work today.

we moved boxes from rooms to trucks today.

the boxes (at least 600 of them, maybe more), were full of magic. heavy magic.

the boxes were full of books.

im so in love with books. so in love!

estes is having a used book sale friday morning, so the boxes are being transported to the holiday inn where the sale will take place. each box was labeled with a number, and each number coordinated to a category. for the first three hours out of three and a half, i was digging through the boxes labeled #1, because those were fiction novels. we only knew what boxes contained what by chance. like, if a box was dropped and books fell out, or if we happened to look. so i perused through any #1 i could find looking for books i'd like to own, only to realize in the last half hour that boxes with a FIVE were classic literature. my favorite. i mean, absolute favorite! so i came home with about ten new books today, and certainly could have grabbed more if i had ten more hands and time.

i'm positive i glow when i'm around books. so if you've ever wondered what i look like when i'm enamored, take me to a book shop.

heroes and me.

i want to do so many things. not like...travel, and "see the world" and all that. i mean, i want to be so many things. i want to be a writer. or a teacher. or a landscape architect. i want to move to mexico and open an orphanage. i want to adopt a million little kids who need homes.

i want to do something great.

but i don't know where to start.

and i feel overwhelmed.

and i feel like i'm going to fail wherever i turn.

this is why i read. so i might delight in, and live vicariously through, the lives of heroes.

wait, don't go

i started feeling really badly yesterday about the many layers of guilt i loaded on a few friends to come visit me this weekend. i didn't really feel guilty, though, until they committed to coming. so i started wondering (as usual) what's wrong with me, and why am i so demanding, and when am i gonna grow up, and all these little insecure thoughts that creep in when my world is nearing what feels like perfection.

i was elated when my friends told me they were coming. my chest got all tight and i felt this surge of something like happiness, thought i'm not convinced that's really what the sensation was. i keep thinking maybe i'm bipolar or something. anyway, we had a house full of people yesterday. people i love dearly, and people who genuinely love me, even at my ugliest, with so much gusto it's like i can literally feel it.

i know it's not the weirdest thing in the world to enjoy being surrounded by loving people, but i was thinking today, that maybe the reason i crave a full house is really more related to distraction. i can't think when my house is bursting at the seams. i have just about no time to sit around and do what i usually spend my time doing...over-analyzing and ripping myself apart.

i guess i really started to notice that element of enjoyment when the people slowly started packing their things and driving away this afternoon. the house got quieter and i found myself dreading the night, when everyone but us residents would be on their own pillows, somewhere far away, beyond my house.

i don't have much else to say on the matter. self-realization is tough. and it's so hard to separate the truth from whatever (-slash-) whomever is whispering bullshit into my ear.

an apology

i've done a great job of being selfish lately. i have it checked off in my head as perfectly excusable because of my recent(-ish) personal tragedy, but maybe it's never okay to be selfish.

so i'm sorry. i'm sorry for neglecting people and pulling away. i can't say, "i'm going to change," because i don't know that, and it's likely that i'm not going to try very hard, but please know i acknowledge my reclusive-ness, and i plan to make a comeback (of sorts) someday.

all of you who mean so much to me, who i've barely seen or spoken to since my stint in lubbock and my dad's death, please know that i love you deeply and my absence is not fault of your own. thanks for being dependable and loyal...for not being angry with me or blaming me, for being so incredibly patient and placing no demands upon me for performance.

hugs and kisses.

jumble.

i don't know how well i'm going to be able to articulate anything right now...i'm like.."sun logged" (like water logged, but too much sun...get it?), and i've been working all day, but i'd like to try. i probably write better stream-of-consciousness anyway.

lately i've realized this thing about myself...part of the bigger picture which, day to day, makes me feel miserable inside. i'm a perfectionist. now, if you know me, you might be thinking, "pah! uh huh!" 'cause there's really nothing about me that screams "i'm interested in perfection." my room/house is consistently a mess. i was an a/b student in college. i dropped out of law school. i can think of a million reasons why you may scoff at my considering myself a perfectionist, but i think i am in this weird other way. it's kinda like i need my life to be perfect, and when it's not, i freak out inside.

obviously the "dad-thing" doesn't help too much, but neither does living in the upstairs closet, nor does leaving my dog outside to fend for herself. which, really, is a big reason i thought of all this today. she, meaning my dog. i took her to the dog park, and she ran off at one point. of course i was angry, but more than anything there was this nagging in my mind, a furiousness that she wasn't behaving perfectly.

it wasn't really about her, though, as much as it was about me. that i couldn't control her and make her do what i needed her to do. i get this literal burning sensation in my chest and i just want to cry. on a grander scale...cry because things and life just aren't going perfectly, and there's pretty much nothing at all i can do about it.

blah.

timing and other bullshit

first i'll say...if you're reading this, please don't take offense, and PLEASE don't feel badly. i mean it.

now with that out of the way, i gotta get this out.

i watched "ps i love you" last night...and it was sweet. it was a good flick, but i argued with myself through most of it. well, myself and the author(s). i didn't really like the way grief was portrayed. or wait, not portrayed, but how it was reacted to. i think "holly"'s grief was pretty true to form, and actually so were her friends' responses, but i couldn't quite figure out what the movie was saying about it all. were her friends right that she just needed to move on? the thing with her mom and "this is not healthy" blahblahblah...is it true? when someone dies, is there a timeline to our sadness, and a point when we gotta forget it all and move on?

you can guess the reason i was so conflicted. i know grief... i mean, not a spouse, of course, but he was my dad. i know what it feels like to go through this thing that's complicated and slow-mo and frustrating. i know what it's like to not know what to say to your friends and how to go on living a "normal" life. but i really felt like the movie was on the side of her friends and family, pushing the "time to move on" theme. i dunno, maybe i'm just extra sensitive to the grief-thing right now.

as far as moving on, etc., no one can tell you how to do it right. there is no right. just personal experience, i guess.

so here's the part to which i would hate for you to take offense. where is everyone? i know i'm not a phone person, and i never have been, but i could use some support here. a text, an email, just something to know people are still out there thinking about me. my very closest friends have let me down in the last [nearly] six months with their lack of involvement. i know life is busy and it goes on and all that. i know. and i'm not mad, just sad. my dad's dead, ya know? doesn't that warrant a check-up every other week or so? i hate needing people. i hate that selfish feeling...like "where are you people and don't you care?" 'cause i know they care. i know, know, know they care so much. and i should be the last person to talk, 'cause when am i ever "there" for people? but it hurts anyway.

and what about those people who have been there? the people who really "rose to the occasion" and have been kind and comforting and have not "forgotten" me? i just look right over them in my selfishness. thanks to you guys. you really do mean the world to me...for just being there, and for understanding that this thing is going to be tough for me for a very long time, and there is no "just moving on."

anyway, i really am sorry for my selfishness. i really hope i didn't hurt anyone's feelings with this post.

hearts will break

Today is a week away from my 25th birthday. Birthdays have never really been a huge deal in my family…I mean, we’ve always celebrated and had a cake and all that yummy goodness, but we never went over-the-top with presents or spent tons of cash on parties, that kind of thing. I can think of at least two instances in which my parents actually forgot my birthday until that evening or the next day. Sad at the time, but humorous now. All I’m saying is birthdays (and really all holidays) just aren’t made into major ordeals around our house.
So I should be fine, right? I mean, I’m turning 25 in a week, and just ‘cause my mom will be out of town, doesn’t mean anything. Birthdays aren’t that big, right? But I’m so ridiculously hurting. I get choked up every time I think about next week. My sister’s going to come up and spend the day with me, but that night…I can already see it, the moment I’m going to have in my bed trying to sleep. All alone in the big house, turning a monumental age, and most of all without my daddy. I don’t know why birthdays have suddenly turned into such a big deal. I could almost ask my mom not to go on her trip! I won’t, of course, ‘cause I don’t do that kind of thing, and she has to go, it’s for her business. But man, it’s hard.
I keep asking myself, “What’s your DEAL? Dad rarely even bought you a present on his own!” But it’s like I keep picturing all the times he did. And all the cards he signed over the years. He always wrote such beautiful things. Once he gave me this little blue suitcase, big enough for jewelry…more like a purse. It was terribly ugly, and even more nonfunctional than unattractive, but he picked it out himself, so it always meant a lot to me. One year he even bought me this ring he saw me admire at a store! It was under ten bucks, but the fact that he remembered me commenting on it and went back to purchase it meant the world to me. The stones fell out soon after, I’m sure, but I wore it ‘til it fell completely apart.
A few years ago, my mom dad and I and their pastor and his wife from Estes Park went to a concert together in the town where I lived (about an hour and a half away from them). It was shortly after my 22nd birthday, and my mom asked I was going to drink a beer with the guys. My dad was shocked that I was already old enough to drink. He really thought I was still 20 or younger! I mean, I’m sure if he’d thought about it he would have come up with my real age, but I was just his little girl.
God, I miss my dad. Why does it just kill me some days/hours/moments, and not others?