I slept in this morning until just before 10:00, and as I was laying there in bed mentally preparing myself for the day, I thought back to how Saturday mornings used to be when I was a kid. My Saturday mornings were pretty typical - I might watch some Saturday morning cartoons, I'd eat an extra bowl of whatever sugar encrusted cereal was around at the time, then I would dart outside to play with the neighborhood kids in the sunshine. Those were the days.
Somehow it seems as if Saturdays have lost their luster. I'm sure this is partially because I am older and, to be honest, have no interest in watching cartoons anymore. If I did, I could watch them whenever I wanted on the Cartoon Network anyway, so it doesn't even matter. Besides that, for some reason when I don't have an 8 to 5 job, weekends aren't so special anymore. They are a lot like my Tuesdays and Thursdays when I don't have class. Sure, now I have two days in a row, but unless I have some activity planned that spans more than 24 hours, who really cares?
For some strange reason when I am here, I wake up on Saturday mornings and feel like I have two days to be as productive as humanly possible, as if my weekends are measured not by how much I enjoy them, but by how much I get done. Maybe this is a by-product of the remorse I feel over so many weekends at my Mom's house wasted in front of the television. Maybe it's just that I can't stand the prospect of being stuck in this place for two entire days straight. I'm not sure what it is.
The sad part is, that I am all talk. I'll wake up Saturday morning and make all these plans for what I intend to get done this weekend, and if I were to sit down on Sunday night and review those goals, I'd be disappointed every time.
This weekend my goals are:
- get all my assigned readings done for school this coming week
- get caught up on homework for my online class
- wash all of my laundry that I haven't done since coming back from vacation
- visit my Grandma
- clean my room (put away all the straggling vacation treasures, clothes, random clutter)
- go to the gym at least once; schedule an appointment with my trainer for later this week
- go to the farmer's market
- get out to see Eliza for at least a few minutes
- copy the CDs in my CD book on to iTunes (necessary since my iPod went missing in LA)
- get caught up on cycle 15 of ANTM
- make guacamole
...annnd that's all I can think of right now. My mom has basically ordered me (in a way only a mother can) to clean her house in the next week or two, so I will hopefully get started on that as well. Mom is bordering on hoarder status, for those of you who don't know, so this will most certainly be a challenge. I can't wait.
I cannot believe it has been so long since I was on here swearing to update this blog soon. I can't believe how much has happened since then either.
I went to see my waxer today, and my waxer is like my therapist, only probably more expensive. She always asks me about my life and I always spill my guts to her without thinking twice as if that is the perfectly normal thing to do; she knows more about my personal life than a lot of my friends do. She asked about my vacation and I told her (in a few sentences) how everything went. I told her about the guy who blew me off and the new guy I met who I thought I'd never see after those two weeks we spent together and how he's just said he wants to come visit me in Oregon. I was sure to add that I didn't see that going anywhere because he's not what I need - he is too wild, too short, with too much baggage. And she said to me, as if it were nothing, "we can't help who we fall in love with."
I never said anything about love, but somehow the matter-of-fact way she spoke those words is just sticking with me... can we really not help it? If we can't, then is there some sort of override button for those times when we fall in love with someone we shouldn't? There should be.
I don't doubt that I will remember this summer for a very long time.
I don't even know how to describe the last few months, only to say that they were transformative in so many different ways. I lost a lot of things, but as time moves on, I seem to be gaining even more things to replace them. I lost my husband, my house, and most of my belongings. I lost all of my money. I lost what I thought was my independence, only to discover that what I had was not even independence at all, as I am finally learning what real independence is.
I've learned that sometimes the people we have known the longest will disappoint us the most in life. Maybe that is only because we allow them to, but I haven't really figured this out yet...
I am still cleaning up the mess that J left behind when he abandoned our house and marriage. I still have a pile of bills to catch up on and no idea how I'm going to make that work. I did terribly in school this summer - I got one A, one B and one D. My first D, and only my third B. I have been beating myself up for that so much already and am just trying to do the best I can to accept it now. So my GPA dropped from the solid 3.98 I had earlier this year to a mere 3.86. Ouch. I'm kicking myself for probably losing my chances at Harvard, Stanford, and probably Berkeley too. My extracurriculars aren't that strong and I was hoping my grades and a good LSAT would do a lot for me with those schools. To make things worse, I have only just begun studying for my LSATs with any kind of regularity and the test is next month. I tried all summer but I couldn't concentrate on anything with everything hanging over my head as it was. I'm still going to look at Stanford and Berkeley Law, but I've also visited Loyola (in LA) and have visits planned to USD, USC and UCLA. When I'm up north I'll also try UC Davis and UC Hastings. I may even visit McGeorge in case I bomb the LSAT, and because they do have a good international law program from what I hear.
So these days I am visiting law schools, catching up on studying for the LSAT, and generally trying to remember how to live life again. I'm writing this post from Charlie's house down in so cal, where I've been trying to find that balance again. Besides all of the aforementioned responsibilities, I've also been on vacation! I laid out on the beach. I've been shopping. I have slept in late. I've tried to figure out this strange world of dating. I still have a lot to get through: I have the divorce to finalize, bills to straighten out, financial aid that is again delayed, and I need to find a place to live, amongst other things. But, at the same time, I am finally starting to feel a little less defeatist about my life. I've given up on the idea of completing my minor in law and legal studies and am just concentrating on finishing my major in the next two terms. I've stopped hating my ex for what he did and have accepted that this is just another bump in the road of life.
I have so much more that I want to ramble on about, mostly more about school and about how utterly confusing dating is in general. And even friendship! Ack! But this is for another post, another time, because I can't sit here all day as much as I might like to.
I'll try and catch up soon, I promise.
These last couple weeks have been somewhat hellish for me and I haven't had time to do the usual things like homework and laundry so, needless to say, I haven't been blogging either. I haven't even been reading my favorite blogs! I am working on playing catch-up now, so expect updates soon! I am thinking of doing a little redesign as well, so we'll see how that goes. And, best of all, I'll be able to read and see what I've been missing out on.
For now, I'll simply say I am alive, my friends and family are still alive, even if not well, and I haven't forgotten about this place. I'm thinking I'll be putting eight to ten hour days in over the next few days at the computer to get reasonably caught up on all the things I need to do, but I'll get there.
xoxo.
You know what I really miss? postcards! and letters! I miss getting things that aren't bills in the mail! Whatever happened to writing to those that you care about? I am not saying we all need to go out and write our Aunt Gertrude and third-cousin Suzy every week, but what about the people that hold a special place in our hearts that we don't get to see very often? I can't remember the last time I have received an actual, legit, letter via snail mail... I know it has been years. I barely remember the last e-mail I got that was more than five or six lines long that wasn't spam. When my ex was in Iraq, we e-mailed back and forth for awhile, but that was it. And even that was more of a rarity after the first month. Sometimes I will send Facebook messages back and forth with friends, but that is really about it. As for everyone else, it is the era of the text message. Anytime any one of us has something to say, we just shoot off a text and, voila! I suppose it gets the job done, and I am a texting fiend myself, but it just isn't quite the same.
Sure, getting an picture message from someone with a snapshot of a crazy lady in Wal-Mart can be fun. I love that I can see how the weather is at the beach thirty seconds after you have. But none of this compares to that neat feeling you get when you open your mailbox and there's a postcard from a friend, mailed from some podunk town somewhere along their summer road trip. Maybe it is because you know, when you open that postcard or that letter, that that friend had to make an effort to get that to you. He or she had to purchase the postcard or the stationary. Then, there was some writing involved. After that, stamps had to be acquired and your address had to be looked up. Then your friend made a special trip to take the mail to the post office or mailbox, and the postal workers did all kinds of work to bring that piece of paper halfway across the country to you two days later. Writing a letter isn't an afterthought. It's not something you can do while at a stoplight, in line at the grocery store, or, God forbid, on the toilet (yes, I know people who do this).
A few years back, an internet friend of mine proposed that we start some sort of underground mail gang thing. I know he sent me a really awesome letter to start things off, but I don't know if I ever even replied back. I wish I had. I wish we still had pen pals, too! I love technology and all that, but sometimes I feel like it doesn't really bring us together after all, but instead keeps us all a safe distance apart.
I am writing myself a note right now: write letters this week. I know that I won't do it just because I said I would, so let's just say this...if I don't write (and mail!) at least two letters and/or postcards in the next seven days, I will give up Facebook for a week. Okay, at least a weekend. Wish me luck!
Have you ever had a good secret that just bubbled up inside of you all day long, dying for you to share it with not just someone, but everyone? The kind of secret that makes it impossible to concentrate on anything else? One that keeps you up at night, yet keeps you going all day long on full speed anyway? A secret that makes it difficult to eat, to work, to concentrate on all of your comparatively unimportant daily tasks? The kind of secret that almost seems to sustain you all on its own?
There is something inherently different about these happy secrets--they seem to have an energy about them that drives you and distracts you and just oozes out of you until you think you're about to go crazy from trying to internalize something so absolutely monumental.
It is like those first-day-of-school jitters, the excitement of an upcoming vacation, the news of a big promotion, and the agony of waiting to be reunited with a lover, all at once.
If you're lucky enough to have one person to share your secret with, you feel like all you can talk about is "the secret." You never tire of discussing your secret ad infinitum, and awaiting the day, together, when your secret is spilled to the rest of the world. You bond over your secret, and talking to anyone else seems unable to satiate your need for human connection anymore, because noone else can give you what your secret-sharer can.
But the question remains to be answered: what is the shelf-life of a secret? When will it start to go stale? Will it cease to be enough and send you looking for something more? If you share your secret, will it be some sort of cathartic release or will the magic of your secret fade away as it is absorbed into the world? Or will a new secret take its place, slipping into your life just as quickly as the first, surprising you with that familiar electrifying energy?
I will be sure to let you know as soon as I find out. ;)
