To the Hommies

I had sat down tonight to write a gratitude journal. My day had ended on a slightly sour note and I wanted to refocus by focusing on the things that make me happy. In the interim I called my best friend and we chopped it up about life, about love, and about the injustices of them all. All of the things that had gotten under my skin I described, in vivid detail, to her. Her feedback was basically suck it up and take a video so that she can laugh about it later. Thank God for good friends.

Sometimes you need someone to commiserate with you and then tell you to get over it. Someone who agrees that while it is not fair, it is your situation and your responsibility to deal with it in grace and love. Sometimes you need someone both on your side and willing to take the other side. I am so grateful that I have that in my life. That and a glass of white wine.

When I spend any amount of time thinking about why I am not married I circle back to how full my life is sans husband. Income? Check. Fulfilling career? Check. Companionship? Triple check. Someone to listen to my worries? Check. Someone to laugh at me and tell me not to take myself so seriously? Double check. Amy crazy fact checker? Check. So much love that my heart is full? Check. Plus the freedom to adventure and find new friends? Check. The ability to buy $200 thigh high boots that no girl who is not a prostitute needs? Check. Being single is pretty fantastic in my book. But it is only fantastic because of the people whom  I am honored to have in it.

I love my friends. They breathe air into my life. They color my world, honestly mostly outside of the lines but that’s what draws me to them. The permission that I don’t have to follow the rules but I do need to know and acknowledge them. Keeping me grounded and letting me fly.

This blog is a gratitude to friendship. I’m so happy I have you all in my life.

Love you-

A

That time of year again

It looms. Like the dirty black cloud doesn't just predict a storm but the color itself carries with it all kinds of nefariousness and doom.What looms? The day in which I decide that relation-shipping is a thing to do. The day that reminds me that as much as I love single, maybe coupled is the place to be. The day I love to hate. Valentines Day.

Valentine's Day is a pagan holiday (holy day) with terrible roots. St. Valentine, in an effort to give soldiers going to war one last respectable roll in the hay, married the men to their sweethearts. This ensured that the men would have something to live for and that the women would wait. It was bloody and sordid. It was also illegal as deemed by the powers that be. But somehow from all that we get chocolate, flowers, and teddy bears.

The one time of the year I'm tempted to get into a relationship is now. Mostly so that I can get the candy and hearts. I know that logically I could buy my own candy and hearts. But it's not the same. I want someone to buy them for me. When I was a kid my best friend and I would anonymously send each other flowers on V-Day. Feel happy about it and like we cheated the system. I miss those days, when I knew that I was getting a gift regardless. When I didn't have to be in a romantic relationship to feel loved.

Every year I gear up and try to convince myself NOT to get into a relationship around this time of year. It's unfortunate because they are so easily had. But then I have to spend the subsequent following half of a year trying to untangle myself from this thing that I really didn't want. Such a pain. That marketing is so effective that I am convinced that I want a thing that I don't need just to have something that isn't good for me. Doesn't even make sense when I type it does it? Meh! Frustration.

Count down is on. 48 more hours. I can do this.

A

On being still

When life gets overwhelming and threatens to suffocate you, you have to just be still. Lay on the bed and concentrate in getting air in and out of your lungs. It is highly likely that during this process that your heart will bleed saltwater tears from your eyes. That is ok. It's the only way for the hurt to not hurt so bad. Crying is ok. Just remember to breathe while it's happening.

In and out. In and out.

If you're lucky unconsciousness will claim you and you will drift into a dreamless sleep. In and out. In and out. Don't move. Don't think. Don't talk. Just breathe. Let the oxygen push the heaviness from your chest. Let it flow through your heart and down your cheeks.

Be still. Just breathe. Cry.

In and out. In and out.

Breathe.

Reflections of 2018

I started 2018 at home. Chillin' & drinkin & reflecting. I made resolutions that I call goals. I anticipated what might be next.

2018 brought me-

A lot of travel

Legal adult children

Old friends

New friends

Reciprocity

Kindness and love

Graduation parties

A 4.0 gpa

14 hour service days

Italy & France

The ability to say no kindly

Babies

Death

More service

Men that come

And men that go

Nutritionists

Cross country drives

Arabic & English

Good year. This was a good year. I'm ready for Next.

2019 let's go.

A

Sometimes you need Coltrane

Sometimes you just need to drive fast. To get away. To outrun to bob and weave to duck and dodge. When life is trying to catch you and run you down you should get in the car, turn up the music, and drive fast.

If you're lucky the gods that rule the Pandora selections will shoot you this song:

Coltrane

A

The times that I am not my best self

I was not my best self tonight. I threw a small fit, realized I was throwing a fit which made me more angry, so I threw a bigger fit, then tapped out. Chagrined, embarrassed, ashamed, and still mad. Mad at him, mad at me, mad at the situation. Mostly mad that I didn't keep my insides on the inside.

There is a part of me that will always be a 5 year old. I like that 5 year old and protect her because she keeps the kid in me alive. The hope, the purity, the joy, the curiosity- all of the things that kids possess, she nurtures. But she also has a temper. I also have a temper.

I am good at my temper. Not so much because I have learned to keep it in check, which I have (yay, rectangular breathing), but more because it's rare that I allow anyone to get under my skin deep enough to make me angry. I cultivate the duck in water kind of zen. Let it all roll off.

I have found that there are a very small subset of people that get under my skin with no effort at all. I don't know why. I don't know if it is a good thing or a bad thing.  But it feels like they find the fissure in the seams of my armor and use their nails to pull it back and slip right inside. That kind of intimacy leaves me feeling naked and vulnerable. Raw. I don't like it.

I was having a conversation with someone who saw me clearly the other day. He called me on some things that no one outside of my blood and adopted family can see. I hated it. At the same time I liked it. It left me questions: Is my mask slipping? Am I losing my walls? Is that a good thing? Why do they see me? What do they want with this information? What am I doing wrong to be seen so clearly? Is my smoke and mirrors act dissipating? Then it left me the usual solution when someone gets too close- run.

So I did, then I didn't. And tonight, ill in-tune with how far their fingers have penetrated my mask, I made a tactical error. I assumed that they had gotten lucky in seeing me and lucky in their wins instead of giving them due credit. In doing so I took an L and threw a fit. First the pleading kind to get my way, then the attitude kind to challenge the ego (also to get my way), then the tap out kind (because it was clear I wasn't going to get my way). I was not my best self. And he knew it.

Why do some people get into you like that? It feels personal. It throws me off my game and causes me to be irrational instead of logical. It frustrates the 5 year old in me. Both because my ugly bits show and because, well because my ugly bits show. I'm not so mad that I lost. I'm mad that I didn't lose well. I'm mad that someone who already sees me so clearly had another authentic glance. The not pretty kind.

I feel like I fell asleep with my blinds open and the lights on while napping nude. Once awakened I realized it was dark outside and that the inside is totally illuminated. The only thing to do is hope no cars drive by during the mad naked rush to close the blinds. Only to realize that the one person you don't want to see you in the buff is watching from the drive way. The cold realization washes with the hot shame and you are caught. A thing done can't be undone. A thing seen can't be unseen. Now all you can do is brazen it out and hope that they afford you your dignity. Hope they are willing to pretend that it didn't happen all the while knowing that that's impossible.

I was seen at not my best self tonight and now I have to look the person in the eye tomorrow (or not) and accept that they have a new knowledge of who I am on the inside. Who I am naked.

I hate it.

Dewb

The Things I Know to be True

Why is it that when I need to write the most I forget that I am a writer? Why is it that I forget that it is my voice that has always been my power? Why is it that I forget that when things get complex I simply need to listen backwards to act forwards? Maybe the other voices are too loud. Maybe I simply forget that it is as simple as creating a word document and that in that white space and 84 keys my life’s fog dissipates.

I am a writer. My blog saves my life by preserving my voice. In here I am the true me. The authentic Amy. Ready to talk, listen, read, and remind.

I want to write about expectations. About how people choose to see you through the lens of what and who they are as opposed to who you actually are. About how if you aren’t careful you will start to believe that who they think you are is what you actually are. About how easy it is to live someone else’s expectations of you and how because they want to be you, they will try to convince you that you are them. And you are not. About how it is a kindness to them to mute yourself but in that muting you can easily forget the sound of your voice. Lose your plan.

I want to write about running shoes. I ran for a long time. I started when my brother left and continued until I had deteriorated the cartilage in my knees. I ran to think. And to breathe. And to find my voice in the rhythm of my feet hitting the pavement. My shoes represented freedom and health and life and discipline. My shoes represented both who I was and who I wanted to be at the same time. They were all I needed when things got rough. They both tied me down and set me free.

I want to write about men. About silly ones and cowardly ones and ones that act like girls and ones that act like men. I want to write about men that surprise me. And men that are exactly what they seem to be. I want to write about how good men go bad and how sometimes moving across the continent is the best way to see that: yes, he was hiding something and it was pretty terrible. Dodged a bullet, again. I want to write about young men that make me question my wings and old men that make me cringe when they touch me.

But I don’t think that I am going to write about any of these things. Not because I don’t have alot to say about any one of them but because I do. I think what I will write instead what I know to be true. In this moment, in this space in time, here is what I know:

God is love.

He loves me.

Love is the most powerful thing in the universe.

Mothers love no matter what.

It’s ok to fly.

It’s ok to fall.

It’s ok to fly again.

In being a part of nothing people will want to make you a part of their everything.

But you can’t do both.

I am a good roommate but a bad boarder. I need my home to be a haven not a hostel.

I have itchy feet that need new adventure to be scratched.

True love happens so frequently it’s ridiculous. But it’s still a miracle.

True love usually happens outside of romantic relationships.

Babies. Babies are true.

Next time I should pick the nice guy.

Be patient and stick to the plan.

When Jehovah says no on a guy, take the no.

Messi is messy. Messes are gross.

There are plenty of guys.

Call your mom.

Call your dad.

The kids will be fine.  

Don’t get into a relationship with a guy that lives with his mother. Mothers and sons have interesting relationships, especially if there are no daughters around. It’s like a queen bee and subjects that you will never shake. No queen bee wants another queen bee around. Especially if they still live at home as adults. Walk away.

Being content is not mutually exclusive to following the bigger plan.

Sometimes you still have to jump.

Love yourself.

This is what I know to be true tonight. That and the fact that I still love the blog. I will walk away tonight a little more (a lot more) centered, reflective, calm and ready to take the next days steps with power and grace. I think I am going to set a quarterly reminder in my phone to blog. Or a note that says, “Don’t forget that you are a writer. Go write.”

Yeah, I’m going to do that now. Well, as soon as I post this.

Dewb