Hell On Heels

If the reason you choose to not go after your dreams is because they are too big or too scary, then you don't have a good enough reason.

Today I feel like gold.  I went for the thing I debated being too big and too scary.  I took my own damn advice and I won.  It happened for me, a break, a start, my foot in the door.

My head is held higher than normal, my confidence is in-tact, I can face the world again and it feels great.

I am a feminist who values a clean home and a healthy homemade meal.  I am a feminist who will not back down from a challenge.  I am a feminist who can be a bitch with an attitude and a lady with class. I am a feminist who will wear my pearls and my heels.  I am a feminist who will not be defeated.  I am a feminist who will embrace her emotions; tears and smiles alike.  I am a feminist who believes in community.  I am a feminist who is a citizen of the world.

When we look back, I will have pride, knowing that I stood on the right side of history.  I am so tired of the rhetoric of election season.  When I read the comments of so many misguided Americans I know, with out a doubt, society and the education system have failed so many.  So many hearts are filled with hate and with ignorance.  And it breaks my own heart, at times.

To have been selected for the Transit Alliance Citizens' Academy means that someone else believes in my potential to make a difference in the world, in my ability to be a community leader, in my future and my ideas.  I do not stand alone in believing in myself, I have forum to learn and to voice my opinions and ideas about something I am passionate about.  This is my opportunity, my big break and I will not let it go to waste.

Jezebel posted an article about benchmark years and the comments that followed were exactly what I needed to read.  I need to know that other people find this age to be frightening.  I need to know that I am not alone in my feelings of inadequacy and pressure to do more, to be more.  And I'm not.  I feel loved and surrounded by people who stand with me.  It's important, as women, that we stand together and support each other through our various times in our lives.  Jezebel really does a great job of fostering that environment.  Which is why I return to the site day after day to remind myself why I fight for the ideals that I strive for.

Every time I read the statistic that one in five women will be raped in her lifetime I am astounded that this statistic is as high as it is.  Someday I want to be a voice to young women as someone who is the one of those five in her group of friends.  I don't think I'm ready for it now, I wouldn't even know where to start that wouldn't involve me in tears.  But I've been doing a lot of direct contact with that part of my history, forcing myself to reconcile what happend and to be okay with myself over it.  I'm closer than I have ever been but nowhere near where I want to be.

This song makes me tear up every time, it's beautiful and I want to share it with whomever might be reading and sharing in my Meaningful Life Journey with me.

Yes, I am okay.

I'm in serious need of some positive life affirmations right now.  I don't know what it is but the weird party going on across the street is seriously bumming me out.

Instead of taking a depressed person nap I'm going to write about why I am awesome, instead.  I spent more money than I meant to and that is stressing me out a bit.  This is why money should not stress me out: I got this.  My bills will be paid because I am relatively good at life most of the time.  And when I am not, I am blessed to have family who will pick up my minor slack and I pay them back when I am being a little less mildly retarded.  Money is going to be a little tight for the next few years BECAUSE I am training to have a job that will give me a 700% raise in income.  This time, this effort, this stress, and this being broke is an investment that is aiming to pay off very well.  I need to pull myself up my feel sorry bootstraps and get on with it.  Being broke should allow me more study time, a healthier diet and time to do things I wish I had time to do when I'm doing things that cost money.  This is an exercise in complete and total frugality.  It will BE OKAY. I AM OKAY.

My tattoo turned out beautifully.  It's everything I hoped it would be.  It's simple, classy, and beautiful.  It is a reflection of me. and I adore it.

Okay.  I'm feeling better now.

Why a sunflower?

I'm choosing to embellish a sunflower forever on my skin as a symbol of my past.  I am a prairie child.  Where I grew up, sunflowers grew strong.  I picked them ALL the time.  I was captivated by them.   My grandmother, the one who is dying of dementia, used to bring me every single thing she could find with a sunflower on it, they reminded her of me, my warmth, my brightness, my ability to always find the sun. This will symbolize my childhood, my roots, my family, my strength, my ability to see the light and my ability to survive and grow strong and beautifully in any environment you put me.

Slowly Checking Out On Cold Meds

Now that I'm quickly approaching the finish line of absolute youth, I'm beginning to understand those who eternally cling to their youth as though life has nothing better to offer them.

Stress really seems to affect me worse than it used to.  When I spent nearly all of my time completely spazzed out with stress I suppose I did get sick more often.  But this time I got my period early, my face burst out in face herpes (cold sores, two of them, gross, I never get more than one at a time, I look like a leper) and now I have a cold with a sore throat and achy body.

Tuesday starts my new semester.  I'm pretty excited about it; it marks the official end of my summer and this has been a relatively exciting and trying summer with highs that extended beyond imagination and lows exactly the opposite levels of my highs.  It's been manic and the ideas of stability and levelness seem amazing.

If I just continue to focus on one day at a time.  One step at a time.  One minute at a time.  If I can just remember that it's the little things that create the big moments in my life and that as my youth escapes me, new wisdom fills in the voids of the loss.  I will be okay.  I will never be as young, again, as I am today and because I am alive, today is the best day of my life.  When I take the climb, watching one foot in front of the other I will get to the top of my mountain.

In this moment, I like the way I feel.   I know this will be a mildly stressful week for me but I'm not getting psyched out about it.  Right now, I am just resting and calm.

Mom and I are going to try and participate in the Alzheimer's walk.  Grandma is really getting bad and apparently her sister and her brother have both been diagnosed with degenerative dementia diseases.  My dad's grandmother had family who suffered from the disease as well.  My genes have provided me with many beautiful blessings; however, my biggest fear is that I will get dementia.  I'm doing everything I can to live a meaningful life before I lose my memory.  I'm hedging my risk and managing my expectations but all of this does not undermine the immense fear I have that I will die alone, trapped in my own mind.  This enemy is one that I want to know all about.  I want to know how to beat this opponent but I also realize the likelihood of me walking away from that battle victorious is not likely.

I will no longer apologize for who I am or the decisions I make.  Please do not ever expect this from me.  If I feel like I have wronged you in a way that merits apology, you will receive one.  But if I am feeling like I am apologizing merely to help you feel better then I will no long extend that apology.  Also, if you don't respect me enough to tell me what I've done to incur the wrath of your cold shoulder, I will not feel badly about it or sad for the loss of your friendship.  I will simply move on.

I find out, this week, if I will be participating in the Transit Alliance Citizen's Academy.  This will be big news for me, be on the lookout.

Sunday Fun Day

I really didn't do much of anything productive with my day.  I did do some drawing and did a bit of running.  I also managed to get really angry after reading about the most recent slaying of innocent people by an angry white man with a gun and a misguided grudge.  When do we start profiling white men for their terrorist threat to society?

Politics need to be fixed.

I need a massage.

Andrew suggested we make a list of things to do together in the event we become bored. Granted these things could not be achieved at the moment given our proximity to each other but it made me happy that he made the suggestion.

We have come up with the following:

• learn to play chess
• dancing lessons (swing)
• ziplining
• kiss
• learn massage
• wine and cheese picnic
• Stargazing
• learn to mozzarella cheese
• pumpkin carving
• volunteering
• go to new Orleans
• go on a search for good climbing trees
• go to the airport, get the cheapest soonest departing flight, spend the weekend there
• do the lamest tourist activity in the city we can find.  Have an unabashedly good time.
• drive somewhere we've never been and have dinner.  Use fake names.
• go geocaching
• fly a kite
• go to an orchard or farm and pick produce
• take a class to learn something new
• take a $10 budget to the dollar store and compete to come up with the most creative gift for the other person.
• go watch a sunrise
• point and choose a band from the live music section of westward.
• go to the playground
• walk in one direction as far as we can.  Take the bus or taxi back
• take camera to abandoned place
• have a five course dinner at five different places
• play 20 questions
• go ice skating
• teach Kim to shoot a gun
• go to a diner and share a milkshake
• draw sketches of each other
• teach Kim to wall climb and maybe climb rocks
• kayak
• hot air balloon ride
• have high tea at the brown palace
• bumper cars
• participate in foodie pen pals
• can and pickle something
• alphabet date.  Pick a letter and everything you do must start with that letter
• rent a movie from the library and make stovetop popcorn

We also set up two ground rules.

1.) If one of us feels unheard or that he or she is not happy in the relationship we are allowed to call a timeout and both of us will respect the timeout by giving the other our undivided attention to address and solve the issue. Timeouts are to be used at the beginning of negative feelings so that issues do not get out of control.

2.) If we disagree about a particular issue, ie dinner or how to spend the day, we are both to rank how strongly we feel about our choice and the person with the higher ranking will be allowed to participate in his or her activity of choice.

I'm starting to feel really good about this idea.

I Decided To Design Some For Myself

Yesterday, a platonic acquaintance who I followed on Pinterest posted a meme of Willy Wonka saying "so all of you peace loving Christian haters are protesting chick-fil-a? Will you all be refusing your Christmas presents?"  There are so many incorrect statements in two sentences, I just cringed at the ignoramus statement she had attached herself to.  And if someone actually believes that all of these things are true, I have a hard time keeping my association with them.  What a misguided thing to say out loud.

Let me start with Christmas.  It was not until very recently in history that Christmas even became a Christian thing.  Jesus wasn't even born until something like June.  Christmas aligns with the middle winter holiday to make the conversion of Paganism to Christianity more fluid.  If you are interested, dear reader, in know the true history of Christmas here is a link to a great article from The History Channel.  So the notion that a non-Christian should not accept his or her Christmas presents because they don't celebrate Christmas under the Christian tradition is an asshole thing to say.  For years now, I have been celebrating the winter holiday and the spring holiday as those things.  The winter holiday gives me an opportunity to celebrate and thank the friends and family who have been a positive influence in my life throughout the year and the spring holiday allows me to celebrate the end of winter and the start of spring and summer.  The ignorance of other people wears me down and makes me sad for them.  How terrible it must be to live in a world of ignorance and hate and how very selfish.

The next portion of this that exasperates me is that the Chick-Fil-A protesters are somehow also Christian haters.  Really?  This doesn't even require a response because it's the most asinine thing I have read all week.

Why is it so easy for people to sit so blissfully in their ignorant opinions?  I realize that the world is not just like me but I can't imagine forming a strong and emotional opinion about an issue without considerable research into both sides of the issue.

I love the feeling of starting a school year in the fall.  It makes me feel reminiscent of childhood.  There is a certain amount of anticipation that comes with fall for me.  I am starting to feel it in the air.  The August air starts to feel very humid and hot, school shopping commences, and the countdown the brown leaves, cool and crisp air, pumpkins and apples, football and school start.  MMM...I LOVE IT!!!