It Don't Matter To The Sun...

An actor smiled your smile today.

Ambushed me.

I've been watching the show for a while now, and yeah, sure I noticed the resemblance.

But today, the angle of the camera shot and the way he flashed that smile...

My heart forgot to beat.

It was you.

I felt your loss for the first time in.... months? years maybe?
I can't pin point when I stopped thinking about you daily.

I just remember one day seeing a red car and only after it had passed did I realize that I had forgotten to peer intently at the driver. Who knows how many red cars had passed me with maybe you driving them.

I had stopped looking.

The actor stole your smile today.

Seeing it brought to life just how much time has passed.
How many things have changed.
I feel this unexplainable urge to find your number
tell you all the things that have happened since you last smiled at me.
My hair was short. I mean really short.
It's longer now, though not as long as it was when you last smiled at me.
Tyson and Travis both came home from South America.
My parents finally divorced.
I've moved. Again. Still no dog though.
I have tattoos, piercings, since you last smiled at me.
New jobs, new friends, new boyfriends.
My books have doubled in numbers, I found I like getting pedicures.
I've been camping, swimming, dancing and adventuring
And living.
I've been living.
Since you last smiled at me.

You were my first love. There's been others. It's been years. But you were my very first.

I saw your smile on the TV today.
I hope you're smiling where ever you are today.
I am.

A Mother's Prayer: Dear Lord, Please Teach My Daughter a Lesson

When I've taken this big of a break from writing it's hard to decide what to write about.
Do I write about My uber fabulous vacation?
Do I write about work and the never ending training?
Do I write about stumbling upon a picture of the three of us from eons ago?Ba


Nope.
I'm going to write about my ear. Or rather, "how fate will punish you for betraying your parents beliefs".

Back in February I had my conch pierced. Which is a part of my ear, so stop visualizing something else you dirty bastard.
(picture stolen from the internet, but you get the idea)


Now, my mother is not the vengeful type. Far from it. However. I wouldn't put it past my mother to sweetly pray for me to "learn" learn from my bad decisions. Bad decisions like getting an extra piercing. Even if it is just my ear.

Getting the piercing almost didn't happen. Despite my tattoos, I'm not exactly big on needles. With tattoos they use a gun and you can't see the needles. With this piercing they use a really big freaking needle. So even though I've wanted one for a few years, I could never bring myself to do it. Then for Christmas I told my dearest Erica that I would pay for her monroe. We thought it would be fun to do our piercings together. Like getting pedicures, but with blood and pain.

So I make the mistake of letting Erica go first. I watch as the piercer slowly pushes a needle through her upper lip area, leaves it there, and then finally puts a dainty little sparkler in the hole that he just stuck a needle through.

I use the bold font to better express the horror I felt.

When it was my turn, I balked. I tried to run screaming from the room, but Erica, who is normally a petite 5 foot 1, suddenly grew 9 inches, her hand sprouted into a hammer, slammed the door shut, locked it and sat on me until I meekly promised to stay put. Which I did. He put the needle through my ear, I heard the cartilage break, and felt an eon of pain.

Later Erica told me the whole process was over in 30 seconds, but pain seconds are like dog years.

But now I have a pretty little piercing.

My mom saw it the next day. She handled it well.

That night I did my first salt water cleanse on my ear. It was too tender to clean any other way. And because of the location, the only way to fully immerse my ear was by filling a cereal bowl full of warm salt water and laying on my side. The downside to this method (besides looking silly with half my head in a cereal bowl) was that my hair would get wet too. So that first time, I lifted my head and felt all the water drip from my head. Eh. I rushed to the bathroom to find a towel and come face to face with a mirror image of me, with blood streaking the side of my head.

I thought for sure I was dying for the sin of putting a hole in my body.
Thirty minutes and 1 panicked phone call to The Boy later, I stopped bleeding and my heart started beating again.

I suspect this was somehow my mom's doing.

I stopped bleeding relatively quickly. But I wasn't able to sleep on my left side for a month. And at least once a week in kickboxing someone would manage to hit it.

Again, I'm sure my mom had some hand in all of this. Some kind of lesson about not putting metal in one's temple of a body.

It's been four months. My conch is healed, I can sleep on my side, I don't cringe when I go to kickboxing, I catch a glimpse of shiny when I turn my head... it sounds silly but I really love the piercing.

So I did the logical thing. I wanted to get a new earring to put in it. Previously I had a shiny stud, but I was ready to find something new to replace it. I was thinking a tiny celtic knot or maybe a silver four leaf clover.

The Boy and I ran out of gas on the way to the store. We walked miles to the Circle K. Only to discover it was a Circle K that didn't have gas. So we turned around and walked miles in the other direction. Still no gas station. I finally made an executive decision and called my mom to play rescue hero. She picked us up and nicely refrained from saying anything like "This is fate punishing you for going against your mom's wishes".

But I could tell she was thinking it.

Let the Blogging Begin! Again.

I'm back. With a new laptop.

Sorry for the absence.

But I'm leaving again. This well be a short vacation but it will involve a beach and some of my favorite people. I promise pictures.

Forever Young

Good news: I am officially keeping my job. Hooray!
Bad news: Now that I no longer have to worry about my financial situation I have time to worry about, well, time.

I turn 25 this year.

In a little more then six months actually.


One could possibly accuse me of suffering from a mid life crisis.
And one would be absolutely correct.

I realize that a mid life crisis does not normally occur this early in life, but you have to understand that I don't really plan on getting Old. Old is not for me. When I was in elementary school I read a biography about a women who lived to be 103 years old. She lived a very full and interesting life. However, I noticed that her adventures stopped being interesting around age 50. After that point she slowed down. A LOT. By age 70 she mostly talked about the past. And then she spent another three decades sitting in a chair watching everyone around her have interesting lives while she continued to talk about her interesting past.

And that's when I realized I don't need to spend three or four decades sitting around thinking about the past. I already spend a lot of time doing that.

This idea was reinforced when I was 19 years old. That year I spent a very happy and very busy period of time in Ireland. There was one weekend that myself and three fabulous friends spent down in the southern area of Ireland. I think we were in Killarney this particular day. The four of us went to see a pretty waterfall and being the not so bright but enthusiastic youngsters we were, we decided to jump rocks in the river until we were right under it so we could get a better picture. As we recklessly endangered our lives for picture I remember looking back and seeing a tour bus of Old People unload and gather at the appointed waterfall picture taking spot. And as Jo fell into the cold river and Chris fell in trying to help her and Van and I laughed until we slipped too, I remember looking at those Old People and thinking, why travel when you are old and can't do more then take pictures and complain that the local food tastes nothing like olive garden. What's the point of traveling if I can't climb old buildings or get caught in rainstorms while walking to whats sure to be another adventure and catching a three week cold because of it?

And with that I renewed my plan to never be Old.

So here I am, quickly approaching 25. Suffering a mid life crisis.

It's to the point that it is affecting my daily activities. I needed new jeans for work (that's right, I wear jeans to work. AND I like my job. Go ahead and hate me) and I decided I'd get some new shirts too. I'm not a big shopper, so I usually plan ahead what stores I'm going to go to so that I can get in and out quickly. Suddenly I realized that the stores I was planning on going to were pretty much the same stores I went to since high school. And suddenly I was panicking, wondering if I was that girl, the one who keeps trying to dress like she's 19 even though she's 30. I frantically texted Mckenna, because I trust her fashion sense above anyone else I know. I'm pretty sure she laughed at me, but at least she set aside my fashion fears.

This midlife crisis doesn't affect most of my daily activities. Mostly I feel this pressure, like I'm running out of time. Like my youth is running out. I sometimes look at my life and feel like I should have done more than I have. Shouldn't I own a house by this point? Or have a degree? Maybe a kid or two? Then I remind myself that those things are not super important to me. I have no desire to own a house, or have kids. Not for many years, if ever. What has been important to me? The time I spent exploring new places, my personal library, the many irresponsible times I've gone repelling at night or any number of things that wouldn't have happened if I had stayed on a traditional path.

But I still feel this pressure.
So I made a list.
It's my "TO DO LIST BEFORE THIRTY"
Which is in five years. Eekk!


Hike the Appalachian Trail.
Visit: Costa Rica, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Turkey,Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain, Wales, Russia,Egypt, Russia and Australia. At the very least.
Become fluent in another language.
Own a dog who travels everywhere with me. And I don't mean one that fits in my purse.
Own a private library that is wall to ceiling books on all four walls filled with only books that I've actually read.
Own a motorcycle.

And that's it. That's my whole list. I've thought about this list for two weeks before putting all this to paper, eerr, keyboard. But I honestly can't think of another thing that I desperately want to do. Owning a nice car isn't on my list, or making a six figured salary. Finding love isn't on my list, nor is getting my degree, although I wouldn't mind if those things happened too. But those six things are the ones that matter.

So
Five years.
I can do all that in five years.
No sweat.

What would Freud say?

I didn't get up early to work out like I normally do
Because I dreamed of you.

And I wanted to enjoy those few moments with you.

I haven't thought of you in months. Haven't dreamed of you in months. And then you have the audacity to take over my dreams like you belong there.

Which you don't.

I dreamed that you showed me your new house. It was elegant and tasteful and nothing like the houses I've seen you live in. You showed me your room and it was covered in your paintings, which is exactly like the rooms I've seen you live in.

On the floor of your bedroom, kicked in a corner, was lingerie. My waking mind flashed to a unknown females face. My sleeping mind made the lingerie disappear. I didn't want realities, I wanted the comfort of you. I wanted to pretend, just for the length of the sleep button.

You smiled. Not a smirk, but a real smile. You were happy. Really happy. And you cupped my face and uttered words that my ears used to ache to hear. "I miss you".

And I was happy.

But instead of replying with a lingering kiss which is what I always dreamed of before,
I stepped back and said regretfully,

I'm sorry. I have a country to explore.

Me thinks that the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow.

Remember how I said I was going to try and write more about the day to day things?
Feel free to tune out now.

A common theme in my journals is working out. I love being active. Rock climbing, hiking, swimming, dancing, as long as it doesn't involved a ball I probably love it. But exercise in it self? Not such a big fan. So I've been trying out different exercise routines over the last few years, searching for a good fit. I've tried just going to the gym. I've tried taking classes at the gym. I've tried going to the gym with a friend. I do p90x off and on. Last summer I worked out with a girlfriend who was training for a half ironman. Currently I'm a member of Az combat sports which I love and have written about.

I'm not sure if my exercise style jumps around so much because it's just my nature to bounce around from thing to thing, or if it's because I still haven't found something that fits yet. Something I'm interested in doing day in and day out. Because let's face it. Rock Climbing is fun. Pull ups are not.

So despite a pretty wide range of workouts there is something I've always hated and never been good at. Running. Oh dreaded running.

I've never actually run a mile straight. I mean, sure, on the elliptical machine. I can run a few miles on that, no problem. Especially if there's something good on tv. But I've never a full mile without stopping on the pavement. I would usually run a half mile, tie a shoe, take a drink, then run another half mile. Or quarter mile. I'm also unbearably slow.

But last night I ran my first mile on the ground, without stopping. It was only a mile and I'm not even going to tell you what my time was. But I did it, and I'm awful damn proud of it.

Proud enough to write a whole blog about it.

But wait, there's more!

This morning, Travis, Mom, Bodhi and I hiked Camelback. Which was simultaneously loads of fun and frustrating. The loads of fun came from the fact that its a great hike. It's more bouldering then a leisurely stroll, which is how I prefer my hiking. And since Bodhi is part Australian Shepard part Mountain Goat, he did just fine. The frustrating part came from the amount of people! I prefer my hiking to be more solitary, less push and shove. Camelback is clearly a popular hike. But it was fun. Bodhi scampered up the rocks and everyone was charmed by him. Travis had a good time telling people that Bodhi had rabies and Mom had a good time smacking him upside the head.

Also, not to be disloyal to The Boy, but one of the perks of this hike is all the fitness nuts who RUN up and down the mountain. They generally tend to be shirtless and beautiful. Yum.

A dislike? The funny tan lines I currently sport thanks to wearing a shirt instead of a tank top.
Oh, and the fact that my trusting hiking boots of the last two years have finally perished.

Hiking today also renewed my desire to hike the Appalachian trail. I really, really want to do a thru-hike. It generally takes six months, so it will be a few years before I can take off the time from work. But it's on my bucket list. Hell, it's on my "before I'm thirty" list. I can't wait to spend six months walking, six months with just me and a pup and whole lot of nature.

"How can you explain that you need to know that the trees are still there, and the hills and the sky? Anyone knows they are. How can you say it is time your pulse responded to another rhythm, the rhythm of the day and the season instead of the hour and the minute? No, you cannot explain. So you walk." ~Author unknown

Read A Walk In the Woods by Bill Bryson. Then start packing and come with me.

When I grow up..

I feel guilty about not writing more.

But I've worked six days out of seven this week.
And I am la tired.
That's a good excuse right?

No?

Ok, how about the fact that I worked two midnight shifts this weekend, slept for three hours and then played all day in the sun today? It was such a lovely day, I couldn't waste it in bed. And I spent it with such lovely people.

We watched an acrobatic group preform today. 2 males and 1 badass female. All self taught. Watching them reminded me of learning to swing dance in high school and how the six of us would watch a dance video, and then try to duplicate the aerial tricks. We were self taught too. We had so much fun and so many bruises. I miss the folly of youth. We were sure we would graduate from high school and perform for our bread and butter.

Life turned out a little differently. I'm ok with that. I'm sure my body thanks me for not continuing a career in dance.

However.
After watching the acrobatic group... I think I found a new career path.