Sunday, June 29, 2008

bespectacled


I purchased some new glasses today... I think they're lovely... the rest of my face... not so much... so I did a little creative cropping...

meh.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Does growing older always = growing apart?

Some things get better with time… others, not so much. For the most part, I don’t feel as though I have changed much, because it has been a slow progression… an evolution, or a regression, depending on the perspective I suppose… sometimes I feel so far apart from most everyone I love… so very different from them…

My head is not in the same space that it once was… at times I feel so certain that I know who I am, and what I want, and where I am going… but sometimes……

There are people in my life who I aspire to be like… the absolute picture of strength, and fun, and courage… living their lives each moment the way they want, without apology or excuse… and it terrifies me that I feel these people slipping away from me…

It’s so hard to find the time… to fit each other in amongst the working, the living, and the “prior obligations”… to put in the time required to maintain a relationship with another human being… and it is all the more difficult when your lives are heading in completely different directions, full speed ahead… when the activities you enjoy, your idea of downtime and recreation, are no longer the same… when the priorities have shifted… neither perspective or lifestyle is superior to the other… just very, very different…

I sometimes feel pushed away, kept at a distance… less important… unwelcome…but it is I who has isolated me… run off on a tangent that got away from itself…

I need to work harder to maintain connections… I need to resolve to be a better friend… I need to step outside my comfort zone, and find the time to make time…

It’s odd… 6 years after deciding to take control of my life, after having taken that giant leap and starting things over… deciding to put myself first, to work on me as a person, instead of me as part of a group… I am so afraid of being a single unit.

...

Saturday, June 21, 2008

presenting... luau pug!


Tonight we are having friends over for our annual barbecue. This year I thought that a theme was in order, as I was in the mood for cheesy fun, and so we decided on a luau. The menu is not particularly Hawaiian, but I did purchase copious amounts of alcohol, which I intend to blend into fruity, island-worthy drinks... so there's that...

Poor Trevor... his owners are nuts, and decided that he needed to coordinate with the theme as well. Tee hee.

I really enjoy this barbecue... it's an excuse for me to spend days cooking all sorts of food that I wouldn't normally make since it's just the two of us... and it gives me an excuse to be extra fancy with the garnishes and extra touches... I'm sure that's lame, but I enjoy it...

Also, there is that part about the copious amounts of alcohol...

Cheers!

Thursday, June 19, 2008

How do you know when you get there?

Growing up, I always thought I had a clear picture of what I wanted to be, and what I wanted to do, and where I would do it “when I grew up”… Although the vocation changed frequently, as it is wont to do when you are a kid, I was sure of the other things… I wanted out of that town, and I was going to work my ass off to make it so…

I wanted to go to college… to surround myself with other creative people… to draw… to paint… to graduate, and stand up tall, feeling accomplished and happy… I wanted a career… a busy life… I wanted to find other people out there in the world who were just like me… I wanted to fall in love… to get married and start a family (in that order… I was not going to perpetuate the cycle!)…

So here I am, with all but one of those items checked off the list… and that will happen when it happens… it is what it is… and has nothing to do with where I’m going here…

The thing is, I have accomplished all of my childhood goals… I have an amazing life… I have the most loving, caring, perfect-for-me husband… I have a home… I have a job that pays me well enough to do very little… I live a pretty comfortable life in a cute town, with the boy, our cats, and our crazy little pug… things are good… I am happy.

But at the same time, I keep thinking that this is not where I imagined I would be when I have not yet seen my twenty-fifth birthday. It’s as if I have fast-forwarded past a whole bunch of things that I didn’t really know I wanted to do until I passed them by…

I mean, I had an idea that I wanted them, but I saw them as a vehicle to get to final destination of happily-ever-after… I used to daydream about having a very specific lifestyle… I imagined myself an artist, living downtown(ish)… I imagined a studio loft apartment, full of light and my silly Ikea furniture… I imagined myself hoping on and off the subway… running to catch streetcars to go to my job at an agency, or to go to Kensington Market… I imagined summer nights spent on a roof-top patio… drinks with friends… live music… parties… the city noise… the people… the whole city surrounding me and enveloping me in its busy, noisy, urban-goodness…

I imagined a bustling social life that would eventually lead me to my husband… which would eventually lead me down the path that I am on now… just a few years later…

It’s funny… I think I just pretty much described my friend T’s life right there! LOL! She’s such a cool girl… She always seems so in control of herself, and sure of where she is headed… perhaps I can just live vicariously through her? ;)

Maybe it sounds like I’m whining… but I’m not… It’s not that I feel like I missed out on something… that’s not it… I can’t put my finger on what it is that I am trying to express exactly… I don’t feel that I have somehow missed things, because, given the choice, I would not exchange that lifestyle for the one I have now… I like my life… it’s that I thought that once I got to where I am now there would be some sort of a feeling of accomplishment… of having arrived… but in reality, it’s a strange mix of emotions… there is this over-whelming sense of responsibility, but it’s all so anti-climactic…

And sometimes I still feel like that awkward girl… just trying to fit in… trying to find where it is that I fit in the world… I feel like I should feel relief, and like I belong… and like I’m “THERE”… but I don’t.

I bet it sounds really selfish of me, to have so much, and still feel like there is something missing… only I could have so much happiness, and still somehow feel incomplete… I just feel as if I still have to prove myself… to show them all… to achieve something great… and I wonder if I would still feel the way I do if I had chosen the other path…

It’s pointless really… as is this post… and it likely won’t make sense to anyone but me, but it has been rolling around in my head for so long, that I just needed to attempt to put the words out in front of myself and try to make sense of it.

I am a work in progress… and I need to learn to be happy with that.

Monday, June 16, 2008

Insomnia... a series of poorly constructed run-on sentences

The sleep... it is evading me again... there is no logical reason that I can't relax and drift off... I just can't seem to get my body and mind to cooperate and work together toward resting...

I'm either physically exhausted, with my mind running through a crowd of thoughts, circling and examining little fragments, listing things to be done, or done differently next time, never settling on a single item, or better yet, the blank space between, to allow my mind to shut down and simply dream...

Or worse, my mind is dull and groggy, but physically I'm wired... full of pent up energy... trying to resist poking this boy over and over as he snores happily in the bed next to me... annoy him and will him awake, so that at least I won't be the only restless body wandering the house alone in the wee hours...