And now I shall unbutton myself from this rainbow unicorn onesie, stumble carefully down the stairs to use the bathroom, climb back up quickly, and snuggle myself into my currently-chilly-but-soon-warm bed to fall quickly and fast asleep.
My letters for tomorrow (today, technically) are complete, and so I may sleep.
Goodnight, Moon, whichever direction you may be right now.
P.S. T-2 days to my birthday… Friday awaits!
Post-a-day 2020
I feel sick.
To my stomach, I mean it.
I might just be exhausted, now that O think about it…
Yes… I went to bed at about 4:40am last night (this morning, technically, that is), and my alarm went off before 8:00am… that means I had barely three hours of sleep.
No wonder I’m exhausted and feeling sick to my stomach… and at 11:29pm, nonetheless!
Whew!
Glad I got that figured out… I hope I did, anyway…
Whatever the case, I’ve been daydreaming tonight, this evening… I am beginning to see opportunities in my struggles, and it might turn out wonderfully, if I can pull it off… let us just see…
Post-a-day 2020
I keep thinking about what to say, and, every time I set my mind loose to ponder ideas, I find myself a minute or two later singing some old song in my head…. actually, it is fluctuating back and forth between the song in the dance video I have now watched about thirty plus times and old songs that were playing where I was hanging out tonight…
So, yeah… that keeps happening, and I keep not having anything to say, aside from song lyrics…. 😛
I keep feeling like I am daydreaming in the middle of the night(!)… haha
Post-a-day 2020
I had a very interesting and, I think, empowering conversation recently.
The first part was somewhat terrifying, and the second a bit mind-blowing (in a very good way).
You see, a married man told me how he has had times of being attracted to me, of wanting to go dancing with me, spend one-on-one time with me.
That was the panic-inducing terrifying part.
He also told me that, whenever that has happened, he has looked at it and asked himself the source of the emotions – that is, why is he feeling that attraction?
Hannah is a wonderful, empowered, self-actualized, beautiful person who cares about herself and about others, and who is totally loving, he thinks, and I love being around people who are like that.
At which point he has acknowledged the emotion, the attraction, and has been able to move forward without dismissing it but without having to act on it in any way.
So, that was relieving for me.
The next thing he said, though, was the mind-blowing.
He said that he has noticed times when I seem to be very “cool” with him, and it makes him wonder if something has happened to cause me to be that way…. when he thinks about it, considers the situation, he wonders if, perhaps, She does not like that I am attracted to her, flirtatious with her – she cannot accept such adoring love, for whatever reason, so I will step back and give her some extra space.
I had not ever considered being okay with a person in a relationship being attracted to me – perhaps my religious upbringing scolded my mind enough with the concept of coveting my neighbor’s wife, but I also have experience of people not managing their emotions, their desires, and causing utterly miserable situations (especially for me)…, so I have been very anti-anyone-even-remotely-in-a-relationship being even the least bit attracted to or interested in me – and yet, here I am now, considering newly.
If the person can separate the attraction and its why’s from the typical story of, ‘I must want this person more than my partner, and therefore just pursue this person,’ perhaps it is a totally different scenario.
Kind of like how I love soft serve ice cream, and it makes me really want some when I see someone holding a fresh, massive cone of it, and I consider for that brief moment going over and stealing the cone, but then acknowledge that I don’t actually want to take the ice cream cone from him/her, because it reminds me of my love for ice cream and I really just want my own cone of it, and so I don’t go shove the person to be ground while stealing the soft serve cone…
A silly analogy, but it makes sense to me.
I also had never considers that someone’s attraction to me, married or in a relationship or not, was, in itself, a compliment to me, an acknowledgement of something wonderful within me…, a small (or large) but of love for that something within me, for me…
I had only ever considered it as wrong and bad (for the relationship guys, anyway), and had left it at that…
My mom and stepdad have always discussed gorgeous people together, attractive people together – they have always been open about it with one another… and I have always been okay with that.
I think they have, therefore, always been able to separate the desire of the moment from the ultimate desire – they see why they are attracted to someone, and discuss that with one another, as opposed to assuming immediately that they have to act outwardly on the desire…and, sometimes, they might learn from that attraction and adapt themselves to incorporate something from it into their own relationship.
I have never been opposed to flirting, as long as both parties are clear that it is only flirting – it’s actually a really great experience to me.
It’s the flirting with a goal of something happening out of the interaction that I rather dislike and that makes me uncomfortable.
And I think that that kind of flirting is what scares me… especially from married people.
Because most men in my experience have not been able to do the former, only the latter.
If, however, we consider the men who can successfully do the first, then we reach the point of what this man said to me tonight – that I am afraid of being loved in such a way that shows that someone is attracted to me.
Because of the second version of flirting, that idea is true – I am afraid of it, and I do not – have not, anyway – see it as love…, because of that second version of flirting… in the first version, however, it is a form of love.
Perhaps a silly form, but a valid form of love, nonetheless – if we didn’t love the person, we wouldn’t bother interacting, let alone being flirtatious.
I feel that I am not effectively conveying this concept, but I’ll roll with it as it is.
I was worried that a married man is attracted to me – afraid, even.
Now, knowing that he acknowledges the why‘s of his attraction and is able to bring logic to the picture, he does not act inappropriately on the attraction, and instead showers me with appropriately-intended love in appreciation of the why‘s he finds within me, I can see the possibility of being okay, even comfortable, with it.
He mentioned that I connect easily and well with just about anybody – he sees it constantly – and that, at least for all the men, they all consider at some point what it might be like to be married to me.
The thought scared me at first, but then it was actually relieving.
He said that it doesn’t last long, but they all consider it…, and I realized that I, too, do this with men… every man I cross, typically, gets thrown into the mental scenario of, “What would our life together look like?”
It doesn’t typically last more than a few seconds, and it isn’t a matter of my wanting to steal the man away from whatever relationship he may have – it is merely an analysis, a bit of mental exercise in playing pretend… and I like it when it goes well.
And it still doesn’t mean I ever act outwardly in any way with the person, because it is just a mental exercise, not a decision in which man around me to pursue.
I would not be offended for the men in my brain games…, so why just I be offended or panicked to be on theirs?
Perhaps I need not be…
Yes, perhaps…
Anyway, that’s a lot… please, feel free to be offended, but I invite you to consider something new, as I have done – it might turn out amazingly.
If it doesn’t, then you can just go back to how you’d thought before – no hard feelings. 😉
Post-a-day 2020
Tonight, my concerns about bathroom germs were solidified.
In talking with a very experienced and well-read and well-informed nurse, I learned of clear studies that established absurd levels of germage 1) being forced upward (into the air and the flusher’s face) from toilets when they are flushed, and 2) being blasted onto one’s hands and around the bathroom via high-powered air dryers (mostly because a rather high percentage of people do not wash their hands properly or thoroughly [naturally, Japan comes to mind, with the typical quick rinse of water onto the fingertips being as much as most women ever seemed to do]).
Crazy, it is.
And very unsurprising… as I mentioned, I had suspected as much.
It just reaffirms my desire to have toilets more like in Japan, where you wash your hands over the back of the toilet – dual flow toilets – as the faucet pours water into a basin that drains into the tank that holds the water in preparation for the next flush.
That way, you don’t get your dirty hands on the same surfaces where you brush your teeth.
Just saying…
These things I dream… haha 😛
P.S. I have been awake the past 19 and a half hours… Happy Valentine’s Day, y’all!
Post-a-day 2020
I had several things on my list for ‘want to accomplish’ today.
The first half happened beautifully.
The second half were avoided beautifully.
Instead of doing laundry and folding clothes, I rearranged a bit of furniture how I had been contemplating doing for a while now, and then I cleaned up piles of papers and such that I had had around the floor in my room.
And I organized all my paperwork and labeled it to bring to my CPA.*
It was a huge positive move, but definitely not on the list for today. 😛
I also, instead of working on the photos – I moved them to tomorrow, when I’ll be somewhere with Internet already, using my computer, and can stay a while – today, I expanded immensely the efforts I had intended to make with my Italian studies.
Until just a few minutes ago, I was working on the Italian, which was possibly the fourth time today… I even did detail work on it… and that’s saying something.
I also, instead of hopping to it on those aforementioned tasks, I got myself out of the house, down to our main park in town, and I walked.
For hours.
I even ran into a friend, and I joined her and her friend (and the friend’s daughter) for another hour plus, which started right about when I had been considering heading home.
(Suffice it to say that I walked a lot today, and it was great.)
(And I rode the park train twice… and that was lovely(!).)
All in all, I had a great day.
I even listened to a couple hours of my audiobook while cooking/eating and then walking at the park.
So much accomplished today… it feels good going to bed now, exhausted from a reason other than illness.
Not typically my style, but I would like for it to become my style.
Last week was a good start, and this week was even better… let’s keep this Sunday outdoor social activity + self-improvement stuff up, Banana. 😉
*Not that I’m bourgeais (bourgey?) or anything – I hardly have money to survive in this society at the moment; I just used to work for her, and so we have a sort of arrangement for my taxes to be handled.
Post-a-day 2020
Usually spent with friends in bars or clubs, or at least hanging out at someone’s house or apartment, Friday night is a busy one for adults my age…
And yet, how do I spend it?
Mostly sitting on the floor in the corner of my bedroom, next to my phone (which is plugged into the wall), listening to an audiobook that I can’t seem to stop without immense struggle…
It is that good.
And yet, it is also rather intense and somewhat frightening at times, leaving me slightly paranoid at every sound I hear around me…
But it is oh, so good…
And I have no idea why I prefer an audiobook to going out dancing, especially when I had just said at the gym this evening that I must need to go dancing, since I’ve been dancing around to all the music at the gym lately…, but perhaps it is because I don’t have to put forth any effort for it, but dancing would require social interaction, driving, physical movement in dancing, and then also money…., and reading this book is free of monetary charge….
It takes only my time and my sense of safety and ease. 😛
Anyway…, I’m super tired, so I’m going to sleep now (the only reason I could get myself to turn off the book).
And then I can get up all the earlier to listen to more of the book before going to the gym (I know, I go to the gym a lot these days, but it is part of taking care of myself). 😛
Post-a-day 2020
Growing up, I believe, we all have people we cross, both in real life and in fictional ways (e.g. book characters and movies characters), who we want to be (or else more like who we want to be).
We declare, at least to ourselves, “I want to be like that(!),” and then we take on new ways with determination.
We do our best in the moment to stick with these new ways of being or living, in order to be more like the desired individual – sometimes we stick with our new ways, and sometimes we drift back into whatever we were doing beforehand, and forget all about our determined declaration to be different than we had been.
I have found, though, that, in many cases, I have forgotten that I wanted to be like a particular individual, but still stuck with the new ways of being.
It is only years and years later that I rediscover my desire.
Sometimes I merely remember that I wanted to be like a certain someone.
Other times, I rediscover that want, thereby uncovering why I am doing a certain something.
The first I realized was Sailor Moon.
I am not sure I ever really watched the show, but I remember for sure seeing at least pieces of episodes, specifically the scenes where she transforms from her school uniform self into her battle-ready self.
I have always wanted a gold tattoo somewhere on me, because of the cats, but I have not pursued that one.
What I did pursue, however, was her hair.
In that scene where she transforms her outfit, her pigtails spiral around her body as her body turns, they are so long and blonde and perfect… and I wanted to have hair just like that, just like hers.
So, until junior year of high school, I had the longest hair I possibly could have.
I hated going to the hair dresser, because my sisters always lied to me, saying only an inch or two would come off – it was always a minimum of 4-6 inches, and not merely due to split ends… they just didn’t like the idea of my having such long hair.
And so, I left almost every appointment of my childhood haircuts balling.
Junior year of high school, I had been teased and taunted enough that, combined with my desire to try something different, I was ready to let the hair go.
I had a fun and silly summer with kids my age who joked about my hair in just the right way that I was delighted to allow them to go ahead and cut it for me (It was a whole huge fun and utterly silly ordeal, actually, and in an iconic spot in northern Spain.).
It was not until another few years later that, upon mentioning Sailor Moon to someone and talking about the show, that I suddenly remembered my childhood desire…, and that I suddenly understood why I always wanted my hair to be long.
People always were asking me, but I never had an answer that convinced myself… it was just some lame because I prefer long hair kind of answer… and now I knew.
And I never got those pigtails that swirled around me (because they’re actually probably impossible with natural hair)…, but I did have a lot of fun with my hair that summer, swinging it around like a helicopter to hit people nearby and all that jazz… it was great.
And it was all because I wanted swirling blonde pigtails like Sailor Moon had.
Fast forward into my adult life now.
In a conversation last night, my cousins says to me, “You’re essentially living the Dharma & Greg life right now.”
In so many ways, I am.
And it was super exciting that she said that to me, because I had always wanted to be like Dharma.
But I had never expected that it actually would happen.
However, here I am, living my own honest version of Dharma, and without even consciously doing it – it all kind of just fell into place in its own way in my life.
I am a yoga teacher; I live in an Ashram above a yoga studio; I have many odd and awesome jobs that come and go; I take spontaneous trips; I’ve done a boatload of what the average person would call absurd things; I’ve lived around the world with somewhat absurd circumstances; I speak honestly and openly, and it blows people’s minds regularly; I do the craziest of things; I surprise people with fabulous surprises; and I genuinely care about everyone in my life, and I make efforts for them to experience that love, no matter how loose the connection is between us; and there are a few others I’ll not mention just now… ;P
Nonetheless, I am very much like Dharma now, in my own way, and I hadn’t even remembered my desire to be like Dharma until just recently.
A third was Janie from the The Face on the Milk Carton young adult book series.
So many things she did, big and small – outfits, mannerisms, topics contemplated – have been around my life for years…, and I believe they were directly inspired by her in my elementary school self.
There’s actually a reminder on my phone right now to go get a certain outfit like what she had in one particular scene in the book – I loved it so much as a child, and, upon rereading it (and thereby rediscovering all of these things), I found I still loved it and wanted to make it happen, now that I really could(!).
I never would have remembered how badly I wanted to be like Janie, if I hadn’t reread those books recently.
The same would have been the case with Dharma, if I hadn’t started rewatching the show as an adult living in Japan a few years ago.
The same is so with Sailor Moon (and watching it recently).
And the same would have been true with a fourth person, if not for some meditations this afternoon on this particular person and my childhood.
This fourth individual is my cousin S—–.
As a child, I wanted to spend as much time with her as possible, and I wanted to be as much like she was as possible.
I loved having hand-me-downs from her, but I rarely got them, because she was the top of the cousin chain, and I was the bottom – they had a long way to go to make it all the way down to me.
When she returned from having studied in Spain, she spoke easily with my stepfather in Spanish, and I envied her for it.
I wanted to do that, to be that way, studying abroad and speaking a new language comfortably and communicably, like it was no big deal, full of excitement.
Plus, just like all the others, she was beautiful.
And I wanted to be beautiful like that, too.
Here I am, years and years later, and I see how many things have spurred me on via my desires to be more like she was or is.
I not only studied abroad, but I did it many times; I speak more than just a few languages, and all of them rather comfortably; I have classy, chic outfits that I know something inside me calls “S——- outfits”; and my body is finally showing up to me like I have always wanted it to be…. which is surprisingly (or not surprisingly) similar to the body of the woman who stood before me tonight for the first time in a long time…, my cousin.
If we hadn’t been coming to see her tonight, I’m not sure I would have thought back to childhood with her in mind at all, and I doubt I would have remembered consciously that I had always been inspired by her and that I had wanted to be more like she was…
No, I haven’t become an awesome lawyer like she did, but that hasn’t changed the fact that something inside me keeps considering law school… I wouldn’t put it past being inspired entirely by my childhood love of her…
Anyway…, this has been fun, reminiscing on my childhood dreams for myself, but I’m not sure I did a very good job sharing about it all, so I’ll just leave it and get to sleep.
Goodnight, World… hasta mañana. ❤
Post-a-day 2020
Have you ever had a time where you interact with a person you’ve known for a while, but you leave the interaction seeing the person entirely differently?
And then, have you ever left the interaction ready to cry, because that person just filled every need you had emotionally, but you are ovulating, and so his stellar level of physical fitness and adorably cute persona and face and hair ended up just reminding you of the facts that 1)you don’t have someone to be your someone, and 2)you really want someone to hurry up and be there for you to be your someone?
Okay, so maybe it is more a girl thing than a guy thing, and maybe it is more a me thing than an anyone else thing…, but, as the kids are saying these days, the struggle is real.
I am not attracted to him, though I have always acknowledged his adorableness and his pristinely perfect body – that is, I do not have a romantic attraction to him… I absolutely enjoy his presence and enjoy interacting with him, because he is a great guy, but I am not trying to date him or anything.
Yet tonight, as I struggled to get through what I was doing, he encouraged me so beautifully, and in the quiet, ‘I care about you,’ kind of encouragement, combined with the, ‘I am so proud of you for all you are doing for yourself right now,’ that it just touched me to the core.
Sitting at home later, I suddenly noticed that he was in my mind, and my mind was somewhat sad – I was okay that he wasn’t the someone for me, but his having been so perfectly wonderful with me tonight just re-emphasized the fact that I do not have that someone in my life yet (not in that capacity yet, anyway), and that I so totally want someone who will be like that, so caring and loving and calm and comfortable in his encouragement and help and love for me.
Suddenly, I wonder if I am all wrong in my interests, if something more like this guy is what I really want…, and then I remember that I have always wanted someone who is like this guy in the sense of being how he was tonight with the encouragement…. but that curl to the hair is risky cute.
Not that that’s actually news, though… we’ve known that from the start. 😂
Anyway… perhaps I’ll have lovely dreams that will sort out the remaining emotional stress from this, and I’ll have moved entirely forward by tomorrow when I awaken.
🙂
Post-a-day 2020′
Have you ever had those things in your life that show up out of left field (when you aren’t even playing a field sport), and shock you so terribly that you can’t even seem to find a reaction?
You can see myriad ways that one might react or could react, and yet you can’t actually seem to react, yourself.
…
It’s like someone else’s made-up horribly terribly bad dream… but you can’t seem to find a way for it not to be so that this thing has happened…
…
And then, out of nowhere again, comes the desire to go talk with the person involved, in order to find out what on Earth happened… how did this ever come to be, this horrible, dreadful, awful thing?
Because maybe then you’ll be able to figure out how to react, how to respond to it all… maybe then you’ll be able to process this nightmare-you-never-even-imagined-come-true…
Have you???
As of tonight, I have. 
Post-a-day 2020
hannah ananas 