Work-iversary.

Last week marked two years at my job.  The job that scared the living daylights out of me.  The job that tore me out of Bellingham and away from everything I knew and loved in college.  The job at which I cried in the bathroom a handful of times during the first few months.  The job I thought I'd be lucky to survive for even a year.  The job I HATED.  Needless to say, two years is a big deal to me.  A big, BIG deal.  I remember having some casual conversations with people older and wiser than me when I started this job.  They said, "Oh wow, what a great opportunity!" and, "Good for you, that sounds terrific!" and one conversation in particular in which I was told, "That will look so great on your resume - especially if you stay for at least two years.  They say you need to be there at least two years."  Simple thoughts.  No-brainers.  Nothing to freak about.  But I freaked.  DUH!  I'm a freaker.  Especially then, when my resident Mood Monsters were just picking up steam in their pursuit of my sanity.  Pit in stomach.  Fight the tears.  Keep up the poker face, this is nothing to cry about.  "Two years" doesn't sound like a death sentence to most people.  But for me, right then, the thought that I would stick it out for TWO YEARS at this job sounded INSANE.  Impossible.  Laughable (cryable).   

During the "Dark Time" (the details of which I will spare you, since you need only to read previous posts to learn more than enough about that...), it was hard to tell whether my job was making me hate my life or my life was making me hate my job.  But it was neither.  Because there's just nothing wrong with my life.  I mean is it perfect?  Clearly, no.  And thank God for that.  There's not a lot of growth in perfection.  And a job is a JOB.  And only that, really.  Yes, ideally we would all love our jobs.  But we don't.  And that doesn't have to mean we don't love our lives either.  But since the job is what made me move and the job is what took up most of my time and the job is what everyone wanted to talk about and the job was MISERABLE for reasons I still don't quite understand, I confused that with my life being miserable as well.  I was miserable because I was anxious and figuring out that it's really hard to fit into the Big Girl Panties we're handed when we enter the working world.  But this job is incredible.  The more I've thought about it lately, the more I can't believe it, really.  I landed a full-time, full benefits, Monday-Friday day job.  Two months out of college.  I mean what?  I should have been thanking my lucky stars, not crying myself to sleep under them.  But it just wasn't that easy.

Day 1 at my job began at 7am, after a nearly sleepless night following an awful/tearful/cruel-and-unusual goodbye to my home and friends in Bellingham the previous evening.  In a deserted parking lot in south Tacoma.  With a bunch of 80-somethings wearing sun visors and light jackets and excited smiles, waiting to find out who their new fearless leader would be.  Well folks, their leader wasn't fearless.  She was me.  And I was the opposite of fearless.  And I was sleep deprived, and feeling sadder than I had ever remembered feeling, and having a hard time masking the dark circles and bloodshot eyes caused by crying all the way between Bellingham and Tacoma.  But I plastered on a smile that probably looked something like this:

When in reality my true emotions went a little something like this:

... and after a few introductions and a chorus of "just-HOW-old-are-you-anyway???"s and a check to make sure everyone was present, we boarded a bus for Long Beach, WA to attend the kite festival - a field trip planned by my predecessor.  A four hour bus ride.  A four hour tour of the city.  A four hour bus ride home.  That's right folks, you crunched those numbers correctly!  A 12-HOUR FIRST DAY ON THE JOB!  And I cried in the bus bathroom on the way home.  And I had to FORCE my lips into a smile.  And in that one measly day, I had to decline no less than 5 offers to MOVE IN with a kind-hearted volunteer with the best of intentions.  She wanted me to move in.  With her.  After knowing me 12 hours.  It was day 1 and my mind was already reeling with tidbits from college courses in "Maintaining Boundaries" and "Professional Relationships."  [Note: that same woman has asked me to live with her every single time I have seen her since then... sooooo that's 1 meeting per month x 24 months + at least 5 occasions outside of our monthly meetings, for a grand total of nearly 30 asks.  Explaining that I already have a place to live is NOT an effective deterrent, apparently].  Annnnnnnyyyway, after that hellacious day, I was sure there would be NO POSSIBLE WAY I'd make it even a month on the job, let alone TWO YEARS.  

And thank the good Lord above for my dear friend Megan and her lovely parents, Anne and Kevin.  Who let me stay with them before I had a Tacoma home.  Who were the people I got to come home to after that hellacious day.  I called Megan on my way home, said, "I'm pulling up outside.  Let's go to Metropolitan Market," and really didn't explain much more than that.  But she knows me well enough to hear the pain in my voice and see the dew in my eyes, and didn't ask any questions.  She was just there.  And when I thought I could speak without bursting into tears (partially because I think I actually cried out every bit of moisture in my body on the phone to my mom), I explained the situation and she and her parents were there for me every step of the way!  And I could never thank them enough.

The change I was experiencing was wayyyyy more than a long day at a Kite Festival.  And wayyyyy more overwhelming than I ever could have predicted.  And I'm just not very good with change.  Big change, anyway.  I can hang with changing my drink order at Starbucks from time to time.  In fact sometimes you gotta!  And in fact I LOVE exploring new places, trying new restaurants, redecorating rooms, etc.  Those changes are fine.  But significant life changes like moving to a new town and finding a new job and things like that are just really really hard for me.  

But you know what?  This last week has been so very very cool.  Two years at this job has caused me to reflect a LOT.  And in the healthiest way!  I am feeling nostalgia, but it's joyful nostalgia.  It's satisfied nostalgia.  It's nostalgia bursting with pride.  I did it.  I. Freaking. Did. It.  With the help of wise counsel and modern medicine and MY BADASSINESS, I made it here and I am happy.  Not every day, but a lot of the days.  And that's a mega improvement. 

And if I can prove my Mood Monsters wrong in this way, I can't wait to see what I'll be able to do next.

Today's jame: "Towers" by Bon Iver.

(because I listened to it on repeat when I left Bellingham, thus transforming it into my Moving On Song)

Bucket list, schmucket list.

Whoa.  Hi.  Remember me?  It's been a long time.  Oops!  Oh well.   I'm baaaaccckkkkk!  I don't have a good reason for how long it's taken me to post, so I won't try to make one up.  Let's just get right into the reason I feel inspired today, shall we??

A couple weeks ago I was honored to attend a beautiful memorial service for Grace, a woman who used to work in the International Foster Care department of my office.  She had worked for Catholic Community Services for over 30 years, dedicating her life to loving and serving children and families.  Needless to say, she was an incredible woman with an incredible spirit.  You can read more about her here.  I can't even begin to describe the atmosphere at Grace's memorial.  There are no words.  The air was thick with a combination of love, joy, and deep despair all at once.  It was as heartwarming as it was heartbreaking.  And it was beautiful.  As her loved ones spoke in turn about the incredible life she lived and mind-boggling 20 YEAR battle with cancer that eventually took her life, I can safely say there was not a dry eye in the house.  Truly.  I did not even know Grace that well, but she was one of those people who just had a little something extra special about her.  One of those people who you didn't have to know well to know that she would probably be happy to drop just about anything she was doing in order to help just about anyone who needed it.  She is special.  

The moments my eyes were the least dry were while listening to her daughters speak about the life their mom lived.  I was particularly touched when her youngest daughter spoke about the fact that Grace didn't have a Bucket List, and preferred to live her life without one.  This surprised me at first, because I had learned that Grace was quite the adventurer.  She loved to travel, try new things, drink wine and lots of it, and I just would have thought of her as the Bucket-List-writing type.  And one who would accomplish every single thing on the list.  But as her daughter explained it, Grace wasn't into Bucket Lists because she lived her life as though every moment was a Bucket List Moment.  She treated every new experience - every new sight, smell, taste, sound, feeling, person - as though that very instance had been on her bucket list all along.  Why focus all your energy on reaching some far-off goal and miss the little noteworthy moments that happen around us every day?  Her daughter summarized this point by expressing to us, "My sister and I were my mom's bucket list.  Our children - her grandchildren - were her bucket list.  YOU were her bucket list."

WOW.  This changes things, doesn't it?  What if we all lived this way?  Feeling that every moment is worth something.  Holy smokes.  Now don't get me wrong.  I see nothing wrong with Bucket Lists.  And while I don't have a formal, written-out list myself, there are certainly times when I take a mental note and think, "Ooooo I want to do that.  I'm adding that to the list."  I'm just saying our lists don't have to consist only of sipping espresso in Italy, road tripping across the country, and sunset wine tasting  on a vineyard in Napa Valley (all of which are on mine, in case you were wondering).  They can also include, "Make someone laugh," "compliment a stranger ," and "sing Whitney Houston karaoke solos."  I tend to get really caught up in reaching a goal FAST.  Everything helping me along the path is just a means to an end and makes me anxious and I want to breeze through it fast.  I used to do it all the time in high school choir.  We'd get a new song and while I really enjoyed practices with the rest of the ladies in our small choir, I LOOAATHED the first couple rehearsals when we got the music.  I was way behind many of the girls when it came to reading music so I had to learn most of the pieces by ear, and I was anxious, anxious, ANXIOUS until I knew them all by heart.  For me, the fun part was only after I felt completely comfortable and could start pouring my heart into perfecting each note, beat, and crescendo until it was a beautiful work of art.  This ridiculousness made me learn the music really fast, which was cool or whatever, but I completely missed out on the fact that learning is fun too!  And it was hard to learn sometimes, and I didn't want it to be hard for me.  Because I compared myself to everyone else and felt self-conscious about the fact that I thought I was fooling everyone into thinking I knew enough music theory to be accepted into the group.  Well let me tell you folks, that was DUMB.  Why?  There are many reasons.  A) I was soooo not the only one who didn't know how to read music.  WE WERE SEVENTEEN.  Yikes.  We were pretty good, yes, but not a bunch of freakin prodigies.  B) Nobody cared that I couldn't read the music.  Not a bit.  C) If I would have just stopped to smell the sheet music every once in a while, maybe I would have realized that messing up on notes is kinda funny and working really hard with the group to get it right feels SO GOOD.  

Anyway, that was too long of a story.  I just wanted to offer a small example of what I'm trying to say.  If we get too caught up in a far-off goal or outcome, we miss out on a lot of fun and learning and growth in the process.  We live each day with an illogical and unnecessary sense of urgency which blinds us to everything in the periphery of the task at hand.  And at the same time, there does not always have to be a task at hand!  Last week I was starting to get a little worried about myself and the fact that all I wanted to do was catch up on Grey's Anatomy.  Ok it wasn't ALL I wanted to do, but it was most.  "Shouldn't I be doing laundry or going grocery shopping or catching up with a friend or going to a baseball game or reading or blogging or SOMETHING??"  "All I want to do right now is sit on the couch and watch Grey's Anatomy... am I depressed?!"  Ummm HELLO, no I wasn't depressed.  I was still going to work.  I was still seeing friends.  I was still going to the gym and making meals and being myself.  I think what made me anxious is I wasn't used to the feeling that doing nothing was OK.  That I don't always have to be working on some project or accomplishing a goal, every second of every day.

You can only cross so many trips to Italy off your bucket list in one day, so why try?  Simmer down now.  Not every moment should be a means to an end.  Life is short.  Money is limited.  Take the night off and watch Grey's Anatomy.

There are bucket list moments to be found everywhere.

So to my dear friends, loved ones, and the many places I call home - please know:

YOU ARE MY BUCKET LIST.

Today's jam:  "Summertime Sadness" by Lana Del Rey

(or anything by Lana Del Rey, because I'm obsessed as of late)

Byyyeeeeee! :)

A Series of Unfortunate Events

The last couple weeks have been the pits.  Maybe even slightly pittier than the pits.  Not good.  I don't want to bore you with (or relive) ALL the details, but I probably will anyway.  Buckle your seat belts friends, because this is going to be a long one.  The breakdown goes a little something like this:

Tuesday, April 23rd

2pm-ish:  A very difficult meeting with one of my volunteers in her mid-80s results in her revealing that she would pretty much see no reason to live without this program.  And she is not the first to express this sentiment.  Yes this means she loves the program but it also means it's the only bright spot in an otherwise pretty unhappy life and I can't get her face out of my head, because I know that there are millions of older adults just like her.  Oy.

Friday, April 26th

12pm-ish:  Find out that someone very special, near and dear to me, my Tacoma mom-away-from-home in fact, had come down with bacterial meningitis.  Bad.  Bad bad bad.  She was miserable and hurting and it was terrible [Update: she is back at home and on the mend, folks! PTL (praise the lord... keep up)].

11pm-ish:  My car's clutch goes out on the freeway on the way to Bellingham for a long-awaited weekend of fun.  Good God, Dolly! Don't fail me now!  Dolly is my car.  Keep up.  Of course this happened at 11pm and of course the nearest exit was Seneca Street, landing me in the middle of downtown Seattle.  With a slipping clutch.  This terrain ain't flat, folks!  Made a few difficult circles around the block until I found a safe spot to pull over and waited for AAA to pick me up.  Towed back to Tacoma.

Tuesday, April 30th

9am-ish:  Find out my clutch is going to cost around $1,100.  Make an appointment to bring it in the following Friday because what choice do I have?

11am-ish:  Drop my iPhone in a parking lot.  Shatters.  Want to know how many times I've dropped my phone in its two years of existence?  I don't even know.  That's how many times.  Has it ever even been so much as scratched?  Nope.  But this time, it SHATTERED.  And it was a good shatter, let me tell ya.  Cool.  Things were getting comical at that point, so I actually laughed out loud.  I mean what else was there to do?

Wednesday, May 1st

8am-ish:  Fail to properly fasten the lid on my super cool coffee sipper cup and therefore spill coffee alllllllllllll down the front of me, mostly concentrated on my crotch!  Awesome.  Very minor in the grand scheme of things, but just adds to the comedy of it all so I find it worth sharing.

4pm-ish:  Fork over $100 for a new iPhone.  Siri is a funny sassy gal, but it doesn't sweeten the deal enough to make the transaction anywhere near fun or exciting.

Thursday, May 2nd

8pm-ish:  Much-anticipated weekend getaway plans fall through, leaving me carless in Seattle (ok Tacoma - close enough) while mine is getting fixed.  This is where I really start thinking, "Ok Ashton, you can come out now.  I know I'm being Punk'd."  But Ashton never came.  Because it was real life.  But hey, a girl can dream.

Friday, May 3rd

5pm-ish:  Decide to use my unintentionally free night to make a delicious dinner, kickback, relax, and watch some Say Yes to the Dress.  Yep.  That's what I did on Friday night.  And fell asleep on the couch at about 8:30pm, only to wake up at 10ish with a killer sore throat and the achey, fluey, yucks.  YA KIDDIN ME??  So I hit the Emergen-C hard and went to bed.

Saturday, May 4th

ALL DAY LONG:  My achey-fluey-yucks went from bad to worse.  And worse.  And worse.  And worse.  By about 8pm I was absolutely miserable, aching everywhere there is to ache, and shivering cold even though my apartment is an INFERNO any time the weather reaches 70 degrees.  Took my temperature and my eyes bugged out of my head as the numbers went flying through the 98s and 99s (it could also be because I still do that thing we all used to do as kids where you try to cross your eyes and focus on the numbers even though you really might as well wait til it's all done but WHO CAN WAIT??)  Anyway, those pesky little numbers just kept on tickin' until they reached an ungodly 103.  One hundred and three degrees.  That's pretty much not good.  I tried calling a consulting nurse to ask for cold/flu medication recommendations, but as soon as she asked me, "Has anyone around you been sick lately?" I knew that things were gonna get ugly.  "Wellllll... yes, actually, a close friend of mine was recently hospitalized for bacterial meningitis."  Well people, nurses don't mess around with high fevers and even POSSIBLE exposure to meningitis.  And even though I knew the chances were incredibly slim that I could have contracted it from my sweet TacomaMama, I didn't want to mess around either.  "I think you need to go get checked out," said the concerned nurse.  "Ok, so I'll find an Urgent Care," I said nonchalantly.  To which she replied, "Well, those are all closed so I need you to go to the Emergency room.  I know that sounds extreme but meningitis can take your life, so I really think it's important."  Yes Ma'am.  

9pm-ish to 12:30am-ish:  Admitted to ER.  Gowned up.  Poked.  Prodded.  Poked some more.  Prodded some more.  Draw blood here. More blood there.  IV won't connect.  Bring in the specialists.  Poke.  Bring in the bigger specialists.  Another poke.  Pee in this cup.  I need to swab your nose and throat.  More blood, please.  Poke.  Poke.  Poke.  Needle.  Needle.  Needle.  The nurse called me a pincushion for gosh sakes!  Her "nicest pincushion," I might add.  Things weren't fun.  Blood-curdling screams down the hall.  Crying baby here.  Gurneys being whisked away there.  The Emergency Room isn't fun.  After a LOT of boring and hunger-inducing waiting... the verdict is in:  EAR INFECTION.  Ear infection???  I haven't had an ear infection since I was 8 years old!  How in the &%*! did I get an ear infection?  Dunno.  But I did.  Here are some antibiotics.  Rest up!

Shareables.

Hi!  It's been a long time.  Oops.  Not sure how that happened. 

Guess it was kind of a busy couple weeks.  Anyway, today I just have a few little shareable things to, well... share.  These past couple weeks, as you most likely already know, have been ROUGH.  Lots of tragic, horrid, awful, terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad things have happened.  I am not going to go any further into the details or offer any ideas or opinions about them other than to say - stuff like this makes me VERY anxious and upset.  Maybe that's another reason why I took a little blog breather.  It just gets to be too much.  I wish I was the kind of person who could hear about tragedies and separate myself from the pain and realize that I have no control over the situation or the fact that these things happen.  I mean, I think everyone feels pain and connection to tragedy like this.  I'm not saying I wish I didn't care.  That's not true at all and sympathy is part of what makes us human.  It's just that sometimes I simply can't shake the despair, empathetic pain, sorrow, and fear that comes along with weeks like this one.  It is certainly nothing compared to the agony felt by victims and their families during times of tragedy.  I cannot possibly imagine how they feel.  But I just wanted to touch on the fact that I know what it's like to be a bit debilitated by fear and anxiety during these times, and it's OKAY.  Even if you weren't physically hurt or don't know anyone who was physically hurt, it's ok that we are affected.  It's good that we are affected.  It's ok to take some time to process events like this.  It's good to take some time to process things like this.  You're not weird, you're not ridiculous, you're not selfish, and you have the right to be really upset.  Be kind to yourself.  And I wholeheartedly believe in doing this from time to time...

... in fact I would lose my sanity if I didn't unplug myself from bad news on a regular basis.  Being informed is important, but so is the ability to function and relax and live your life.

Enough about that!  Here's another incredibly powerful idea to ponder.  I'm sure you've already seen it, but if not PLEASE take a moment.  I have a weird thing about resisting youtube videos that people recommend to me - as in, I either never watch them or it takes me a week and constant pestering to finally give in.  I have no idea why this is.  No idea.  It's just a weird thing.  So sue me.  The point is, I was hesitant to hop on this bandwagon until enough people whose opinions I really value and can generally relate with had recommended it and said such amazing things about it.  And they were right.  IT. IS. AMAZING.  So beautiful.  Watch it.  Just watch it.  If you've already seen it, watch it again.  It made me cry (but what doesn't??).  But seriously.  Watch this right now:

Dove Real Beauty Sketches

And while we're on the subject of viral links you've probably already seen, I'd also like to share "Instagram's Envy Effect," an article that quite a few of my friends have referenced recently.  Wow.  The ideas mentioned in this article pretty much sum up the reason I started this blog.  Life ain't perfect.  No matter how many photos I/we post on our various avenues of social networking about canoe adventures, trips to Thailand, or beautiful experiences with friends (yeah, sorry, I know I do that a lot), it's NOT FAIR to assume that these instagrammers are perfect and content and perfectly content!  It's not fair to them and it's not fair to you!  You really think trips and great weather and nice friends and good food makes your life perfect?  I wish!  These things can make life good-fortune-filled and nice, but wow, they're not everything.  So just keep that in mind.  I hope I've been transparent enough about the fact that the fun things I do and adventures I seek and photos I take are in an effort to make the best of each day and not to give you the false impression that I never have bad ones.

Also I can't get enough of this song:  "Turning Page," by Sleeping at Last.  Holy smokes.  It's gorgeous.  If you're feeling some Springtime, love-is-in-the-air, driving with the windows down twitterpation, it's perfect.  In my experience, anyway.  Goosebump CENTRAL.  Was it in a Twilight movie?  Yes.  I'm just going to be honest about that.  Look beyond it, people.

Today's jam:  "Little Numbers" by Boy

Peace be da journey (ever seen Cool Runnings? I sure hope so)!

We're only human.

So here's something funny.  I had a whole different idea for this week's post than what I'm about to share.  I've been thinking about it all weekend, in fact.  Crafting it in my head and thinking of all the hilarious and insightful things I'm going to say.  But then here's what happened:

(1)  I woke up at 9am this morning, you know, a good Sunday-Sleep-In.  Sometimes you gotta!  But this time I took it to the next level and thought, "I'll jusy lay here for a minute with my eyes closed before I actually get up."  Folks, that never works.  For me anyway.  There's no such thing as, "I'll just close my eyes and lay here for a minute and then get up."  No sirree.  So after my quick 10-more-minutes, I rolled over to look at my phone again and saw that it hadn't been 10 minutes.  It had in fact been TWO HOURS.  It was 11am.  WHAT THE?!  That doesn't happen to me very often anymore.  When I was a young high school student whippersnapper, I could sleep in until 11am on the weekends, no problem.  Make that noon.  Nothin to it!  But not lately!  So I HATED this.  Even though my body really needed it, most likely.  As I mentioned in my last post, I was sick this week.  And I'm pretty sure I'm experiencing allergies for the first time.  Wowsers am I ever sorry for you chronic allergy-sufferers out there, because this ain't right!  Anyway, it's probably good that I got a little more sleep.  But Anxious Andie didn't like that she had accidentally let a good chunk of a perfectly usable day go by.  So she was NOT amused.  Logical and sense-of-humor Andie kinda was though... 

(2)  Due to the accidental sleep-in, I woke up reallllly hungry and had breakfast (brunch) at 11am.  No problem.  That's fine.  Lounged around for a bit, cleaned, talked to Russ on the phone, ran some errands, you know.  Sunday stuff.

(3)  Decided to sit down and really dig into this new budgeting software that my parents told me about.  YIKES.  I mean it's great and the geeky part of me (so almost all of me) really likes stuff like that and crunching numbers and filling in forms and the like.  I know, CALM DOWN, right??  I can't be tamed.  But then I had a question and called my dad and he started to help me.  Like the great dad that he is.  But an interesting thing happened:  About 2 seconds into the call, I became incredibly, illogically, and SERIOUSLY impatient and annoyed.  And the thing is, my dad wasn't being annoying.  Nope.  He was being extremely helpful and patient, while I was being a beezy.  I mean I think I reined it in before things got too ugly, and my dad didn't seem to notice or think too much of it (probably because he's been the only male in a household of all women for 25 years, sooooo... this wasn't the first time).  But still, I was baffled by this!  Why is my blood boiling with impatience???  Why do I want to throw my hazelnut macchiato across the room??  What is wrong with meeeeeee?!

So here's what I realized.  First of all, my day started a little wonky when I slept so much later than I had planned.  Second, I haven't eaten since that 11am brunch.  WHOA.  That's bad news bears.  For me, there's "I could eat," "I'm hungry," "I'm really hungry," and "I'M HANGRY" (Thank you Kent Silver for introducing me to that term).  HANGRY.  Hungry + Angry.  And 8 hours without food is not a pretty sight for this girl.  It's really ugly in fact.  

And this realization got me thinking.  I've been reflecting a lot lately on all the things that I used to underestimate before I started getting control of my anxiety.  Meaning all the things that really impact me and my moods and anxiety levels that I always either tried to ignore or thought couldn't possibly be affecting me.  Well y'all, these things MATTER.  Getting enough sleep, eating healthy foods and enough of them, drinking water, getting exercise - these are not only for people who are trying to look like Jillian Michaels or training for a marathon.  These are things we all need!  And ladies, Aunt Flow is a nasty little minx.  She will curse you with mood swings and zits and what feels like 200 extra pounds and try to break you down and if you're feeling like crap, blame HER, not yourself.  I don't mean use her as an excuse to be a horrid awful moody beezy to everyone you know, but just realize that our bodies work in mysterious ways and if you're feeling extra anxious and upset and fat and zitty and gross, don't be too hard on yourself.  In a week or so you'll feel like a gorgeous goddess again (HA ok probably not, unfortunately, but just go with it) and all will be well again.

So the moral of the story is:  Don't underestimate the power of simple little daily needs and occurrences.  They can turn any kind, normal, even-tempered individual into the Incredible Hulk in no time flat.  Happens to the best of us.

Today's jam:  "Tonight I'm Getting Over You" by Carly Rae Jepsen

 (... you have your coping mechanisms; I have mine...) 

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday evening, everyone.

Sometimes you gotta.

I'm sick today.  Blegh.  Fever last night, congested, aches, the works.  That ain't right!  But sometimes when I'm sick and miss work I get it in my head that I have to be all melancholy and down in the dumps and kind of sad all day to go along with the sickness and somehow make it more acceptable that I'm missing work/school/whatever my responsibilities are.  Do you know what I mean?  Does that ever happen to you?  Like, if you're going to miss work you better not have a good day.  You know?

Anyway.  That's messed up!  I'm already feeling under the weather*, so why should I have to feel worse by forcing myself to also be sad and lonely and upset over the fact that I feel pukey?  So tonight, after a full day of laying on my couch and watching Full House and Boy Meets World and frowning because I felt like I shouldn't be allowed to enjoy a sick day, I finally had enough.  Partially because I found myself watching Snooki & JWoww, and that was the last straw.  And also because I was about to dig into my Easter basket which made me homesick for this past weekend of family, friends, sunshine, reunions, the Easter Bunny, and the best travel companions in all the land.  And after talking to my dad on the phone tonight and receiving this text from him yesterday:

... my homesickness was rampant.  And on the way out to my car to grab my Easter basket that I forgot to bring in, I noticed the sky was AMAZING.  So I thought, "Rather than go to town on this basket, I'm going to go watch the sunset and get a $1 vanilla cone from McDonald's."  And even better, I decided to call one of my very favorite humans on the planet, my dear friend Megan, who joined me on this adventure!  It was perfect.  We got to catch up after a longish period of time apart, enjoy the beautiful evening, and eat our delicious and deliciously cheap treats.  And even though I still feel sicky wickets, I had the epiphany that I don't have to be SAD about it.  And that led to the epiphany that I do that ALL THE TIME!  If I feel like I should have some reason to be upset and BLAH about something, even if I can't think of what that reason really is, I still let it get to me and drag me down.  I'm going to work on that.  

And if you can relate to this issue, and are interested in my advice, it's this:  

When in doubt, GET THE HELL OUT.  

Change your surroundings.  New scenery.  Get off your bum.  Change the channel.  Take a lap.  Take a shower (that really works).  Just get outta there!  Wherever "there" may be!  Trust me on this.  

I highly recommend a long drive with a good friend and $1 McDonald's vanilla cones.  Thanks for bein (the BEST) part of my scenery change Meg :)

Today's jam:  "Royals" by Lorde

Laters on the menjay!

Name that movie!  5 house points for the winner.  Don't let me down Gryffindors.

  
*Weird phrase, huh?  I looked it up and one source says it comes from sailors in the olden days.  When one of them wasn't feeling well, they would go downstairs under the deck and away from the weather until they felt better.  Now we know!  Do you think that's really it?