A Year Lost

As I sit here drinking my at home pre-game beer, dreading getting up and attempting to be a normal girl who does her hair and makeup, and crap, I think maybe I should do one of those end of the year things. You know, where I ponder and describe the highlights of my year in summation.

Well, 2013, what's there to say? This has been one heck of a year! It's been a weird one, to be sure. I guess it's the first year I feel like I've lost as an adult. Not that I lost as in winning vs. losing, but lost as in, I don't really know what this year was about; it just came and went, it feels. This year has been a lot of realizing that I have not arrived, not that I was necessarily naive enough to think that, but sort of that I was beginning my adult life. I still sleep in when possible, I still don't like cleaning the house, I've created a budget but I don't pay it any attention because I don't know how. I still stay up too late. I still rent animated kids movies. Leaving the year of my college graduation didn't do what I bought into the idea of it doing.

It brought one thing I'm really glad that it did, and that was forcing me and affording me to buy a newer car. It's a dream, and I'm extremely blessed.

But when it comes to the rest of life, I am just as wandering as I was when I was in school, only now I don't have an outright excuse. I'm learning to come to terms with that, which might be more of a forecast for 2014 and beyond. I don't have a lot to say about '13, I guess. It was a strange and - I want to say, - tough year, but the whole thing blends together so much that it feels indeed, lost.

So close that sucker down, I'm ready for another one, with all its own challenges and experiences, maybe one more memorable than 2013. Here's to new experiences and - Lord willing - new adventures!

Space for Thinking and Writing

I forgot that I love this part: (which I've written about so many times) the end of my day, lights turned down and tunes on, thinking and writing. I forgot because I haven't been able to do it. I haven't had the time and the energy to sit and think at the end of my day, a time I relish. There's something about the last two jobs I've had that I think has something to do with it. Conversely, I think there's something that keeps me feeling alive to see people's faces that I work with, and to have concrete tasks to check off a list. I think I am learning somethings about what I need to do for my living, and what I need to not do for my living.

For one, it is more important for me to be fulfilled than to be chasing the completion of some theoretical formula, which to me is not fulfilling. I think the pressure of that immediately fell off. It's bad enough not feeling like you're going in the direction of the career you want, but then loathing your job? Not many people seemed to understand that, but that's okay, my life is not up for their approval or otherwise!

I feel like I have this space to think about everything else in life, when I'm not thinking about how I don't want to go to to my job tomorrow, and how I want to find a different one, but have no hope to do so. It could seem like it's all in my head, - and maybe it is - but it's like a sudden weight lifted off me. This job has its own set of challenges as each one will, and maybe I'll be over it in a few short months just like the last two, but I'm not concerning myself with that, because I've felt hope and I feel hope. I think about the next day, and that it's only a hurtle to finding my bearings and footing, then it will just be doing what I know I love. And whatever else comes after...

Do Silly Things Happen Only To Me?

Sometimes I wonder how people don't have more stories; do all the silly things just happen to me? Or is everyone else just too afraid to talk about theirs?

I had planned, sort of with my coworkers to bake something for my scheduled last day, December 20th. Yesterday night, out of boredom and restlessness, I decided to make some cookies to bring in to my team as they're the only remaining thing I liked about that job. I brought in my cookies today, IM'd my team and my team lead that they were at my desk.

There's this guy at our office that was relentlessly trying to hit on me, or impress me - anything he could do to talk to me. Nice guy, just wasn't happening. Being the too-nice person I am, I just usually smirked and walked away. Today, after about two months of working together, "Is that a tattoo?" Apparently they aren't all that noticeable. "Yes," as I displayed them both by turning up my wrists, "I have two, actually." He deciphered it was Hebrew, "It's 'My Refuge', from the Psalms." "Oh, and that's a cross?" What else does it look like? "Oh, interesting...hmm, those..." crosses wrists over one another, smacking them together, "Judaism and Christianity..." So I think, for the millionth time with that guy, I didn't know what to say and just walked away.

Shortly thereafter, I was told by my team lead that while they appreciated that I brought cookies today and all the work I put in with the customers, my attendance problems combined with my having given two weeks led them to decide to end my assignment today, and that he would escort me out. Cute, I thought. He brought a box that I didn't need, as I didn't keep anything at my desk for that very reason.

Crazy what can change in 12 days! Twelve days ago, I applied out of pure frustration to a full-time barista position, thinking, at least I know what I'm getting into with that job, I know I love it. I hadn't expected to be asked the very next day for an interview, and essentially offered the job on the spot with no more inquisition than as to my availability. At first I felt self-conscious about going back to being a barista, from a "professional position". After taking a little time to think, and bouncing the plan off my circle of trusted friends, I realized my current job gave me all that it could long ago.

I have to let myself off the hook here a little, by acknowledging that this is not a failure. I was not moving in any positive direction, merely treading water. I'm going back to work I know I love, and even if right now that's not a career move, it's lightness in my life; joy and enjoyment in my work. It's getting to smile at people until they smile back, instead of wishing that a glare could be heard through the phone. It's time to breathe. Something I was afraid that some might not understand, but my decisions are my own. I don't answer (quite thankfully!) to how anyone else thinks I should live my life, and there is absolutely no formula.

The most valuable thing to me here is that my integrity remain in tact. Finances can go to crap, I almost couldn't care less! I can look like I'm back-tracking, but there's no proof of that. There's a fork in the road, and there's that cliche I could steal from Frost, but I won't.

So on to another season, and new silly stories and hopefully better opportunities to be a light.

You, Before I Sleep

There are days that go by where I don't think of you. See, I've managed to compartmentalize you like you did me, only I waited until you were long gone. Until you found it in yourself to think that the treatment you received was undeserved, without a word. I was supposed to know, and to notice, but you didn't let me in. Then my turning my back for a reprieve was the perfect opportunity for you to turn yours and run. Without a word.

And that was the bigger thing to do.

On the days I do think of you, I'm thankful for the days that I haven't and don't, because it hurts. A hurt I've apparently brought on myself, ironically, by pulling away when I was already too hurt to begin with. To catch my breath, heal wounds. Words never worked; never said anything of worth to you, except that I had feelings you were stirring but it was too much trouble for you to be concerned with, as attending to it might require some sacrifice. The kind that isn't flashy, doesn't award any stature; keeps quiet behind the scenes.

These days, when I think of you, there's an ache in my chest, right in my sternum. An ache like my heart wants to shimmy to the right and sink right into my stomach; call it quits on the whole thing. An ache that naively wants to mend everything, but wisely knows all too well that that wouldn't fix anything.

You go on, with me tucked away as a memory in a dust-gathering box; like a photograph of a self you'd rather not recollect. I guess it's an accurate depiction, the now, of how it's always been. I can find some twisted solace in that. That if it was that easy to not fight for, it should be easily let go; only ever to be a sieve.

This is what trudges through my mind when I do think of you, and now you know. Not that you should ever read this, or ever care to. Your potentially infinite gravitation of self will never lead you here. While I will occasionally wonder, but scarcely hope.

As you never liked my words.

Alternative Oils B-Bread

I basically studied (i.e. glanced over) dozens of banana bread recipes, averaged out a few ingredients and adjusted it to the plethora of bananas I had. I prefer to skip the butter and eggs so that it's a not-all-that-unhealthy snack. Between the bananas, the coconut oil and the applesauce, I think they'll be pretty moist, dense, and naturally...just have to see how they taste! I guess the choco chips kinda kill the healthy factor but... :)

8+ overripe bananas
5 cups wheat flour
1 1/2 cups quick oats
2 tsp apple cider vineagar
3 cups apple sauce
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 cup+ coconut oil
6 oz of mini chocolate chips optional or drizzle with honey
(Yield: 3 loaves)


350 degrees for 45 minutes.

**I would probably add some official amount of honey in, or a few more bananas for this amount of flour. Great density, needs a tish more natural sweet.

At Least Two Kinds of People

One of my favorite and simultaneously least favorite things about life is that everyone will do things differently. It's my favorite when someone solves a crisis with effortless ease of innovation; it's my least favorite when I find myself thinking, Why would anyone, EVER do THAT?

There are at least two types of people when it comes to doing things (ok, maybe three...but I'll get there): there are the perfectionist-worriers and the reckless-risk-takers. The perfectionist worrier is not my breed of human. The perfectionist wants to get all of the ducks, right in a row so as to assure - key word here, "assure" - that everything goes according to plan resulting in a scheduled outcome. The reckless-risk-taker on the other hand, will pinball from thing to the next, ever-taunting gravity's ability to strike and pull it to the bottom...forcing us to put in another quarter. Or something. I mean, they are usually the ones not contemplating the consequences til they arrive.

I suppose the third is the indecisive, and the only reason I came to that conclusion is because I almost couldn't figure out which I am. Further still, the only reason I couldn't figure that out (other than being often plagued with indecision) is that it's more appealing, in a strange way to be the ducks-in-a-row type of person. Something about that lies to me and tells me it's more secure. You might be that person, and you might read this and think: That's cause it is, it is more secure!

It doesn't take many seasons in life to know that just because you worry about something, doesn't stop it from happening. How far away are some of our habits of worry from a child peering under her bed for monsters before going to sleep? I always plead from this end, because that is my breed. But all this to the point that I believe there's a freedom in that; you might plan until you're blue in the face and drenched in sweat, and your plans may fail, or you could go wandering aimless and fall, lost on your unknown road.

I've been thinking a lot lately about how much I hear people criticize one another and feel justified, and much like anything I ponder, I turn it back on myself. The harsh truth is I do it, too. Why should we feel so justified to say we would've known how to do it better? Or worse yet, that it wouldn't have happened to us? Let the empathy sink back in by realizing that no one has the answers. There is no play book. I think of what freedom there would be if we weren't worried about someone questioning why we did or didn't do something! Biblically, we are told to use discernment and be wise, but not to worry for tomorrow for it will worry for itself, and also in Romans that to each their own convictions before the Lord concerning certain things.

What beauty and relief there might be in the freedom, to know there is no certain way to venture your path!