Getting Better and Getting Worse

I'm getting better. I'm not as heartsick. I'm still sad and I have no idea how to really make plans for a future, but I don't feel like dying anymore. I'm upset to be brokenhearted over something so very not my fault. I'm frustrated with myself for falling in love so easily and yet proud of myself at the same time. My next goal is to find a new future for myself. And to imagine the possibility of love again. And to not miss him so much.

My sister in law's mother, however, is getting worse. She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer a few months ago and things are not yet the miraculous better that I prayed for. There is still so much hope and some time and now it is my prayer that no matter how this concludes or when, that it will conclude with peace and love.

Ah life... you were so good to me in 2011. Here's to making the best of the worst.

When life gives you lemons, give them back and demand apples.

I am not okay

On Monday I was dumped for the first time in my life by a man I was very much in love with. I thought I would spend the rest of my life with him. I was looking forward to having his children. I wanted to be his forever.

And now I am not okay. This hurts so much more than death. This is the worst part of life. I know that some day I will be better, but I have no idea when someday will be. I keep praying that it could please be today.

Booty Camp

This morning I went to Booty Camp. A few weeks ago, I made the decision to spend more money than is really necessary on exercise that is set up in a way that will make me want to go. Southside Booty Camp was my answer. I'm spending enough to spend two days at Disneyland in order to work out outside in a park that overlooks the Space Needle and the Puget Sound with a bunch of other women.

Booty Camp is hard core, but really not that bad. I think the best thing that came out of it is that I realized that I at least have the potential to be hard core again too. I was exhausted when I got home. The 3 flights of switch back stairs in my apartment were the hardest part of the morning... WAY harder than getting up at 5:30am and WAY harder than the sprints and lunges and workout etc.

So now Monday - Thursday from 6:15 -7:15am, I will be working my tail feathers. Hopefully the tail feathers will blossom and grow (they are currently lacking), but the tummy pooch, thunder thighs, and arm jigglers will fall right off. I'm exhausted today and I'm sure I'll be more exhausted tomorrow, but hopefully by the end of this first session (one month long) I will be getting into a groove.

I was joking with a friend yesterday that I'm hoping not to lose any weight or size but just turn was currently is into the creepiest mass of muscle ever seen on a woman. I'm really hoping that doesn't actually happen.

Coincidentally, I've also learned that my body is getting old. It doesn't respond to stretching the way it always has. I found latent strength, but not latent flexibility. I was a little bummed about that.

So hopefully I'll feel better about this body of mine. I've decided that exercise is for how I feel and dieting is for how I look. I can't feel guilty about exercise or I won't do it. I can't feel motivated about dieting because that's just ridiculous... so I've just separated them into two categories and called it good.

Coming back?

Am I justified in rejoining the blogging world after an absence of roughly 9 months? Even if I'm not justified, I'm going to do it.

I promise I wasn't gone for 9 months for the normal reasons that people are gone from things for 9 months. It just worked out that way. By this I mean that I don't have a child, nor am I pregnant.

Here's the updates for those of you don't know (but let's face the fact that you probably all do):
1. I am still with Ananth. I'll probably get in trouble if he ever finds out I put his real name on my blog.
2. I have a new job. And oh heaven how fantastic it is to make so much more money. Not that money is my sole source of motivation, but I do love not stressing about funds.Oh I also love this job.
3. My father and mother are both alive and well. Dad is skinny and can't really walk anymore, but Mom is still doing great and living her life as though cancer were just an accessory she puts on in the morning to make her more heroic and unique.
4.  I found out that I hate living alone. So I'm moving back in with Lillian in June. Cause we're just that baller.
5. I am not nearly as practiced at introspection as I once was.

I rode a ferry boat today. While this fact is true and lovely, I only wrote it because I can't think of anything else to say. Last night I decided I needed to start writing again. I haven't written any secret letters, real letters, journal entries, or notes to self in the same 9 months that I haven't written a blog. I took a big old fancy writing and introspection hiatus. I am so ridiculously out of practice that last night I wrote 1 paragraph.. and it was pretty much about how I didn't know what to write about but felt the need to put pencil to paper.

I gave up desserts for Lent. But all I really want to do tonight is take a walk with my boyfriend and go get some fro-yo. I guess I'll have to live with not doing that.  Maybe we can walk and get some Mexican instead.

Now that I don't work there anymore, I am amazed at just how much I hated my last job. There were things I sincerely loved. Like my employees and my students and their families and the majority of my coworkers. And that's a lot of good reasons to stay. But since they kicked me out, I feel like it's now okay to say that that job sucked out my soul. But it left me with the skills to do my new job which is so creepily happy and wonderful that I seriously keep asking my new coworkers to tell me things that are bad about the company just so I know that this magical world of fairyland creatures that give me everything I could possibly wish for and then even more is actually real. Getting this job after working at my last job is like living your whole life as a Muggle and then falling in love with and marrying Harry Potter.


And just now, I've distracted myself with lots of interesting news articles regarding things like the new Hunger Games movie trilogy and the Kony2012 scandal and the 2012 Troll Stroll... so now I'm going to go read other peoples more interesting words.

Here's hoping another installment will follow in the days to come.

Unused Stamina

Rest and space work miracles. But are miracles always welcome? I mean, I suppose one could say that Jesus was a miracle, but I'm sure Mary didn't always think, "Man am I lucky?" because if I was a 13 year old pregnant chick in Ancient Israel, "lucky me" would not be my first thought.

I have lots of space, mostly because I have my own apartment, which I will post pictures of as soon as I have finished painting my bathroom. I work from home so I am alone a lot. My boyfriend is in residency so I am... well... alone a lot. And there is a lot of room for recovery.

I think recovery takes motivation. I have determination and always have had, but determination only gets me so far. This was true in the last dark time (November 2003 - August 2004), and it was true this dark time (lasting so long that it still feels that it is normal, and this new not so dark time is not normal). I don't even know if I want to call this recovery, or just lightening. Anyway, I've got motivation. Her name is my future, and she's become less elusive the more I talk about her with someone else. It's sometimes terrifying and sometimes lovely.

The point of all of this is that I have unused Stamina. I also cry a lot because I have abandonment issues, but I think that's just normal. Unused Stamina means that I am bored. Like really really bored. I want more out of this life. So I'm working harder than before...not more necessarily... just harder. At the same boring job. It's not hard work, but I'm working hard at it.

Unused Stamina makes me feel tired and hopeless. But I'm neither tired nor hopeless. I'm just bored. I'm all done with this. I want that life we talk about, but I have no idea how to get there. So I'm working harder, thinking that if this is possible, hard work will somehow get me where we've talked about being. How do you use your Stamina?

In the last 3 years, I've used mine on death and cancer and falling in love and travel and becoming an adult and although that's not all done, its not taking all this effort anymore. Now I need something else for stamina. Last time I had a surplus I went to school. So stamina surplus what will I do with you?

Cleaning up

Last night Lillian and I cleaned out our old apartment for the last time, in preparation for our walk through today. I expected to be nostalgic and I was a little, but not like I usually am when I leave "home". As I said to Lillian last night, I am going to miss only 1 thing about that place and Lillian is it. Two years with this girl was awesome. She rocks my world and we laugh so much. I will miss seeing her every day.

Bringing the final remnants of my old house into my new house was odd. It was all that stuff I'd rather forget about than acknowledge. So now I have more cleaning up to do. That is certainly not the end of the world, because I now I have Friday night off, because boyfriend changed date night to Saturday night, so I'm going to clean up my new apartment and get it ready to be visited by a very good friend and maybe her precious daughter.

This is all pretty great. pretty great.

PS. I bought running shoes.

Making home

I am in love with my new apartment. I have so many plans for the space, and so many ideas about how I will live here. I love love love it. When I moved in it was immediately obvious that the landlord had done absolutely nothing to make the apartment any cleaner than it was when the previous tenant left. They were not planning paint the dirty walls, or cleaning the nasty kitchen floor, or wash the bird poop covered windows. They were not going to replace the burn in the carpet or even clean (or vacuum) the carpet, or even rid the shower stall of some mildew. So I have my work cut out for me. Some of this is already taken care of... some of it is still to come.

Changes coming up...
1. There is a yellow wall in the living room, which matches the yellow in the bathroom. Both will be painted a light greenish blue that matches my living room lamps and bathroom floor rugs. It will be lovely.
2. Blinds in my room. Currently there is no covering on the window in my bedroom, but I purchased blinds today that match my bedside tables.
3. Blinds in the kitchen. There is also no window covering in the kitchen. I wouldn't normally care about that, but I'd like to get something to block out the heat and the sun. Since my apartment is on the 3 floor of a 3 floor building and has eastern facing windows, it can get relatively warm in there. I wanted to go with curtains, but the ones I liked for the kitchen wouldn't keep out the heat.
4. I need to hang all of my art. So far the Naked Lady has gone up, and of course the first thing to go up was my crucifix, but everything else is still leaning against walls. I haven't decided where everything will go yet. All the furniture is in place, but now I need to arrange and decorate my walls - after I wash them of course.
5. I have to finish lining my shelves with new contact paper, the gripping kind. I like the gripping kind.
6. I need to clean my carpets with a carpet cleaner... you know.. the kind you rent at the grocery store.
7. I need to grocery shop... to fill my new cupboards with lovely food.

I am also making myself at home with this whole residency thing. Well mostly, I should say my boyfriend is freaking fabulous and is doing everything he can to make this seem normal and easy for me. And it's working. It doesn't seem like such a big deal anymore. I know we'll make it and that is wonderful.

PS. My birthday is in just 10 days. I'm pretty excited about that.