Finding Myself

Each day goes by.

Another aspect of my life shifts.

I blink.

Or I don't.

And I try to find myself.

Each week goes by.

I dig through the rubble.

I breathe deeply.

Or I don't.

And I see myself more clearly.

Each month goes by.

Another thought, another unwritten blog post.

I catch myself smiling.

There she is.

Another month.

Another moment.

Another deep breath in.

With each day, week, month ...

Year, even.

I see where my path has taken me.

I see where I am headed.

And I like what the future holds.

Stay with me, friends.

I'm finding myself again.

And I like who I am.

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Figuring Things Out

I'm still not quite sure where I stand.

I'm finding my way.

Figuring things out.

It's so so very difficult.

My emotions bubble to the surface.

I feel them. Fight them. Let them rise. Allow them to overflow.

All the while - figuring things out.

I don't quite know what the rest of this year will bring.

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How old are you now?

OK, so I never really got to my 40 before 40 list, did I?

That's okay. I'm making a 40 WHILE I'm 40 list now, instead.

It's my Pour Your Heart Out post for the week.

* Get my driver's license... ? It's always on my list. Maybe this time I'll get there.
* Make it to the annual girls' weekend w. my college peeps.
* Donate my hair again. Not sure I'll do this before the weekend, so tossing it in here to be safe.
* Volunteer at my daughter's kindergarten class.
* Take a vacation with my husband and daughter - somewhere warm and tropical-ish where we can swim.
* Participate in a mud run! Any local friends wanna join? I'm totally doing this!
* Read 40 books by brand new authors. Share your recs, please.
* Go out with friends or solo at least 40 times. Any takers?
* Lose 40 lbs. Yes, that's extreme, but I'm going with a theme here.
* Take a pole dancing class.

So that's ten ...

* Take that HOT yoga class I bought a Groupon for and never used. Whoops.
* Meet 40 blogging / social media friends I haven't met before. I'm already signed up for Type-A in September '13, so maybe there will be 40 new peeps there. Otherwise I have to work it HARD!
* Catch a fish. And of course release it!
* Try 40 new recipes.

And that's four ...

Everyone can do that math, right?

* Take a class in something I've never tried before. Like painting or photography.
* Publish a piece of writing via Amazon (through Kindle or something like that!).
* Successfully make no-bake cookies.
* Go for a hike. Or two. Or ten. Not banking on forty for this one.
* Complete Couch to 5K.
* Get to a concert.
* Sing karaoke.
* Fire a gun.

Plus eight ...

Yeesh. This is rough. No wonder I couldn't come up with enough ideas last year.

Twenty-two.

Twenty-two things to do in the next year.

I might have to leave it at that for now. It's almost too stressful to come up with more.

Feel free to leave ideas in the comments. I'd love the assist!

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Post It Notes on a Monday ...

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Graduation Day

I walked down the street with the rest of my graduating class. All of us, swathed in black. A sea of darkness as we walked, side-by-side, to the main auditorium.

Did I really KNOW anyone there? A few former classmates. A few faces were recognizable in the blur of our movement as we walked ahead. Following the trail of the robes that swayed before us.

Into the auditorium.

I thought to myself, amazing. You're actually here. You're actually going to walk across that stage and accept that diploma.

I had put over 5 years into this. I started off one class at a time, not sure I'd truly want to apply for the official program. Not sure I deserved a chance at a second career. In my lifetime, was it fair that I stopped the work I'd been doing for over nine years and moved ahead into something I had more passion for? Was it okay for me to do this?

So many memories ... I remember the day, way back when, when I started that first class. Nervous. Excited. Overwhelmed. Totally unsure. And on the edge of my seat the entire time. So new. So young.

Weeks in I can recall sitting across a table from my boyfriend at the time. He asked me why I really wanted to do this. I remember the emotion. The response. The frustration I felt when I knew he didn't get it. I remember telling him that one of my best friends was constantly undermining me when I spoke about school. A Master's program.

Why? Why would you do that? Why do you want to? ... she asked that and more.
I shared with him that I felt she was envious. I probably said jealous. She'd barely gotten through her first degree and wanted to do what I was doing. Whatever stopped her, it did. I never judged. I was a proud and supportive friend. She was stuck.

But was that any reason to try to discourage ME? Hold ME back?

No. No it wasn't.

I walked along. Sea of black. This was my time. It was my turn. My day.

I looked around for my family. My husband. My HUSBAND? I had a husband now. Wow, so much had changed. My parents. My brother. As at many a graduation before. My sister-in-law. My brother was married now, too.

I walked. I looked. I walked. I looked.

I found them. I laughed. I forget at what, exactly. My brother - probably. I can see the pictures in my mind's eye as I write this. My bright smile. The way my parents looked. My mom probably wiping away a tear or two.

Sit. And stand. Sit again. And stand again.

And wait. Walk. Walk. Step by step. Up to the stage. Listening for my name. Looking out at the crowd. There it was. My turn to walk across the stage. Take with the left. Shake with the right. Or something. Turn and smile. Flashbulbs. Or digital cameras. Me, someone else? It didn't matter.

This was my day.

And I was damned proud of myself.

This post was written in response to a prompt over at Writer's Workshop : Describe a time when someone was proud of you.

I am sharing this post again for the May 30th prompt for The Red Dress Club. It's important to re-use and recycle, so I'm doing so with posts, as well!

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Reckless

I was such a fool. I mean, seriously. I knew he liked my best friend in "that way," so why did I even bother?

I was friends with him. He was one of my best guy friends. He looked at me as just a friend. I knew that. I would never NOT know that. I could never not know that.

My best friend didn't like him. Not that way. But she flirted. It was fun. We were in high school. Why wouldn't she flirt? I would have. Wouldn't you?

And yet, there I was. In his bedroom.

He kind of had his own apartment. His parents - his father, at least - lived upstairs. Maybe it was his mother? I honestly don't think I'd ever met either of them.

He was so reckless. The bad boy. The bad boy who did what? Nothing, truly. He wasn't that bad. He just liked to pretend he was. Right?

I mean, sure, he smoked. But so many kids our age did. Did he drink? I don't know. Didn't everyone? I didn't, not really. Maybe sometimes when we had a sleepover, or we all kind of hung out at someone's house. Safest place to be.

He was never there. He wasn't friends with that crowd. Maybe some of the girls. But the guys, nah. They wanted nothing to do with him.

And if my *other* closest guy friend from that time were to speak to me now (if I could find him, but that's a whole 'nother story) he'd bring up the old days. Mention how wrong I was to be friends with him. Or something. It'd be the kind of thing that stuck with me forever, if those friends all had. I'm sure.

And nobody really knows this. It wasn't something I freely shared. He was such a tease.

My parents hated him. My mom, especially. Never trusted him. The other friend, with my life. This one, not so much. But she'd let him come over and watch movies. Late into the night, on the living room floor. Nothing ever happened.

Hair tousling, laying on one another. Resting. Bodies touching. But nothing there. Slight pulsing through my own, thinking, what if? Maybe some day? And yet knowing. Knowing I was "just the friend" and he had much more in mind for other girls.

But yet, I stayed. I stayed friends with him. Through much of college, even. Probably wrote unrequited poetry about him. Ask my roommate. And current best friend. She would remember me, sitting at my desk, writing. "And who's this one about, Ang?" she'd ask. Her - and only her [minus one or two friends later in life, and my cousin's husband who passed - why a nickname brings forth so much memory for me - amazing isn't it?] - nickname for me.

And yet, there I was. In his bedroom.

We watched television for a while. A movie? Two? I have no idea. We made silly bets with one another. He knew he toyed with my heart. Tugged on the strings a little too much. Laughed. Smiled. Loudly. Too loudly in the small space that encompassed us both.

I think back and say to myself ... if my daughter finds a friend like him, I'll tell her. Warn her. Tell her to walk away. Try to shield her heart from being maimed or broken.

Mine was never truly broken. But maimed - sure - just a bit.

And yet, there I was. In his bedroom.

We shut the TV. Lay in the dark. Talking. Laughing. Talking. He leaned over. I can still remember it. I was 16? 17? 18 - even? We were so close. TOO close. Talking about a foolish bet. A joke. Somehow it wasn't funny anymore. His breath drawing closer. We'd been this close before. But this was different now. Why? I don't know. Or I do. I knew something was going to happen. Not sure why it would, or what he was thinking. Planning? Something?

He leaned in and kissed me.

Somehow, suddenly. Over me. On his bed. There was nowhere else to sit.

A kiss.

We'd kissed before. Like friends.

This? This was not a friendly kiss.

I knew he did not want more. I knew I could have, but wouldn't as he didn't.

My first real kiss. The first time I felt passion, or compassion, in that certain way.

Why? I have no idea.

It never happened again. I knew it never would.

We stayed close friends. Went to separate colleges, but close enough that now and then he'd come to visit me. We'd hang out together, with my roommate (that best girlfriend he always had his eye on), with other friends.

We lost touch, eventually. I stumbled across someone who knew him at their school. Random. Ironic? Something of a not normal nature.

Even more so? She was dating him. Or she had been.

What has happened to him since then?

If I only knew.

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This memory DOES still affect me. You can surely tell that. My guess is that while you were reading it, you, yourself, wondered what happened. Did the relationship move on? Why is she talking about this now?

I have no idea.

Maybe because I recently wrote about the start of my relationship with my husband. Maybe because at that point I kind of wanted to skim through old (handwritten) journals to see what my thoughts, dreams and life were like back in the day. My ex-boyfriend on my mind a bit. And then this person - from my past. Sometimes I would have the dream that I would run into him somewhere. Show him how much he gave up when he didn't want me.

Isn't that often the case? Hasn't every woman or man had an imaginary high school reunion where you go back and are ... choose any or all ... thinner, richer, prouder, more famous, happier, brighter or whatever else you can think of to fill in that blank? Whether you just want these things for yourself, so everyone can see you for who you are, or you want to be more of those things over the people who missed out on you, who you lost touch with, who you think of now and then and say - where'd you go?

This also kind of makes me want to pull out my high school yearbook. Read what he, and all the other people in my life who were SO essential, so important to me back then, had written remind me of how special I was, how incredible, how our friendship would be forever. How it would NEVER die.

And yet, as we all know, so many of them do. They fade away as we move on to college, the work-force, families of our own.

There are ways to track people down. The Internet. Facebook. Twitter. Classmates and other connecting websites. I avoid many of them like the plague, but love when my mom connects with someone that I DO care about. Someone I DO wonder about. Like an old girlfriend I lost track of when we both worked and went to school in Manhattan. She now has two kids, me my one. Amazing how things change.

Why did I flash back to this? Why do I remember it the way that I do?

I can see the room, I don't even have to close my eyes to bring myself back there. I can feel the emotion, the anxiety, that pulsing. I never told anyone that he had kissed me. Why would I? Then it'd be laughed off, made fun of, maybe? Maybe he even knew that I'd never talk about it? Maybe that's why he did it?

Whatever it was, why-ever [so not a word, I know] it happened, it is something I'll carry with me, tucked away for always, as it was really and truly the first time I'd been kissed like that. In such a way that for a sweet second, everyone else in the world, all the people we knew, the reasons that were there or not there, mattered not, and all that mattered was the simplest kiss.For there I was. In his bedroom.

This post is in response to this week's memoir prompt at The Red Dress Club.

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