Saturday, March 29, 2014

What I Learned in March

 Every month I link up with Emily Freeman at Chatting at the Sky to share what I learned that month-- the serious, the silly, the down right mind blowing.

1) Grey's Anatomy's opening song has lyrics. This month I've started watch Grey's Anatomy from the beginning. I've been watching the current season but it's just not the same without the back story. To my surprise, the opening song has lyrics! And they are catchy! Who knew?



2) Retail and medical personnel work similar hours. Since I have been gorging on medical drama, I have found parallels between hospital and mall life. We work similar hours, build a family with our work friends and are inevitably busy on weekends. While the work itself is vastly different, the lifestyle is similar and it comforts me to know that we all have highs and lows with our jobs.

3) The Enneagram personality test is creepily accurate. I discovered Enneagram last month's linkup. Leigh Kramer did a blog series about the Ennegram and posted about each type and the characteristics of respective bloggers with that type. After some research, I settled on Type 6 and when I read her post about what Type 6 bloggers think and feel, I was floored. She wrote some exact phrases I had shared with my husband the night before about writing. Such a confirmation! Do you know which type you are?

4) The Night Circus's writing style is described as "lush".

I discovered this through our library's website. They recently updated their catalog to add a research application called Novelist that analyzes aspects of a book you like and suggests other books along similar guidelines. You can even narrow your search to the writing style, like lush. This discovery led to many hours following rabbit trails but all in the name of my "to read" list. If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them!

5) A cat with the best intentions can still end in destruction.

    Exhibit A:

One evening, I heard a scratching noise in the bathroom. Fearing that it was my cat, Mayhem, in his old makeshift toilet (the sink) I went to investigate. Turned out, Mayhem was innocent. Instead, I found Milton scratching at the shower curtain. I looked closer and found this. He was batting at the water droplets, but claws and a thin curtain liner don't mix.

6) My husband knows how to enjoy his birthday. Our friends threw him a surprise birthday party and presented him with a two layer cake, candles on the rim of the first layer and covering the top. My husband takes his time opening gifts (something about reusing paper), and since there was only the cake, he decided to blow out each candle one at a time. Twenty-six candles. He may not have gotten his wish but he was one happy guy.

What did you learn this month? Share in the comments below.

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

A Creeping Discontentment

Discontentment. It starts tiny, like a small mosquito bite. The itch is distracting but you can live with it. Then it swells. So you apply an ointment, but now you can't ignore the uncomfortable feeling. The swelling continues, disrupting your sleep, causing you to toss and turn at night until, restless, you stumble out of bed and down an antihistamine. Finally, blissful sleep arrives. Peace. Serenity.

I've been searching for that peace lately. Something to take the edge off this restless feeling that somehow my life has entered a state of limbo. Social media feeds circulate headlines from my friends: "I'm pregnant!" "We bought a house!" "I got the job!" Headlines in black and white stain the screen and leave me searching for my next big thing. I look up from the screen and wonder, when did I enter a routine? When did I lose that excitement and state of anticipation?

At times, the itch is gone. I look around at my apartment, with such a glow of pride. I've made it a home. Books line the shelves, warm tones wrap around my husband and I in a comforting embrace and I jump at the chance to bake and cook. My job is fun; I work at a tea emporium, introducing customers to the wonder of loose leaf tea, encouraging them to slow down and enjoy the ceremony. I enjoy the Friday night dates, going out or staying in, I enjoy a night that is all our own. I enjoy my life, but then the itch creeps back, leaving me hollow, haunted as if something is missing.

The opening scene of P.S. I Love You epitomizes this haunting feeling. Holly and Gerry are arguing about not being ready to have a baby. They live in a five story, four floor walk up in New York  City and Holly has a job that makes her cranky. She doesn't feel ready for a baby but she would like to have one, someday, but "you've got to have a plan" she explains. "I see people buying bigger apartments and having babies. I get so afraid that our life is never going to start." Her confession of fear unleashes tears that leak onto my cheeks. Then Gerry whispers back, "We are already in our life, baby. It's started. This is it."

I want to believe those words. "This is it." A statement not of resignation but of action and excitement, seizing the moment and living in it, as if today was the last day of my life.  But.... how do you enjoy a third page story when you are surrounded by everyone's  highlights and headlines? How do you ignore the itch and not aggravate the bite by scratching at it? How do you let the grief heal? The grief of it's not my time to have a baby. The grief of, I'm on a journey, or I don't know what I want to do with the rest of my life. How do you stop and enjoy the NOW?

I don't have a clear cut answer. I know it takes looking, peering through the thick mist of "not now" and "what if" to capture the beauty of "what I have."

What I have, is a husband who loves me and works tirelessly to graduate with a PHD. I have two ornery cats who fill every day with laughter at their antics and sweet displays of affection. I have a job filled with people who are not just co-workers, but are friends; friends I know, that if I allowed myself, would be there if I needed them despite our differences. I have friends who invite me to coffee and lunch dates. And I have family, who support and love me even when I fear I will disappoint them in some way.

Some days that bite flares and that mist is so thick I cannot see past it; it consumes my thoughts and feelings. But just like I know relief comes to the bite, so I also know that sun is beyond the mist. Today that mist may not break, but the sun exists. I hold tightly to the promise and truth that the sun exists. Let it shine and break through this current darkness.
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...