Emotional, late-night blogging

I cannot sleep. So, of course, I'm blogging. My past experience has taught me that writing during the wee hours of the night/morning never really turns out well. But, alas, here I am. I feel like a million words and phrases are running through my head and I don't know what to do with them. Perhaps that's the curse of someone who writes for a job. Sadly though, I don't have anything interesting in my life right now to write about. So now would be the time to close your browser window if you're expecting to read something exciting.

I am working on a freelance project for the company I left about nine months ago. They needed some help and I was feeling up to the task. It is really fun and really stressful. I am sleep deprived and my brain is fried. Please consider this my apology for the phone call I forgot to return, the text I forgot to reply to, and the meeting I accidentally slept through on Sunday. I will be back online mentally in approximately 3-4 weeks. I see dead . . . lines.

I am feeling really grateful lately for good friends. God has blessed me far beyond what I deserve in the friend department. Lately, I have received phone calls, texts, or visits from friends at times when I have needed it most, and they had no idea! I'm grateful for friends who act on the thoughts that pop into their minds. I have benefited greatly from it. Because, you know, life is just hard sometimes. For everyone. Even those of us who like to pretend that we don't have bad days. We do. We just ugly cry ourselves to sleep and wake up the next morning to a breakfast of peanut butter M&Ms. These friends are of all ages and all walks of life, and I love them each dearly. Some are new and some are long-time friends. I love that they have a million other things going on in their lives but still make me feel like a priority. Because really, it doesn't take much. A phone call, a short visit, a thoughtful text, following through with plans, asking about someone because you genuinely care. Everyone needs at least one friend like this. How did I ever get so lucky to have multiple? Yeah, I have some crappy friends, too. I think they're just part of the package deal.

God loves me. And he's taking care of me with the help of my family and friends. I am ridiculously blessed. Anytime I feel frustrated with my ninety year-old body I have to laugh. Everything else in my life is so wonderful that I had to have something for a trial. I'm not trying to be one of those people who blog all about their "perfect" life. I make fun of those people and my life is far from perfect. For instance, I begin sentences with prepositions. Also, I'm not sure whether or not I actually brushed my teeth today.  I have the same everyday problems we all have. I just have a ridiculously wonderful husband, a loving, supportive family, and friends who are answers to my prayers. What more could someone need, right? (Besides some new boots for fall.)

Life lessons . . . Again and again

Adulthood is just a series of life lessons. In my early 20s I learned that life never turns out how you plan. It took me a really long time to learn this lesson, being the planner that I am. But the bigger lesson learned here was that things always work out like the should, and often even better than you'd planned. So I still make plans, but I keep them flexible and *try* to roll with the changes that inevitably come up. I'm a work in progress. But I am getting better at it all the time. I am so grateful for all the things that have happened the way they have up to this point. I am so happy.

I know what my current life lesson is, but I'm also having a hard time learning this one: be grateful for the things that you do have instead of focusing on the things you don't have. I have a body. I am also having a really hard time being grateful for the body I do have. I have a lot of physical limitations. I've always had some, but right now I have more. I have been really lucky up to this point, because even though I have had some limitations, I have still been able to do most of the things I wanted to do. The past eight monts I have been severely limited in what I can do. This is really hard for someone who is used to being as busy and active as I am. I watch a lot of TV now. I used to hate TV. Now I hate that I like it and that I have "shows." I'm crying just thinking about it. I want to go, run, weightlift, do yoga, go, go, go, but I can't. And if I do, I can't walk for the next few days. I want to have babies- lots of them, right now. I can't. I want to hold a crying baby and change poopy diapers. I want to teach a child to read and share my hundreds of books with them. I want my days to have meaning. Instead I keep waiting. And I know that this will all make sense someday, because it always does. That's the beauty of faith. So for now I take it a day at a time and try to enjoy want I can do, while plotting to kidnap other people's children. I can walk. I can do water aerobics with the women over 70. I can do Zumba, which is surprisingly fun. And I can take advantage of all this me time to write a thrilling romance novel about vampires. Maybe I'll write an entire series and someone will turn my series into blockbuster movies. Who knows?

Why is it so hard to be content with what you do have? I'm trying so hard. I even force myself to smile when I feel like crying. It doesn't do much for my face since I'm an ugly crier. I take a mental inventory each day of my many blessings and then I feel so silly for ever feeling sorry for myself . . . Until the next time I feel frustrated with my situation. I feel really silly publicly admitting to this weakness, but I know I'm not the only person who goes through these emotions. Sometimes even knowing that everything will turnout okay doesn't seem to make things immediately better. And the truth is, as soon as you make it through the current trial, there's a new one waiting for you. So maybe I am grateful that I have this trial and not a worse one. And I should be grateful that my Heavenly Father thought highly enough of me to send a trial my way. Maybe I even chose this trial before I came to Earth. Even as I'm typing this I feel a little bit better. So, thank you for taking this journey with me through this sappy post. Here's to being strong enough to handle any trials that come our way!

Where is my mind?

 . . . aaaaaand we're back.

I apparently had a bit of an emotional breakdown/identity crisis yesterday. That might have been apparent in my blog post asking for new friends. I don't know, maybe normal people do that. But I'll tell you what normal people don't do: make plans to move across the country to New York City, a place they've never been. But I found Dan a job, and a job for me at a large publishing company. I was going to start wearing Spanx and eyeliner and cut my hair into a sleek bob. I was ready for the museums, and restaurants, and "culture." I just kept saying "culture." I was there. In my mind, I was there.

But here I am today, wearing sweat pants, one of Dan's T-shirts, a long blonde pony tail, sans bra, and working for an independent publisher struggling to make a place for itself in this digital world. I live near a Target and an In 'n Out Burger. I guess some might call that culture. This isn't "the life," but it's my life. And, after eight hours of sleep last night, I'm happy to be a part of it. Until the next time that I get only a few hours of sleep.

Sleepless in the suburbs,

decem

Well, elephant in the room: I found my Cadbury eggs. Thanks to all of those who supported me and stood by my side through this challenge. I knew we could do it.

I have a lot of unrelated thoughts going through my head tonight.

The first is a facebook group. I don't understand a lot of things behind the technology of how facebook works. Somehow I was added to a group that didn't require my approval. Didn't know you could even do that. It was a group for the 2001 graduates from my high school. Apparently there is a ten-year reunion in the works. As soon as I saw the page I was sick. Is that weird? Actually, don't answer that. As I scrolled down the page and hovered my mouse over the thumbnail images of people in the group, I didn't know who a good third of the people were. My high school was huge. Incidentally, so was my graduating class. Then as I saw faces of familiar people, it threw me back to a different time from which I knew these people. I was a completely different person then. It just seems so strange to me that one would want to go and spend a bunch of time with people they haven't spoken to or seen in over ten years. I'm not a total heartless witch. I'm always glad to run into people I knew from school and catch up when I see them. I still keep in contact with some, I'm facebook friends, and a blog follower of many. But, why dwell on history? We keep in contact with those we wish to and wish well for those we don't keep in contact with. Is it just me that feels this way? Everyone was writing such excited comments on the group's wall. One person even mentioned flying in from Germany to come! High school has come and gone. We were kids. The best part of our lives is happening now, now that we're old enough to make it happen.

Needless to say, I won't be going to my high school reunion. But, I'm sure you figured that out by now.

And all of the other thoughts floating through my head, well, I was going to pass on them because I'm too tired . . . and as I typed this last sentence, I decided I am, in fact, too tired to go on rambling. Plus I figure it might be one of those emotion-filled posts that you end up regretting later. And although you can un-publish it, the post still remains on others' Blogger home pages and GoogleReader. And that's just not a risk I'm willing to take this late at night. I'll give you a teaser though, I hate it when people dislike, de-friend, or blame me for ruining their lives. I'm only human, Harry!