In the closet

Ok so I know last week I said that was my last post but I ended up having to stay here for this one last week.I wasn't even going to post agian but I am sitting the closet eating a hot pocket in my Sponge Bob pajamas and it dawned on me that this is most definitely an adventure.

So I am wondering why, when I moved into this 1,000 year old building, they didn't inform me about things like, I don't know, emergency evacuation. The sirens are going off telling me that there is a tornado warning (I am terrified of Tornados, did I mention that?) and the only viable options for shelter are my closet or I can risk going into the basement of this building where there are stray Ferrell cats, kudzu growing out of the window and probably snakes or rats. Plus there are probably the lost souls of graduate students who never finished their thesis wandering around mumbling things like "Empirical data" and "The research states...".

Every time the air conditioning comes on or a train goes by I have a mini-stroke.It's times like these you think you could use a drink but, I don't drink. All I have is this non-alcoholic sangria. I already drank all of it and no significant effect was found. Ken Cook is causing me to panic and Im wondering if I should take anything into the closet with me. I grabbed my laptop and cell phone but I left my thesis notes out, hopeful that if anything goes down, that will be the first to go.

I am really thirsty and debating if I can go to the fridge and get water and make it back ok. I don't want to risk it all for water. It's like that time I went camping (legally) and we almost ran off the road when we were trying to find the guys who had all of the lunch meat in the back of their car. My best friend gasps and says "I don't want to die for lunch meat!" Profound.

There is no way I can go to sleep until all of this abates. I guess I'll hang in the closet and watch 16 and pregnant until it passes. This is most definitely my LAST night here as I will be handing in my key tomorrow. Kind of glad my last night wasn't last week's slipping into a medication induced sleep ( I was probably drooling) at 10pm but not thrilled I'm spending the last night in a closet.

Alas.

Goodbye

I woke up early this morning (early for me that is) wondering if the thunderstorms from last night were real or if I dreamed them, hmm maybe I just heard them on TV.

So last night was my last night staying here. I was going to say it's a bittersweet good-bye but not really. It will be nice to spend EVERY night at home in my own bed. I already know the transition back to "normal" is going to take a little while getting used to. I'm already finding it difficult to accept there is nothing due the next week and if I am just sitting having a quiet moment I get anxiety thinking I should be working on something. Must learn to calm down.

If leaving this apartment isn't bitter-sweet, leaving graduate school is. For the first time since I started school way back in Kindergarten, I am going to be DONE with school. Done. At 25 years old. School is kind of like this never-never land where you just sort of hang on to your young adulthood because you haven't yet begun your "grown-up" job. I reflect on peter pan saying "I want always to be a little boy and have fun."

In a way, I want to always stay in school and have my job be only learning. But, that's not reality. It's time to let go of these days of my youth and embrace the on-rushing adulthood.

I am going to miss some things about graduate school.As hard as it has been, I have thoroughly enjoyed it. I will miss my friends and teaching and learning. I won't miss the deadlines or the inane requirements or the stress (Gaa the stress).

And my blog, I will miss that too. I may revive it should there be a night alone in the future.

For now, my last night in this apartment was anti-climatic. Having the flu lends itself only to the adventures induced by large doses of nyquil. (Those can be fun!). I'd like to say something fun and amazing happened last night but, alas, I fell asleep watching re-runs of home improvement.

Thanks to being sick I never enacted my plan of practicing my Spanish late at night by driving around to all the drive-through Mexican restaurants in town. Anyway, since I left my debit card at home that wouldn't have worked out because then I would have had to order and drive off.  There would have been a rash of order and drive offs alerting the Mexican restaurant community to some new form of criminal. Eventually they would have found me out and I would have been black listed from Mexican food forever.

It's not worth the risk.

So for now, fare well. These nights alone have been a nice, small adventure.


But, "To live will be an awfully big adventure."

L'Chaim!

Coping Alone

Being a women, am I mostly a social person. If I have an issue, I want to "Talk it out." When I am at home that's exactly what I do. But when I am left alone to my own devices, I have to find creative ways of dealing with the storm of emotions I am faced with.

Typically on Thursdays I rush home to be with my husband but, he is in New York. I didn't realize how stressed, nervous, annoyed, overwhelmed and at-the-edge-of-my-emotional-stability I was until I got home.

HOME *sigh*. I love home. For some reason when I got home today all the keep-it-togetherness got left in the garage and by the time I made it up to my room I just wanted to burst into tears. Because, let's face it, graduate school for counselors is the true test of your mental and emotional health. A person would have to start off in a high state of emotional and mental stability to be able to sink to the depths that me and all my fellow sufferers have sunk to.

So anyway when I'm feeling all "rumpled in my mind" the last thing I want to do is call someone sobbing and say "I'm just overwhelmed because the biggest presentation of my life is Tuesday and my whole life is riding on it and my chair is telling me to remain calm which is just silly and i still have 8million other things to do on top of that and when will i sleep and why did i sign up to do this training tomorrow as if i have time (inhaaaaallleeee) and what if i dont pass and i need pass to get my degree to take my test to be licensed andddddddddddd...." Nobody WANTS to hear that. I don't want to hear it and it's in my own head.

So I set up netflix on my laptop to watch "The Cosby Show", I got on my PJ's (at 6pm), crawled into bed and I ate cookies and milk and laughed at Theo and his antics. I learned a new song on the guitar, I practiced an old song on the piano, I entered a poetry contest and now, I'm writing this. When I'm done, I'll take a nap and then I will awake to face the responsibilities yet to be fulfilled.

For me, life right now is more coping than living. But in just a few, short weeks the burden will be lifted. Thesis will be a thing of the past. I'll forget about graduate school. I'll learn to live again!

L'chiam!!

The art of the sandwhich

 "It is said that without the culinary arts, the crudeness of reality would be unbearable."- Leopold, from Kate and Leopold

I typically relate things that occur AFTER the sun goes down but today, my time alone most interesting  was this afternoon.

I needed some food to carry me through the end of the semester when these "adventures" will end. Publix, where shopping is truly a pleasure, was beckoning.

Ok so first I have to point out one of those things that we all see but never comment on. So this man wearing a track suit was walking into Publix carrying some of those big water jugs. Bless his heart, his track suit was just a little too tight and it was obvious the poor thing had a wedgie. My heart really went out to him. I couldn't help but notice and I felt like I needed to tell somone but I could never bring myself to say that to somone in person.
Ok, I've released that. *Exhale* the air is clear.

So, unfortunately, in grad school your health becomes a casualty. You are stressed, you aren't getting enough sleep or exercise and most meals consist of a drive-through window. You don't get to eat that at home though, dining on the go becomes a way of life. I considered this as I walked into Publix. Tired of meals being only fuel of my stressed existence, I considered what non-pre-packaged delight I might indulge in. ( I should mention I had not yet eaten today).

As I entered the store, past the wedgie-man, a lovely scent of fresh-baked yum surrounded me. I made my way to the bakery where trays of lovely were being pulled from the oven. Bread. Lovely, not-a-bun, bread with textures and flavors. I fended off the older ladies hovering over said loveliness long enough to snatch some croissants before they formed an arm-to-cart barricade in front of me.

So I made my way over to the deli, considering my selection carefully. Roast beef and creamy Asiago? No, not today. I have a special gift of knowing, without tasting, how two foods or flavors will go together. I do it from taste-bud memory. That's what comes of NOT eating your dinner one thing at a time. The art of the meal is the harmony of the flavors. I rolled each imagined flavor around in my mouth before settling on spiced roasted chicken and smoked gouda. Lovely. I anticipated the triumph of my sandwich as I made my way back to my car.

It was just a great as I predicted!The spice of the chicken, the creamy smokeyness of the cheese, the flakey buttery-ness of the croissant.  But nothing is more pathetic than eating lovely alone. Thankfully my friend came by and I offered her half of my sandwich. You see, the art of the sandwich is making something so admirable it begs to be shared.  Consider how many times Cliff Huxtable, thinking he was alone, made a world-class hoagie, only to have to share it with his crumb-snatching offspring.

Cooking alone is an adventure (especially for me!) but eating alone is pitiful. What is the point of creating art if no one is around to enjoy it? Sandwhich art (is there another?) was meant to be appreciated.

"All anyone really wants in this life is to sit in peace and eat a sandwich. ..."- Liz Lemon (my hero!)

Country music is fer Cryin'

If there's one thing I love, it's a good cry. This may come as shock because I believe there are people who have known me for years and have never seen me cry.In fact, if you have seen me cry it's probably because I temporarily lost my self control. I believe that crying should be done in the uncontrollable sobbing and bellowing way so I believe that crying should be done in private.

There's nothing like a good, snotty cry. It's very therapeutic. I believe a cry should be fully embraced. You can't just sit down and cry when someone is talking to you or cry at a sad movie, that's for amateurs. When you want a good cry, you must set the stage. Professionals criers, like myself, get ready to have a cry. First, when the urge comes we schedule a time to cry.

"Wow, I'm really upset about that, I think I'll cry about it next Tuesday."

Then we plan where to cry. I prefer a country sunset, the Lake, the parking lot of a church that's closed. I'm normally in my car. Then, because I've probably stuffed the original feelings of hurt or sadness down, I have to dredge them back up. The only good way to dredge them back up is with the proper song.

Yes, every good cry has the appropriate sound track. Sometimes it's about identifying with the words but a lot of times it's the Feel of a song. Give me slow guitar lead and I'm a puddle in two minutes. If there's one genre of music that lends itself to crying its obviously country music. Nothing dredges up the woes of the soul like a southern accent with a sad guitar and fiddle singing about loss, leaving or drunkenness.

The obvious choices: "Tonight I wanna cry", "Tear drops on my guitar" "What hurts the most"
Less obvious but equally effective: "White Horse" "Cold As you" "Dear John" (Taylor Swift Every time!) "Someone else's star"

Of course most of these are the remembrances of my pre-married crying days. So I asked my friend what songs she cries to : "Remember when it rains" "Shiver" and "Lie in the sound" is what she told me.

Whenever I'm alone, I try to get all my cry out. These days, the cry is mostly from stress. Why hasn't anyone wrote a go-to cry song about grad school?
Don't worry, I haven't been sitting alone crying this week but I have been chuckling about the dramatized cries of the past. 

Sitting on a stump by the river at sunset because someone hurt my feelings . Driving to Tennessee on a Saturday morning blaring Rascal Flatts and Avril Lavigne because somebody left me waiting for them again the night before. Hiking alone just to sit on the top of the mountain to cry over the view because that same person did the same thing, again. (Learned my lesson eventually.......). In the closet in the dark because things didn't turn out the way I hoped. (Emotional teen years much?)

One things for sure, in all my teens years and today, country music has never failed to set the stage for a good, long, ugly cry. And when I'm done, I'm done.

At the end of a long, country cry there's only one thing to do.

Bring on the RAP music!

Tell you I'm sorry

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdBym7kv2IM
Lyrics:

"Come up to meet you, tell you I'm sorry
You don't know how lovely you are
I had to find you, tell you I need you
Tell you I set you apart

Tell me your secrets and ask me your questions
Oh, let's go back to the start
Running in circles, coming up tails
Heads on a science apart

Nobody said it was easy
It's such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be this hard
Oh, take me back to the start

I was just guessing at numbers and figures
Pulling the puzzles apart
Questions of science, science and progress
Do not speak as loud as my heart

But tell me you love me, come back and haunt me
Oh and I rush to the start
Running in circles, chasing our tails
Coming back as we are" - Coldplay

The science of human relationships is an imperfect one. Like Coldplay, we are just guessing at the science of making all the relationships in our day to day lives function without having them all crash around us at once (they are the proverbial spinning plates).  As I've mentioned previously (many times) there's buried treasure everywhere! Coldplay's "the scientist" is a song with a deep meaning. It's the letter we want to write to the spinning plate that broke when we dropped it. 

If it isn't already obvious, I'm writing this in lieu of documenting some outlandish happening when I was alone because I haven't been alone too much lately. I'm filling the hours away from home with dinners and spend-the -night and trips to the airport and long phone conversations about nothing. The snatches of alone I've had lately have given me time to reflect on little else than my thesis, stats class, reality TV (you knew that was coming!) and the science of relationships (friendships included! thanks Ravi Zacharias and C.S.Lewis).

So Coldplay had it right. Tell them you think they're wonderful, ask them to come back, tell them its not the same since they've been gone and tell them you're sorry. Sounds right. But all that comes across as the desperate plea of the borderline personality (i.e. Why wont you love me!?!). Ok so maybe we remember to keep the plates spinning by saying all of that before we drop them. Maybe we let the plates fall as they may but not without making every effort to keep them spinning. The complexities of human relationships are a phenomenon studied since the dawn of human existence. Stories,songs, poetry, all meant to narrate and explain the complexities of human interaction.

We all wish that life were as easy as "tell you I'm sorry." I know I'd say it if I thought it would help. Sometimes it does but sometimes we pass the point of I'm sorry. We cross the bridge of no return and burn it behind us. Counselors get the worst of it, our clients walk in with their relationships like ball of knotted yarn and they hand it to us, expecting us to untangle the chaos in 50 minutes when the truth is sometimes we can't untangle our own chaos. "Nobody said it was easy.....no one ever said it would be this hard"

I never invested time in a friendship I didn't care about. I hate wasting time being insincere hence my aversion to small talk. I'd rather sit in the dark then have to talk to someone about the weather (GAAA!!). I truly like so few people when friendships end..... "It's such a shame for us to part"
The few friendships that do end end because "I was just guessing at number and figures, pulling the puzzles apart." We don't always get the answers in time to save things and "You're lovely and I'm sorry" just doesn't seem to cut it and we can't "go back to the start"

When we are alone, we fail to experience the adventure of phileo love. We live in the dream-like state of appreciation love where we can only admire others from afar. But in the company of others, the adventure begins as we seek to keep the plates harmonically spinning.

(Thank you C.S. Lewis for "The Four Loves." )

Never Alone

Spoiler: This probably won't be funny unless unintentionally

Because I hold to the traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs, it would be incongruent  to say that I am the reincarnation of someone who lived years ago. Even more far fetched is that I would be the reincarnation of two fictional book characters who were said to have "lived" at the same time. However, my daily life seems to want to confirm this suspicion with severity. I am a distinct mixture of Anne Shirley who had a propensity for getting into scrapes and Jo March who was awkward, strong willed and always managed to say the wrong thing at the wrong time. (With the best of intentions bless her heart!)

There is hope for me however, I am not yet fully confirmed to barbarianism or anti-socialism. As Louisa May Alcott (my past life if ever I had one) would say, I am a very real girl. Jo March and Anne Shirley turned out ok in the end so I am hopeful!

The thing I love most about being alone is the time I have to reflect on the days "rights" and "wrongs." Where most men are said to live "lives of quiet desperation," I have a distinct knack for living life "Wide Open." In the openness comes the growing. Sometimes we need the alone-ness to grow. When we are constantly surrounded by others, the daily lessons that come get drowned out by the noise around us.

Sometimes though, the "adventure" of alone-ness isn't quite fun. But, you see, I am only playing at being alone and even in the quiet of alone-ness, I am never lonely. I have the luxury of saying "forget this" and going where the home lights are on, my husband opens the door with a perfect hug and my dog is happy to see me. Or I can pick up the phone and call one of many friends who get to see me fully and love me just as fully. So I am never alone, not really. And even when I am by myself, with me always is the friend that Paul says one day we will know fully, even as we are fully known. So I am never alone.

Someone said that the deepest desire of most people IS to be known fully and to be accepted anyway. In that sense, my life is pretty full. 


My favorite scripture is Ecclesiates 3v11 "For he has made everything beautiful in it's time, he has placed eternity in the human heart and even still they can not see fully the scope of what God has planned."


In a big way, it relates to all creation. In a small way, I hope it to be true for me. Life is journey of coming and going, of mistakes and triumphs (C.S. Lewis says sometimes the highest highs come with the lowest lows) and of constant learning. I dearly love to learn (and laugh, so add Elizabeth Bennett to my reincarnation list!).

Adventures of being alone this week:
1. Reflecting on how to grow from the mistakes I made this week and remembering the things I managed to do right as well ( I always celebrate the small things! "Did I brush my teeth? Did I take my pill? Did I hang up my towel? Yes? Go MEEE!!)
2. I felt something on my shoulder  earlier and I scratched it and it was HALF of a small worm ( I had been walking through woods) so the rest of the night will be spent wondering what happened to the other half!!

A good day!