Tag: adulting

That guy

Remember how I shared about that guy from Alanis Morissette’s “Ironic”?

Well, I did as planned with the whole ‘one last purging cry’ to finish off all of the stress of the situation… for the next while, it was still a bit unsettling for me, but increasingly better every day that passed.

By the time I saw him again this week, I had truly let it all go out of the way – we had (at least, I had) and awesome time talking about this and that and being wonderful, somewhat silly people together… I got to have the friendship experience I truly want to have with wonderful people, especially wonderful men.

Eventually, I want to have a certain kind of awesome relationship with a my man in particular, but I want always to have these wonderful friendships with men otherwise – I think they are good for me and for the world.

And then, as I was considering today how it had gone so well with him this week, and I thought about the song again, I turned on the radio in the car for once… and would you guess what was playing on the station that came on?(!!!)

Yup.

“Ironic” by Alanis Morissette… and it was about five seconds before the exact line I’d been considering… talk about perfect timing.

I took it as a total sign of success on my part, that I’d done good. 😛

It was great. 😀

Post-a-day 2019

T-shirts

To this day, I remember Kristin L— in the bathroom at middle school, saying that the ideal roll for a t-shirt sleeve was two rolls up…

To this day, I still agree with her…

And I think of her just about every time I roll or consider rolling my t-shirt sleeves…

And, every time I think of her in this scenario, I have a fleeting moment of physical memory of my nervousness, my sense of not-quite-adequacy I always had around her… I envied her, and, at times, longed to be her (she, of course)… I watched her, observed her, taking in the lessons.

What did I love so much about her?

Well, she was somewhat popular, but it wasn’t so much that as the qualities and attributes that made her popular that had me longing most.

She danced.

I eventually became a world champion dancer (yes, I have an actual world title).

She did the French tuck with her t-shirts, and rolled the sleeves up twice, always looking fabulous.

I now do that when I feel like with my t-shirts (instead of being too scared of declared to be “copying”, and then not doing it st all).

She wore bras that looked feminine.

I eventually got there, but have found my own version of balancing feminine with natural and with comfortable.

She was confident in life (mostly, anyway… an air of general confidence, we’ll say).

I am comfortable in who I am, and am generally confident in myself and about life as a whole (though the rough bits get to me at times).

She had a Jeep destined to her, horses to visit, and a determined location for college.

I had lots of openness and no-idea-ness for my far future, and kind of still do…, but I embrace it as a dream board to collage nowadays… and I’ve been interning with horses, learning to care for and ride them, too…

All of this made her gorgeous in my eyes.

The comfortable self-confidence projects radiance from my own eyes, and I find myself staring at smiling me in the mirror on many of the good days, and even on some of the not-too-good ones… the rest of my accomplishments have little to do with the beauty I see and admire in myself.

Yet, there is still something about her that makes my insides feel clenchy and hollow and longing, whenever I think about her or her life at present… I still little girl style long to be more like her (she)… to be her (she)… even though I know I want to be myself… that little girl still longs for something unsatisfied in the relationship, it seems, and I’m not sure what it is…

Perhaps I could write her a letter, read it aloud, as though to her (but not actually to her), and then let it all go… perhaps that would handle it all for me.

Yes, I think I’ll give that a go next week (because I still have final papers for this week to do).

Wish me luck and freedom! 😀

Post-a-day 2019

an Ouch of fitness

It all seems to hurt now… I’ve only taken a day off from the exercise, but all the muscles seem to hurt now.

My aunt adjusted one of my shoulders – deltoid was kind of up in the shoulder, thus some really odd feelings from time to time – today, and it feels loads better already.

However, it kind of just brought attention to how messy everything else is right now… no, they aren’t as bad as that shoulder was, but they all kind of suck right now, nonetheless.

I did an upper body chair yoga stretch class video just now, and I am acutely aware of what feels like a hundred plus tiny spots of tightness and soreness throughout my upper body… my neck feels absurdly tight on each side, all the muscles that connect along the sides of my spine seem to have knots in them, somewhere, and my left shoulder is just far too high (now that my right one is in its proper place)…

I feel like I need to be tossed like a rag doll into a trampoline, and then bounces around a while, so everything can be shaken up just enough to relax and, eventually, fall back into its proper place.

If only that were a viable option… as it is, it’s probably a good thing I have no trampoline access, because it wouldn’t work out as I’d like, anyway… 😛

Ugh!

God, please, heal my body tonight and tomorrow…. take full advantage of my two days off of exercise, and heal my body to a comfortable beauty, that I might better share your love in and with the world.

Amen

Post-a-day 2019

Fatness

I entitled this “Fitness”, but the phone decided to change it to “Fatness”, when I went to click on the writing section, and the phone offered/suggested alternatives to what I’d written… it still somewhat applies, so I’m leaving it… it’s like a Freudian slip for the technology age. 😂

So, after class today, I was talking with one of the coaches about when I might expect to see visual results with my body from these workouts.

We talked briefly about my diet, and then he requested to speak honestly.

“Of course(!).”

“When you first came in here…[…], you looked kind of sedentary…[…] Now, you already have definition in your body… in your legs… in your – you look like an athlete…[…] before, …” (makes faces) “… Now, you look like an athlete.”

It’s been a month of these classes, and I’ve attended 23 of them so far.

I checked my activity log for running, walking, and biking – and I only log my bike ride to and from the workouts, as well as any runs of a mile or more in the workout, not the actual workouts themselves – and I already have almost half the number of activities and half the distance covered that I had in all of last year… and I’ve gotten almost all of that this past month.

I had one activity, a 3-mile hike/run through the hills in Redlands, California, when I went with a friend who was moving there, logged this year otherwise… nothing else.

So, in one month, I’m already almost halfway to all of my official exercise activities last year.

Pretty cool, huh?

I mean, totally bummer that I had so few last year, but we can’t change that, nor can we change the mental struggle that kind of ran the show regarding all of that…, we can, however, embrace the freedom that is the new state of affairs, where I am now governing my fitness and my fitness activities (not some mental freak-out), and I am actively pursuing genuine and somewhat intense physical fitness.

So, woohoo!

Yay!

And, though I’ve felt that my progress visually is slow – aka my belly and haunches and inner thighs still seem so ugh – it is nice to have the positive encouragement from the coach today, as well as my sneaky shoulder muscle for when I brush my teeth. 🙂

Yay, for mental and physical fitness! 🙂

Post-a-day 2019

Mothers-in-law

Tonight, I attended a musical performance in an art gallery.

During the second part, after interacting briefly with a woman who helped me get water out of the near-empty water dispenser, the woman approached me:

W: As a mother of three boys, I have to ask you: Are you married?

H: [quiet laughter, because the concert has resumed in the next room of the gallery] I am not, no.

W: Good, because I like you… I have a blonde, a brunette, and a redhead, so you can take your pick.

H: Didn’t you just say that one of them is married?

W: Well, yes, the redhead is married.

H: [quiet laughter]

W: … But that might not last… you never know… And then you could have him… I’d be a good mother-in-law… I’m great at presents… I’ve had to deal with multiple mothers-in-law, so I’ve learned… I can be a very good mother-in-law… and I wouldn’t live next door.

Another 45 minutes or so later, the concert had ended, I had had several more reasons shared with me as to why I ought to consider marrying one of this woman’s sons, and I left the gallery with her e-mail and phone number, not because she had me convinced with her son who looks just like the (absolutely gorgeous, in my opinion) guy in “Fantastic Beasts” (though I remember him from loving him in “Les Mis'”), or with the fact that his job is a promise of absurdly high amounts of money for the rest of our lives, but because of her job…

You see, I was thinking to myself just his morning that I was interested in learning more about this specific something in Houston… and here I was tonight, under hilarious pretenses, handed a woman who works in just that specific something.

I plan to e-mail her this week to set up a meeting about her work.

And, who knows?… perhaps I’ll end up going out with her boy after all. 😛

H: [totally cracks up, alone in her room, as she considers the scenario]

Post-a-day 2019

Wedding

May the Fourth be with you…

I made that, using a Facebook messenger sticker as the foundation, and then adding the light saber and the extra message and stars and blue…., because I felt I needed a sticker of one of my characters holding a light saber for today (and the odd other occasion, of course, too).

At my friend’s wedding this afternoon, the string quartet played the Star Wars theme song as my friend and her now husband exited the chapel.

Our party favors, which happened also to be the main point of the send-off (which we faked way early, so everyone could go play, and then the bride and groom didn’t have to leave the party at any particular time [and they ended up being there as one of the last handful of duos present], and no one had to worry about breaking things), like a sword salute tunnel, were light sabers(!!!!!).

At one point, a friend and I were playing with ours, and he suddenly declared that he really wanted to go dance the current two-step with our light sabers just in our hands… and so we did… and the party progressively included more and more light sabers in active (and mostly appropriate) use.

It was such a blast of extra fun to have at the reception, those light sabers…. to the very end of the party, they were wonderful.

I also happen to have some fun ideas for photos now… 😀

Because, you know, I have four light sabers…. it pays to be one of the last ones around, helping. 😛

Also, my friend’s dad told me how, at the shooting ranger this morning, all the targets were from Star Wars: The Death Star, Darth Vader, Storm Troopers, and the likes…. and he said they discussed how you can’t take down a Storm Trooper with a direct hit, but that is have to miss, if you really want to get them. 😛 (Watch the first movie, if you don’t get it, and focus on the scene where Leia shoots at the Storm Troopers on the ship.)

Post-a-day 2019

Hair

I had my hair cut today.

Actually, I had a whole lot of my hairs cut today… and voluntarily.

I’m extremely pleased with the result, though it somewhat freaks me out a bit… as though the person I see in the mirror is someone else from the person I saw every time before this evening.

The whole goal to the haircut was to step closer still to the person I want and long to be… and every time I take those steps, then tend to be quite scary… the fear of failure – and various tangents off of it, too – always makes me feel a bit wobbly as I take these steps, though they usually gain solid ground and confidence rather quickly once I actually take them.

So, with the hair, I’m still a bit wobbly on my feet, so to speak, but I am finding the ground to be increasingly solid and stationary, the more I allow myself to experience the panic and discomfort, and, therefore, to let it go.

And no, this is not over just a little haircut, just so you know – this was my hair this morning:

and this was the floor* after the haircut:

*Including the 18-inch section that I set down for the photo; hair that I am donating for wigs for cancer patients (yet again)

And my hair is not very thick, mind you… that’s a pile of an additional four and a half inches that came off after I relaxed a bit about it all, and I was ready for the real haircut and style to happen. 😛

That’s 22 and a half inches of hair for the longest parts, with the bulk of it being around 20 and a half inches long…

Kind of crazy, huh?

Post-a-day 2019

Wowzer

I started today with lots and lots and lots of tears… and a decent amount of snot, too….

And then, as though I had just ended a long-term dating relationship, I finished crying, cleaned myself up, and spent the day with my mom, my eyelids weary and, ever so slightly, burning…. every mirror glance made it look as though I had just been crying, though I hadn’t cried since hours earlier…

I felt a heavy weight had lifted away from me, one I had very much grown accustomed to being ‘normal’… and the ghost of a weight still lingers, as though my emotional and psychological muscles are gushing back to normal size, the blood finally flowing through much more freely again, oxygen reaching the muscles fully, at last… and a certain sense of nervousness at what is to come from this openness, this space that had been so large and so occupied (and heavy) for so long…

And I can feel how much my everybody wants this rest that tonight has to offer me in this big and cozy bed at my mom’s house… I cannot quite imagine what tomorrow will bring, but I can sense that there will be a sort of ‘other side’ I will reach, come morning…

Although, this dog that just began barking next door… could be a problem here… when the neighbors first got him, months ago, he barked all night long for days… and I slept almost not at all, until the dog went hoarse from the barking, and I couldn’t hear it anymore……… oh, goodie(!) – he’s stopped.

Anyway, I await happily the person I will be not only free but able to be tomorrow.

Thank you, God, for today.

It was terrifying.

And I think I’ve been working toward it for quite some time now…

So, it is nice to have it somewhat handled, at last.

Thank you. 🙂

Post-a-day 2019

Photography

Well, today was crazy for photography for me!

First, it turns out that the owner of this awesome dance studio in town and I work out at the same gym… so, I actually met him a few weeks ago, but just didn’t know about the studio until this morning.

And the dance studio part came up, because we were talking about photography, since he’d brought his camera to class this morning, and was letting people look through them on the camera after class… I asked him about the lens, since I knew it took something expensive to get photos on that setting.

He asked if I was a photographer, and I told him that, as of last week, I sure am… and he asked about my background in photography, and then he told me about the photos he tends to do, and showed me some of them on his website.

They were awesome and fun and really neat portraits, and I totally loved and was inspired by them.

He said to get in touch, so I can come by his studio sometime, which is nearby… ‘Oh? What kind of studio is it?’… ‘I actually own a dance studio, and it’s in there.’… ‘Uh…, what dance studio?’…

I could hardly believe when he said the name of the studio – super excitement!

So now, it looks like I’ll have the chance to intern with him a bit on the photography he does, which will include getting to visit the studio and likely some spectacular dancers do their stuff for shoots from time to time!

At the social the gym had later on today, he and his wife and their baby were in attendance, and he introduced us, and brought up the idea of my doing some photography with them and working with them some, saying also that his wife does really wonderful photography, too, that is different from his own.

She, too, told me that we could do some shoots together, and even mentioned an upcoming one (but she verified that I was connected with her husband on Facebook, which I am, as of our conversation after the workout this morning, so that she would be able to get in touch with me so we could talk).

!!!!!!

Totally awesome and exciting, especially considering how I just recently started discussing how I’d like to go ahead and do some interning with a different style of photographer from the wedding photographer with whom I’ve interned this past year.

And now, it seems, I have that opportunity!

I knew the gym was the perfect place for me to be (Yes, I say that to myself every time it gets really hard in a workout and I feel like crying). 😛

So….(!) then I went to help out a photographer with some commercial work he’s doing for a sort of hotel in town.

At the end of that, which was a rather fun time, we were treated by the hotel liaison to almost-filthy-expensive dinners in their restaurant, at which point, the liaison recruits me to do some fun and creative photos of a few things for their social media…

… They don’t currently have money in the budget for photography for social media, so she was about to start looking for an art student or photo intern to do the photo…, but, since I was there with this photographer, she would love for me to take it on myself to take the photos.

(!)

And then she said that, while they can’t give money, since there’s no budget for it, they can do some trading with me… nights at the hotel, or meals at the restaurant, or something else like that.

(!!!)

And my photographer said for me to go for it, so I am!

I said that I’m doing it, and here I seem to be, actually doing it… and the world is lining up so that I can do it more and more.(!)

I’m just really excited about photography tonight… yay!

I don’t know what will come of this all, and that’s okay with me… the point is that I am incredibly grateful for its all having happened today, and for the experience of such enjoyment today. 🙂

Good day… good day… and so much else was really good about today, too… really good day today. 🙂

Post-a-day 2019

A lifestyle, I suppose

Last week, I was talking about how I am suddenly covered in scrapes and bruises…, and that I attribute their origination, though each specific one unknown, generally to CrossFit.

Tonight, my friend, which started with me a few weeks ago, messaged me and the showed me how she is much in the same boat:

I’m literally scuffed and bruised all over.. this is my life now

The coach, after class tonight, said to me, without his knowing about my friend’s message to me, that pain and struggle and small injury are all regular parts of doing these workouts – it’s a lifestyle, he said.

And so, I guess it is…

Tonight was hard… really hard…, and not entirely for physical effort.

The certain muscles that were being used intensely for one part of the workout really, really wiped me out mentally and emotionally – I was balling my eyes out ugly every time I found myself in the midst of that piece of the workout.

The pain and gain and bruises may be part of the lifestyle, but I am very much looking forward to having let go all that is left of this stuff that drags me down emotionally… I want to be wonderfully fit physically, and, in my case, that includes and requires I be wonderfully fit psychologically and emotionally, too.

All of these are parts of this lifestyle I am willing and wanting to follow… bruises and scrapes included (though I imagine they will come in lesser frequency the better I become at all of this stuff!). 😛

Post-a-day 2019