Sometimes You Have To Down Climb

*

Last Wednesday was the epitome of my, thus far, brief climbing career.

I'm going to leave out all the jargon cause I don't even understand half of it, but suffice to say I nailed it. 

Inadvertently, but spectacularly.

And then I dropped. 

Just let go of the wall and fell. 

Dumb.

My climbing career is now on hiatus while my knee repairs itself. 

I have also been much slower. Which is frustrating to me. I do everything at once, in a rush of adrenaline and panic. So now that I've been forced to slow down I'm trying to enjoy it. And then the other day it occurred to me that if I hadn't been in a rush to begin with I wouldn't be in this situation in the first place. 

If I had just taken the time to climb down the wall instead of dropping I'd be fine. I would be climbing and doing squats and any number of other knee related activities! Frustration!

This is my sign. Chill the fuck out. 

Sometimes you have to down climb.

My knee is feeling infinitely better. My soft restart date is February 4th. 

- -- - -- - -- -

*Not my knee. I wasn't allowed to have my xrays... sad days. It's from here.

Hello Again.

Don't ask me about resolutions I've broken them all already. 
Jokes. 
Resolutions are weird for me. What isn't weird to me?
I understand them. I even like them. I make them every year. 
Partially because I want to and partially because I feel forced. 
As if I don't make changes now I have to wait a whole year for another chance at self-improvement. 
Then again why pass up an opportunity?

2014 was a little changeling of a year. 
I lived in a house and then a basement and then a boat and finally back to a house. 
I broke up with someone. Twice. And started all over again. 
I graduated college and started working. 
Those are the big things. The small things taught me about myself. 

This year I want to make plans, build a booty, be present, start something big and act with purpose. 

Let's check back on these in a few months and see how I'm doing. 
Happy New Year. 

- -- - -- -
*Onwards friends

Tis The Season.

*

I don't have much to say about Christmas. 

Especially this year. It was nearly 70 degrees here today. 

I love this time of year and gifts are cool and seeing family is great, but beyond that I can't feel much for it. 

But that doesn't mean that it isn't wonderful. 

I hope everyone's was amazing. 

- -- - -- - -- -

* From the lovely local milk. She's the best.

Belated Thanks

*

I spent this Thanksgiving in the car with my siblings and being only slightly upset that Taco Bell was closed on a holiday. Eighteen total hours of singing and sleeping and wiggling and fighting and trying to ignore one another only to make up a few minutes later and laughing and laughing and laughing. We drove on empty roads, through sleepy, snowy towns on a day when everyone else was home. 

It is difficult for me to connect holidays to their actual days. I never once felt odd that I wasn't home or at a relative's house last Thursday. We did eventually make it to my grandfather's, but during the trip, at gas stations and rest stops, I never felt out of place. I ate nachos for lunch on Thanksgiving. I don't feel weird about that.

But just so the universe knows here is an incredibly abbreviated list of things that I'm pumped are in my life.

My sister -- hands down the best person ever. She gets up early to start the drive so I can sleep the first few hours of the trip, checks on me when I start making weird noises because she knows it means I have something to show her but I just can't find the words, and puts up with all my irrational and sometimes hypocritical opinions.

My brother -- he is the coolest. Take someone you think is cool and then triple that. That is my brother. Not only does he listen to the best rap music, but he has a taste in clothing that borders on avant-garde. He drives a grand marquis because he doesn't give a shit and he lets me take sips of his soda. And even though he doesn't let me try on his sweet new watch without heavy coercion I still like him the most.

Family and friends -- I'm leaving this one general because I could get lost talking about all the amazing people in my life.

The boy -- he's new. Very new, but very very good. A challenge and a reprieve all in one breath. I don't think I've ever laughed more with anyone else.

Spiders -- everyone hates these guys, but I legitimately love them and all the cool shit they do. So yes, I'm super thankful for spiders.

- -- - -- - -- -
* A trail on my grandfathers's farm taken with my phone cause I forgot my camera in the car. I'm good at this stuff.

Fall Back

*

It's dark and rainy.
I may be sick. 
The wind has turned the rain into wet lashes that hit your face and then travel the length of your neck spreading the chill like a disease. 
I may never leave the house again. 
That will be good for me. 
I have projects and plans that require focus. 

Normally, I hate the end of daylight savings. 
I start longing for those meandering 10pm sunsets before I've even had the chance to appreciate the fact that I got an extra hour of sleep. 
In my desire to avoid ever dropping below a median temperature of 75 degrees I forego leaving the house as much as possible. I will spend days in a bath full of warm water if I have to. 
I don't fuck around. 
But not this winter. This winter I will create and learn and drink more tea than one body would ever need. This fall back is going to move me forward. 

- -- - -- - -- -
* Unknown

Happy Halloween.

*

Live it up with the spirits tonight. 

- -- - -- - -- -

*A mystery as usual

Be Kind. Be Better.

*

I give my life a lot of restrictions. 

I think I work better within them.

Some of them stick, some don't. Some I like to have there just so I can break them occasionally and feel like a rebel. That's right Coke! I'll drink you occasionally. But the one that is always there in the back of my mind whenever I do anything is to be kind and to be better. 

It's the gauge to which I hold all my words and actions. Is this kind? Will this better me or the person I'm speaking to in any way? If not, then I try not to bother with it. 

It is the biggest struggle. 

I grew up being taught to speak my mind and that all my thoughts were worthwhile.

What nonsense. 

It's a tough habit to break and sometimes I swing all the way to the other side and put other's happiness in front of my own. And strangely enough it is much more difficult for me to do with the people closest to me, the people I care about the most. I'll find myself upset with my sister before I've even had a chance to think about being kind or being better.

Hopefully it becomes easier. 

- -- - -- - -- -

* Unknown, as per usual

Hi There Monday

Bad Suns -- Cardiac Arrest

I'm currently obsessed with this. 

It's the only thing I listen to.

I have a problem.

Help....

Just kidding, go listen to it 20 times in a row like I do.

Decisions, decisions.

*

I had the best conversation. 

In a bar. With a relative stranger.

Which I imagine is how most of the best things happen. 

Or at least start. 

There's a regular at the bar where I, occasionally, work.

He's there every Friday night, having conversations. 

He doesn't have an agenda as far as I can tell, just to share stories.

On this particular night I ended up as his focus. 

We discussed a lot of things: race and gender and life and decisions. 

Decisions. 

The etymology of the word decide comes from the latin de -- off and caedere -- to cut or kill.

In essence it means to to kill off an option. 

It has the same suffix as homocide and suicide. Violent, traumatic acts. Things best avoided. 

We talked about how our generation, or maybe just my, he's a bit older than I am, seems so averse to making decisions. My friends avoid labels for relationships and job titles. They hesitate to define thoughts and opinions for fear of being perceived as immutable. We praise those who refuse to commit to any one person, hailing their unlimited options as freedoms and reveling in the shear number of choices available to them.

But are all those choices really all that great? 

Certainly, choices are wonderful and having the ability to pick precisely what we want is great as well. Because, after all, having all those choices allows us to ultimately become exactly who we are meant to be. How can we know we want to be yogis or engineers or polyamorous or monogamous without having those available for exploration? And yet the phrase "I don't know what I want." has become our motto.

I don't think the options are to blame. 

We just need to be more comfortable killing them off. 

It's time to start saying goodbye. 

- -- - -- - -- -

*Photo by me

The Ties That Bind Us

*

I mentioned in my last post my obsession with relationships.
I'm deeply fascinated by them.
By my own.
By other's.
People I have never met.
People with whom I hold no stake in.
Who was the past and present and possibly future?

I want to know what is fought about.
And what is celebrated.
How are those things done?
What succeeds and what fails.
Where are those breaking points?
How do people make it back? 

I read a great post months ago, that was probably written years ago, about the first year of a marriage. It was about the end right as it was all supposedly beginning. It was all fights and anguish and the word divorce. But that didn't happen. Years later, as she sat down to write that post, they were still together. It was amazing, that persistence. I have so many questions. 

I wish I could find it.
I'd like to read it again. 

- -- - -- - -- -
* Unknown as always around here.

Full Disclosure

*

I said it was coming so here it is.

And let's use less metaphor in this post.

I'm a far more straight-forward human in person than I am here.
Not nearly as existential.
Far more sarcastic.
I say shit like cray and listen to Drake. 
Make midnight grocery trips only to purchase Chips Ahoy cookies. 
Chips Ahoy...what a ridiculous name. 
I'm way too sensitive and even more analytical. 
I spend more time talking about relationships than nearly anything else. 
But I don't want them to dominate my life.

Yea. 
That's me. 
I can't find a middle ground.
Or a full-time job.

- -- - -- - -- -
* Oh so dramatic drawing by yours truly. 

Where does all of this occur?

*

Boundaries are definitions.
Those things that make you a being separate from the rest of the world.
Outlines that create.
Delineations that shape.
The defined space of a person.
Eventually.
Those edges will start to blur and fade.
The outside leaks in.
Opinions and questions and words and space.
All foreign. For a time. 
Until there's no way to differentiate. 
And the other has become you. 

So really, who the fuck am I any more?

- -- - -- - -- -
* A Woman in Science

Summer Haze

*

It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. 

Where you stumble, there lies your treasure. 

--Joseph Campbell

I'm learning incredible things down here.

- -- - -- - -- -

I've been very vague about these hardships of mine.
I'm not sure if it's simply because I don't know how to talk about them or because I don't want to talk about them. 
Giving away all my burdens. 
It seems selfish. 
Imparting all that weight on another person. 
So I try to avoid it.
But then I become nebulous and hazy.
An undefined space.

So I'll begin delineating. 
And providing some clarity. 
I need to figure out how to do that first.
But it will be soon.

- -- - -- - -- -

* photo by me

Delusions

*

"I get it now; I didn’t get it then. That life is about losing and about doing it as gracefully as possible…

and enjoying everything in between."  — Mia Farrow

I am under the impression that I deserve things. 

Yes, that vague.

Things. 

Because I don't have the courage to tell it what I want.

I want success to just show up at my door and wish to come in. 

I expect happiness and ease, but that's not what this is all about.

None of that is realistic.

I'm delusional. 

That is what life is teaching me right now.

Don't want; do.

Don't expect; work. 

I'm stubborn, but I'm listening. 

- -- - -- - 

Happy belated fourth. 

I spent it with friends, eating local burgers, sailing, and napping. 

I hope yours was just as wonderful.

- -- - -- - -- - 

* From this lovely blog

The Key

*

"When life is sweet, say thank you and celebrate. And when life is bitter, say thank you and grow."
-Shauna Neiquist

The key. 

I may be able to celebrate soon. 
Wish me luck.

- -- - -- -

In other news I'm learning. 
Mostly about myself. 
It's a constant, violent process. 
I shift, like sand through fingers.
Swing. Pause. Hover.
For a second. 
And then back the other way. 

It's thrilling and nauseating. 

- -- - -- - 

*As always. I have no idea, but if you're out there tell me. 

HAIM

Making brownies.
Attempting to write about myself.
Forever in love with this song.
Happy Friday. 

Happy Monday

*

I freelance right now. 

So Mondays are like extensions of the weekend. 

Actually pretty much everyday is an extension of the weekend.

I end up forgetting where in the week I am. 

Needless to say my relationship with Mondays is much more amicable than most. 

But whenever I become a nine-to-fiver I want to try to keep my positive attitude towards Monday.

Why spend my entire weekend dreading the imminent return of the work week?

So Happy Monday. 

- -- - -- - -- -

* Get this sweet print at The Motivated Type

I Stand Among The Roar

*

“Often a bedmate became your best friend. Not just married couples, but sons sleeping with servants, sisters with one another, and aristocratic wives with mistresses. Darkness, within the intimate confines of a bed, leveled social distinctions despite differences in gender and status,” Ekirch says. “Most individuals did not readily fall sleep but conversed freely. In the absence of light, bedmates coveted that hour when, frequently, formality and etiquette perished by the bedside.”

A really poignant article from The Atlantic on why we sleep together.

I slept in the same bed as my sister for years. 
Probably years after we should have stopped being afraid of the dark. 

My first boyfriend in high school wasn't allowed to sleep over, but we would fall asleep together only to jolt awake at four in the morning. Just in time for him stumble blearily out to his car before my parents woke up. (Not that they didn't know.) 

To this day I am far more comfortable sleeping with another person than by myself. 
It ends up being an indicator for the success of my relationships. 
My worst was spent sleeping back to back. 
Barely our feet touching.
The boy and I sleep just like this.

**

Completely entwined. 

I couldn't imagine a better way to slip into unconsciousness.

- -- - -- -

* A beautiful photo series by Paul Schneggenburger.

** Unknown

The Roads Frequently Traveled.

*

I spent a lot of time contemplating the same problems.
Traveling the same roads of my mind.
Over and over.
The why's and the how's.
Countless shower arguments lost or won.
My father tells me not to worry about relationships.
My mother tells me not to worry about money.
My sister tells me not to worry.

But worries are important.
They remind me of what matters to me.
Of where I am in my life right now.
Maybe a little behind.
Or perhaps a few steps ahead.

Those problems I relive.
Those conversations I relive.
Those faces I can see, eyes shut tight.
All things I want to continue to worry about.

- -- - -- - -- -
* Unknown, as is pretty typical of this blog.

Color and Light

*

That's what it all comes down to.
Just color and light.
All these experiences.
Ephemera.
Passing photons.
Until the next one makes contact.

- -- -

I get anxious when I feel like I'm not being productive enough.
It feels as though there is always more I could be doing or learning.
What things could I be making happen in my life, when instead I'm doing nothing?
I'm not utilizing my time and it's running out.

- -- - -- - -- -
* Trina Hisdel