Doing All The Things: Mediocre Ramblings About Stuff

Afternoon, Subheading: Post-relationship avoidances.  Whenever a relationship ends, whether it is romantic or platonic, I feel like we all have the habit of taking stock of the things that remind us of that person; places we went together, songs, inside jokes, etc. Sometimes we choose to revisit these things as a way to remember and appreciate, and sometimes we say, "Well, this thing is ruined for me now". Most of us have a handful of both, I am guessing. Sometimes time can shift these items from one column to another as we heal, or even erase the connection all together. Other times, the things that sting the most just always seem to sting.  I decided to write out some things in the form of a list, and ended up writing a strange/cathartic sort of poem instead. I suppose I am sharing so people know they aren't alone in this habit of looking at something seemingly arbitrary, like a hamburger, and bursting into tears. Love is really fucking weird like that, the way it seeps...

 Afternoon, Subheading: 21 Things.  I'm about to ruffle some feathers, but my favorite Alanis Morissette album isn't Jagged Little Pill; it's Under Rug Swept.  I KNOW, I know, but look... I'm a very lyrically driven person, and the songs on Under Rug Swept resonate. Also, I don't accept judgement from anyone who hasn't listened to all of her catalogue. I'm kind of a snob about it. So there. One of my favorite songs on this album is called 21 Things I Want In A Lover. I recently posed this question to my best girlfriends as a thought exercise: What would your 21 things be?  One of my friends responded by saying, "This is hard. I've never asked myself what I wanted, truly." I'm sure she isn't alone in this. Sure, we all have preferences and things we look for, but when was the last time that you really sat down and thought about the things that are most important to you in a relationship? Is the answer "Never"? If it is, I encou...

 Afternoon, Subheading: Learning through loss.  Every time someone I love passes away, the words to express what I'm feeling seem to get harder to find rather than easier. I imagine that it's because the older I get, the more knowledge I've accrued about the facets of life, and love, and in turn- what the absence of life means to me. Also, I just know so many more synonyms  for life; like chronicle, vitality, or effervescence. Which one is right? How do you choose what to say to guide the ones you love through an event that will be viewed through so many different lenses of grief? I've been trying to think about what I've felt in moments of significant loss, and what I've learned in their wake. The answer to my grief surely must be tangled in there somewhere. When my Meme, my Great Grandma Verna, passed away there was a moment that stood out, and I've carried it through the years unwittingly. As we all stood silently beside her grave, we were invited to sca...

 Morning, Subheading: I-N-D-E-P-E-N-D-E-N-T, do you know what that mean? A little over a month ago, I purchased a modular home in Hartland.  Until now, I've always had a roommate or lived with a partner. In plainer terms, whether or not I had a home was always dependent on another person. If I separate from a partner in the future, we will just go back to doing our own thing. I am rooted. My children can feel rooted and know that, regardless of how our lives change, this space in the world is ours.  Though I know this is a monumental thing in my life, it wasn't something I felt particularly proud of initially. I said out loud that I felt proud, thinking that would breathe life into the idea, but it didn't. Partially because everything happened so last minute, and I didn't believe it would actually come to fruition. The dominoes of selling your home and purchasing another have to line up just so. I had to schedule movers to load and unload my moving truck before I had o...

Morning, Subheading: On not being ok, and the stress response cycle: fight, flight, and freeze. Hello, friends! I apologize for dropping off of the face of the Earth, but my life has been in a constant state of change and upheaval for the last few months. Many of you have reached out to inquire if I am ok, but a lot of the time the answer was, "No, not really." I am sure I'm not alone in feeling uncomfortable when telling someone I'm not ok, especially if I know there is "nothing anyone can do to help", right? However, this is a socially conditioned response. I could have welcomed people to sit with me so I wasn't alone through all of this, but some things I started thinking more and more were, "I want to be alone. There's nothing anyone can say. I am inconveniencing people with my problems. No one will understand me." As a reasonably emotionally intelligent woman, I know that none of these things are true. You know all of these things are ...