Pages

Friday, January 28, 2011

Rules to Live By

If you have had a bad day, find yourself some chocolate milk.

If you have had a rough week or two, add a strawberry doughnut.

If said milk and doughnut are the last of each kind available in the store, breathe easy, because clearly the universe is looking out for you.

Friday, January 21, 2011

Cozy Quiet

It snowed all day yesterday, and as I had nowhere in particular to be, I considered myself snowed in and busied myself about the apartment. Usually if I don't leave home all day I am left feeling restless and a little crazy by the end of the day, but yesterday was nice. Partially because I felt like the world was saying, "Shhh...slow down, just rest." Blankets of snow are very peaceful that way (so long as you don't have to contend with them in your vehicle or with your feet.) So I did. I worked some, but I also cleaned up and did laundry and just generally tidied up my life.

And all day, since it was snowing, I had plans to make myself some hot chocolate. I finally got around to it around 6 pm. I had my cocoa, and my blanket, and was on the couch ready to watch the snow when bam! I remembered I needed to make a phone call and I better do it because the work day was about to end. So I took care of that and I settled back into my hot chocolate-drinking but lo and behold, the snow had stopped.

It didn't matter. I just drank my cocoa, and I looked outside at the trees and the apartment building across the way, and it was so quiet. All I could hear was the din of the heater and the clicking that comes from one wall in our kitchen (it confuses me too). So I sat, and did nothing but drink cocoa until my mug was empty.

I felt so much better. After the week I'd had, with my mind with thoughts and to-do lists and exhaustion, 15 minutes of nothing but snow and chocolate was just what the doctor ordered.

I'm going to try to just sit and do nothing for a few minutes--really and truly nothing, not "surf the internet pointlessly" nothing--every day.

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Apocalypse

The following thought just passed through my conscience:

"I need a break....hmmm, I guess I'll go do the dishes."

Clearly a sign the world is ending.

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Adrift

So here I am. In my apartment where I live by myself, now that Eric has moved to Texas. When I first found out he got the job, I was beyond thrilled, with a reasonable amount of sadness mixed in that he would leave here 4 months before me. Now, with him officially moved, I am having trouble accessing that thrilled feeling I felt a few weeks ago. I know, in my brain, that moving to the Austin is our dream and we are making that happen, which is amazing and a cause for celebration. But my insides just feel sad and crumpled. It doesn't help that the last week of school/work has been a perfect storm of work and responsibility and stress and sleep deprivation.

I feel strange about how totally discombobulated I feel in his absence. Like everything got tipped upside down and now I have to navigate this life that looks just like the one I had last semester but that feels completely unfamiliar.

I did not expect this. I need to get it together.

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Ends and Beginnings

Well, the 2000s just came to a close. I feel grateful to have been born in 1987, because it has made the changing of decades coincide quite neatly with those big shifts in actual life. In the nineties, I was a child. Preschool, elementary school, early middle school. In 2000, I turned 13 and as we turn the page to 2011, I am on the verge of graduating with a masters degree, getting married, and (fingers crossed) getting my first real-deal job. Apparently, a lot can happen in ten years.

It just feels nice to have the world turning a page while my life does the same. Here's to looking back on an equally eventful decade come 2020.

Happy new year to all of you.