substance

A long-lost friend out of the great state of Missouri made a request for more posts of my thoughts, things I'm passionate about, and the stuff that lights me up. [Posts of substance are what I heard him ask for. As if the latest trekkie news or the cutest thing my kitties just did aren’t substantial enough?!? heh! ;)]

I'm not sure if my unemployed brain still knows how to be substantial, but I told him I'd give it my best shot. So this is for you D.T.S. (BTW - hope you're feeling much improved today and your French kids bring you a polished apple from Yakima!)

Well, here I am again. It's 2:00am and I still can't fall asleep at a decent hour...for the umpteenth night in a row. I do enjoy this time best of all, though. It's so quiet. Everyone is asleep, including my rambunctious kitties.

What do I do at all hours of the morning? I listen to myself think, while tapping my toes to my favorite country songs and fiddling with my many art projects I start but don't finish (that's another post - some are so secret I can't mention them on here yet.......S.M.!).

What do I think about? All kinds of things. Lately it's been pondering my move. Playing through all the different psychosocioeconomic impacts the experience has had on my life and others. Pondering "did I make the right decision to move down there? am I making the right decision to move back here, as opposed to staying down there or moving somewhere else? what's the best decision?" Each question seems to bring up 10 more questions all their own, with 10 additional off-shoots, and before I know it I'm 100 steps down a mental path I can't even remember how I started. I've had to set aside my artsy stuff in favour of journaling lately, just to try to keep my thoughts straight.

If nothing else, it's helpful that this move - to wherever I end up - feels like definite closure to at least one chapter in my book. I love closure. Especially clean-cut closure. So that's a really good feeling right now. But I'm realizing after having been Home for a while that there were a couple chapters back before SoCal that I had thought I'd left open. I guess somehow I thought I could just jump back in and wrap them up once I came back Home - whenever that would be - knowing I wouldn't be gone forever and always. It's a very odd sensation to come back and realize some chapters do, in fact, close themselves, though - whether I pen a seemingly satisfactory ending or not.

Life moves on, with or without. I knew this, of course. We all do. We've all experienced it one way or another. But it's the finding of my place again (even among longtime dear friends in a town I grew up in, yet sometimes don't recognize anymore) that's been a big challenge for me...yet again. So much of life is a sine wave, and I left while we were all at a high point, with part of me secretly hoping I could always come Home and scamper back up that mountain we were all on a year ago and life would be the same amazing high it once was: familiar, comfortable, stable, known, and full of adventure and living with gusto. I want it back! All those memories and the friendships that grew despite distance - they gave me sanity for a year in California! I built dreams in the face of time around these things.

[Don't roll your eyes. Yes, so what...I'm a hopeless sentimental idealist. Everybody needs one in their life. lol]

But coming back I see time has moved forward, as it always does. All prior chapters are closed, whether I like it or not. And this new one? Well, it begins in a valley…not on a mountain. Some folks have left the scene, some will be leaving soon, some have returned, and some - thankfully - are still around in all the familiar places. The old life is there in some form, I suppose. But it's definitely not the same life I pictured coming home to.

Having been through a few valleys before, though, I've learned the value of walking through them hand-in-hand with those dearest to you. When the waves turn again - as they ALWAYS do - the mountain tops are that much sweeter for the experience of having gone through it together. I'm so thankful to be near so many of my dear ones again, especially after being away for so long.

At the heart of all this, though - this, trying to find my place again - has been a surprising set of nagging questions I thought I had figured out answers to years ago: what's the purpose of my life? what do I feel most accomplished doing? why am I under these stars? what am I MADE for?

So, why not blog about my soul I guess. After all, the goal of this post is to provide you with the latest of my substance, right?

I feel as though I've had all the things, dreams, and people I've built my life around torn away from me, one by one, this past year...and what's left of me and my life feels very exposed and utterly raw right now. To summarize… All my favorite, precious, and to some degree necessary objects (my bed, sofa, cooking equipment, clothes, just to name a few) have been in storage. I slept on the floor for a year without so much as chairs for company to sit on or a TV to watch – sacrificing for the day I was promised I would get called to the next big thing in Texas. But that all went sideways with the economy. My health tanked. I’ve managed to not catch a bug for a month now, which is a record for me since August. My back still kills me most days and I’m the curviest I’ve ever been in my life (which is kinda fun for the cleavage - as long as I’m being honest – but good heavens I want to fit my old clothes again and feel healthier). My plans for my future seem to be vaporizing like rain off a SoCal sidewalk the more time passes. I pictured being married with kids by now, but somehow it seems my biological clock has stopped ticking...or slowed so much I can barely tell it's still there. And guy prospects?? Let me know if you know of any interested in an unemployed gal. lol But seriously - not necessarily a good time to date if I'm asking the questions I'm re-asking myself. So, my last honest intake survey of my life? Yeah, it wasn’t great. I think you get the picture, so we really don’t need to go into more detail there…at least not here.

Which all brings me back to what we’re talking about anyway: a new chapter. Valleys are valleys because there are mountains. And mountains wouldn’t be mountains without the valleys. I’m reserving major decisions about all these things until I start feeling the earth climb under me a bit. The chapter has only just begun anyway. Who knows how the rest of it will read at this point…let alone the rest of the book.

Until then – and to answer your question from earlier D.T.S. - I’m doing alright. Sleepless in Yakima, but doing fine, all things considered. Your prayers are always welcome. :)


"Life Ain't Always Beautiful"
Gary Allen

Life ain’t always beautiful
Sometimes it's just plain hard
Life can knock you down, it can break your heart

Life ain’t always beautiful
You think you're on your way
And it's just a dead end road at the end of the day

But the struggles make you stronger
And the changes make you wise
And happiness has its own way of takin’ it's sweet time

No, life ain’t always beautiful
Tears will fall sometimes
Life ain’t always beautiful
But it's a beautiful ride

Life ain’t always beautiful
Some days I miss your smile
I get tired of walkin’ all these lonely miles

And I wish for just one minute
I could see your pretty face
Guess I can dream, but life don’t work that way

But the struggles make me stronger
And the changes make me wise
And happiness has its own way of takin’ it's sweet time

No, life ain’t always beautiful
But I know I'll be fine
Hey, life ain’t always beautiful
But it's a beautiful ride
What a beautiful ride