helikedmyshoes | Entries tagged with grown up time

I am moved in but not nearly unpacked. I HAVE A LOT OF SHIT. It's going to take a while to figure out where everything goes, especially because there is NO storage in this apartment. And my bedroom is teeny tiny. Like, I have my queen bed and two dressers in there and you can barely move. Oh well, it'll work out fine.

It kind of struck me today, how much I've grown up. The past two times I've moved, first out of the apartment Adam and I shared and then into the place I've been for the past two years, I've had awful panic attacks and second thoughts and just general nervousness about the newness. And this time - it just feels GOOD. It feels right. I feel ready and excited. There have been no panic attacks, no fear, just excitement. Does that mean I'm finally growing up?

I'm exhausted, I don't care that it's 9:50, I am going to bed. I hope Felicia doesn't pee on me tonight, she's in my room while she acclimates to her new surroundings.

I am tired of being defined by the way I feel for one person.

I am more than what I mean to that one person.

I know my friends just love me and want me to be happy, but my life is not only that; my happiness is not only that. I wish people would realize that yes, I am a smart person and I've got both eyes wide open. I'll be okay.

It's weird being home with no cats.

They went to PAWS today, the big no-kill shelter here in Chicago. It was a hard decision, but it's been a long time coming. I've been more patient than most people would be, and it's just at the point now where I can't do it anymore. I'm not home enough to have animals, it isn't fair to them and it isn't fair to me. I wish I had known that when I first thought about getting a kitten. Not that I would trade the time we had for anything, but this part has been really hard.

I miss them, and I wish I didn't have to make that choice, I wish we could all just live in peace together, but we couldn't, and I couldn't continue to live with training pads covering my couch and a tarp over my carpet in the back room. I hope they go to great homes and have wonderful lives filled with lots of love. I wish I could have given that to them. I couldn't, but I hope what I have given them is the chance to find that. I feel blessed for the time that we did have together. I miss them a lot.

This has been a pretty trying week. I am sending all my positive energy out to the cats and their new future homes and families, whoever they may be. I hope they find each other soon.

I hope I made the right decision. No. I know I made the right decision. I hope they're okay.

Slowly making my way through responding to everyone from yesterday. Thank you for the comments and support, and the straight talk, and for making me feel not so alone and not so crazy.

I know I'm no good at following advice but I do take it in and let it simmer. It's in here now, on low heat.

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I had to make a playlist for my photo shoot, and this is what I've come up with.

Slow Dancing in a Burning Room - John Mayer
Feelin' Love - Paula Cole
My Body is a Cage - Arcade Fire
The Dope Show - Marilyn Manson
The Beginning is the End is the Beginning - Smashing Pumpkins
RCV 22:20 - Puscifer
If You Wear That Velvet Dress - Jools Holland and Bono

Thoughts?

Still working on outfits. I get 2. I might post pictures for opinions.

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Anyway, I need to go to bed because this is my only night off until next Monday and I need to rest up for my double tomorrow.

Pole today was really, really hard. It was physically challenging and exhausting, but it was also mentally exhausting too. My body was literally shaking at points, and I found it hard to keep my mind in the moment and focused on what I was doing.

I think I've got a lot of shit in my mind to work through and I let myself get lost in the music, which is okay, but I really want to try to keep my head in it and just let all that stuff go for two hours and be me and enjoy myself.

Today marked my fifth month of doing this and the change I see in my physical appearance is amazing, but the emotional confidence is lagging a bit. I don't think my dancing is suffering at all but I feel like I'm working through a rough patch without really doing any work. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing...

But yeah, today I chose Slow Dancing in a Burning Room by John Mayer and it's a sexy song beat wise but damn it's a downer. I literally picture ball gowns and flames. I wanted something slow today so I could just slow down and breathe and move and not get worked up like something heavier or faster would get me. All through class today I almost felt like I was going through withdrawals.

It's weird because lately I've felt good, haven't really been worked up about things like I get sometimes. I guess it's almost like I've been cut off from my emotions, they still lurk but they haven't taken over my entire being. It feels good. I like when I'm like this. But I also know that this is cyclical and the pendulum will swing the other way and I will be an emotional mess again, so I am enjoying this while I can. But clearly there are things lurking, because even though I wasn't really thinking about anything or anyone specific today I was still uneasy. I don't want to poke the slumbering beast, and if my mind can work through it without me actually actively taking part I would be very much okay with that.

I just want to keep the baby demons at bay a little longer so I can have some peace.

I don't know if any of this is making sense but it's helped me a little. I should go to bed, I'm beat. As I said, class today was torture (we had a sub instructor and she was great and really pushed us which was needed, I feel like I am on the edge of something and I need a push to take it to the next level) and work this week has been long. I finally get two days off though! That hasn't happened since before Christmas. I have a lot to do.

I'm going to Italy in 5 weeks.

I need to majorly clean tomorrow. And maybe write?

I could talk about it but it's really not a big deal.

don't you think we oughta known by now
don't you think we shoulda learned somehow
?

Even though it's now 2010, I know I'm going to write '09 for the next month. I am slow on the uptake sometimes.

So. New Year. New Decade. Lots of newness all around. I've been thinking about my end of the year post for the last few days and it finally came to me at work today.

I don't really have anything flowery to say about this year. It was a year. There were good times and bad. Mostly nothing changed. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Probably a little of both.

But since I'm older now, and can actually think in terms of decades, that's what I'm going to do. Things That Have Happened To Me in the Last Decade.

Ready?

+ graduated high school
+ graduated college
+ took my first vacations without my parents
+ lived in, and traveled through, Europe
+ moved across the country all by myself
+ lived in LA for a year
+ moved halfway back across the country
+ made amazing friends in college whom I love and adore
+ fell in love
+ paid my own bills
+ lived by myself in my own apartment with my own things
+ got a tattoo
+ started poledancing!
+ grew the fuck up

I've learned so much about myself. There are things that I love and things that I hate and I'm trying to balance them in my personality. I think everything in my life comes back to balance. I am constantly striving for it in my life. It's a work in progress.

I don't really believe in resolutions. Well that's not entirely true: I don't believe in tangible resolutions. I don't buy the "I'm going to go to the gym 3 times a week!" and "I'm going to stop eating so badly" etc resolutions. I do, however, believe in more - spiritual? I guess that's as good a work as I'll find - spiritual resolutions. I made one once to slow down, my thoughts, my motions, everything. I carried that with me, and I still carry it to this day. I have to step back, take a breath, and let the moment wash over me for a minute. It's hard because I am always so go go go, but it's something that I am conscious of and am trying to work on changing.

This past year, I think it was grace. I have such a hard time with grace. Graceful, gracious. It's not something I'm good at, but I'm trying. My uncle said last year his was clarity. I like that, though I'm still trying to figure out exactly what it means. Maybe being able to look at things objectively? Taking a step back and surveying before plunging in? I'll get back to you, I guess.

So. I'm kinda disappointed with this post, in my head it was much more eloquent. I blame fatigue. I guess I just wanted something to commemorate this day, this year, this decade. This year...close friends started getting married. This is a trend that picks up steam next year. / I was severely anemic and had to get a blood transfusion. / I got my heart broken a few times. / I started poledancing, fulfilling a dream I've had since I was a little girl (yep I'm weird, whatever) and getting a chance to morph my years of dance training into something that is really me. / I'm still lost and it's still okay. / I made it over the hill of my early twenties and landed on the plateau that is 26. I feel like there are decisions that have to be made somewhere off the horizon, but I'm not there yet so I'm not going to worry about them. At least not tonight.

I don't know what tomorrow brings, let alone this coming year, especially not this coming decade. All I know is tonight, I'm in a good place, in my heart and in my mind.

I guess that's all anyone can really ask for: being okay in this moment.

Grace. Clarity.

My feet smell like feet.

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drove up to hillside manor
sometime after 2am
and talked a little while about the year
i guess the winter makes you laugh a little slower
makes you talk a little lower
about the things you could not show her

it's been alongdecember and there's reasontobelieve
maybe this year will. be. better. than. the last.

Adam and I just talked. I feel better and worse. It's hard, standing in the wreckage. It's hard to pick through, we are both at fault here and I really hope that we can find that middle ground.

Seeing him, actually seeing how this has torn him apart, has really humbled me. I hurt him too. I am so vindictive sometimes and I just do things to hurt him and I really need to stop. We both have work to do.

Tonight is the last night of this distraction. Tomorrow it's back to the real world.

I always think of things to put in memes like this at random times and then can never remember what they are. I don't know what's sadder - that my memory sucks or that I even think about memes at all.

The lovely

_venus_ tagged me.

Post to your journal with 10 weird things/habits/little known facts about yourself. Those who get tagged need to blog your own journal with those 10 weird things/habits/little known facts. Then chose 6 people to be tagged and list their LJ names. No tag backs...

1. My two big toes are different. My right toe is my dad's and my left toe is my mom's. I don't remember the first time I noticed but it always amuses me that obviously my DNA couldn't decide which was better and gave me one of each.

2. Sometimes I wish I was a musician because I FEEL music so deeply. The basis on which I judge most music is how much it moved me, not how good I think it is. Whenever I hear it there's a corner of my brain that just goes into dancer mode and moves to the beat and then I realize how much I miss dancing.

3. I miss a lot of the things I used to do when I was a kid: horseback riding, dancing, tennis, karate, skiing. I always just took them for granted because my parents always just gave them to me, sometimes without me even wanting them but being happy that they were there, which is why I think now that I just expect people to give me things, especially the things that I want.

4. I want to get married, but not until I'm at least 30. Different people have told me they figured I was one of those people who never wanted to get married, which is surprising because it's something I've always seen myself doing. At first I was kind of hurt when they said it because I don't think I've ever said anything to give reason to believe I don't believe in marriage, but I guess it never really came up in conversation, and maybe my not being interested in dating fueled that fire. I also believe that marriage can be what you make it, that people can have their own beliefs on what it is and should be, and that it is YOURS and no one else's. Also, I want a really big engagement ring.

5. I have no problem writing conversations and fights between characters, but when it comes to arguing with actual people I always freeze up and never know what I want to say until days later when I've replayed the conversation over in my mind. I don't know why this is; I don't know why I can't identify what I'm feeling when I'm feeling it and articulate that to the person I'm fighting with.

6. I don't think I believe in God, at least not the god of organized religion. My religion is balance. Bad things happen, good things happen, and neither one can go on for too long without the other coming in to either ease or increase the pain. You take what comes and always remember that it can always get worse, and that it will get better.

7. I am an incredibly jealous person and I don't like sharing.

8. I like having sex with girls but I could never date one. I don't know if that makes me bisexual or just a greedy bitch.

9. I loveloveLOVE when a movie or a show I see touches me so deeply that I can't stop thinking about it for months afterwards. Star Wars, Moulin Rouge, Buffy. I love STORIES, and sometimes I love the cliched ones most of all.

10. Usually the first thing I notice on a person after their face is whether they're wearing a wedding ring or not. I don't know WHY, but it's been that way for years.

Tagging whoever feels like sharing.

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Adam watched the S1 finale of VM last night with me. He was not impressed. I told him it all just goes downhill from there anyway.

Bandera called yesterday and asked if they could move my last day of training to Thursday instead of today. Apparently a bunch of people are out of town so I wouldn't have a trainer, and all the shifts are covered for the week anyway so they won't even need me til at least the weekend. I told her I have friends coming into town on Thursday and she said I could just start Monday then. Assuming I pass my last tests and waiting on the GM, that is. But that means I can hang with the boys and Chelsea a lot AND we can hopefully throw our Super Bowl party on Sunday.

I really need to start making money. It's been 5 months since I've worked full time. I like being a bum but I look forward to getting into a routine and getting that adrenaline surge from working once more. Plus I really want to go shopping.

I'm still gathering my thoughts, there are things that have been going down lately that I don't really know what to make of. I'm kind of just standing back and observing for now, trying to stay out of the line of fire even though I feel like I'm right in the middle and maybe even the cause for a bunch of them. I wish I could say I felt bad about it. I don't.

Getting laid would be REALLY nice.

I feel like there is something I have not said, but I can't for the life of me think of what it is. I'm going to the gym now, then to sit in Borders and study, then perhaps Adam and I are getting dinner and perhaps I am going to his show. Maybe I'll call Anna and see if she wants to grab a drink later.

OH HEY. Can someone hook me up with John Mayer's song Gravity? We watched House 3.02 the other night and it was playing at the end and now I can't get it out of my head. There's another gravity song that is in rotation with that one, by Embrace.

Maybe that's what's been weighing me down so much lately.

I have not been outside all day.

The snow that is falling right now looks more like volcano ash. It is big and fat and lazy on the breeze.

edit: I just went outside to throw out the garbage, and the snow seems to be hanging suspended in the air before it starts moving back up into the sky. Yes, the snow is going the opposite way it normally does. And there's no wind to speak of. Weird. (I am just obsessed with snow lately, aren't I? What gives?)

My head is so full of food and wine I think it might explode.

TEAM LOGAN. (I'm just practicing.)

I miss Tori. I haven't been spending as much time with her as usual. Maybe that's why I feel weird.

Adam and I have started watching Heroes. We're only 1 and a half episodes in (we fell asleep halfway through 1.02) but already I am loving it. I don't want to kill ~~Jess~~Milo Ventimiglia, which a strange new feeling. Even though he did beat out my friend Louis for the part of Rocky's son in Rocky Balboa. It has sucked me right in, I'm in for the ride with this one. Friday Night Lights is next, after we get caught up on House S3, though Adam has already informed me he wants no part in FNL because he is lame.

I really need TiVo.

Sometims I really need to be an adult about things. I think this is one of those times. (<-- not about TEAM LOGAN. which must be in caps. about life stuff concerning other people and other feelings.)

i knew you pigtails and all
girls when they

fall