Musical Punctuation

     Yesterday, I had a long day.  A very long day.

     And, to be honest, I didn't start it the most well-rested...Monday night, I slept in four to five 20-30 minute increments trying to finish papers for school, so by Tuesday morning, I was getting pretty loopy already.

     I got to work a few minutes early and sucked down some coffee before getting on the truck.  Normally, I work from 8 to 4, but I had a dentist appointment at 4:15 all the way across town, so I left the truck at 3:00.

     Now generally, after I leave work, I am so exhausted I can hardly stand, much less focus on anything, and this time, though I left early, I was just trying to get to the dentist on time.  I got on the red line from work, transferred at Park St, and instead of getting on the green line home, I walked to Downtown Crossing, relishing the warm air in the underground tunnel that normally is stifling and too hot, as it seeped into my bones.  (One thing that I didn't think about when I got the job on the food truck was, um, winter.  It's freaking cold on that truck.)

     So I'm standing on the Platform for the orange line towards Forest Hills.  This particular train/station is pretty well known for having at least one homeless man with a guitar wailing a Jesus-themed song (usually quite badly) at the top of his lungs.  And as I looked around with my glassy eyes, I saw a man...with a guitar...sitting and preparing to sing.  I anticipated the worst.

     ...and I received a gift.

     This man started playing the guitar, and some of the most beautiful music I've ever heard poured out of it.  His playing was technically good, but more than that, there was such emotion and soul coming out of his instrument.

     And all I could do was stand and watch him, and wait for my train.  And I'm sure that if I didn't have to get to the dentist, I would have missed the next one that came, on purpose just to listen to this man for longer.  The tension started pouring out of me, and I just stood.

     The rest of the day was not quite as stress-free as I would have liked it to be...but at the end of the day, that music, just for the few minutes that it was in my life, took a day that could have been all stress, and punctuated it with music.  It was beautiful, it was life-giving, and it was a perhaps not-so-subtle reminder that maybe I should ride the orange line more often...

Love, Bethy

Dry Fall

It was a dry fall

Hardly enough rain to satisfy her Northwest roots

The leaves crunched under her feet as they pounded down the pavement

She watched him leave

Bag slung over his shoulder like a jaunty cowboy

It was a sight she was familiar with

She’d seen it before.

Too many times before.

It must have been love

Or something just like it

Because she’d never wanted something so badly

And been willing to work as hard as she possibly could for it.

The fear that it still wouldn’t be enough was paralyzing

And she couldn’t breathe for fear of upsetting a delicate balance

 - one that in reality, hadn’t existed for a while…

At the end, it turned out to be a waiting game

Continuing to go on, waiting to see when their paths would cross again

Always waiting waiting waiting for something that would just happen

Spontaneously, as if neither of them had any control

It was a dry fall

And she turned away from him walking away from her.

She couldn’t watch it again

For fear that her tears would trigger the rain.

imaginary futures

It is strange to meet someone, to know someone that you can see your life with.  Your entire life.  Marriage and babies and old age - forever and ever amen.  It happens with more frequency than we realize, and for every time two people meet and develop expectations for each other, there have to be many many more who end up parting ways than those who stay together.

And it's a strange feeling - to feel the connection so intensely with someone that you not only can see the next hour, the next day, the next year with them, but the next decade and beyond...  To see a lifetime, perhaps not the where or what, but the with whom.  It is exciting - and terrifying.  It takes us out of our selfish selves, wanting to give for someone else - to meld lives, even at the risk of sacrificing for yourself.  To meet someone who complements your personality in those intricate and special ways...it can feel like a fairy tale.

Yet, it's not always that happy ending.  For whatever reason, it doesn't always work, and sometimes that is for the better, sometimes not.  But it doesn't stop that feeling of the future you say being ripped away from you, being replaced by a vast dark nothingness.  Of fear, of doubt, of unknowing how to continue to move forward.  Like most things, it will just take time.  Lots of time.  Time to forget those things that made you see in the first place the next forty, fifty, sixty years.  Time to distract yourself with other things, other people, to try to relearn how to do those everyday things that used to remind you of that person.  To cut ties to him or her, literally if you have to.

It is more than love that creates this feeling - perhaps a childish fantasy of a "happily ever after" instilled in us by society.  To meet the person you think could be "the one" - even if it's the 100th "the one" you've met, never feels like less than breathtaking, never seems less than miraculous.

And you must learn to breathe again, learn to break from the autopilot that is all too easy to snap into as a reaction to this loss.  To build a future for yourself in your head - one in which that other person doesn't exist, one in which you take back your preferences - no longer needing to compromise.  It is hard.  It.  Is.  Hard.

There are questions I don't know the answer to anymore.  There are pieces of myself that I had left behind that I struggle to find again, and pick up.  And there is a hole.  I believe that in time, much of it will heal - but not all.  Having never done this before, I do not know, but I imagine that there will be a part of me that cannot heal, a part that will always stay in that mystical future that long ago faded away. I'm not going to be ashamed of it - a sign that I loved and I lost.

What my own future holds now is a mystery, yet to come.

new birthday goals

So, I know it's been a while.  I wrote this post about a month ago and it got deleted, and then, in the grand tradition of giving up on things that frustrate me, to retaliate, I didn't blog at all for a while.  (Because yes, in my mind, I'm "getting back" at the blog for erasing my post...ok, don't ask...).  Anyway - I realize that I never posted a 25 of 25, and then I got exhausted trying to think about 25 appropriate and reasonable things I could post about.  And instead, I'm going to do 5.  5 things I want to do before turning 26.  And they're going to be reasonable, and fun, and I'm actually going to try really hard to do all of them.  Here we go -

5 before 26

1.  Learn how to french braid my own hair.  I have always been jealous of people who can do this - I've tried many times, but given up soon after.
2.  Purchase a pig, and kill it myself.  Straight off my list from last year.  There's only a few places in the country that have programs where you by the whole pig and then they teach you how to slaughter it, and then butcher it into meal sized portions.
3.  Run a marathon within a month of my 26th birthday.  ...I guess this one is worded a little strange.  I want to run a marathon in July 2013.  26 miles for 26 years seems pretty poetic, right?
4.  Start an etsy shop for Silver Hilltop Designs.  I still have all those earrings from last year, and craft fairs are sometimes hard to break into.  I'll keep everyone updated on my progress on this one (and then I'll be your biggest jewelry-pushing friend you know, haha).
5.  Find peace in/with an old relationship/an old residence/an old experience that I haven't been able to let go.  Hardest to track, perhaps hardest to complete - but I'm finding that as I still am living a (mostly) nomadic life, leaving people and places and experiences behind, it's harder and harder to not get bitter about things that haven't worked out for one reason or another.  And I don't want to be bitter.  It sucks the life out of you, and I need all my energy to deal with my own life as it is.  :)

So we'll see how this goes!

Love, Bethy

Results of the 24 of 24...

A year ago, I set 24 goals for myself - just to see what would happen.  I'm not sure I thought I would be able to do all of them, but at least with 24 I was bound to get one or two done within the course of the year.  Now that I'm 25, let's see how things shook out...

The 24 of 24

1. Blog at least once a week

      Hahahahaha - well, this DEFINITELY didn't happen.  At all.  I got a little better at the beginning of 2012, but there was so much going on, blogging didn't make the cut of important things (ya know, like finding a job in North Carolina and having enough money to pay for groceries)...

2. Do some kind of exercise at least 20 minutes a day

    Also no - although I did run a 10 mile race in May, and am currently training for a sprint Tri in August.

3. Learn how to sew well enough to make a (cute) skirt

    Nope.  Wow, I'm not doing to well here, am I?

4. Win a game of Settlers of Catan

      0/4.  Although, honestly, after I moved away from Bethel, Chris and I didn't have access to the game at all, so....ok, yeah, still didn't do it.  

5. Successfully craft something and sell it

    YES!  Over the fall I turned my depression over being unemployed with no money and Gus just dying into making earrings until my fingers bled and watching the entire series of Frasier on Netflix - I went to one craft fair in December of 2011, and sold almost $200 worth of earrings.  It was so amazing to see people look at something that I had made and then PAY me for it!  I'm considering opening an etsy shop...I've still got hundreds of pairs already made and ready for you to wear!  :)

6. Allow Chris to teach me one outdoor activity and do it with him on some sort of consistent basis

    I feel like this one is a yes and a no.  There wasn't much consistency going on in Boone - mostly because I had a wack schedule that I had no control over, and Chris had a school schedule that couldn't have been any more full.  However - we did go on hikes as much as we could, and I do actually feel like I have a new and better appreciation for hiking than I did before...so this one's not a complete bust, haha.

7. Make a batch of homemade cheese

    You know, I totally forgot about this one - and completely coincidentally about 3 weeks ago, I made homemade ricotta just because I found the recipe and it looked fun.  Turns out, it was heaven in a bowl - so I spiced it up and made lasagna the next week.  Best.  Ever.  

8. Brew my own beer

    Didn't get to this one.  And honestly, I doubt that I'll be able to for a while while I'm in Boston...but you never know...

9. Purchase a pig and kill it myself

     I would have gotten this one if it wasn't so damn expensive.  But I'm not giving up.  This is getting directly translated to my 25 of 25.

10. Successfully grow a garden

    Hahahahahahahahahahahaha.  no.

11. Make homemade powdered hot chocolate packets

    I did do this one.  Once.  Turns out, I couldn't find any powdered milk that wasn't nonfat.  And that while it did make hot cocoa, the milk wouldn't melt right, and it just didn't work the way I wanted it to - so did do it, but won't be doing it again.

12. Live with a dog

     I got to do this one for a month...the last week of which was the hardest week ever.  Gus died in September, so our time together was sweet, but way way WAY too short...

13. Visit the Four Corners

       Yes!  When Chris and I took the big trek out to Boone, I had a laundry list of places I wanted to see and the Four Corners (where Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico all meet) was on there.  I took my jumprope, and jumped in every state and then over all the state lines.  It.  Was.  Awesome.

14. Make a rug out of knotted T-shirt remnants
     Nope.  No details, just nope.

15. Reunite with my four Newark JVC roommates
     I did do this - Kelli got married in November, so we all got together and spent 3 days of absolute madness all over NYC/NJ.  It was a very Newark trip, complete with suits two sizes too small, hangovers that were almost killed us, and exposed boobs in the church parking lot.  Oh dear.  It was the best.

16. Do an overnight backpacking trip with Chris
     We didn't get a chance to do this one - we tried, but with his schedule and my schedule, it just never happened.  I'm still hoping that we can sometime, but life just gets too damn busy...we'll see...

17. Get fitted for a bra that actually fits me
     Yeah right...this probably still needs to be a goal....

18. Make a homemade facial mask
     Honestly, I'm a little surprised that I didn't get to this one - I have been doing a lot more of this kind of stuff, so really, if I had remembered, I probably would have done it, but I didn't.  Oh well.

19. Perfect my braided challah recipe
     Nope.

20. Hug at least one person everyday
     I tried on this one - living in Boone, it was pretty hard, so probably I didn't get one EVERYday, but I go a little nuts if I don't get enough hugs, so...

21. Own (and actually use) a Neti-Pot
      No.

22. Run another half marathon in less time than 2:11
     I didn't get to one this summer - I did a 10 mile in May, but no half.  :(

23. Take a picture that gets published somewhere
     Nope.

24. Never go to bed angry
     HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.  Yeah right.  Honorable effort on that one, but let's be real...

How I did:  8/24.  
How I might have done if I had actually looked at this list at some point during the year and tried to do some of the things: probably around 15 or 16...

Basically, I just need to remember that things like this are here - otherwise it's just pretty random what I'm crossing off and what I'm not...

Ehh...shall I make a 25 list??

Love, Bethy

From winter to summer...

It's been forever.  Well...if not forever, then at least two seasons.  In these two seasons, I have...

1.  Been accepted to graduate school, and chosen to attend Boston University for a Master of Liberal Arts in Gastronomy with a concentration in Food Policy!

2.  Mastered making a cappuccino.

3.  Quit my job at Earth Fare, and said goodbye to Boone, NC.

4.  Moved back in with my parents in Lacey, WA.

5.  Undertaken my parents' 1 acre absolute mess of a backyard as my "summer job".

6.  Made homemade ricotta (it's easier than you think it is, and tastes like heaven!)

...I'm sure there's more, but that's for another post.  (Along with my results of 24 of 24 that I posted last year as I was turning 24.  I'll be 25 in about a week and a half - probably I'll come up with another list of things to do, haha.)

Love, Bethy

a list

1. Friends are awesome and I would never want to go without them.

2. The older I get, the more I feel like I need my mother when things actually get difficult.

3. Whitney Houston's version of "I Will Always Love You" absolutely informed my childhood in a huge way, and I will always love it better than the Dolly Parton version.

4. I never thought, in my wildest dreams that I would walk into a Panera, order a bagel plain and a cup of hot water because 2oz. of cream cheese and a cup of coffee were too expensive.

5. Montana State University application is IN!

6. Gotta go, or I'll be late for work!

Love, Bethy