The Remnants

Like most things that make you take pause, it started as an accident.

I snapped that picture up there with my Blackberry, on accident while I was looking through pictures to send to a friend.  I'd hit the "camera" button instead of the "picture" button and in my haste, took this.  I didn't think much of it, til I stopped to notice it today on the train.

Blow it up and take a look.  You will see the most perfect metaphor for my month, and all the major descriptors of my life, captured right there. 

An exploded suitcase filled with suits that I wore in Philly, Orlando, New Mexico and Seattle.  Suit jackets that I shrug on everyday, as I grimace my way through a day filled with small talk and shaking of hands and "how are things in your state?"

A plastic bag filled with liquids, 3 oz or less, as per FAA regulations.  My wallet thrown open on the floor, stuffed with receipts and my credit cards that keep charging WAY too much money for food and cabs.

My new purple netbook that I flipped open on Allegra's counter on Saturday --not even a week ago.  Unbelievable to me.  My cloth purse, given to me by a coworker from his Africa trip, which I so love laying beside it.  I stuffed that cloth purse too full when my backback broke in the Albuquerque airport, and I lugged it all around Portland.

The balled-up grayish thing in the upper far left corner?  The new backpack I got with Angie at a bookstore in Portland.

The handmade painted crosses I got in New Mexico for my walls, my softball glove in the corner, and my nosy cat, happy that I'm home.  The cork from my first $100 bottle of wine that J bought for me in Seattle Sunday night....and before you think I'm a romantic, he'd thrown that cork at me in a fit of childishness and I hid it in my purse away from him :)

It's a whole mix of what remains, all tossed together and jumbled up and messy.  Much like my thoughts tonight.  I am to take the day off tomorrow, and I can't wait to sleep in and drink tea and maybe take a walk.  My scale has creeeeped up a few pounds as of late and I need to grab that before it gets out of control. 

I spent last night and today with my old coworkers at a conference that my previous job held in Baltimore this past week.  I remember going to it last year, and blogging about it here.  I feel like that was just five minutes ago.

I just left that job back in December and hadn't seen most of them since.  I hadn't seen most of the members of the association since last October either, and I didnt' realize how nice it would be to be in a room with people who lit up to see me; to hug me instead of shaking my hand and I loved seeing them.

Home though, tonight, and my little cat is here and things are quiet.  I am taking off tomorrow, and hope for a weekend to re-orient.  I have a softball game--time to get back in that routine. 

I will make soup.  I will lay on the couch and I will think about how I've been in 5 cities in 20 days, and I've met people I never thought I would, and saw those I never thought I would again. 

I've held people close to me from coast to coast -- and sometimes I literally catch my breath in gratitude that this...THIS...is my life.  A mix of the crazy and the quiet.  Seattle dinner on Sundays at the pier, to Thursday quiet nights at home. 

To everything in between, I give thanks. 

And turn the remnants of what remains over in my hand again.

Taming the West

I'm sitting in the airport, about to take the red-eye flight home tonight to DC, after a week of the most surreal times.  I've gone from DC to New Mexico to Portland, Oregon to Seattle. 

I've seen a tumbleweed in Albuquerque, sat in the hot tub at sunset, watched the whole sky light up orange and pink.  I saw the rain in Seattle, and tall evergreens.  I slept on the train to Oregon.  I met Angie, and Allegra, and shared food and laughs and champagne with them. 

I met an old friend last night turned funny new flame --at least, as bright as it burned in one night. 

And now I am in the airport, my meetings over, and my eyes tired from absolutely NO sleep last night.  At all.

The term "sleepless in seattle" has taken on an entirely new meaning....


I think this is the best way to go though....sleep-deprived and comfy in my fleece jacket and carrying my pillow.  I hope to sleep ALL night in a cramped airplane seat with my ipod on classical music, my mind full of new stories, and my heart--full.  So full.

3000 miles away isn't that far, really; really at all.

(Yes, I took this with my cell phone. While IN flight.  Don't tell the FAA)

PS --Angie, Allegra -I got a new backpack to replace my broken one.  And Angie, check your car...I left my sunglasses either there or in the restaurant we went to for lunch.  Ask for them in the lost and found, and they can be yours :)

It's been over a week since I've updated, and I find myself having a hard time writing about anything worthy.  I'm going to resort to the bullet points...

• I played ball tonight, catcher actually, and I'm so sore now that I wonder how I'm going to get out of my bed in the morning :)  It was a really nice way to spend a Sunday though, and I really like getting to know my new teammates.  It's a co-ed team and I think we've got a really good mix of both guys and girls.  It's kinda weird that we're still getting to know each other and so sometimes that translates into confusion on the field, but we're learning.  We'll get there.
• I went out with an old friend on Friday, and as always, I am reminded at how lucky I am to have certain people in my life.
• I'm having issues with another friend in my life right now, and it's gotten me feeling distracted and also out-of-sorts.  I'm working through that.  I really, really don't like when this happens. 
• Right now, in my refigerator, I have leftover pizza AND leftover chinese.  Can my life get any more like a sitcom?
• It looks like this because i'm going out of town on Wednesday--first to Albuquerue, then to Seattle, then to Portland.  Then, taking the red-eye back to DC, and head to Balitmore the next day.  It's going to be a hell of a way to end the month and I am hereby putting all of you in charge of writing nice long blog posts to keep me entertained while I wait in airports :)

I can't figure out how to get rid of those extra bullets up there, and I am way too tired to care.  I'm going to go grab my leftover chinese...I know this is the worst blog entry ever.  So I will leave you with these pictures of my walk yesterday of my street and my house, and hope that they make up for it.

Spring runneth over.

Travel Bug

I got home at midnight last night, with a wrinkled suit and my glasses on, my hair pulled up and I was beginning to get teary because when I don't sleep, I get teary.  For no real good damn reason other than my feet are killing me and there weren't any cabs because I got off the train so late, so I walked around for one but nothing ever came, so I had to get BACK on the metro and then walk home from there.

I am traveling to six cities this month, and conducting five meetings and one conference.  Friday was Round 1, and Monday is Round 2.  My Amtrak train was having "signal problems" so my 8:30 arrival back home from Philadelphia turned into an 11pm arrival.

I was excited to see Philadelphia though (for the one night I was able to really SEE it), and I ate a cheesesteak, had a business dinner, then went for a nightcap with a coworker which turned into karaoke night at the Black Rooster and there were too many beers involved.

That said, I am still on the proverbial wagon...I am not drinking nearly as much as I was.  I'm not using it as a sleep-aid or as an anxious-aid, but rather, as it's intended.  A good time, but in its time and in its place.  I've been pleasantly surprised at how I've been able to make the switch to habit to only-sometimes.  It's been, frankly, a relief.

I leave bright and early tomorrow morning for Florida, where I wish I could meet the Moon clan, but alas, I am going to Orlando not Tallahassee.  I am hoping for sunshine and a pool, so I can spend the day lounging around and thinking about how I'm 29. 

29 --such a funny age to think I have reached.  I look 22, at best, so I am starting to get looks when I get carded like--come on, girl, I'll buy your fake ID that says 23, but don't try telling me you're 28. 

So -tomorrow morning kicks off the year before I am 30.  I am typically not kind to myself on my birthdays, instead running a litany of things I haven't done yet in my head and trying to ignore that tick-ticking of the biological clock.

But....I've done actually quite a lot this past year, and when tomorrow dawns, I am going to do my best to do what all of you tell me to do....be gentle with myself.  Get a big glass of sweet tea and sit in the sunshine of Florida and think about hey -this is, after all, what I've always wanted.

What Kind of World Do You Want?

It is a cold Sunday morning here. We went from 60's back to 40's, even though it's supposed to be 70 later this week.

I feel like my cold is back, and it doesn't seem like it ever really left. I dont know what it is--but it seems like I haven't felt completely right in a month. Maybe longer.

I had a great weekend. I really like my softball teammates, well, the ones I met on Friday anyway. We are a team entirely of new people, and I was surprised that most of them have lived here for a long time. I thought it would be maybe all new people to the area too. I was also pleasantly surprised that no one seemed like a hardcore athlete :) It's a good mix of guys and girls, and we're all roughly the same age. Our first practice is Saturday, and I made plans to go throw the ball around with some of them at some point this week.

We drank a few together, and there was a promotional thing going on there at the bar and reps for Sam Adams (the beer) were there and they kept giving it to us for free. It helped to break the ice between us, and we compared stories together and I noticed from reading between the lines that most of us were just simply looking for something to do and more people to meet. It made me think of that line in "Piano Man"--they're sharing a drink they call loneliness, but it's better than drinking alone.

And it was definitely better than drinking alone, and then I went to meet a friend of mine to continue the night. That turned out to be alot of fun too, and I spent Saturday just around the house. I went out to watch a little basketball, and came home and called it a fairly early night.

This morning, though, I woke up with my old friend--the Sunday Sadness. It's gray, it's cold, so-and-so didn't text me back last night, should I really break up with W (it's better than drinking alone), why am I always sick, and why is my face breaking out again?

I got myself in a really good place - emotionally, mentally, physically - around the fall of last year. Now it's spring, and it's slipping away again...I still have it, but I am not sure what's on the horizon.

For the last several weeks, I've woken up in the middle of the night in panic attacks. I wake up with a pounding heart (around 3:30 or 4), with all my fears and stressors running amok in my mind. I am having strange dreams, nightmares really, but I can't remember them the next day. I lay awake until about 6, and then fall hard back to sleep and sleep through my alarm at 7. I wake up in a panic around 7:45, shower and get ready in 20 hurried minutes, and then sprint to the metro (hey....I'm exercising at least), and make it to work fifteen minutes late where I drag through the day. Then rev up at night, go to sleep late, and do the same thing over again.

This has got to stop, and I don't know what to do to fix it.

I'm re-reading a book by Don Miller (Emily knows where this is going now). It's his first book, and it's about the first time he left home and his journey with his friend across the country.

This book inspires different things in me at different times, and it seems especially poignant now, when I just made a move myself.

But....it makes me long for the kind of adventure that I am needing so desperately in my life.  I realized this morning as I sat in a coffee shop with my bagel and tea, that I haven't had a vacation since 2002.  I have constantly worked from the minute I graduated college, and I have never taken any of my vacation time to go do anything fun except go home to Kentucky or visit a friend or something over a long weekend.  I've never taken a week off.  Never.

Now, I know many many people are in the same boat.  And its partly  my fault--because it's like...where would I go?  What would I do?  I have no significant other to run off with, no friends who are really quite as free as I am to just up and take a week at the beach with me. 

I am longing for just a break.  I want to turn off my blackberry and disappear and have adventures and not worry about where I need to be tomorrow. Or what will happen in six months.  I want to stop waking up with panic attacks and I want to stop thinking about certain people, and I want to stop spending money hand over fist just to pay the bills.  

I want to roam around and meet new people and leave the country for awhile.  I have wanted this for SO long.  I want to go to Austrailia, or Africa, or Alaska and just GO. 

I just freakin got here to DC.  I don't want to turn around and leave again.  That's not what I mean, or what I want.  I just want to STOP for a minute.  No--for more than a minute.  I want to not feel sick anymore.  I want my face to stop breaking out again because I KNOW its just a manifest of the stress I feel inside. 

So I am doing what I can today, to be ok.  I went to the farmers market and got potatoes, eggs and homemade organic probiotic yogurt to put in smoothies for my breakfasts this week.  I did my errands early, ate my bagel and read my book, and put clean pajama's back on when I got home (yes, it's only noon....)

I am going to cook chicken and potatoes today, for my dinners this week.  Freeze up veggie soup for my lunches and clean the kitchen, drink tea and do the laundry.  I might turn off my phone and be quiet, or maybe not.

I will turn up the music, and dream of adventures that maybe one day, I will have.

Blah-ness

Well, my "relationship," such as it were, is now over. We never officially declared anything, so I guess I can't really officially declare the end, but I'm going to.

Why do I suck so bad at dating? Although in fairness, I am trying to hold on to a shred of dignity here and not run with the self-blame and self-deprivation--I do that enough, and probably way too much.

I scratched his surface, and came up on, well, not much down below that is worth my time. He wants to keep going forward, but I think it's time that this one end.

In happy news, I am going out tomorrow night with my new co-ed softball team. We're a team made up entirely of newbies, so I'm excited to meet more people and also meet people who haven't already been friends for years. And I can't WAIT to play some ball again.

I am having a quiet night, with leftover food and leftover angst from last night quietly trying to sneak back up on me.

But I won't let it.

Compassion. Or "What You Wanna Give Me?"

 

Every single day, I am asked for money.  The reasonings, the excuses, the methods of asking all vary widely, but a day never goes by without this happening.  I live in the middle of a large city that struggles mightily with homelessness, although, the cynic in me knows there are numerous shelters and outreach programs available here.  There is free food all over this city, and the reason I go to the particular farmers market that I do is because at the end, they load up everything that's left and take it to homeless shelters. 

Sometimes I think that it is so much easier to feel more compassion when you are young.   I remember once, when I was here before, I saw an old homeless woman on the metro that looked so much like my grandmother that it took my breath away.  She was sleeping, and on the way out, I tucked a $20 in her coat pocket.  I used to hurt so badly to see them hurt.

I still cry when I see those damn animal shelter commercials on TV--you know the ones?  Set to sad Sarah McLaughlin songs?  I cry when I think about starving children that I somehow can't save yet.  I can't watch movies where people are hit because I wince in pain myself. 

My best friend noticed this about me sometime last year when something really violent was on TV in the background.  No one was really watching it, the kids were all in there but it was not something they were even noticing. But I was getting so agitated that I kept turning the TV down (it was a scene of domestic violence) and I was starting to freak out.  I told her I can't watch things like this because I feel it too deeply.  It's not fiction to me-it brings back awful memories and it's also one of my worst qualities--I take on other people's pains. Even if they're not real.

I say all this as background as to why it concerns me a little bit that I can walk by homeless people every day and not feel a single bit of sadness. 

I think it's because I'm just jaded.  Living in DC, and working by the Capitol, I am constantly being hit up for something.  Protestors set up shop right by where I work, and every single group that is for or against anything on earth, eventually comes to DC bearing pamphlets. 

I have fliers shoved in my hands, posters waved in my face, screams echo (literally) as I get on and off the metro.  Whether its pro-life or pro-choice or pro-war or pro-animals or pro-grass growing, I hear ALL about it. 

Homeless people line the sidewalks as I walk, and I am asked for a dollar, five dollars, spare change, anything at all miss, can you spare some quarters for my breakfast? 

Meanwhile, I'm having problems making my own ends meet.  My co-workers tried to tell me that a bar cover the other day was just $15.  I told them that I feel like I pay $15 around here just to walk down the fucking street.  To buy a $8 turkey sandwich.  To go home to pay thousands each month to live, eat and have heat. 

I know I am lucky that I can afford this.  But, am I obligated to keep giving and giving to those who are not?  Is it even about luck? 

I'm in such a pattern now that I recognize the same people every morning.  There are the ones who are actively trying to get money by hustling; the ones who prop up signs and go to sleep.  The ones who just lay there and don't even try.

The ones who pace and start screaming obsenities at the capitol building every now and then.  Then again, that's most people in this town.  I think I heard my boss doing the same thing from the conference room this morning.

My personal favorite the other day was this cocky young guy sitting on a corner with a cup (perfectly capable of doing anything he felt like doing), and he just said "What you wanna give me?" 

Well holy shit.  I almost turned and told him that I wanted to give him a punch in the face. But things like that? Never end well for young women.  

But its things like this that make me jaded. An old man sits with his stuff outside in the same place every day.  The other day, he was literally laying on the ground with his face in the gravel.  We all kept walking.  It was like no one saw him.  When did I GET this way?  When did people in such need become part of my daily scenery?  It's like sometimes I look up and realize hey!  There's the White House! 

I don't know.  It's such a fine line between who's hurting, who's hustling and who's just trying to make it to the next day.  I feel like half the time, I fall into all three of these categories myself.  I walk wearily beside them, hoping that they don't take my silence or blank looks as hate or contempt.  It's just me, looking out for me.  

It's a big scary world out there sometimes.