Tag: friends

Smells of me

It’s funny to me, the things that make me feel so comfortable, so at ease, that it feels like everything is okay and is going to be okay.  Tonight, not for the first time since I have returned to living in Houston, someone told me, “You still smell the same,” and followed up my question about it with, “You still smell like you.”  And this is a comment I’ve had from lots of people over the years.  I have a very distinct smell.  It’s mostly just my deodorant and essential oils and oil blends that I use for various things in my life, but there is something special-feeling about the fact that people associate those smells with me.  It is as though one of my favorite parts of me and my life is something that people not only notice, but usually really like.  And, most of all, they remember it.  That to me is special, and I so love having it happen, it makes me feel whole and complete in the present moment… even though I have no idea what is next for me in life, and even though I’m not too glad or proud of where things stand for me in my life in this moment, people still remember and love me.

Post-a-day 2018

Nonsense that really does make sense

The following is something I actually planned to tell a friend today, but I forgot to tell him.  It was in preparing to tell him, thinking of how the conversation might go, that I realized how odd the whole thing was.  See for yourself below…

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I remembered to check the ingredients of my deodorant, because, when I was sniffing my toilet paper, I saw patchouli incense on the floor.

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How’s that for normal, eh?  Just try to make sense of just about any of that.  😛

Post-a-day 2018

Getting in touch with nature naturally…-ish

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One of my favorite memories from my time in high school is the day where one of my best friends and I spent some time with nature during lunch.  In the front of our school, between two of the branches of buildings that stick out to the parking lot, there is an outdoor passageway/walkway.  It is like a courtyard, but that it only has buildings on three sides of it.  That being the case, it wasn’t exactly an ‘allowed’ place for having lunch.  However, the building on one side of it was brand new, and so no precedent was in place regarding it.  Essentially, I didn’t tell anyone that I went there for lunch, and I kept myself out of eyeshot while out there, whenever I went.

I only went on days when I felt really stranded inside the buildings.  Sometimes the whole artificial box and lighting can really get one down, and that is often the case for me.  Since the school had removed carpets from most hallways, while it was fancier-looking, it felt even more industrial and anti-nature.  So, while I had lunch in the actual courtyard most days, I occasionally snuck out to this walkway, because 1) it was rather isolated from people and buildings, and 2) it was filled with green, green grass (something of which the courtyard had almost none).

On the day of this beloved memory, I had told this friend of my intentions to go be one with nature during lunchtime.  She elected to join me.  And so, as I walked barefoot in the grass as part of my usual routine of grounding myself back to nature on these days, she walked alongside me.  I may even have lay down in the grass, or just sat in it, while she walked around and back and forth in it with the same goal in mind.  However, for whatever reason, while I was barefoot to feel the ground physically, she was getting in touch with nature while in her tennis shoes.

Gosh, I loved that silly lunchtime event, and still treasure it.  😛

Opera Snobs

We went to an opera showcase tonight, and, as we commented on the style of box seats in the hall (or was it when I was listening to the host say something about Mozart?), I recalled the night I first saw “Die Zauberflöte” (“The Magic Flute”).

You see, it was a regular night in my life in Vienna, and I thought it would be nice to go see a show – that was kind of an incredibly easy thing to do while living there.  I arrived to the theatre and purchased my ticket for the show using the fabulous discount that Austria offers to young adults and students, and headed toward the coat check.  At this point, I recognized a friend of mine ahead of me, and called out his name.  Apparently, we had both spontaneously decided to come to the show that night, and, with my having bought my ticket directly after he’d bought his, our seats were together.  It was my first – and possibly only, actually – time in a box seat.  The show was truly spectacular, and it was wonderful having someone to share the experience with me.  When I later relayed the tale to my mom, we were utterly tickled by how crazy the whole thing was, especially with how snobby it could come across.  ‘Oh, yes.  I had spontaneously decided to attend an opera one night, ran into a friend upon arrival, and we enjoyed the wonderful show together from our box seats.’  😛

Post-a-day 2018

from nothing to nuts

Tonight, I am well and good exhausted.  Why is it that plans all happen right around the same time as one another?  For weeks, I grow lonesome in the world, with everyone being unavailable or uninterested in doing anything together, and my having loads of free time.  And then, the one week that I am suddenly booked for work, so many things happen, and people reach out wanting to do things.  Of course, I want to go do those things with those people, and so, even though I don’t do them all, the ones I do do are totally exhausting after the already booked work schedule of the week.

Crazy.

Also, I love this scene from “Clueless”, a movie based on Emma, a novel by Jane Austen.  We talked about it tonight while having more cobbler and ice cream back at the house, after midnight, and after we’d already gone to a play-plex to be semi-children for the celebration of our birthdays.

Post-a-day 2018

When we are down

‘Why couldn’t you just let me be happy?’  I believe that is the question she asks her friend Betty, who has recently been incredibly harsh, before walking off, leaving Betty sitting speechless and alone on the steps (“Mona Lisa Smile”).  At the time, Betty was in a marriage she had just begun – with incredibly high hopes and expectations – , but that was falling to extreme pieces.  Her husband clearly did not love her, and was rather uninterested in her in general, but she didn’t know what to do.  All she could do was continue her school work, and unintentionally let out her suppressed panic in the form of nastiness toward her friends.

As I thought more and more tonight about this little scenario that is within the film “Mona Lisa Smile”, I began to relate it directly to my own life.  Betty couldn’t let her friend Connie be happy, because Betty was so miserable.  How could she help herself against being bitter and angry that Connie’s love life was blooming, when her own – one she had until very recently believed to be perfect – was falling apart?  It made perfect sense to me.  And so I wondered where I have done that in my own life (or at least wanted to do it).

Talking with a friend the other night, she was sharing how much she had loved her Japan job.  It made me want to be angry, because I was miserable in my job in Japan.  What does one have to do with the other?! I found myself asking… myself.  So what if she enjoyed her job?  That’s a wonderful thing!  And yet the desire persisted every so gently, to the point where I still have to let it go over and over again (though it is much easier than it was at first).  This is the same as Betty Warren’s problem, really.  I was unhappy, so it was almost wrong of someone else to be happy in that comparable situation.  (I’m not saying this as fact, of course, but as the feeling behind it all for myself.)

When I have been making not-very-much money in recent years, I grow annoyed at the former classmates who are buying their wonderful, large houses.  Not having a significant other (or anything similar, beyond a (married) best friend across the ocean), I sometimes feel sick when I see yet another engagement announced on Facebook by people in my age group.  And the list goes on for all sorts of things… wonderful pets, trips to beautiful or cool places, exercise…

While my initial responses were similar to pure anger and jealousy (as if their getting a house or getting married has any deprivation effects on my life), upon seeing or hearing about the various happy events in other people’s lives, they have developed to a calmed state of slight discomfort and longing instead.  (It just felt wrong to be angry at such things, so I made a genuine effort to look at what was behind it all for me, and to manage a healthy response for myself, as well as for the people who are celebrating – I don’t want to be sending them angry vibes, ya know?)  😛  But that changes nothing from the Betty Warren within me – it still takes an effort to allow others to be happy in a situation in which I am not happy.  Granted, my responses are much improved and I do not shed bitterness and nasty comments the way she did.  However, the discomfort still remains for the situations.

I don’t know what I wanted to say about this all – I think I just wanted to say that.  That I can relate very easily to poor Betty Warren and her inability to let her friend be happy  in an area of life where she, herself, was so unhappy (despite what likely was a genuine love for her friend and desire for her friend to be happy in life).  We do that in our own lives quite often, it feels.  From the greatest to the smallest of things, when we are unhappy with a specific aspect of our own lives, we struggle to see others be happy in that same aspect of their lives.  I don’t want to give out a solution to this behavior – I just want us to notice that we have it, really.  Simply noticing it, bringing awareness to it, makes more of a difference than we could imagine, anyway.  Betty seemed utterly shocked when Connie accused her with the question.  To that point, even if she had realized what she was doing, it is likely that she was unable to admit it to herself…

Yeah… I want to look even more into the smallest nooks and crannies of my life to see where else I have been in this rut-based hatred/anger in the past.  I want to let all of that go.  And I want to be free of it all for the future, and to be able to wish others well with ease, no matter my own current situation.

Post-a-day 2018

Floor Hockey Rockstars

I had forgotten until recently that I used to play street hockey with one of my brothers.  We just would rollerblade together and pass the ball or puck to each other, or practice rollerblading with the sticks as fast as we could and then with the sticks and ball/puck.  It was fun.  And, you see, I remembered this, because I was trying to figure out how I had been so good at floor hockey in gym class in ninth grade, even though I had never done it in school before then.  And I thought of that memory, because I saw at the YMCA the other girl in that freshman gym/health class who was really good at floor hockey (and definitely more intense about it than anyone else), which had been our first sport of the school year.  Her name is Kristina.  It was really good having someone else in that class who enjoyed sports for the sport of them, and who was naturally good at most sports, and who didn’t get an attitude about any of it.  We didn’t really become friends outside of that class, but she’s always held a little sweet space in my heart and memory because of our initial floor hockey awesomeness bond.  😛

Post-a-day 2018

Frosty Fun

Tonight, we watched hockey.  It was grand.  It was terribly cold.  We danced around for a while to warm up, and then chatted while we watched the scrimmage.  We cheered on a Canadian.  (He’s my friend’s husband.)  I kept wanting to holler out cheers for the Ducks. I guess that’s because it’s the only team I know anymore.  😛  Thank you, Japan, for that piece of knowledge.  You see, a California-Canadian friend I met in Japan loves the Ducks and always talks about them when it’s hockey season.  I looked them up to verify that they were actually the Ducks, because the bar that same friend frequented was called The Duck, and I was worried that I might have somehow mixed the two.  But I was correct.  The Anaheim Ducks are a real hockey team, and they’re based in California.  Fun fact about them: Apparently The Walt Disney Company founded them, just after having made the “Mighty Ducks” film, and it originally called the actual team the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim.  Cool, huh?

Anyway, hockey was fun tonight.  I really enjoyed the frigid adventure (especially since the weather has been heating up so much this week!).

Post-a-day 2018