Thinking 'Bout the Best News Ever!

It's 3:31 on a Saturday morning, and I just dragged myself away from the TV (and a terribly interesting documentary on Agatha Christie [did you know that there's a documentary channel?! Now I know what I'll do with my remaining week of summer vacation]), only to find myself helpless against my computer's inexplicable gravitational pull. I told myself that I was just going to check my Facebook to see whether my babysitting job tomorrow was a for sure thing, and one thing led to another, and I discovered that MySpace Music is hosting a listening party for the ENTIRE Shout It Out album, and I could not be more excited about having to stay up another hour to finish it out.

I love Hanson, guys. And guess what else? They're coming to Salt Lake in September! The last time Hanson came anywhere near Utah was on the Underneath tour two albums ago. And you know what else? The Depot is a private club for members, which means this time around I can get in because I'm 21!

So.. In case anyone forgot to get me a birthday or a Christmas present, tickets are on sale now.

:)

Have I mentioned how awesome life is? Life is awesome.
<3

Bum buttery, flit fluttery Dum diddly-ooh, Bum Buttery, bluebird Is singing a tune!

Peach pancakes with spicy brown sugar syrup, gentle spring

sunshine, snacks smuggled into movie theater. Today was the best day this week. I finished cleaning my room (a feat,

I assure you, that would have made Hercules cry like a little girl). Trinkets and memories and clothes in the garbage- 3 days of deconstructing my world and tearing little pieces out,

discarding the inessential. And now I can breathe. I shut my closet doors against aliens and monsters. Cobwebs (physical and figurative) have been cleared away. My thoughts have room to go skipping about. I fit comfortably back into my life.

So many things happened to me last week. A dinner party, poorly planned (and appropriately attended), yet lovingly prepared for my high school friends. We talked, the conversation fragile as our crystal plates and goblets. Time changes things. Time changed me. I felt the space between us, miles of life, years.

I washed the last dish today. I hid it in a cupboard behind some other, less ornate serving trays. I don't know when (or whether) I'll need it again.

The day after the party was Therapy Thursday, also known as the day I used Lou's kidney stones as an excuse to avoid confronting my emotions. I sent Jack an email ten minutes before my missed appointment. Coward. I fake solace in the fact that he hasn't responded- if he doesn't care enough about me to see if I'm alright, then he doesn't care about helping me fix my problems. That sort of reasoning lead to a second session skipped. Coward. Coward, coward, coward.

While I didn't go to therapy, I did take a trip to Saint George with my ward. A great many things about one's personality can be revealed on the face of an immovable mountain.

We hiked Angels Landing, a notoriously difficult climb in Zion National Park, responsible for several deaths.

(photo courtesy goldengatephoto.com)

By the second mile, I was sure they'd add my name to the Wikipedia article. Somehow, I survived. I didn't even get sunburned.

I think I have a secret fear of heigh

ts. I've always told myself otherwise, as though that could make it go away. There's something about my family- we suffer in silence (we don't use our problems to get out of things, we don't talk about our fears, we convince ourselves everything is okay, etc.). Somewhere along the way I came to associate maturity with fearlessness, and so began to deny my phobias. I think I will have to admit, however, that I kept envisioning my dramatic plunge from the 1500-foot-high ledge and the horrifically abrupt end to that fall. Pretty sure that qualifies as a fear of heights.

I'm learning to accept myself. I may be afraid of falling, but that hasn't stopped me from dragging myself up the mountain by chain. I did it, after all. I wasn't even that far behind the group on the way back down. I think it's okay to be a little freaked out sometimes, so long as I don't let these things take over.

That night (Friday, in case you're still keeping track) I attended a wedding reception for my mom's best friend's youngest daughter.

I missed her so much, maybe more than I have yet this year. It was odd to be saturated in loneliness, to be so full of an emptiness, especially surrounded by all those people. It wasn't so much that she wasn't there that day as it was that she won't be there when it's my turn. There is now a finite supply of letters, of handwriting samples; of pictures of the two of us; of memories and experiences; of hugs; of inside jokes. Those few moments at the reception illuminated my future, and made my mother's absence more real to me than it has been in the year and a half since her death.

I haven't done much since I got home, except make a few spectacular meals and dejunk my life. while I was going through the stuff in my bucket, I had a "The Letter That Never Came" moment. I found a postcard from my mom. Inscribed on it is a hope that I will get married in the temple, an expression of gratitude for caring for my dad while my mom is away, and and a little shot of encouragement by way of "I'm proud of you." She couldn't have planned it better- I must have received that postcard when I was 8 and my mom was visiting friends in Salt Lake for a week. I should frame it. Put it next to her picture on my dresser.

Lou got me out of the house today, and not a moment too soon. We wasted a trip to Salt Lake (Sam Weller closes at 6. Who knew?), then puttered around Provo for two hours. Sherlock Holmes is funny, but awkward people make it just a tad hard to watch.

I love the way the cottonwood tufts dance on the air, then when they tire, collect in the grass and in the corners of the porch.

We have purple tulips in the front yard, hovering on the verge of wilt. I think I'll take them to my mom's headstone tomorrow. It's a lovely, lovely spring (I'm not ashamed to admit that I just started A Series of Unfortunate Events for the second time in a row. Jude Law is S U P E R attractive, even in voice over and silhouette, and it's a great catharsis movie).

~~~

Recorded 5/20/10

In Which We Discuss Prayers, Shrinks, and Doubts

I didn't do much today, so this shouldn't take long.

First off: the Lord really does provide, especially if you're looking for opportunities to serve people. More than you can imagine, He delivers on that particular prayer every time.

Second: it took every bit of self control I had to sit in that chair for half an hour, but I went to my first therapy session this afternoon. It made me realize just how much anxiety I live with every day. We did a relaxation exercise, and when it was over everything came rushing back and about knocked me off my seat (cause I was sitting. Get it?)

Also, I don't know whether this guy, Jack, takes me seriously. He seems to be giving me tools to fill up my anti-anxiety utility belt, but that's just it: he's teaching me to live with my disorders, not trying to figure out what's causing them and whether they can be eradicated. I don't want to just deal with it the rest of my life. I want to be healed, I want to get better. I just don't know how to explain to a man with a PhD that he's doing his job all wrong.

But the services through the school are free, and we are uninsured. So.

One of these days, someone will figure out what's wrong with me and will be able to fix it. In the meantime..

~~~

Recorded 5/6/10

Shake it! SHAKE IT!

Nights like tonight give me hope. Good times with good friends: laughing so hard I have to pee, lazy workout sessions (but workout sessions, dangit!), too-friendly IHOP servers, and in-car scream sessions to sad and/or club music. For a couple of hours, nothing weighed me down (except the daunting prospect of therapy, which starts tomorrow-that's another story). It felt good to get caught up in the moment, lost in the laughter. It was fun to joke about our troubles, send them skipping away into the oblivious night.

I poured my heart and soul into an art project all day, and by 9 o'clock at night I had something to show for it. A journal, in fact, much like the one I'm using now. I worked hard for about twelve hours, figured some stuff out, made some stuff up, and created something that means just as much to me as it does to Lou (the recipient. Her birthday is saturday!).

If you'll excuse me, I need to retrieve some paper from the oven so I can go to bed. 4:30 AM is not my favorite time of day, yet I would hate to see it dissolve into 5.

Good game today, Universe.

~~~

Recorded 5/5/10

Five Tulips, Two Freak Outs

I don't know where to begin or what to say or quite what to do with myself. I'm sorry if this drags on or is unbearably unfocused. I'm hoping writing it all down will help me sort through my emotions.

I guess I really should have written an entry yesterday. I went back to my mom's grave for the first time since her funeral. I don't know whether I was holding back because I didn't want to lose it in front of Shelli, or whether the one year cold plot of land really had no effect on me.

Tulips are her favorite flowers. "Because of my two lips," she would say, puckering up for a peck from my dad. I brought her red, though purple is her preference. Five bright scarlet blooms which joined the ranks of silk imitations standing guard over the rose granite headstone.

The sun slipped away, faded slowly, beyond the western mountains. We fled in an attempt to escape the cold and the dark.

It was really windy this morning. I didn't want to crawl out of bed, but my soul cried out, reminding me of my promise to attend the temple. Reluctantly, I left my sheets alone to freeze in my refrigerator of a bedroom. I am so mean to them. I promise to sleep in tomorrow.

Somehow, amidst the church music and the skirt wearing and the other goings on of the morning, anxiety crept in and seized my mind. It feels so much like a disease- it sneaks about, strikes without warning, and won't relinquish its hold until I have nothing left.

Minor freak out at Shelli's when I couldn't get in (just ask the doorbell).

Minor freak out at the temple when I realized I'd gone there selfishly, in fact, had been living selfishly for the last couple months.

The Noorda meeting was a relief because it was a chance to sit back and let someone else do all of the thinking, make all of the decisions.

It was almost more than I could bear to work out tonight. The days go by so quickly, and while I know it's good to get out there, I feel like I live at the gym. I had to just do one thing very slowly for a long time. It was very tiring.

People ask me if I'm okay. More specifically, Lou asks me all of the time. I guess it's good because it means she loves me, and that someone will always know what's going on. The problem with this is that sometimes I just don't know. I don't have words to describe what I'm feeling. I can't tell whether I'm actually upset about the dishes not being done, or if I'm just going through a depressive episode and I'll feel better about it in the morning. It makes me feel crazy. I hope I'm not crazy.

I hope I'm not crazy.

~~~

Recorded 5/4/10

Mostly Awake

I worked out for the second time today. My arms are really sore and I imagine by morning I'll wish they'd fall off, but I guess it felt good.

I was tired a while ago, and I should have gone to bed then. I was just about to drift off when I was reminded of my nasty, jiggly stomach, at which I discovered that I'm a tad frustrated. I've been at this for two whole days now, and I STILL have nothing to show for it. I know that it's silly, and I recognize that it'll take a lot of time and a lot of work to get my body in shape. I can't get too worked up about it.

Likewise, I can't be frustrated if I find, in that moment of semi-consciousness, that my mind is out of whack or that I can't control my feelings. Healing takes time and effort and I can't expect to be better after a couple of sob sessions and a brief diagnosis appointment.

I hope to have something to show in both departments by the end of the summer- not perfection, just a measurable improvement.

~~~

Recorded 5/2/10

Yay!

I just got my Romeo and Juliet script! Whoo! Well, I guess now I know what to do with all of this work out energy. :3

Of course, it might take an hour to print all 39 pages since our nice fax machine ran out of toner and we're using a dinosaur of an inkjet.

Time to break out the highlighter.

:D

A Blur of a Week

Yesterday and today are essentially the same thing in my mind. I woke up yesterday to discover a solution had taken up residence in my mind. It was the format for a story with whom (with which?) I have been arguing for the past few years. I struck up an old friendship with my thesaurus (things always seem to pick up right where we left off) and wrote feverishly into the afternoon. Then life exploded and a million and one things happened at once. Wednesday fizzled into Thursday. Here I am with an almost finished story, a solution in full effect, and here to take that problem's place is a world crammed, filled to bursting with conundrums that multiply like rabbits.

I ate some lunch when I got home from Ashley's apartment. After that, I got some Taco Man, then I had Wendy's. I'm not trying to solve my problems with food, but everything seems brighter and more focused with a relatively full stomach.

Here's the deal, folks: today kinda sucked. But I cried it out and I'm ready to move on. I want to find the good in every situation, even if it can only be measured in the seconds I'm alive, still feeling the sorrow or the anger or the frustration, still learning to deal with life, still looking forward to a better time.

Shelli helped me get 5 whole chapters of TYA homework done.

Hayley is beautiful, and she did wonderfully in her play.

Ashley loves me, even when I have terrible morning breath and a car that smells like homeless.

Randilee said she loves me for no reason.

I have been inspired to finish a project, to mean what I write and to write what I feel.

Tomorrow, though the pesky snow clouds may obscure its light from view, the ever faithful sun will take its place in the sky. I'm perched on the verge of a new day, and I like where this is going.

~~~

Recorded 4/29/10