With a Little Bit of Luck…Just Maybe
Have you ever met someone, unconventionally or not, who has made talking to them for hours feel like minutes? I’ve met many a guy, mostly from the online dating world, who could hold a conversation. But the most recent guy is blowing those out of the water. I don’t know where it will lead us yet, it could be one date and then nothing or it could be the rest of my life…but our conversation today was absolutely wonderful. I’m riding a cloud of happiness and I can’t stop smiling. Was the conversation flawless, no…but it was very real. And I love real! I love authentic. It is so important for me to find someone genuine and true to themselves and the world.
Jake* (name changed for privacy) is a great communicator on the phone at least…texting not so much. But he’s got a great, deep sexy voice and his laugh is totally masculine. Our conversation ebbed and flowed well with a few awkward pauses. It’s fun how those awkward pauses can heighten anticipation and make my butterflies more prevalent. We’re meeting Thursday for our first date and I’m really excited. My dating life the past year has been not exactly what I’d hoped of it so I’m ready for someone who can make me feel giddy like a school girl in any way. Even if that way is only a temporary thing.
A little backstory: I dated a guy last year that was an emotional fuckwit (sorry for the cussing-it’s appropriate in this case) who put me off wanting to date for awhile. Just to try to get past the emotional manipulation and shady things he would do. I took some time and focused on myself a bit and got things together some. I also started going to church and doing that was like the final piece of the puzzle in helping me to see the kind of guy I should be open to and the kinds I shouldn’t anymore. So with that in mind a few months ago I started dating again. Just casually…none of them panned out but it was fun to be going on dates and starting to see how I could be the “leading lady in my own life” (The Holiday-movie). Most recently I met a guy, Dan*, who had some things I wasn’t ok with but who was a great person. We didn’t end up working out after a few dates I just knew I wasn’t feeling him the way I should feel if I wanted to be romantically involved with him. So I broke things off and we’ve decided to stay friends. We’ll see if that works but it made me feel more confident to speak up for what I want and for how I am feeling when I’m feeling. I’m going to start trusting myself and my instincts more. Which leads me to Jake.
Jake and I know very little about each other but we spoke on the phone today for over 2 hours and it felt like no time at all. I’m hopeful that he is a real person who can mesh with me and I can mesh with him. I’m realistic that we may or may not work out and only time will tell. But for the first time in a long time I want to ride this excited, hopeful feeling out for as long as I can. I want to believe in possibilities and being open to maybes. I like that he already has a way of making me feel special, thought of, and even desired. Maybe it is something that these online meetings are hit and miss. But maybe it’s more likely that many people have flaws and they just hide it better. I’m starting to think more and more that I would rather know things up front than waiting to find out about them months later.
There are many things we have in common with our backgrounds also which seems to be making our connection feel a little more kismet. I’m just hoping in person that we have a spark. I’m getting a little tired of meeting a guy and either feeling chemistry for him but he not for me or vice a versa. Just once I want both of us to be on the same page in the “spark” arena at least. So like I said I’m excited about our first date and getting to know someone who does genuinely seem to want to get to know a person, wants a long term relationship, and is willing to take the time and effort to put into it. Not just wanting to jump straight into my pants.
I’m starting to think that with a little bit of luck…just maybe I might find someone to join for the journey.
Peace and love
When We Move, Do We Change?
So I spent the last two days helping a dear friend move across town. My legs are screaming at me now from the dozens of times we had to climb the stairs leading up to her room and back down with boxes, totes, bags, and furniture. But she’s all moved in to her new place and I’m feeling good enough to skip the gym!
Moving always brings up a lot of reflective things for me, as it seemed to do for her also. There’s the newness of what’s about to happen next and the hope that it will be better than what has come in the past. It’s like changing our address might somehow change us. Hope is wonderful and it gets me through my life better than most things, but it is also dangerous. (I heard this recently expressed in “Orange is the New Black- a Netflix Original Series totally worth checking out!) The danger in hope is that we allow ourselves heightened expectations. We begin to think we can put more and more wants, desires, etc into this “new” basket and quintessentially make all of our dreams come true. What ends up happening for most of us, however, is that we fall somewhere right in line with where we’ve always been. The new carpet or walk-in closet becomes just another thing we get used to and the habits we thought we’d packed up and donated to charity are actually waiting for us in that coat we just couldn’t give away, but which we will never wear again.
We don’t leave these things behind. Mostly because we are a totality of our lives. All the moments combined together. Sometimes I think of people like a photograph; millions of pixels that together make a cohesive image…the image without the millions of dots (or whatever the technical term for all of this is, you get it even if I don’t know how to properly explain it…lol) is not possible. And if we were to remove just one pixel to replace it with a new one the end image would show a spot/error in it. Believe me, I know most of us would love to Photoshop the heck out of our image and start our new life with the new collected moments, airbrushed and cropped to our better more beautiful versions of ourselves, but it’s just not realistic. Obviously.
Which leads me to wondering why it is that we put such an emphasis on these moments of our lives. New Year’s spawns millions of people to set resolutions for themselves that articles, newscasts, blogs, etc have documented fail within a day, a week, a month. Graduations, weddings, births, etc all make people run to card aisles to pick out pithy and/or sentimental expressions of joy over the person’s new wonderful thing. And while I think it is very important to acknowledge and recognize all of my loved ones accomplishments I think it is equally important to have perspective. Just because I recently graduated from college does not mean I have to get a new job, buy a new house, settle down and have/adopt some children. I think it is something about this idea of a new leaf, a new chapter, a fresh beginning….whatever it might be. Each day is a new day. I embrace that this philosophy is not a bad one to live by. But when we put that much onto a new move, a new job, and/or a new relationship it sometimes leads us to forgetting and/or trying to deny the past ones. Like the expression “You’re only as good as your last deal.” And the energy we spend on being this “new” self ends up wasted within whatever is a normal burn out period for ourselves. Because we have to admit, the majority of us cannot keep that pace up for forever. And really wow, I don’t know if I’d really like myself at the end of my life even if I was one of those rare people who could and who did. Instead I wonder if there isn’t more to learn from taking our entire self and thinking of the next address or relationship as just that. Not a new one….but the next one. Maybe this too is obvious for some. But I have to believe if it were obvious to many, so many of us wouldn’t struggle with trying to deny our past selves and re-invent our new selves. Or trying to find our value to the world in what we’re doing next instead of how we have lived, are living, and yeah maybe will live.
I’d like to wrap today up with this however: I believe in hope. I believe in change. I believe people and life can surprise you. And for me at least, I believe that some of the best things in my life have happened despite what I had planned for next and also despite what I had hoped with my new start!
Peace and love my dear readers!
My Not-So-Light Summer Reading List
I joined a book club about a year ago where we decided to read through the ‘classics,’ basically books we found on lists that were mostly written by old dead guys and gals. So far we’ve made our way through the likes of “The Great Gatsby” and “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.” We read three to four books over three months and then get together to discuss them all. Mostly because we live far apart and it is more realistic to plan a weekend trip once every three months than every month.
In any case, I am currently reading “Moby Dick,” “Middlemarch,” “Anna Karenina,” and “The House of Mirth”. I was supposed to have them all finished by now but of course I haven’t even begun two of them. I finally purchased the last two today and now just have to get through over 2,000 pages as soon as possible.
In addition to reading these amazing books I have also agreed to read “The Ocean at the End of the Lane” by Neil Gaiman with a few other friends. I’m excited about this one. Mainly because it’s a contemporary novel, that is less than 500 pages and it sounds like it’s going to be a very good read.
In addition to all that I’m also going to begin reading “The Da Vinci Code” sometime soon as it has sat on my shelf for over four months now asking me to read it as well.
Some have asked me, “Why do you do this to yourself?” The simple answer is because I truly love to read. The more complex answer is because I feel I might be missing out on something if I don’t read them all. Regardless, it is an activity that I enjoy and that makes me feel like I’ve used my time productively.
But that is all I can write on it for now, as all these books are calling my name and I must go read some more tonight before bed.
Peace and love
Learning Things I Should’ve Learned in Kindergarten
My day was quite self revealing in the skills and abilities I think I possess and the ones I’m still realizing that I’m learning. A while ago there was that book or saying or something that came out “Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten” or something to that manner. And it is through working yet another summer as a nanny that I realize I am still learning things I probably should’ve learned back when I was 5.
I work with a wonderful young woman, Jenny*, who recently turned 16 years old. I’ve changed her name here to protect her and for confidentiality reasons. Suffice to say, Jenny didn’t have a wonderful few first years of her life and through circumstances that are long in the past and completely out of her or anyone’s control now, she needs someone to come and hang out with her and treat her as much as the young adult woman she desperately wants to be treated as.
I love my job! I love Jenny! And it is through spending our days together, 40+hrs a week, that I find myself learning so many things I took for granted; thinking I had already learned them. Or maybe feeling I’m re-learning them or adding to what I had learned. If that makes any sense. 🙂 I have learned again what boundaries are and why we need them…not just for ourselves but for the people around us. I have learned patience is a virtue I didn’t have as in control as I thought I originally had. All the things I’m re-learning are impacting my life and for that I’m grateful.
I learned again today that speaking kindly is important to everyone, not just the person you are directing your speech to. I learned that trying to find new solutions is important; never give up or give in if you can. I truly believe I owe it to Jenny as much as myself to be diligent and persistent in ways that are encouraging, supportive, and eventually successful. Giving up is allowing myself to be too scared of failing to really try. And it shows her perhaps that I don’t care enough about her or myself to keep trying. I also learned that I have a wall I reach when I feel overwhelmed or out of options, and that it is okay to give myself a time-out if needed. To re-group, re-think and come at a situation with a fresh perspective.
But more than anything, I learn daily from Jenny that love matters. Trust, dependability, honesty, and being treated as a valuable, independent, unique person is important. I learn that I have to say these things. I have to validate them in her as well as in myself. Relationships I have taken for granted sometimes in my life, I have not said enough to some people that I love them, that they are valuable, that they deserve hope, faith, love, and their dreams. Jenny and I talk about small things, we talk about big things, and we talk about our futures. Through it all the most important thing to her is being her own person, having friends and family around her that love her and that she loves, and that she is happy-as much of the time as she can be.
These are our similarities. All of us, we are human. We feel, we love, we lose. We have things that happen to us that are out of our control and we learn to face our own realities to the best of our abilities. Sometimes when I’m tempted to judge a complete stranger or make a quick opinion based on some brief encounter with someone new I would like instead to be reminded that we are not a moment, we are not encapsulated into one encounter, we are the combined moments of our life. The moments as a whole that most people cannot see. They are not in our journey. We are the only one in our journey. I am reminded today that I should always think first, this is another human in front of you, Jessica. You only get to see a moment. You do not know their entirety. Give them space to be who they really are with you. And give yourself space too. Maybe I’ll rise.
I learn every day something from Jenny. So when friends and/or family say what a wonderful thing I do working with her, I really do truly think and feel and believe, it is a wonderful thing she does for me. That she loves me, that she trusts me, that she teaches me to be a better person. I am learning more from this experience than many other things I’ve done with my life. So even though I am tired at the end of my day, even though I sometimes feel not so great about the experience, even though I don’t always come up with the best solution in the middle of a challenge. I am learning. I am loving. I am trying. And I am learning.
I hope for you dear readers there is something out there that gives you fresh perspective if you need it, that loves you blindly, and that will allow you the space you need to potentially rise to the best version of yourself!
Peace and love
Rejuvenation and Cleaning
Wow! I love Sundays! I love that I don’t have to work, but that I also didn’t have to work Saturday so it’s my second day of not having to work. I love that I get to go to a wonderful church that is friendly, open, and extremely welcoming and that I get to volunteer there with great people! I love that I get to go to lunch afterwards with friends and fellow church peeps and that we can talk openly and honestly about how the message affects us in our daily lives. And I love that I get to do mundane things like grocery shop, clean the house, and enjoy a wonderful meal made by my roomie.
I did all these things today which really rejuvenated me and made me feel prepared for the week ahead. I love that cleaning and organizing can make me feel better equipped to face challenges, even though it’s only a simple task like washing dishes and doing laundry. Something about taking care of day-to-day things makes me feel a little more on top of life. I woke up this morning a little reluctant because it was so early but by dinner time I was just full of energy and loving everything about life!
I’ve been in a funk lately so having a day like today felt really good and I’m glad I can share that with all of you, and I apologize if my energy is coming across this blog like way too much enthusiasm….but maybe it’ll be contagious?! And really being out of that funk, even if it’s just for one day, is a great way to feel. Wish I could bottle days like today and live them more often, but instead I try to document what made me happiest about today, so I can try to choose more of those type of things going forward.
I’m tired now, but not enough to sleep and so I finished an art project I’ve been working on for awhile. It didn’t turn out exactly as I thought it would, but most of my craft type projects rarely do. I think I like the end result but not enough to share it with the world. I’m hoping to get my cameras out of storage, cleaned and loaded with film and to start taking some photos again. Maybe when I do I can post some of them here for you all to see, because photography is more often than not my main artistic expression. I love that art can make me feel calm…in my chaotic mind that is always going a million miles per hour it’s one of the things I can do that allows me to just be…in a flow state.
In any case, Sunday proved to be the best day of my week and I’m hoping it kicks this coming week off on a good note!
Peace and love
Playing Bandu with Two, et Me
It’s a Friday night and I’m lucky enough to be hanging out with two dear friends who are playing Bandu. A game that we do not seem to be playing by the rules but that is half the fun, especially when in addition to playing our own version(s) we are partaking of some adult beverages as well. To which I must also add, I’m not actually playing but being more entertained simply by watching them play together!
As far as Friday evenings go this one is somewhere between “not exactly what I was expecting when I began my week” and “at least I’m not alone wallowing in my own despair over dumping the latest hopeful”. So all in all I’m looking at it as an Up. 🙂
A little back story, since that is almost needed by the last thought and because I’m hoping it will sound better as I type it…I met a guy online. I swear every time it doesn’t work out I will never go online again to find a potential partner but then six months or a year cruises by without having met anyone in person that wasn’t completely unattractive to me, or me to them, or who wasn’t already in a relationship and I turn once again to the intoxicating promises and false hopes that online dating sites suck us in with. In any case, met this guy and started dating. He seemed to check a lot of the boxes…yep I have boxes and I’m tired of defending and/or not defending that so that is what it is…but as we got to know each other more I realized a startling thing for me actually; I realized I could actually possibly fall in love with this guy. Now, that seems like it’s a good thing and that I would want to keep pursuing this relationship. The only problem in addition to those feelings is that there were a couple of major flags popping up with him. While he seemed to have a great personality and I could see myself falling in love with him, I could also see seven years down the road when he would still be making excuses about his poor health choices and his career path (with the education, training and other things he’d already accomplished) would still be somehow “not his fault that there were no job openings in his field in this area”. While it all sounded great to me the first date or so I have to say, there is something about knowing the difference between what is now and what is the future. And I don’t want to fall in love with a walking dead guy, or at least a guy who doesn’t seem to really want to put into effect his doctor’s advice about quitting smoking a year and/or several years (little fuzzy on the dates) after he’s already had his first heart attack.
So yep, had to end that. Maybe I’m being too picky? As some “friends” have suggested. Maybe I have too high standards? As some family members have “observed.” I think really I don’t care what these people think or how they want to label my experiences. I know who I am, for the most part, and I’m okay with being alone. Forever? Not so much, but it doesn’t mean I’m willing to settle for a complete train wreck and/or someone intent on blaming the world around them for the reason their life is the way it is. I would rather live my life with people who love me and support me, but God do I hope somewhere in the greater scheme of things, I might not have to spend it all solo.
Moving on from that….and him….however it is refreshing to be sitting in my amazing apartment, that I still love as much as the first day I moved into it, listening to my friends berate each other for dicey moves and belch beer quite impressively! I think I should rejoin the ‘party’ for now, so I’ll sign off with my last thought.
I’m happy this Friday turned out unexpected! I hope yours is a great one also!
Peace and love
A New Me, A New Season
Hi All,
It’s been almost a year since I wrote last and wow what a year it has been! I took that trip to Europe and had the most amazing life experience in that month! I traveled to London, all over Germany and Switzerland, into Italy on a couple of excursions (hello George Clooney-villa) and ended my stay in Antwerpen, Belgium! Needless to say traveling alone in foreign countries was at times intimidating, refreshing, and extremely self-revealing. I didn’t have the wild, crazy travel relationship I was hoping for, but met some really incredible people along the way!
Returning to Eugene, I spent the rest of the last year finishing my undergrad studies at the U of O. I graduated about a month ago and instead of going on to bigger and better things, as they say, I decided to forego grad school for right now. Eugene really has grown on me and a year ago I couldn’t wait to get out and go somewhere new and see new things. Now I really just want to settle down here, well at least until I decide to hop the pond again and take on some more adventures in traveling. 🙂
Graduating has provided a lot of time for reflection and I’ve been struggling, as I hope and am somewhat certain is popular among other recent graduates, to find direction. And in that it helps that I started attending a new church not too many months ago. I won’t speak too much of it here, only because I feel my religious experiences and relationship with God are between Him and I. But also because I never intended for this to be that kind of blog, nothing wrong with that kind of blog, there are many out there, if you’d like to read one of them I say great! This one just so happens to not be one. 🙂
I went on a few dates with a guy. Seemed to have some good potential. But that fizzled out pretty quickly for me. I feel bad though, cuz I do think he really liked me and I wish I could have liked him more in return. But you can’t force things and sometimes you can’t explain things either. It’s just a gut feeling. And while I have learned very little with relationships over the years I have learned to always trust my gut. Sure, I may wake up one day and find myself completely and totally screwed because of it…but in the meantime I’m standing beside it, it’s probably saved me a lot of grief actually. 🙂 If you know that feeling then let’s get together sometime and compare stories…if for nothing else than to finally hear someone else say they get it too.
So planning on taking at least a few weeks to recover from the let down of that and then moving on. I’ve decided that a relationship is something I want but is not something I am desperate for. I’ve set some goals for myself for the next few years and man or no man they’re going to come true! I’m tired of waiting for some magical ‘it’ guy to come along and make everything ‘begin.’ And just a side comment on that…trying to not sound too bitter, cynical, or bitchy here when I say this…but come on people! Since when did meeting someone mean you’re life really began? I don’t know maybe we all want to believe that sentiment so we say it ourselves in order to perpetuate the myth that it feels to be. I have met some great guys. Some I’ve really wanted things to work out with and have never ever felt like my life began with that person noticing me or liking me or sending me a card or something. I have on the flip side felt like my life as I knew it had ended because of a relationship but perhaps that’s the sometimes present pessimist that peeps out every once in awhile. Regardless, I’d like to people to speak more plainly about their love, is that too much to ask? I mean it might just make us all a lot healthier people if we realized everyone else is just fake popping their leg when they kiss their guy and stuff like that! 🙂
I don’t know where this blog will head to and I cannot even guarantee I’ll keep writing it. I have a tendency to forget it exists and it’s my own creation…pretty pathetic I know. But in the meantime, I like writing to you all out there and hoping that just once or maybe more times, without even knowing, I may find a kindred spirit that gets something from all of this. I hope I can make you laugh, smile, be comforted by it, whatever. I just hope it touches someone out there. And even if it doesn’t do that, it helps me to be a better me just by writing it all down!
So here’s to the next post. To the next season of my life. And to all the ups and downs and crazy stories along the way. I hope you’ll join me and I hope you’ll let me know if any of my crazy ever makes a moment for you!
Peace and Love
Letting My Hair Down For All the Wrong Reasons
Went out last night. It’s not something I do very often, at least not typically to the scale in which I partook in the festivities last night. I drank some wine, whiskey, and then moved on to cocktails at a few (as in more than one) local bars. Luckily I was walking or being chauffeured for the evening so I was, as they say, “drinking responsibly.”
Here’s the thing…drinking/partying on a whim doesn’t typically work out well for me. Partially because my being motivated to do so is always coming from a need to repress and deny emotions I’m feeling. And partially because I always (and I mean 100% of the time so far) wake up the next day and just realize the emotions are still there, Jose or Jack or Jim Bean didn’t cure them, and well a good time aside nothing much really got accomplished by being a total jackass to myself.
And I did have a good time in the moment. I think I can safely assert that I had a good time for about 3 hours. I didn’t think as much as I normally do (which is thanks to the alcohol but also the company I had the pleasure of spending the outing with) and I danced. I LOVE to dance. I’m not a person who feels good at it or would want other people to watch me dance but it’s something that I really enjoy. Especially when I don’t have to worry about being hit on because I am officially older than 92% of the people in bars. A potential downside to living in a college town…the average age of bar attendees are 20 if we’re lucky and 21 if everyone’s ID’s are to be believed. 🙂 Still there is humor I find in getting down with a lot of people who are younger than me and I feel slightly better that I’m not them anymore. I do really enjoy being the age I am now and knowing the things I know now. And of course I couldn’t be here or know me without all that journey.
But back to the point. Why do I feel I treated myself like a jackass? Because I know that alcohol will not solve my problems, I actually tend to believe it will only lead to my potentially having more of them. Yet I’d spent a few Saturdays of late feeling alone and sorry for myself and listening to cranky sad songs and watching sad movies and reading sad books…..you get it; I’ll move on. I just wanted a different way to cope for last night. So I choose going out, meeting a friend of a friend, dancing at gay night and allowing a few random strangers the privilege of being able to motorboat me. (Again not necessarily a finest moment for myself…hence the jackass part). I also smoked 2 cigarettes, which I never do. Which reminded me of being 18 and all alone for the first time in my life and how I thought in re-inventing myself that I might be a smoker. Obviously then and still now I am not a smoker. Last night was definitely destructive in that way as well as others.
If there is a lesson to be learned here I unfortunately feel like I’ve learned it before. But well such is life, especially mine. I’ll chalk it up to something, as I’m resourceful and I like to think, good, at doing and move on. Here’s to hoping this funk I’m on is cured by traveling to countries far and wide across the great pond of the Atlantic! I can’t believe Europe is a little over two weeks away. Here’s to hoping for a wild romance…I could really really really use and I think I deserve to fall hopelessly, crazily, stupidly in love with someone I can’t possibly have a future with! LOL
New Job
So I started a new job this week working for a local museum. I’ve worked for one before so it’s not new in that sense but it is new in every other sense. This position is currently a temporary one and it’s in that idea of temporary that it perhaps makes it more interesting. I find that I am being left with a great deal of trust and responsibility on my shoulders at the same time I’m being asked to do very little.
There is a conundrum here. I must supervise the volunteers, two employees, myself (of course) and run things that have already been pretty arranged for me. I should not ‘rock the boat’ or try to change things because a new director will be hired by the board and it would not make sense to have to transition after everyone has already transitioned. Change…some people really really fight it and hate it.
Whatever comes from it all it will be interesting to say the least. Part of me feels like the imposter in the crowd that has someone gotten past security and in through the back door at the ritzy party. Another part of me feels overly capable of finding a spot here. I guess the biggest thing is none of it is really in my control. So in the meantime I am going to do the best I can do because that is just part of my work ethic and try to have a good time while I’m doing it.
As for everything else going on in my life this has thrown a curve ball into my plans. I guess the next two or so weeks will tell me a lot about what I hope to do going forward. This much I know for certain. I want to know sooner than later if they want me to stay longer because it doesn’t make any sense to have me in a stalemate for three or four months before deciding. I have school I need to finish (I’m too close to getting my bachelor’s degree not to finish now) and I would like to know if I’m rearranging my life for someone they want to give me the permanent job.
Other than the new job I’m attending one summer course that has apparently decided to kick my butt grade-wise. I’ve gone to all the lectures and everything has seemed really easy and good to go then we took the first test and I thought I did really well on it to find out apparently I did not. I guess I must have missed some obvious statement he made about directly quoting him or something because I felt I summed up the main points in the two short answer questions but apparently I did not. Who knows. I’ll get the actual test back Tuesday and we’ll go from there. Maybe there was a grading mistake. May have to end up changing the course to Pass/No Pass or dropping it altogether. I don’t want it dragging down my GPA now that I finally got it going up!
All of this is relatively boring so I’ll apologize for the mundane-ness of this blog, with a promise that it will get more interesting soon! 🙂
Best wishes, dear readers!
onewomanisland 