desperately holding onto me

I struggle with my identity everyday...i have been for a while now. A long time ago (9 years to be exact) when I graduated from college I told my husband to kick my ass if he ever found me climbing the corporate ladder. I graduated as one of the "creative ones" and wasn't going to let myself be sucked into the cog. And now here I am stuck in the middle of a corporate climb and scared shitless because I seem to be kind of good at it. But its not who I am and that scares me even more.

So the other day, one of my art directors told me she thought I had a surfer girl/hippie chick vibe about me...she actually thought I was from California. She for some reason apologized the next day for calling me a hippie. I laughed and told her what a huge compliment that was. I have been dodging the "corporate" stereotype for quite sometime now...so for her to see a hippie made me happy.

Maybe I'm not losing after all.

it's okay...

to want things you can't have.

i found hope

I was out running the other day and I came upon this family out in their front yard. The dad was practicing catch with his daughter and his 4 year old little boy was roaming around. The little boy saw me coming down the side walk and waved. He then ran over to a tree in their front yard, pulled a bloom off and ran towards me. As I had on my iPod, he screamed at me "a flower for you!" as he handed me the bloom he had pulled off the tree. I still wonder what he was thinking that led him to believe I needed a flower...but it made my freakin night.

The world is falling down and this little boy thought I needed a flower. Maybe he's on to something.

quote of the day

This was overheard at my local coffee shop. He was a college aged barista:

"I want to feel classy, listen to some good jazz and pay way too much for food."

I didn't have the heart to tell him that the lifestyle he lives is way more satisfying.

run

Once I started running further than short distances, I realized I needed to find some place else to run other than my small neighborhood. I can only wave at the same guy mowing his lawn so many times before he wonders what the hell I'm doing. So I found this trail in Lawrence I really like. It's amazing how much faster 6 miles goes when your aren't passing the same house 5 times. My most recent run on this trail consisted of:

me getting lost and adding an additional mile to my run
3 rabbits
1 squirrel
a 1/4 mile of snails
1 saved worm ( i saved him)
2 garage sales
2 creeks
1 dog kickin it 'head out the window' style

the institution of marriage

I'm married...everyone knows that. But what everyone might not know is I don't actually believe in the institution of marriage. I lived with my husband for a very long time unmarried and we eventually fell into marriage simply to make financial and ownership opportunities easier.

I have currently gone through a rash of friends who have had or are having issues with their significant others and it only solidifies what I think about marriage. Or maybe just how I view the way most people think marriage should go.

I think marriage is pushed on us as this end all, be all of partnerships and/or companionships. This is the person that your world revolves around, the person that is the everything you need. I don't think this is realistic at all. And I think the marriages that fail (what are we up to like 50% now?) are the ones that think this is true.

I think the marriages that do work are the ones where you realize you HAVE to foster other relationships throughout your life. There is no way one person can be everything you need for this one life time.

I am one of the very lucky whose husband has allowed me to foster relationships with a group of friends that mean the world to me. He lets me wander out to happy hours, not come home at night, chat with other boys, share things with others what I don't with him and let others make me happy.

There are different parts of me...different parts of my life that need different people and I'm allowed to find people who fill the holes, niches, parts of my soul, parts of my brain, parts of me that I can't get from one person.

You're gonna need more than one person to get through this life...I think I'm one of the lucky who has found the bunch I need.

everything is beautiful...at the ballet

I used to dance.

Ballet, modern, jazz...i danced. I don't anymore. I got busy, I got old, I forgot.

I went to a ballet performance last night...the first one in a very long time. I had abandoned the entire art form for quite some time for unknown reasons. I know I love dance (don't get me started on So You Think You Can Dance) but I had forgotten just how much I miss it.

I'm sitting there last night and the lights go down and the curtain goes up on this lone male dancer with his back to us. And he reaches his arm out, rotates a wrist and plies. I see every muscle in his body react and I felt it in every essence of me. My body ached because it remembered...I remember. The power I had, the control, the passion, the ability to exist on a stage for 40 minutes and feel nothing but you. The lights, the music, the breath, being part of a performance...part of the production.

I don't suspect I will ever feel that way about anything ever again.