nbd.

i can't sleep.  can barely breath. 


i tried to eat, read, stare, but still no sleep. 


i'm thinking of all those silly things people say, and of nature.  how the process of life is life, death, life, death.  creation, destruction.  grow, shrink.  and its the death, the destruction, the shrinking that i've been busy doing.  making emotional compost for what's supposed to grow next, i suppose. 


i'm reading too many novels.  i haven't hemmed that skirt yet, or written the two lists that i know will help me a great deal in the process of going from decomposing to growing again.  and now i'm up at four-thirty in the morning writing about it, but still not doing it. 


i guess that means its time to do it.

art smart.

my dear friend is in the process of creating a collection of art-craft work to sell at an artist's craft fair.  in discussing her thoughts and fears about this with me, i found myself although attentive to her and the conversation, still wandering through the lost files in my memory of all the many crafty things i would like to make with my hands and sell on a table some day.  it felt very true and right for me to recommend making a priority list about all the things she would like to make (as the procrastinator in her is continuing to come up with more ideas than she can feasibly produce in the short period of time that she has before the fair), and also to decide what she would like to have in volume, price, and style at this particular fair, in order to point her somewhat aimless art making to a productive, sell-able collection.

i hate and love whoever came up with the whole "take your own advice" thing.  in this case in particular, the "advice" i was dishing could be turned upon myself in so many facets of my current life.  its overwhelming, even, to imagine what kind of productive work could come from the somewhat aimless daily battles i'm picking with life if i just took the time to think outside the project at hand and focus more on what i want the results of the greater project to be at any given point in the near future.

soaked.

is it actually possible that i've reached an over-saturation point in some of my current friendships that is causing this blue-ness around my time with them?

i'm a generally secure person, honest about and confident in what i want and bring to the relationships that i choose to participate in.  over the past week, i've felt several moments while around who i consider to be some of my dearest friends, a sharpness in some void that surprises me.  i'm taken aback suddenly when i realize i'm feeling left out, excluded, or tossed aside.  i don't think i'm imagining these things happening, although i realize that its perfectly normal for friendships to go in cycles, especially among women my age.  what i think is worse, however, is the dullness that is there when the sharpness isn't.  am i bored by these people?  am i bored by myself?  am i needing to be heard, loved, and to be giving in some way that is not currently possible with these people?

i also, however, have noticed myself refusing to see outside this tiny circle of people lately, which i know is a solid YES to all of the questions i'm asking, and that YES is followed with "and its your prerogative to do what you want about it."

i love these people.  i love them dearly.  i also need to do some things for myself that will remind me that i am not dependent on being one of them.  i may or may not go in and out of being a social butterfly and then a lone wolf on occasion.  i may be a good friend one day, and then a horrible one the next.  i may not always share my struggles with these people, or be completely honest.  i may wander out of range without warning just so that i can gain a larger perspective.

its amazing that i forget those things sometimes.

curtains

i spent a mere thirty minutes today attempting to finish hanging curtain rods in my semi-new apartment before rushing off to my third of four derby practice nights in a row.

i also spent about two minutes in between the previously mentioned activities explaining to a friend of mine how i was way overcommitted.

over committed.

at this point, i'm doing about 30% of the things i want to do, 30% of the things i need to do, and 80% of the things that i should not be doing for any reason.  i recognize my own fear looming over my everyday busy-ness, and my overall misplaced energy, yet i cannot seem to shake it, or break it, or begin to unwind it.  i'm spending alot of time and energy on immediate setbacks, drawbacks, and slapbacks.  i believe i would be best serving my twenty-something years on recovering dreams and unwrapping new beginnings.  yet i continue to neglect the things that are built into me, the tiny voices and big plans.

and on top of all this, i find myself strangely vulnerable to a fresh romantic endeavor that is as unlikely as it is sweet and charming.  i don't quite know the significance of a thing like this, at a time like this, in the kind of world i live in now.  its been a long time since all of those things lined up for me in the same way i always added them up in my head as a girl, and i'm beginning to come to terms with the fact that it probably never will.

line up, that is.

Blueberry Park

I've taken my niece and nephew, who I nanny a few times a week, to Blueberry Park on occasion to pick blueberries and be out in the summer sun.  We had a particularly successful picking day, as luck would have it, today as there were several bushes full of ripe blueberries to pick.

I don't know what it is about blueberries that I love so much- it certainly isn't their flavor.  They're good, but there are other fruits that i prefer to taste in my mouth.  My theory is that I appreciate and respect the process that each blueberry bush goes through every summer.

At first, the blueberries form but are green for a long time.  Slowly individual berries, in no particular order, will begin to ripen, changing color from green to reddish purple, then finally to a deep dark blackish blue.  All those berries of any one bush will never ripen to perfection in tandem- instead, one by one, they decide on their own when they will begin the process of becoming edible.

The ritual of picking blueberries then has become one of patience and perseverance for me, rather than one of instant gratification.  A lesson that i will probably always be learning in my life.

Wednesdays

Lately I've been spending my Wednesday evenings going to derby practice, then following up with a chocolate milkshake with a certain boy at the good old Frisko Freeze.  In theory, there is nothing wrong with this, but the issue that arises for me later is strictly social, apparently.  I've been getting shit on Twitter from people who apparently think this is a ritual deserving of an intervention.

If only they knew.