Be Here

It hardly seems possible that tomorrow is Christmas Eve.  When did that happen?  It happend while I was living, I suppose.  For the first time, I'm truly not stressed out and I'm excited for the small party I'll be having in my little apartment.  Perhaps I can sense that it will likely be the only time I'll have a Christmas memory quite like this one.  So many things are poised to change for me in the next year.  For the best, maybe, but maybe not.  And who knows when I'll have a moment of true, simple, having next to nothing besides the complete and total love of a group of fascinating and dynamic people in my life quite like this one.  I'm feeling nostalgic for right now.  Right now is pure and simple and enough.

Tomorrow everything could change so today I'll appreciate a thankful moment of peace.

Looking Forward

It seems impossible that another semester has passed.  Having decided to stretch out my undergrad another semester, it makes me feel better knowing that it should fly by.  So far, my grades coming in are not exactly what I wanted them to be but they are still pretty good.  Also, I got a 100% in one class and it's a class that matters for my major.  The only classes that won't come back with A's are not relevant to my major.

I haven't made a New Year's resolution yet so I think I'll give it a go now that I'm not completely overwhelmed with everything else.  So.  Without further adue, 2013 should include the following achievements/goals:

Getting my GPA up to qualify for Honors
Take the GRE
Find/Get hired for an awesome internship
Ride the Pedal the Plains Bike Race
Walk the Alzheimer's 5K with my mom
Take the Zephyr train to Grand Junction
Be better prepared for Christmas maybe save for Christmas
Buy a sewing machine
Make a Duvet Cover
Take advantage of my shitty job to continue using it to teach myself the art of patience
Be able to do 10 push ups not on my knees
Stick very strictly to my budget, even if it means saying no more often.
Prepare myself to be a great candidate for UT Austin.
Let go of friendships ruined past healing
Forgive myself for mistakes
Forgive others for hurting me
Start saving for a Scooter
Give hostess gifts when friends invite me to parties
Get over my fear of singing in front of people
Go one year completely free from bulimia
Make sure the people in my life know that I love and appreciate them

Healthy Weights and Attitudes

I'm ready to be done with finals tomorrow.  And I'm ready to move on from these classes.

It's taken me some time to feel comfortable setting weight loss goals with my history with weight loss/bulimia.  In the past it's always gotten to the obsessive part where I will eat something and feel so badly about it that I will feel sick and ultimately throw up because I feel so ill and stressed out about having eaten something outside of my diet.  This time I feel more flexibility in my goals and more support.  It's not about losing weight, it's about establishing healthy lifestyle habits.  I've always weighed more than the people around me and so I've never felt particularly comfortable talking about how much I weigh.  Especially when I hear friends talking about how big they felt weighing less than I weigh.  My weight distributes differently throughout my body, maybe?  I think I'd like to lose 20 pounds in the next year, be able to complete the Alzheimer 5k and the 3 day peddle the plains bike ride, and consistently fit into a size 10.  Since I've been working out relatively consistently this month, I don't feel like I've completed my day if I haven't done my workout.  My mind feels less anxious and I feel stronger and healthier after I workout.  I will work hard to keep the momentum.

In Considering The Act of Self-Destruction

I haven't seen this guy in nearly 10 years.  I didn't know him outside of a very fun art class with him and thinking from this art class that this guy was pretty stinking awesome.  However, the act of him having taken his life is really throwing me for a loop.  I simply don't understand and though it isn't my place or purpose to understand the actions of one whom I haven't seen in nearly 10 years nor did I know outside the confines of a very fun art class, it is hurting my heart more than I think it should be.

Maybe it just hits so close to home, to a place I thought my own brother was near for so long.  I just don't know what I would do if I lost my own brother at the age that this person took his own life.  I should let him know that.

Maybe I just am at a place in my life, having survived a time in my life that I would have even thought it conceivable to have taken my own life, where I know that it gets better.  I know that even when things are shitty beyond comparison that life is cyclical.

The whole thing just hurts my heart.

A Damn Mouse and Other Daily Musings

So the call did not go how I wanted it to go.  But it did go, as I did, the second best way.  Perpetual second place winner, right here.  It's just not my time and that is okay.  I guess.  I tell people it's cool but really I'm peeved that I wasn't the best because, dammit, I want to be the best at everything.

But since I'm not, I'll take my second place victories in stride and do my thing and get better and there will come a time when I am somebody's first choice.

I saw a damn mouse in my apartment this morning.  I'm pretending I didn't see a mouse in my apartment this morning.  If I see it again I will call it a big deal.  Otherwise I'm giving it a peaceful opportunity to vacate the premises before I go to war and destroy the non-threatening mouse.

I nailed another interview today.  I probably won't get the job but I am getting to be damn good at interviewing.  And this is a good thing, I think.

My brother will be proposing to his girlfriend over the New Year celebration.  I have mixed feelings about this.  Some  Most of it is jealousy.  I want to be the person someone knows they want to spend the rest of their life with.  I have other things, like living outside of my parents house.  So there's that.

Tomorrow I'll go back to plan A.  It's possible that Plan B or C might kick into action but Plan A seems like the most likely plan for the next 6 months of my life.  And I'm cool with Plan A.  Plan A doesn't suck and I'm beginning to see doesn't suck as something a good thing.  At least a better thing than I used to.  Does finding contentedness count as getting too comfortable and not striving for new things?

I need new underwear.  Currently, I'm in possession of entirely too many pairs of cotton period panties from 40 lb ago and let's just be real for a second.  I can do better.

Tempura Shrimp

I left it all on the table, every last bit of what I have to give.  And THAT, giving it all, leaving nothing to regret is how I do it best, how I do life best.

Picturing my phone ringing, a Denver 303 number not in my phone, the voice on the other end "calling to let you know we would like to extend you an offer for the Service Planning internship."  The blissful feeling of knowing that this is the culmination of everything I have spent my 20's working towards.  All of the tiresome hours of figuring out what I want to do with my life, finding my focus and then steering my life through a sharp U-turn and making it happen.  Feeling as though I'm on the precipice of a major life event and not knowing where I am going to be in just under 2 years and knowing myself well enough to know that with all of the unknown, I can still find my peace in my present because my present is something to be proud of and thankful for.  Look around.  My life is perfect.

Christmas is happening in my 425 sq. feet of heaven.  I decided to make several snacking type foods and Hot Buttered Rum and rent Christmas movies for Christmas Eve and French toast and bacon Christmas morning.  I'm thankful I have a family who cares enough to not see me spend Christmas alone that they dropped their plans to come spend it with me.

Recently I've been feeling a lot more support from my family.  I know they have always loved me and have been happy for me but recently, I feel like they are really very proud of me and it is really truly an amazing feeling to break through.

Graduate school will maybe be happening in Austin and I'm all of a sudden excited beyond measure about it.  Something about the serious consideration of uprooting my entire life and moving somewhere I have never been is just instinctually exciting in me.  It causes a stirring and twitter in my blood flow that makes me giddy from a lack of oxygen in my brain and my fingers tingle with anticipation.  Just think!  A few years in Austin, near at the Center for Transportation Research, learning to be a premier mind in the thing that interests me most.  This also means the GRE will be happening, I'm terrified I will fail the math portion.  I wish I would have been more excited about math as a kid.  If I have a kid I am going to find a way to make math fun for him or her.  There are so many openings in life for people who love math.

Lena Dunham's character in Girls reminds me of me in the last year and a half of my life.  I'm glad that phase of my life only lasted a year or so.  Though I don't regret it, it was sincerely a year of complete and total insanity.

So many life forces at work.