one of those bands you must see before you get old and saggy (er). I think it's very exciting that Robert Smith looks even creepier all these years later with that pancake makeup, heavy eyeliner, and whacky red lipstick. I gotta give it to him, at least he's keepin' it real. Their album Wish is still one of my favorites, and yes, I confess, I do still listen to it when I'm depressed. Check. And there will never, ever, be a song like Pictures of You. Sigh.

I soooo hope they play it, I mean, it's the essential Cure song. They've got to play it, right???

So September 19, bitches...woot.

Stuck Between Here and There

There is something happening to me right now.

I feel like I'm going through the motions of moving forward and hanging on again. Perhaps my move is finally sinking in, perhaps I find myself challenged in the desire to fully start living my life here. Still clinging onto the memory of a life I used to find a little to familiar. I am in a state of constant movement, of constant longing, and of constant commotion. I think all too often of all that is left behind, and I'm fascinated by all that lies within me. I have this intense yearning and desire to stop feeling so alone. To be held in the arms of the people that I love. To remember how it feels to be surrounded by people who know me for me. Yet I am in awe of the experiences and self reliance I have come to know in only a few weeks, a couple months, out here on my own.

My heart is pulled into a direction five hundred miles South and West of here. To a place where life stands still to me only in memory. Where the cars pass by an address that used to be mine. Where the sun rises and sets, just the same as when I was there. But now, it does so with one less citizen. Days pass by now in that place, unfettered by the soul that exited its gates only a few months back. Undisturbed by my fleeing. Little does it know that the person who never could call it home, only knows now how to call it just that. And the people there...The people who I don't know how to let go of. The old friends, the best friend, the newest friends who were left all too soon. It just perpetuates this need to run back. To wonder how I ever took them for granted, or ever wished for more.

To be 30, and single, and slightly edgier than the people in your new place of employment were quite ready for, in a suburb not exactly what you pictured it to be, is hard. I find myself in a constant battle with my mind. The good vs. the bad. What out weighs the other? Was this the right choice, or was it me, running, again? I struggle with the wondering, with the looming cloud over my head - will anyone here ever know me like they knew me. Will I forever be...

This lonely.

Because I sure am, lonely.

There are days that are better than others. Where strangers who only see me as threatening, ask me questions about who I am...where I think, maybe a breakthrough isn't far off. But it isn't the same. And I wonder if it ever will be.

I think about the friendships I sabotaged on my way East on I-64. My best friend. Whose laughter I hear, and whose tears I see played over and over every day in my mind. She who I loved more than anything else there. She who made it home.

I did so many things in my grand departure that I am not proud of, and my restitution has been masked by illusions of grandeur, by fleeting moments of content, marked by an ever present battle between my heart and my mind.

If there is such a thing as Karma, well, she has come knocking on my door - demanding her payment in full.

And I live in regret.

Regret for not appreciating what I had. For not truly understanding what it meant. Or for seeing the love that surrounded me. I regret not being a better person to the people I should have been better to. For causing my own heartache, and the heartache of those I cared for the most.

And somewhere inside my core, there is something that still enables me to know and believe that where I am is exactly where I am meant to be. To learn and to fall and to be just me, maybe for the first time in my life. Perhaps where I need to be is totally alone so that I may stumble, to recreate and to learn how to stand on my own accord. To be self reliant, and to rediscover. To cry. To remember. To be thankful and draw pause. To not take for granted the friendships I do have, ever again. To make changes in a company - that needs the kind of changes I can bring. To meet people who have never had the pleasure to meet someone like me. To be sad and spontaneous instead of sad and pathetic. To love from afar those who have changed me the most. Appreciating, a life that was better than I ever thought it was.

It's a strange feeling of empowerment and utter helplessness. Of wanting to say, I need you. I'm sad. I'm lonely. And I'm happy. Because, I am happy. I think that's what is the strangest contradiction. I am happy. Yet I'm so sad. I don't know how to balance these emotions or feelings. I don't know how to say things to even my closest friends because I can't describe the intensity these mixed emotions have. So I retreat, as always, inside this empty soul, inside this small apartment, inside another empty bottle.

I retreat, because I don't want you to know how bad it really is. I just want to smile and laugh and hide the tears that come too easily, no matter what their origin. I want to hide behind the good days (that do outweigh the bad) so that you can't tell that I'm having a hard time.

Anyway, I'm stuck somewhere between here and there. Between the good and the bad. The past and the present. The before and the unknown. I'm stuck. Trying to move forward before I spend too much time holding on to something that is no longer there, as I'm so prone to do.

Waiting to learn more.

Wanting just to remember.

I Always Said, She's Hell On Wheels

And it's not even an election year.

Good job, Floss!

Delirium and Randomness

It smells like pee in the Hotel/Apartment. I know that My Girl hasn't done the deed inside, but I'm perplexed as to the smell that I can't seem to get away from in here tonight. Odd.

It's hotter than 69-kinds of love in the No.VA area. I only went outside this morning, at lunch, and to take Abby for a walk and that was more than this old girl could handle. When you are anywhere but the beach, 95-degree winds do not count as blissful. They are just hot air. Much like most of my writing.

I made a trip this weekend and got to see some of my friends. It was a bit of a foolish, and spontaneous one, that left me really, really, freaking tired and unable to, yawn, get back into the groove.

I'm working on a big-for-me presentation at work. It's keeping me hostage at the office until 7:00 p.m. each night and so I really don't feel like blogging when I come home.

Really excited about the new Jane Austen/Anne Hathaway movie. Going to go see it on Sunday. By Myself. Yes, that would be solo movie, deux.

Just got notice that the love of my life, Paolo Nutini, will be in DC on October 4. The dilemma to accept an invitation to make another trip across the pond with a friend+her friend has now just become a harder decision to make due to that unfortunate show date. Couldn't he wait until the 6th? Bollocks.

Had weird dreams about you.

Figured out that my Vee's due date is the one year anniversary of my Grandmother's death. It seems a brilliantly beautiful irony.

Off to more PowerPointing now.

Will be back from neglect, soon.

The Best News I Could Ever Receive

My cousin is pregnant.

I'm going to be an aunt...

Can I just express how freaking amazing Shannon is? To give so much of herself for this opportunity to give my sister the greatest gift of life? To not give up and hold fast her determination...We got the news yesterday, and after an early call stating that the urine test was positive followed by some long hours spent waiting for the blood test to confirm, it seems my little sister may soon be a mom. How wonderful and utterly unbelievable. It hit me in a swell of emotion after my four hour delayed plane took off the ground...A flood of tears came over me. So much love for Rebekah, for Shannon, for all of the miracles that have and will continue to bless them, and us.

So please keep our family (growing! family) in your thoughts and prayers over the next few weeks...On to the 12-week milestone.

This is life's wonderment, these are the miracles we pray for, this is what is rewarded by faith, and hope, and love.

It seems so real. So true that the greatest is always Love.