down swing

Nothing is right anymore. At first everyone was saying, you look so good, wow you've lost weight, and how did you do it. Now they look at me and say: you're getting too thin, are you eating? The same from my mother, I'm too skinny, I need to eat. The girl in my office has taken to bringing me candy everyday from the gift shop, a muffin from across the hall. Offering to pick up breakfast and lunch. I would have understood the weight loss, before, when I had sworn off junk food and coffee. Or when I went through the vegan diet kick. Or when I started doing that Aerobic for Dummies video tape. But the funny thing is, now, I'm back to eating everything and I'm still losing weight. Clothes I bought at Christmas are hanging off me and I've had to start wearing a belt again. I'm not complaining, but it's weird. I've always been like this I guess. Not this weight, I mean always either gaining weight or losing it. Never steady. I look at pictures from month to month over the last seven or eight years, and am always surprised by how different I look from easter, to the fouth of july, to halloween. It makes no sense. And now I'm on the down swing.

breathe

I hold my breath as this life starts to take its toll
I hide behind a smile as this perfect plan unfolds
But oh, God, I feel I've been lied to
Lost all faith in the things I have achieved
And I've woken now to find myself
In the shadows of all I have created
I'm longing to be lost in you
(away from this place I have made)
Won't you take me away from me
Crawling through this world as disease flows through my veins
I look into myself, but my own heart has been changed
I can't go on like this
I loathe all I've become
Lost in a dying world I reach for something more
I have grown so weary of this lie I live
Evanescence's Away From Me

This is exactly how I felt about seven months ago. Sounds dramatic, I know, but it's true. It's not even failure, it's knowing you've willingly given up all of the dreams you had for your life, everything you thought you were or wanted to be. Like you are a stranger, or more like you have covered yourself up for so long you forgot what you look like. It happens slowly, but you get so buried you can't breathe anymore and everything seems impossible, like you will never get out. And the worse part is you know you did it voluntarily, you have no one to blame but yourself.

It's so nice to be able to breathe again...

disaster

Money is scary now. I know everything will eventually work out ok, soon really, but for now it's scary. For the first time in my life, I have bills that I don't know how to pay. My own stupid fault, for example, my cell phone bill this month is $450. How do you even talk that much? Why it never occurred to me that I was running up such a bill I don't know. I'm usually a pretty intelligent person. When I got the email yesterday, I needed chocolate. Literally. I had to go straight to the candy machine and buy a Hershey's bar with almonds. Did it help? For a minute, I guess, then the stress came right back. I'm trying to just not think about it, but I've never been this irresponsible and it's hard for me to accept.

And my husband cancelled our one credit card without telling me. Another first for me, having a credit card declined last week. Not having that in case of emergency plastic is scary. And then having a bank account overdrawn (by $600, how the hell does that happen?). So, all in all it's been a pretty bad week on the financial side. Not exactly the way I wanted to enter February, but what can you do? Just cross your fingers and look for a second job...

The good news is my impulse shopping addiction is officially over. I haven't bought anything in a month (ok, except this cd from Tower Records last week, but it was a present). Instead, I'll be adding like crazy to my wish list and posting things I want for later when I have money. Like the adorable tea cup below. I saw it when I was walking through the French Market Sunday. But it couldn't be justified, not even with my shopping logic.)

serendipity

\seh-run-DIP-uh-tee\ noun

: the faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for; also : an instance of this

lamps

Why did you take a lamp?
Because I needed light.

But why did you just take one lamp?
Because I was trying to be nice and reasonable,
because you freaked out when I asked for a side table,
because that way we could each have one...
which answer is he looking for?

What am I going to do with one lamp?
One lamp is useless.
You might as well just take both of them.

So this is how it's going to be. I took one lamp. I took one pot and I took one frying pan. I took my desk and computer and the twin bed out of the spare room. He watched me pack. He opened the boxes of my clothing and knick-knacks to see what I was taking.

He insisted we split the framed photos. But they were all photos I had taken of my family and then had framed, and I couldn't leave them. Instead I left the framed pictures of us on the wall.

Us on the cruise with fancy pineapple drinks in our hand waving from the port. Us sitting in lawn chairs eating snowballs at the Mardi Gras parade. Us gazing at each other while slow dancing in my bridesmaid dress at my best friend's wedding. Us on the first year's Christmas card where we sat outside with the dog and the cat and my brother took pictures until we knew that that one would be perfect, Sweet Pea's head cocked to the side between ours. And of course the most newly framed, us smiling from behind the three-tiered cascading-pink-roses-that-perfectly-matched-my-bouquet on white-icing cake which took me three whole afternoons to decide on.

That night he called and asked me whether I took the paper napkins with me. He didn't believe me when I said no. They aren't here now and they were here before you packed. So this is how it's going to be...

changes

My birthday was the start of a whole new life. A new time for feeling alive, for endless possibilities, for fulfilling potential.

I couldn't get rid of the feeling that everything was going to be perfect. And almost a month later, everything is. Perfect in the sense that now so, this is life fills me with satisfaction, hope, and excitement instead of the previous overwhelming feeling of disappointment, dread, and being completely lost. Maybe it's taking action, maybe it's having a new perspective, maybe it is Neptune after all... most likely it's the combination of all those things.

I've accepted that rectifying mistakes is an accomplishment in it's own right. Something difficult and something to feel proud of. I've always promised myself that I would never live with regret, and it's something I've been struggling with. I knew if I didn't change the way things were, I would be choosing a life of regret.

People might not understand the sudden changes and that's ok. It's the start of something new, but to me it's not sudden at all. It's finally being true. It's the ending of a path--not a wrong path because it's contributed greatly to who I am today and at the time I started it was right--and the beginning of another path. I've been going in circles and taking baby steps for a while trying to figure things out, instead of just taking the one big step aside.

I'm learning so much about myself, I've learned so much about myself in the last year and I like the person I am, the person I am becoming. Change is scary, but essential. Fear is no longer going to help decide my future, or my present.

raejillian

P.S. Here is my lovely Rae Jillian who has a way of spinning even everyday experiences into magical fairytales. She is immensely talented and infinitely creative and artistic. Quite honestly the best writer I've ever read (and I've read a lot). Read her blog, and you'll be able to say you knew her when...