Cloudy Day

I’ve been drawn to the sky, spending a lot of time pondering the clouds. For the past month I’ve headed west on the Pike towards Newton each Thursday. There’s a point on this route where you inevitably hit traffic and have to stop. It must be on top of a slight incline because this past month I’ve noticed how much sky I can see. No sky scrappers or trees blocking my view, just miles of sky filled with clouds. Each week the clouds are different and beautiful. Normally they are what are blocking the sun, but lately for me that’s been okay.
I spend many minutes gazing up at them as I sit on the road, only averting my eyes to inch my car forward in traffic. I don’t mind the delay, it gives me time to look at the clouds. When the sun is setting within them they turn purples, blues, reds, oranges, yellows and grays. When there is a bright blue sky they are often rounded, soft and pure white. When its been stormy they often dot the sky like polka dots, and sometimes when its windy they are wispy and nearly non-existent. I’ve never thought before how beautiful and vast clouds are.
I don’t remember ever being this drawn to the sky, or clouds. Ever. Yet, each day I find myself looking up, excited when I find clouds, awed as I stare. They are so beautiful, so different, so ever changing.
I often wonder if he is behind them, causing this enhance beauty, giving me something to look up to and find.
Some may say, my attraction is symbolic of my state of mind, “my head is in the clouds“. I feel like now I’m finally out of the fog that surrounded me this spring and summer. I’m feeling more grounded, able to remember more, focus better. And now, that I’m out of my “cloud” I’m more drawn to them then ever in my life.
With the changing of the clocks, it will be dark as I drive to Newton each Thursday. Luckily, I sit next to a large window everyday. Although my view is mostly a crane and the Pru, I can still gaze at the clouds of that day. I look forward to going outside each day and seeing the cloud formations, the colors they’ll hold, the shapes they’ll take and how they’ll change throughout the day. Maybe my head is in the clouds, but they are giving me something to look forward to, inspiration for the photography below and place to put a lot of my wandering thoughts.

I'm looking more pretty

A woman at work stopped me in the bathroom the other day, she had something work related to tell me but before she started she said, "You've looked really pretty recently." I probably cocked my head and said something like, "aww, thank you."

I left the bathroom obviously feeling really nice, wow- I look pretty lately. Okay.

Driving to the gym after work I thought, hmm, I have been putting more effort into what I'm wearing, and I've been wearing make up everyday... maybe thats it. I told my Mom about it on the phone later that night, she added that I probably do look better- people have told her she looks much better and several people have commented that her voice sounds different. Maybe a bit of the color has come back to my face and I probably look a little less tired. It is an upward trend, things do get easier, life goes on and you keep living it and go back to living it a bit more fully.

Its definitely motivated me to keep up my appearance, I want to keep looking pretty, maybe more so each day. Its added some motivation back into my mornings, and that's a good thing.

"I feel pretty... oh so pretty... "

I didn't edit this

My blog has been depressing, my thoughts have been depressing and this is a place to put them. But enough with depressing thoughts, lets try something happier. I have love… I have real love, the forever kind. Thank god. I’ve been depressed, lets not lie even though this is supposed to be a happy blog, and tonight as I lay in bed and try to sleep not wanting to take a pill to help me, not wanting to put my thoughts onto my blog because its been a bit too depressing and lets face I did that in the last entry can’t have too much of the same thing here… I am trying to be marketable… right? Anyway, as I lay in bed trying to sleep but really thinking depressing and anxious thoughts, I realized that this past weekend I didn’t think those thoughts, I didn’t worry about wanting something new, something more, I didn’t worry about work and not being motivated by it, I didn’t worry. I was with Matt and that made me happy. I was able to put aside the other thoughts and just be with him. That’s how I know it’s the forever kind of love… because he makes me happy, he makes me feel okay in the moment, with him I don’t worry about rushing to the next thing just to do something else, I can be in the here and now and not think depressing thoughts that make me want to fast forward. Sure, I’m still deep down unhappy and sure I take that out on him with petty arguments about splashing water on the counter, but the fact that I can look back on the past weekend and know that I was happy in the moments is a lot. Its security, I can have faith in my relationship and where that will take me because I have real love.

I lie awake at night...

I miss you so much. I lie awake at night, often, thinking about you... where you might be...what you might know. The loss is so permanent, so fixed, so great, its hard to fit in to my life. Sometimes I feel like people think I'm over it, that I've moved on, I'm "okay" like they knew I would be. I'm not. I'll never be over it. You're gone, forever, a huge gaping hole left in my life. I'll never move on, there is no where to move to, you can't move away from this. I'm not "okay." Sure, I can function, I'm a highly functioning person. But there are days, and they're often, when I just want to lay in bed all day and mourn my loss, your loss, our loss. I'll admit it, I wish I would get sick, really sick, sneezy, nose running can't get enough tissues to catch up to the snot sick, so that I can have an excuse to stay in bed all day. But I get up, I function, I go through my life, I do my job, I socialize, I live. I guess its easy for me because I am so highly functional... but in reality, its really hard and somehow I just do it, without knowing how or why I can. I'm much more anxious about another great loss, about what else could go wrong. I'm much more pessimistic, this sucks now and its always going to suck I'll just somehow incorporate the suckiness into my life and hopefully the pain won't feel as raw and unmanageable so often. I'm still me, but I'm not the same. I still function but it doesn't mean I've moved on. Its a long process, in fact a never ending process of figuring out how to live life without you. I lie awake at night thinking about you, where you are, what you can see. I miss you.

BFFs

When I was in high school everyone gathered at my house. It was only 5 minutes from the high school and we had plenty of space. I liked it that way; I didn't have to go anywhere. I had a party here freshman year, to christen it as the house to come to. I could come home and know that people would come over.

As we moved through college I lost touch with high school friends. Some just never wrote back to emails or responded to IMs; some found a new focus and path that I wasn't on, others I'm not sure what happened with, we just lost touch. I would come home and know that no one would be coming over it would just be me, visiting my house. I got to like it that way, I love spending time with my family and most of the activities we did were for four. There was one friend I did stay in touch with, but I would go to her for visits. I'm not sure why, but I started to feel the strain of always driving to her in order to maintain the friendship. I started canceling plans, it was so easy and comfortable to just stay home and I honestly enjoyed hanging out with my parents. We kept in touch, still and I did still see her... but there started to be a shift, I started to see her less when I was home, even with invites to my house or invites to my city. We finally talked about it, or wrote about it, in a couple of tense emails. We got it all out. The need to stay in touch, the hurt feelings when plans were canceled, the acknowledgment that our lives were taking very different paths and sometimes that makes it difficult to stay in touch. The connection grows weaker if we aren't experiencing similar things. Since then we haven't seen each other much. I did put in more effort for a couple of visits. I made it a point to go to her, I drove through a snowstorm to get to a party she was having. It didn't make a difference, I haven't seen her in at least 2 years and we haven't written either.

I come home very often, even more often since my Dad's death. I probably go home more often than my old high school friends I don't stay in touch with who still live in the area. Why did we all fall out of touch? Could we be friends again? I recently had a drink with someone I had been close with my last two years of high school. We hadn't even really tried to stay in touch, although I remember a visit my freshman year at college, she was a year younger. We talked a lot about high school friends, where we're going in our lives and where many of the people we went to high school with are going. How that is much of the reason we don't stay in touch, or want to see them when we come home. We are too different now. We had the same perspective. It’s so nice to go home, to be with our family, to be in that house, but we wouldn't really want to see those people. It would be awkward, hard, forced. It felt refreshing to get it out, and have it mean something to someone in the same situation. Her parents had moved out of the house she grew up in, its easier for her to go home and not see those high school friends, they aren't around. My Mom still lives in the same house that had so many of my high school friends go through it when I was 16. My boss and another executive once said to me, "You're too savvy to be from New Hampshire." I told them that my Mom was from the South Shore of Massachusetts and my Dad from Waterbury Connecticut. They ahhed and agreed that's why I'm so Un-New Hampshire. Maybe that is part of my desire to visit home, to be in this house, but not see the people I grew up with. Many of them are born and breed in New Hampshire. I'm not saying they aren't savvy people too, but there is something to be said about not being born and bred here. There is something to be said for me falling in love with a man who is New York City through and through. I'm very drawn to the rural ness of my upbringing, but to the city like qualities he possesses.

I am in touch with some people from high school through MySpace, although I don't think that's really a connection more of a way to find someone again and if you meet in person then it becomes a connection. I tried to rally them to help plan a reunion. I'd like to see what's happened to everyone, where have they gone, what have they done... could we be friends again. It didn't happen. No one else was as behind it as I was.

Obviously I think about this a lot. People ask me about it too, "Are you in touch with anyone from high school?" I always say, "Not really." And I can see the surprise on their face because they know how often I visit home and I'm sure assume part of it is to see old friends. When I was in high school I figured that these people would be my best friends for life. That it didn't matter if we were all going to very different schools, we still had home, we'd still come here and everyone would come to my house and it would be like old times. I'm wiser now. I still mourn the loss of those friends, they are my high school memories. Yet, I know that they weren't my friends for life, I've made them in other places. And, I have a trunk full of notes passed in the hall to relive those memories through, I have yearbooks full of quotes and inside jokes. Maybe some day I'll get that reunion planned and we can hug and laugh at the good times we used to have and share our current lives and the differences will be clear... but we won't say anything about it... we'll both just know that after this event we won't be in touch. We'll just be memories.

The Day of Atonement

It’s a day of reflection. Time to think of the year that’s past, the good and the bad, the moments you regret, the moments you’ll cherish. A time to think of the year to come, to hope for more of the good and less of the bad, to create more moments to cherish and hopefully fewer you’ll regret this time next year. We sat in temple this morning, being guided through these thoughts, offered nuggets to take back and further reflect upon, prayed in hopes that God would forgive(whether you believe in one being that can forgive or not), prayed in hopes that we could forgive and would be forgiven. We come home to reflect.

The washing machine was turned on, the computers started up, email was opened, and the TV turned on. Then the power went out. We need to reflect, not distract ourselves with what we do everyday anyway. This day has to be different. We have to take the time, whether chosen or not, to think of how to better ourselves, our relationships with our spirituality (God if you believe), and others in the New Year. In Temple we decree that God said he has forgiven us, that we’ve showed ourselves ready for a New Year with less “sin”. Yet, God cannot forgive us for sins we have committed against others, and ourselves. That is the key point for me. I have to focus on myself, I’ve been trying to focus on myself… and yet that includes opened internet pages, a TV turned on. That’s not complete focus, in fact I think it may be distraction, I’m avoiding the time I need to spend in my own head, scared of what may come up. That is what this day is for, that is why the power is out.

So here I sit, on a windy porch, watching the light move on the changing colors of the leaves. I notice the contrast between nature and man in the poles we’ve erected to run electricity to our house, only to be blown out by the force of wind. I lean back in the rocker and reflect on the year, on the tumultuous events of the spring and summer. Maybe I am ready to call this a new year, maybe I can really think today about who I am, who I’ve been, what I’ve been and done to others and how to forgive those who have sinned against me and ask for forgiveness from those I feel I’ve sinned. The wind picks up as my mind races with thoughts of the year, with thoughts of change, and life, and death. I feel the wind gusts calm and I start to slow down too, letting the natural events of the day take me through my reflection. That is how it should be. No electricity necessary. Sitting on a porch with the wind moving my thoughts is how I will spend my Yom Kippur, and apparently its how whatever else is out there, whoever is charting the course and making the events of the day occur wants it to be spent too.