Its still in shock mode how good this day has been, that is how well the cosmos aligned to hand me a reminder of what I am striving to find in life.
And most of it was just little stuff that could happen every day but doesn't, but it all did today, and that made the little bad things that could happen every day and do just fade into the shadows.
As much as I bitch and moan here, I really am easy to please!! It's when I fall in the middle of good and bad that makes me question everything... and now I have a checklist of things that might make me flip to the good more often. Wanna see it?? I KNEW you would!!!
I got to work before the bosses. I got my first project done before the last minute of the deadline. I made a good cup of coffee. I ate all my meals on time, and didn't fall for the "I'm going out, does anyone want anything?" trap of eating off my plan (timewise or food wise). The office was in an upbeat mood all day, especially with the Month End Hover of the boss, this is a Very Big Deal. I got the bathroom to myself so I didn't have to make idle chit chat with people I see but never ask the names of as I wiped my ass. My hair stayed out of my face and my outfit kept me perfectly temperate through the day. I had my gym clothes in my car and knew I would be walking off my energy at the end of the day. The sky was blue, all day. I got to chat with my friends about fun stuff, with lots of !!! and Oh.My.God.No.F'n.WAY's and =)=) involved.
Alright, there was some big stuff too that made all these little things just a platform for wanting to date stamp everything on my desk with LEAP YEAR. Like, dad confirmed that he is sending me a computer and an MP4 player to strike down my need to buy a laptop or iPod to replace my dead computer and dying iRockr phone. He ordered the music box and when that comes in he's tossing it in the box with a desktop (you remember, the flat ones that actually belong on a desk?) and sending it across the country for me. Turns out having a sister on the skids doesn't have to be all bad ;)
And then, I was set to meet a trainer at the gym tonight, another new guy, and while I'm in the parking lot checking my bag for a water bottle and wishing I didn't have to have the New Trainer How Are You What Are Your Fitness Goals conversation again (5th time in 2 months, and I'll still eat a whole tray of brownies if you leave me in a room with them), my phone rings. I answer with "I was just thinking of you, right this second, wishing my phone could text so I wouldn't bug you while you're working, and you called me. Hi, what's up?!?" Long story short, he's coming back to my gym, working part time, and he gets to book his own clients, and since no one called me to tell me my 7:30pm went AWOL and bailed (funny enough, as I'm typing this duche calls, 10:20pm, apologizing at the end but starting a conversation with "who is this? did you have an appointment with a trainer next week?" I said "you called me, so you know who this is, our appointment was set for 3 hours ago, and MY trainer is coming back, got to work out the details of our schedules when you and I were set to work out, but thanks for the call, maybe if MY MAN and I can't work out something I'll let your manager know I'm available to be scheduled. Good night."), well, I guess I finished my sentance in my parenthetical tangent.
So, there we have it. A recipe for a Happy Sassy. OH - and I have options for plans this weekend!!! MOT, did you read that??? Apparently, St. Patrick's Day is such a big deal on the east coast they make a MONTH out of it. (I don't know why I'm cap happy tonight, but my eyes are bugging out with emphasis when I say it just like yours are when you read it, so bear with the excitement and be ready for the jump-up-and-down-squealing-giggle-dance in a minute.) We've had the March deadline calendars prepped for a week now, but I don't have a place to put it since I'm still using February, so that little green shamrock holding stuck mid jig dude has been starting at me from the front of my desktop folder holder and it's been making me want to drink, I won't lie. Bender style, none of this wine with dinner bullshit. Add to that the lack of carbs anytime after, say, 3pm, and I'm ready to beerbong come 10pm, just for the sugar. Yes, the trainer heard about it, we are reconveining at 4pm tomorrow to work out how to keep me from nightly debauchery imposed by healthy eating patterns.
So, right, St. Patty's. Ok, so Hoboken is the first to go, I guess the cities take turns so everyone can go to every party and everyone makes money on the green beer. So, Hoboken is a lot like my college town; bar, bar, bar and grill, restaurant that turns into a nightclub, bar, parking garage, bar, bar, all night pizza, bar... you get the idea, and on the backside of this street is where everyone lives, except instead of plantation houses converted into frat houses there are Brownstones. mmmmmmm, delish is all I can think of when I let my merriment carry me there. So, you can tell I've been there and I know exactly how to get to the train station and I've traveled up at least 10 blocks and can even tell you which sushi restaurant is byob. That they are hosting the first in a series of drinking holidays, and it's in Hoboken!?!?!?!? Shut. Up. THAT'S WHAT I SAID!!! This knowledge helped me save my $10 on take out lunch and save up for drinking.
Yes, I'm set to see the trainer at 4pm and talk about not drinking. Life is for living, if you can't indulge on the holidays, what's the point? (yes, it's confusing in my head too, it's not just you or how I talk about it, I'm actually completely 2 different people in here, wanting 2 opposite things, sharing air time. It's me that's nuts, I know it, glad you're keeping up).
To boot, my coworker invited me to a parade in one of the shore towns, adding on "and then it's just a lot of bars and my body builder boyfriend's single friends, would love to have you take some of them off my hands!!" How can you pass on an invite like that???
And there we have the ingredients to the Sassy Smiles cocktail. Little things going right with no shattering of dreams or composing herself after disappiontment, topped of with self confidence and with a twist of socializing. So it's the day we catch up the 1/4 of a day we couldn't spread over the last four years...
Cheers
to dismissing the fears
that this good day
is another 4 years away!
Friday, February 29, 2008
Monday, February 25, 2008
Too Poetic Not To Share
Another email to a friend that I just have to post:
I was a very good girl tonight.
I went to the new gym to meet the new guy for the second time, was not deterred by the slightly still sore enough to notice knee or that I didn't have any socks in my gym bag or that I sliced the ever liven out of the side of my thumb searching for spare socks under my car seat. I marched myself right into the gym, cleaned up the blood splatters on the cuff of my shirt, wrapped it in a paper towel, and went down to meet my guy. The front desk chick looked confused. "Did you have an appointment? Did he call you??"
Life happens I suppose, but knowing that the precident was to call everyone in his appointment book and tell them he has a funeral to go to, and knowing I gave him my number and he put it next to my name in the book, well, I'm hoping he flipped to the wrong page and I'm set for next week because it's starting to get offensive.
As I'd had it set to walk off some energy tonight, I went home for a bandaid and some suitable socks, changed my coat for my gym sweatshirt, and headed to my other gym. I expected a wait for a machine, but I also wanted to catch the eye of the trainers to see what miscommunication I can rectify so that I get someone to work out with again. Happily, I caught the eye of a girl just getting off a machine and hopped on without a glance to any strays lingering in hopes of such a marvelous feat of using what they pay for =)
30 minutes later I could feel the peering of watchful eyes and removed myself and my sore knee from harms way and found a quiet corner to stretch in.
Noticing the clock, I maneuvered my way to the rows of desks, finally ending up at the front desk asking for My Head Gymrat. A very chipper conversation with the dude and his flippy hair tells me that privacy of phone numbers means nothing, leaving on time is a rarity, and that I was SOL for getting someone to pull up a schedule and fit me in, though the gym was filled to 85% capacity when I asked, not one of those people could be of service to me.
Alright, I can take a hint, and I decided that since I'd be icing my knee for good measure when I came home anyway, I wouldn't wait in line for a treadmill with the guy who just irrately berated my Mr. Flippy Do for not having staff monitoring the 20minute rule of Too Many Customers Need Cardio Machines Time Limit.
So, I get in the car, turned up the be-bop-ish tune on the radio, and end up in a much more sour mood by the end of the 15 minute commute. "Never fear, food is near!" I tell myself, and don't even take off my shoes as I poured myself some salad and sliced half a chicken breast to top it.
It had hit me as I passed a little haunt up the street. I'd thought about it as I passed by the 3 pizza joints on the way home. I didn't flinch at the left hand turn lane like I sometimes do, but I nearly turned around 3 blocks later for it. I'm convinced my closest spot is the worst to go to, but now, the desire is quite heavy and I may make due. It's the craving for a beer. Not the alcohol buzz, not something cool to drink, not the foul breath afterward... I've tried convincing myself it's because I got too hungry with all the running around and then a more-strenuous-than-expected cardio run, but even as I sit with my protein and my huge pile of salad I want more to eat. Maybe it's the bubbles I want, to quiet the sour-all-day stomach that I'm afraid I might have to blame on the water. Perhaps it's just the habit of having a stressful day and consoling it with a familiar taste. Or, maybe I'm just that hungry and dehydrated so liquid with calories is just the ticket I'm looking for to board the train to silenced harrassments and easy dreams.
Whatever it is, this is the plight of the just a little too fat. It's these choices, I fear, the ones that are so little but daily, the difference between one beer with dinner or not, that are going to make or break my ability to take on this challenge and win it. As any clever temptress, however, these cravings hit me when I'm weak of mind and spirit, gripping me hard and relentlessly holding tight to at least part of my consciousness as I try to move through the motions of finding anything to do besides stuffing my face. Are these signs of a Foodie, and Alcoholic, or someone who's just hungry and worn out?
I was a very good girl tonight.
I went to the new gym to meet the new guy for the second time, was not deterred by the slightly still sore enough to notice knee or that I didn't have any socks in my gym bag or that I sliced the ever liven out of the side of my thumb searching for spare socks under my car seat. I marched myself right into the gym, cleaned up the blood splatters on the cuff of my shirt, wrapped it in a paper towel, and went down to meet my guy. The front desk chick looked confused. "Did you have an appointment? Did he call you??"
Life happens I suppose, but knowing that the precident was to call everyone in his appointment book and tell them he has a funeral to go to, and knowing I gave him my number and he put it next to my name in the book, well, I'm hoping he flipped to the wrong page and I'm set for next week because it's starting to get offensive.
As I'd had it set to walk off some energy tonight, I went home for a bandaid and some suitable socks, changed my coat for my gym sweatshirt, and headed to my other gym. I expected a wait for a machine, but I also wanted to catch the eye of the trainers to see what miscommunication I can rectify so that I get someone to work out with again. Happily, I caught the eye of a girl just getting off a machine and hopped on without a glance to any strays lingering in hopes of such a marvelous feat of using what they pay for =)
30 minutes later I could feel the peering of watchful eyes and removed myself and my sore knee from harms way and found a quiet corner to stretch in.
Noticing the clock, I maneuvered my way to the rows of desks, finally ending up at the front desk asking for My Head Gymrat. A very chipper conversation with the dude and his flippy hair tells me that privacy of phone numbers means nothing, leaving on time is a rarity, and that I was SOL for getting someone to pull up a schedule and fit me in, though the gym was filled to 85% capacity when I asked, not one of those people could be of service to me.
Alright, I can take a hint, and I decided that since I'd be icing my knee for good measure when I came home anyway, I wouldn't wait in line for a treadmill with the guy who just irrately berated my Mr. Flippy Do for not having staff monitoring the 20minute rule of Too Many Customers Need Cardio Machines Time Limit.
So, I get in the car, turned up the be-bop-ish tune on the radio, and end up in a much more sour mood by the end of the 15 minute commute. "Never fear, food is near!" I tell myself, and don't even take off my shoes as I poured myself some salad and sliced half a chicken breast to top it.
It had hit me as I passed a little haunt up the street. I'd thought about it as I passed by the 3 pizza joints on the way home. I didn't flinch at the left hand turn lane like I sometimes do, but I nearly turned around 3 blocks later for it. I'm convinced my closest spot is the worst to go to, but now, the desire is quite heavy and I may make due. It's the craving for a beer. Not the alcohol buzz, not something cool to drink, not the foul breath afterward... I've tried convincing myself it's because I got too hungry with all the running around and then a more-strenuous-than-expected cardio run, but even as I sit with my protein and my huge pile of salad I want more to eat. Maybe it's the bubbles I want, to quiet the sour-all-day stomach that I'm afraid I might have to blame on the water. Perhaps it's just the habit of having a stressful day and consoling it with a familiar taste. Or, maybe I'm just that hungry and dehydrated so liquid with calories is just the ticket I'm looking for to board the train to silenced harrassments and easy dreams.
Whatever it is, this is the plight of the just a little too fat. It's these choices, I fear, the ones that are so little but daily, the difference between one beer with dinner or not, that are going to make or break my ability to take on this challenge and win it. As any clever temptress, however, these cravings hit me when I'm weak of mind and spirit, gripping me hard and relentlessly holding tight to at least part of my consciousness as I try to move through the motions of finding anything to do besides stuffing my face. Are these signs of a Foodie, and Alcoholic, or someone who's just hungry and worn out?
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Snow Day
We had about 7" of snow yesterday.
I was very late to work, but mostly because I didn't wake up until the time I usually leave the house, to a phone call from a coworker saying the boss told us to take our time, so I showered and everything before the oh so beautiful trek at 30mph.
I saw some things I've never seen, cars broken in ways that still confuse me, enjoyed learning what I can and can not do to a snow pile between lanes in my Altima, and overall was really laid back about the whole thing.
My coworkers on the other hand, 2 of the four that made it into our office, were carrying on like we would be snowed in and stuck at the office for the weekend with no food or water or electricity if we didn't get out of there ASAP. As the rain started and the slush melted and the weather reports said the refreeze would happen later and later in the day, I wondered what exactly the normal Friday work day was keeping this one from. Sure, she lives a bit north, but honestly, if you made it in by following a snow plow, sit down and shut up and deal, no?
I guess in an environment that thrives only when complaining, I shall only be remiss that through all this whimpering that this one fax they were waiting on to come through wasn't they did all of Friday's duties and caught up on what they didn't get to on Thursday AND set them selves up for Monday and still managed to leave the office at 2pm.
If only we worked that hard every day...
So I left just after the 3pm closing time with my new best friend/coworker/lunch buddy/social life. We spend nearly every lunch break together, then end up at a Happy Hour once or 3 times a week, and she is the only reason I've tried any of the local restaurants or ventured into NYC since moving here. So after we went to a movie, hung out in the mall, had a cocktail and some dinner and a soul searching conversation, we went to one more store to search for work slacks and officially get kicked out for closing time. As we manhandled the merchandise I said "so, I am making Jersey think we are dating." Her response? "Fabulous; if the people at work seem to be looking at us funny it's because I'm telling them we are dating too."
Um, ok. Me telling a guy who isn't making time for me anymore that he has been replaced as my Official Welcome To Jersey concierge by my cute little giggly coworker just because I'm a tease is one thing; her asking all of us for the cutie young man on the sales floor and getting compliments emailed to her from a guy on the other side of the sales floor and passing around the notion that we always get coffee together because we are together??? Is that the same?
I've been in situations before where I went along with one idea in my head only to get blindsided with contradictory information from the other party that ended in us ending, but as we also talked last night about how she only keeps a job for 6 months and I have a knack for killing a relationship at or before the6 month mark, does it really matter if I can't tell if this is what girls do when they are new friends or if we are dating without rounding any bases?
Whatever puts a smile on my face these days, huh??
The last thing weighing on my mind as the dog my roomie is babysitting paces around the arm chair trying to retrieve his tennis ball and I weigh the desire to shower against his need to just run in the snow covered courtyard until he passes out is my priority list. It will get some official name soon, as it is becoming a character in my existence these days. The trick is, I decided I wanted a laptop instead of fixing my old old old hand me down desktop. So I saved up for it, and decided to wait one more paycheck to buy it just because I knew I'd go apeshit with the grocery shopping and hate getting within $100 of the red in my account. The same day, my phone starts dying - it freezes when I send a text to the point of having to take the battery out to reset it. As I take it to my phone dudes to see what I can do or what options I have in replacing it, I find out that I am no longer under contract and am free to leave the company or get all the "new customer" bonuses and I can get a local number without penalty. Without getting into any of the drama about how having my sister on the family plan under my name is throwing a wrench in things, I will say that I was in that store for maybe 90 minutes, 60 of which were at the iPhone station. And as I thought about what my current phone can do, and what I'll be expecting of my laptop, and how excited I was the last time I got the cutting edge pocket sized technology, well, it's making it hard to drop money on any of the big things this week. So I told my sister about how upset I was that I'd finally made a decision to spend a wad of cash on a computer and now need a phone and kinda want one as cool as the one I've had, and she relayed this to my dad who owns a computer shop who emailed me with "um, you can ask Dad to be a Dad sometimes" so I gave him the specs of the system I was looking at and I think he might get me the laptop or at least pay for half. And, in hopes of finding some specs on a phone that wouldn't cost me as much as my rent, I went online to my company's site and found about 10 phones they will give me for free!!! nothing quite as cool as what I have now or the iPhone obviously, but anything that gets me textable again (without having to dump all my savings into this unexpected expense), well, the iPhone will still be there and I won't blow my wad thinking Dad will come through and hate myself for waiting on him if he doesn't. All the while, the weekends I spent apartment hunting and condo browsing and furniture shopping linger in my Priority List, and the temptation of going on a vacation ever again sits like a cloud over my bank account as well...
So, that's what's on my mind this week - whiny grown women I work with, the possibility that I've entered into a lesbian relationship without deciding to, and how to spend money wisely enough to make me happy now and in the future. All in all, pretty typical I guess, except I'm not sleeping well and when I decide to be a good girl with what I eat I become the dim witted uncoordinated shell of a person the waif models epitomize, but without the charm of having the photogenic body of an underwear model. If I were seeing gains in that direction, surely loosing all of my vocabulary mid sentence and not being able to remember what I’m working on or how I was accomplishing it would be a trite inconvenience, but as it stands, I don’t know if my mood swings have lessoned because I’m eating right or if I just don’t have the energy!
I was very late to work, but mostly because I didn't wake up until the time I usually leave the house, to a phone call from a coworker saying the boss told us to take our time, so I showered and everything before the oh so beautiful trek at 30mph.
I saw some things I've never seen, cars broken in ways that still confuse me, enjoyed learning what I can and can not do to a snow pile between lanes in my Altima, and overall was really laid back about the whole thing.
My coworkers on the other hand, 2 of the four that made it into our office, were carrying on like we would be snowed in and stuck at the office for the weekend with no food or water or electricity if we didn't get out of there ASAP. As the rain started and the slush melted and the weather reports said the refreeze would happen later and later in the day, I wondered what exactly the normal Friday work day was keeping this one from. Sure, she lives a bit north, but honestly, if you made it in by following a snow plow, sit down and shut up and deal, no?
I guess in an environment that thrives only when complaining, I shall only be remiss that through all this whimpering that this one fax they were waiting on to come through wasn't they did all of Friday's duties and caught up on what they didn't get to on Thursday AND set them selves up for Monday and still managed to leave the office at 2pm.
If only we worked that hard every day...
So I left just after the 3pm closing time with my new best friend/coworker/lunch buddy/social life. We spend nearly every lunch break together, then end up at a Happy Hour once or 3 times a week, and she is the only reason I've tried any of the local restaurants or ventured into NYC since moving here. So after we went to a movie, hung out in the mall, had a cocktail and some dinner and a soul searching conversation, we went to one more store to search for work slacks and officially get kicked out for closing time. As we manhandled the merchandise I said "so, I am making Jersey think we are dating." Her response? "Fabulous; if the people at work seem to be looking at us funny it's because I'm telling them we are dating too."
Um, ok. Me telling a guy who isn't making time for me anymore that he has been replaced as my Official Welcome To Jersey concierge by my cute little giggly coworker just because I'm a tease is one thing; her asking all of us for the cutie young man on the sales floor and getting compliments emailed to her from a guy on the other side of the sales floor and passing around the notion that we always get coffee together because we are together??? Is that the same?
I've been in situations before where I went along with one idea in my head only to get blindsided with contradictory information from the other party that ended in us ending, but as we also talked last night about how she only keeps a job for 6 months and I have a knack for killing a relationship at or before the6 month mark, does it really matter if I can't tell if this is what girls do when they are new friends or if we are dating without rounding any bases?
Whatever puts a smile on my face these days, huh??
The last thing weighing on my mind as the dog my roomie is babysitting paces around the arm chair trying to retrieve his tennis ball and I weigh the desire to shower against his need to just run in the snow covered courtyard until he passes out is my priority list. It will get some official name soon, as it is becoming a character in my existence these days. The trick is, I decided I wanted a laptop instead of fixing my old old old hand me down desktop. So I saved up for it, and decided to wait one more paycheck to buy it just because I knew I'd go apeshit with the grocery shopping and hate getting within $100 of the red in my account. The same day, my phone starts dying - it freezes when I send a text to the point of having to take the battery out to reset it. As I take it to my phone dudes to see what I can do or what options I have in replacing it, I find out that I am no longer under contract and am free to leave the company or get all the "new customer" bonuses and I can get a local number without penalty. Without getting into any of the drama about how having my sister on the family plan under my name is throwing a wrench in things, I will say that I was in that store for maybe 90 minutes, 60 of which were at the iPhone station. And as I thought about what my current phone can do, and what I'll be expecting of my laptop, and how excited I was the last time I got the cutting edge pocket sized technology, well, it's making it hard to drop money on any of the big things this week. So I told my sister about how upset I was that I'd finally made a decision to spend a wad of cash on a computer and now need a phone and kinda want one as cool as the one I've had, and she relayed this to my dad who owns a computer shop who emailed me with "um, you can ask Dad to be a Dad sometimes" so I gave him the specs of the system I was looking at and I think he might get me the laptop or at least pay for half. And, in hopes of finding some specs on a phone that wouldn't cost me as much as my rent, I went online to my company's site and found about 10 phones they will give me for free!!! nothing quite as cool as what I have now or the iPhone obviously, but anything that gets me textable again (without having to dump all my savings into this unexpected expense), well, the iPhone will still be there and I won't blow my wad thinking Dad will come through and hate myself for waiting on him if he doesn't. All the while, the weekends I spent apartment hunting and condo browsing and furniture shopping linger in my Priority List, and the temptation of going on a vacation ever again sits like a cloud over my bank account as well...
So, that's what's on my mind this week - whiny grown women I work with, the possibility that I've entered into a lesbian relationship without deciding to, and how to spend money wisely enough to make me happy now and in the future. All in all, pretty typical I guess, except I'm not sleeping well and when I decide to be a good girl with what I eat I become the dim witted uncoordinated shell of a person the waif models epitomize, but without the charm of having the photogenic body of an underwear model. If I were seeing gains in that direction, surely loosing all of my vocabulary mid sentence and not being able to remember what I’m working on or how I was accomplishing it would be a trite inconvenience, but as it stands, I don’t know if my mood swings have lessoned because I’m eating right or if I just don’t have the energy!
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Heart Thoughts
As I sit at my desk, I have a pile of cash sitting next to me.
I was in charge of collecting our donations for the Wear Red For Women Day sponsored by the American Heart Association. This is especially noteable because yesterday one of our newest hires was taken away by ambulance with chest pains, and before it was lunch break he was in surgery having stints implanted in his arteries.
As the day progressed, I looked around at my coworkers who were stuck on the fact that it was his 51st birthday and this is how he was spending it.
I eventually blurted out "think of it this way - we are all sitting here having a normal work day and he had his chest ripped open instead of enjoying his new job. On any given day, wouldn't that be just an awful way to look back at you're morning? Maybe we ought to take this as a lesson to stop asking if we can have gravy with that Fat Bitch Breakfast Sandwich we crave 3 days a week."
They didn't think it as poignent as I did. I had to remind them that maybe we should send flowers. They still couldn't believe it was his birthday and he'd had a heart attack. I couldn't believe we didn't have the Official From Us Company Birthday Card signed on his desk when he came in.
So I sit next to my piles of cash donated to the cause of the AHA awareness day and think "even when we know someone, SEE someone, having a heart attack, it doesn't sink in."
As the selfish person I am, instantly I think of how I treat my own heart, and realize I still feel adolecently invinceable. While I am fairly food conscious (even as I sample the cajun popcorn chicken or accept the last brownie on the plate), I will fall in love with a wilted house plant if it strikes me as having potential. The fickle temptation of this or that fanciful opportunity grab tightly of my heartstrings and have rarely left me with anything but gapping wounds to tenderly soucher and hope for minimal scarring. Soon enough I find something else has found the heartstrings I didn't know I had left, and I am ever so bound to this new source of deliciously painful taunting of my most treasured and valuable asset.
My heart, I've tried to protect it. I've tried hiding it away like Repunzel in her castle, only to find that the one window is enough to let those heart strings dangle like each strand of her hair. And, like Princess Fiona, this isolated dreamer sits knowing how the fairy tales end and is not so patiently waiting for her Prince Charming to arrive. So, I've dated my fair share of Shreks, thinking that this one may be the one to stop the waiting, maybe even heal the pain, free me from the spells and let me live my happy ending I know is coming. Instead, when I find myself alone in my room once again, I wonder if it will be worth even noticing the next tug of my eagerly wanting heartstrings, or if I should neglect these passers by who make me notice them but aren't willing to come rescue me.
To my cynical delight, I find that we are here at the day of truth when it comes to taking care of this part of your heart. A day to celebrate love, though typically romantic, I am choosing (as so many secretly unabashedly romantic cynics are) to celebrate the love I hold for myself. I am not seeing anyone right now, and that is the most loving thing I can be doing for myself. Case in point: Last night, I got a call. As I'd been expecting an email conversation to finish via phone during the evening, I lept to answer it. To my humbling surprise, it was an old gym buddy - 75 years old actually, who took my hip hop dance class as religiously as I did waaaayyyyy back when I was at the original Cubeville. He is coming east to visit some friends in Florida and thought he'd give me a ring and see how I'm doing.
The part about all this is that I totally forgot about the other call I expected because I was too thrilled that I'd gotten this one. Worse, the last few times I talked to the person I expected, I wasn't left with the glow this old guy and his raspy voice inspired of me in the 6 minutes he could spare to chat.
So, sure, I hide away, I tuck my Repunzel braid into the corner and don't dare look out the window at the passers by. But, when I'm not looking, I get a knock at the door.
Not that any of the He's that are checking on me will be my Happily Ever After, but, when a girl goes to bed with a smile on her face, it makes her think that tomorrow she just might let her hair down.
I was in charge of collecting our donations for the Wear Red For Women Day sponsored by the American Heart Association. This is especially noteable because yesterday one of our newest hires was taken away by ambulance with chest pains, and before it was lunch break he was in surgery having stints implanted in his arteries.
As the day progressed, I looked around at my coworkers who were stuck on the fact that it was his 51st birthday and this is how he was spending it.
I eventually blurted out "think of it this way - we are all sitting here having a normal work day and he had his chest ripped open instead of enjoying his new job. On any given day, wouldn't that be just an awful way to look back at you're morning? Maybe we ought to take this as a lesson to stop asking if we can have gravy with that Fat Bitch Breakfast Sandwich we crave 3 days a week."
They didn't think it as poignent as I did. I had to remind them that maybe we should send flowers. They still couldn't believe it was his birthday and he'd had a heart attack. I couldn't believe we didn't have the Official From Us Company Birthday Card signed on his desk when he came in.
So I sit next to my piles of cash donated to the cause of the AHA awareness day and think "even when we know someone, SEE someone, having a heart attack, it doesn't sink in."
As the selfish person I am, instantly I think of how I treat my own heart, and realize I still feel adolecently invinceable. While I am fairly food conscious (even as I sample the cajun popcorn chicken or accept the last brownie on the plate), I will fall in love with a wilted house plant if it strikes me as having potential. The fickle temptation of this or that fanciful opportunity grab tightly of my heartstrings and have rarely left me with anything but gapping wounds to tenderly soucher and hope for minimal scarring. Soon enough I find something else has found the heartstrings I didn't know I had left, and I am ever so bound to this new source of deliciously painful taunting of my most treasured and valuable asset.
My heart, I've tried to protect it. I've tried hiding it away like Repunzel in her castle, only to find that the one window is enough to let those heart strings dangle like each strand of her hair. And, like Princess Fiona, this isolated dreamer sits knowing how the fairy tales end and is not so patiently waiting for her Prince Charming to arrive. So, I've dated my fair share of Shreks, thinking that this one may be the one to stop the waiting, maybe even heal the pain, free me from the spells and let me live my happy ending I know is coming. Instead, when I find myself alone in my room once again, I wonder if it will be worth even noticing the next tug of my eagerly wanting heartstrings, or if I should neglect these passers by who make me notice them but aren't willing to come rescue me.
To my cynical delight, I find that we are here at the day of truth when it comes to taking care of this part of your heart. A day to celebrate love, though typically romantic, I am choosing (as so many secretly unabashedly romantic cynics are) to celebrate the love I hold for myself. I am not seeing anyone right now, and that is the most loving thing I can be doing for myself. Case in point: Last night, I got a call. As I'd been expecting an email conversation to finish via phone during the evening, I lept to answer it. To my humbling surprise, it was an old gym buddy - 75 years old actually, who took my hip hop dance class as religiously as I did waaaayyyyy back when I was at the original Cubeville. He is coming east to visit some friends in Florida and thought he'd give me a ring and see how I'm doing.
The part about all this is that I totally forgot about the other call I expected because I was too thrilled that I'd gotten this one. Worse, the last few times I talked to the person I expected, I wasn't left with the glow this old guy and his raspy voice inspired of me in the 6 minutes he could spare to chat.
So, sure, I hide away, I tuck my Repunzel braid into the corner and don't dare look out the window at the passers by. But, when I'm not looking, I get a knock at the door.
Not that any of the He's that are checking on me will be my Happily Ever After, but, when a girl goes to bed with a smile on her face, it makes her think that tomorrow she just might let her hair down.
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