eighth iteration

I don't pay much attention to the passing of time any longer... for whatever reason.  It comes and goes, ebbs and flows, sometimes flies and at others drags.  This last year I've just had my nose down, doing my thing, ignoring it.  I used to feel the incessant need to constantly keep the world updated with monthly updates and mundane thoughts scattered in between.  As I got older, those types of blogs seemed to melt into the horizon, only to be replaced by stories with much more meaning and heart.  A break up.  The healing.  A return to traditions, etc.

After the New Year turned over I shifted my focus inward and stopped worrying about keeping the world abreast of my situation.  Aside from what I felt was a necessary update on the one year anniversary of my breakup, I stuck to this new mantra and kept to myself.  Sometimes to my detriment, sure, but for the most part to great success.  Admittedly (and before I knew it), autumn descended on Minneapolis; the sun went away, replaced by rainy days and cloudy skies, leaves turned amber and now yellow as they wash down the streets.  And a so familiar yet so comforting cold starts seeping in through the walls.

I read a book this summer by Emma Cline called "The Girls," and I'd taken a picture of a passage that really resounded with me.  In regards to time, she wrote "it was a gift.  What did I do with it?  Life didn't accumulate as I'd once imagined.  I graduated from boarding school, two years of college.  Persisted through the blank decade in Los Angeles.  I buried first my mother, then my father.  His hair gone wispy as a child's.  I paid bills and bought groceries and got my eyes checked while the days crumbled away like debris from a cliff face.  Life a continuous backing away from the edge."

So without further adieu, may I present...

THE SEVEN YEAR ANNIVERSARY FOR

MUSINGS OF A

SELF-PROCLAIMED AUTHOR

Seven years ago when I started this blog seems like it was a world apart from me as I am now.  I'd been prone to writing pieces that were just... bleh.  Frustrated in one because I couldn't find inspiration, lamenting my inability in another to tell Jeff Kivi that I had a crush on him (ruh-oh, the truth comes out!), and whining because I couldn't turn my mind off at night.  Then it turned to writing about a great date, subsequently a failed relationship, and then I kicked off what this blog would truly be with the mission of 26 Golden Things.

Parallels could be drawn between then and now... there was a lot of heartbreak between the words, bits of raw honesty that I was so afraid to put to paper back then.  I grew more comfortable sharing that over the years, and I only say comfortable in the sense that I was more and more honest about it and how things affected me.  Cutting through the baloney and not hiding behind the "I'm okay!" attitude I once did.  I almost revel in that honesty now.  There's nothing to be lost from honesty, only gained, and I ride that bike quite well.  So far removed from friends and family back home, one starts to feel removed from an old life in general.  And that removal makes me increasingly feel that I've got nothing to hide.  It's liberating and scary at the same time.

Last year I wrote that my goal during the seventh iteration of my blog (i.e. life) was to get back to being simply happy.  I think I've succeeded in that quest, maybe not in the way I'd have thought or even hoped, but life gets in the way sometimes.  For the most part I am happy though, and I'll take that.  Mission accomplished!

Everyone has a chapter in life they don't want to read aloud, and maybe this last year became mine.  It wasn't for fear of not wanting to broadcast anything, I just had nothing to say as I tried to figure out my situation.  I was so focused on myself, so turned inward, that the thought of writing it all down was lost on me.  I look at my house and everything I've done in the four short months since I purchased it and I'm astounded.  I'm also annoyed, because I didn't take nearly as many progress pictures as I should have, but I digress.  Life is what happens when you're not looking, and only in hindsight do I see what happened this year.

Keeping my head down wasn't necessarily a bad thing, as it allowed me to get to where I wanted to be on the house.  I've painted every single wall and ceiling in the place (leaving a lot of baseboards to paint over the winter), replaced every light fixture, outlet and cover.  Keeping my head down allowed me to finish writing the first draft of my fourth novel (and grand finale of The Onyxus Chronicles), something I did not anticipate happening but there it was.  You see, focusing inward and on myself meant that I started doing the things I always loved doing.

Creating.

I had the time of my life this summer turning my house around.  Some people marvelled at the workhorse I became, how much time and energy I put into my projects, but I loved it.  I loved slapping that black paint on the living room walls and tearing out the kitchen ceiling and running that roller of flat white paint over the final stretch of ivory high-gloss on the ceiling.  I got to play with the things I've accumulated over the years, shifting my taste in decor from amateur to higher end.  And as far as the book goes, finally writing the conclusion to a story I started 18 years earlier?  Heartbreaking and astounding and exhilarating.  I felt like I had found my voice again, and that I was more than just the sum of my parts and what happened to me in the past.  I got back to me and what drove me.

That quote from "The Girls" resounded with me because... for me at least... it draws up so many images of regret.  That I'm wasting my time, or that I'm just keeping my nose down too much.  It conjures the fear that eventually I'm going to look up and it won't just be autumn, but that it'll be autumn and I'll be 50 years old and wondering why I never made the changes to my life I thought so much about.  Those changes range from ridiculous to simple, from quitting my job and selling everything and moving to another country to just exist and see how it goes... to just making more of a plan on finances and how to proceed more cautiously, planning for the future and what the responsibility of doing so means.

I'm not sure what I want from the eighth iteration of this blog, but what I do know is that I want to use it more.  I took the time I needed to get back to a center I had lost sight of, and that's great.  Which direction do I want to move in now?  I think the jury is still out on me and what my plans in life are, so in the next year I'd like to decide on my future.  That's a big statement, pill, glass of water, whatever you want to call it.  But I think a lofty goal is sometimes the best kind of goal, and I'm happy to apply myself to it.

For the music portion this time, I'm sharing "Loverboy" by Ryan Amador.  Not necessarily for a specific lyric as I have in the past but because of how it makes me feel.  It draws that nostalgia of love inside of me, for whatever purpose, and it makes me feel content.  There's nothing wrong with a little contentment.

So thank you for sticking with me for seven years of these blogs, I hope they continue to get better and evolve right along with me.  Maybe soon I'll post a progress blog on the house, but not too soon because that'll make me rush even more to get it done.  I think I've earned a small break.

Ciao for now (c;

a full year stronger

You don't hear from me much anymore.  I had a little sprint going on for a while, partly because I had stuff to say and no one to say it to, and then I posted a New Year's blog and disappeared into the void.  Started a couple blogs and just had to put them on the back burner, as there really wasn't much to say.  Or if I was saying something, it sounded stupid.  But today I am back because it is the one year anniversary of something.  I think saying I "love" anniversaries would be overselling it; I appreciate anniversaries, that's more in line with reality.  They are wonderful reminders of all sorts of things, good and bad, and can show you where you were and how sometimes it is in sharp contrast to where you are.  I fall into the latter category right now.

A year ago today, I was shaken awake at 1am.  The bait I'd set to catch my fiance in a lie... the bait I'd gone to sleep "letting go of" because I trusted how easily he responded to it... well, it had actually worked.  And in 8 words from his mouth, words that only came from fear of being caught, my world was thrust backward so sharply and so suddenly that it still surprises me how *calm* I had been at the time.  I didn't go Angela Basset in Waiting to Exhale, I didn't go Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction.  If anything I went Sandra Bullock in Hope Floats and just... existed.  Not necessarily angry, not content by any means, but mostly just overwhelmingly sad.  Another failed relationship.

You can only look back and see things in this sort of light, I know that.  In the moment I think I may have portrayed calmness but really I was dying inside and my mind was on this hell-bent journey into madness.  How can I keep him?  How can I push him away?  How can I afford my life?  What will I do with no one in my life out here?

How will I do this on my own?

I reassured myself that I'd done it before and I could do it again.  After-all, I'd been through a horrible break up before and made it out the other side.  Maybe that was because of the Golden Year?  Maybe it was because I had my network of friends and family with me all the time?  So, blindly, I trusted myself that "it'll get better, just keep moving forward."

A week later I was promoted to the General Manager position at Pottery Barn.

Two months later I kicked Derek out.

A week after that I started seeing my therapist, Kelsey, every Wednesday from 9am-10am.  There were tears, there was laughter, and after some digging there was more than enough heartache to last a lifetime.

The holidays came, more pain came, I sucked it up and kept going.

It had to get better.

Thanksgiving had me absorbed in work, Christmas was bittersweet, turned 32 and got super sick.  Heat went out at the house, problems persisted in my life, and started New Year's Day finding out the house I was renting would be going on the market in a few months.

For the first time since the breakup, contemplated moving home to Wisconsin.  Leaving it all here, leaving my job I'd fought to get for five years, leaving the past here, and crawling back to familiarity to lick my wounds.

Decided not to give up.

Started looking for a house to buy.  Took it as an omen that my realtor was named Kieren, seeing as the villain in my books is Kieran, and I always like the villain better anyway.  At least they're committed.

Looked at 36 houses over the new several months.  Made offers on five; three of them $30,000 above the asking, still lost out on them.  Heart broke a little more each time.  Finally looked at a sketchy house with CRAZY colors that a couple lesbians owned.  The house made me feel something the others hadn't... some sort of weird charm.  Offered the asking price on lucky #37 and it was accepted.

More stress came. Therapy had dropped to every other week.  Reconnected with Derek at the end of April, made amends.  Suffered through May and waiting to close on the house.  Life spiraled out of control, my paranoia took over, I was edgy and nervous and frustrated and tired.

Signed for the house, and then... it was better.

I moved in and just felt the shift.  Going through everything last year with the unstable ground of housing is no bueno.  Something as basic yet essential as your shelter should be concrete under your feet, not this weird liquidated mess of moving boulders and swampy trenches, but that's what I had.  Timelines.  Or timelimits, rather.

I think a lot of what I went through, at least the emotional aspect of it, could have been solved quicker if I'd just moved out of that house we had shared together as soon as I could.  Maybe that's the role I just get stuck playing, "the one who stays behind"?  As had happened six years earlier, Derek moved out and I had to stay to finish the lease.  To be fair I forced him to move out but if the ends justify the means then it is what it is.  Staying contained to the walls of a place that was once full of so much promise might seem like a good idea in the beginning, but really it's the worst thing you can do.  You're locked in and stuck reliving the past like some broken film reel that keeps spinning and spinning, over and over.  How can you ever expect to move on when there are daily reminders to the person with a freakishly strong memory of what had transpired in the house?  We laughed over there, we watched movies right here, lay on the floor right there, made love over there.

They are the haunting images of a past life that don't die away, even if the person you lived it with is no longer there.  And that's hard.

That's the toughest pill to swallow.

So now here I am, a full year later.  I spent the last twelve months sort of counting down to this day, holding on to the hope of "you'll be fine when it hits one year," and I think am.  There are still moments that catch me off guard, but they are few.  And that's okay.

I'll have my next (and last) therapy appointment at the end of the month, and from there I guess it's time to just suck it up and get going.  I have house projects to work on now.  I have a kitchen to finish remodeling, and a dining room to put back together, and then a million and one other things after that.  Money comes into play, which means more time comes into play, but it'll get there.  I'm not the same person I was a year ago, though diving into what that means is saved for another time.  I hope I never stop changing.  Never stop appreciating the little things, no matter how much the big things hurt me.  You can look at the little things as just drops in the ocean.

But what is an ocean, but a multitude of drops?

a new resolution part vii

This was... a year.  "It was a year," that's enough of a statement on its own, isn't it?  I don't want to say "worst year ever," because that potentially takes the title away from something later down the line.  I don't want to say "nothing worse could have happened this year," because plenty of things could have.  Someone could've died, I could've gotten incurably sick... lots could have been worse.  So, 2017 was a year.  One I never want to repeat, one I never want to look at again, and one I'm glad to see disappear through the windows that are currently covering themselves entirely in frost inside my frigid house.

Illness in your family is hard.  Break-ups are hard.  Promotions at work can certainly be hard.  Living on your own and a bit beyond your means is hard.  Not having your family and friends nearby is hard.  Losing weight is hard.  Being optimistic is hard.  Being sick is hard.  Going to therapy is hard.  All of this wrapped-up but not contained solely to a single year?  That's hard too.

You know what isn't hard?  Looking forward.

It isn't hard to see the possibilities that lay in the realm of things getting better.  When things don't go your way (as this year largely did not go my way), it's easy to see what they would be if they were good.  Mostly because when you're in the moment, you know something is bad because it isn't good.  Parent is sick?  It'd be great if they weren't.  Get cheated on?  It'd be great if the next guy didn't do that.  Get super sick and still can't seem to shake it after three weeks?  Oh wait, that one's current.  DOesn't change how I can still picture in my mind what I'll do when I'm NOT sick anymore.

Namely have nice hair again and not worry about coughing anything gross onto my clothes.  You're welcome.

It was easy for me to get pissed at life this year.  About anything, really, and at anytime.  The two aren't mutually exclusive.  Last night it was about being pissed when I came home to find the heat was out in my house.  Normally 68 degrees, it was a crisp 51 (and would proceed to drop another 8 degrees, which may not seem like a big deal but try sitting in a 43 degree house while sick and tell me you're comfortable).  I bitched and moaned for a while then tried messing with the furnace before deciding it was no use and calling my landlord.  Continued to bitch and moan until I was sitting motionless on the couch three hours later and hitting my mental wall.  It was nine o'clock and I figured the heating guys most likely weren't coming (they weren't, ps), so I needed to work the problem.  Pull a Matt Damon in The Martian and figure it out.

So I turned on the oven, made myself some food, finally stopped shaking from the cold and warmed up a bit.  I worked a solution to the immediate problem.  Temporary, yes, but I figured it out.  In a way I've been working my problems this whole last year.  I was slapped in the face with some, and others I just happened upon randomly.  For each one I had to stop and think and figure it out.  This didn't always happen quickly, and for some of them I'm still working on it.  But I did get pretty good at solving the problems in my life and I think it's okay to admit that.  You can only look BACK and say so, which I realize now.  In the moment you (I) kinda wag your hands and pant because you're in full-on panic mode and nothing makes much sense.

I'm approaching this New Years resolution a little different because I'm taking cues from the past as I do so.  Don't go rolling your eyes, you'll probably appreciate where this is going. 

When Ken and I broke up in the early/mid part of 2011, my life was in shambles.  I was in a weird stasis, doing the things I knew I should be doing (work, friends, family) but not doing anything else.  I had to do what made sense because it kept me moving forward.  When the year ended (and I still felt that way), I did something to change it.  This was when 26 Golden Things came to life and subsequently, 2012 became the greatest year of my life.  It was a year spent focusing on me, and solely me.  Sure, I had my friends and family come along for the ride, but it was about understanding who I was as a person and growing from what I was and into who I wanted to be. 

At the start of 2013

Why can't right now be the same?  Not in terms of recreating the movie project, or really any all-encompassing project for that matter.  What I mean is that I need to turn the focus onto me again.  I spent the majority of 2017 "working the problem," assessing the damages and proceeding accordingly.  Derek and I broke up right in the middle of the year, so timeline wise, it was about the same as Ken.  At this point in the game there isn't too much left to assess, as all the chips have fallen where they either should have or just decided to roll to, and I'm content with it.  But I'm not content with continuing to lay motionless.

George Michael sang "now I'm gonna get myself happy" in Freedom '90, and the words never resonated with me until recently.  I watched a lyric video and listened and read and nodded my head a lot, because I never got what he was saying.  The Cliff's Notes version being that he did everything for everyone else because it was what he was "supposed" to do, and now he wanted to do things for himself.  Simple as pie.

2018 is starting with a supermoon, not that it means anything, but it's special.  And if you follow horoscopes (as I casually do), then I'll let ya know Saturn entered Capricorn on December 19th, which is one of its home signs.  Now this comes across as mumbo-jumbo to some people, and even for me I only take what I want from horoscopes and all that, but the gist is this: since I'm a Capricorn, now's my time.  To shine, to excel, to maybe knock-over a convenience store and make away with like $200 bucks and some soda.  Either way, the cards are stacked in my deck.

At the start of 2018

I wanted to recreate that picture because it showed me after a period of great change in my life.  It was the person I turned into after a year of hard work and perseverance and struggle.  I don't necessarily want to get back to that version of myself, but I want to continue learning where he stopped and became complacent.

My resolution for 2018 is to further myself in every way I can.  I don't want to list examples because while I love a self-fulfilling prophecy, I feel if I list something I'm limiting myself.  And for this year, I don't want limits.  I want to run and jump and climb trees (not really) and get back to me.  Find myself again, find what drives my passion and my curiosity, find what makes me laugh and why it makes me laugh.  I want to find the love and the joy that I know I have inside of me, and I want to scream it from the rooftops like I used to.  Centered, content, and ready for anything at a moment's notice.  That's the Sean Parker I once was, it's the one I want to be, and it's the one I can be once more.

Life will get better.  And you can ask "why?" but the answer it simple and finite.

Because it has to.