Highlights and Lowlights

What have I been doing with myself all this time?

Life is so weird.

I know all this time has passed since I last blogged consistently,

but trying to pin down what's different is impossible.

I know things have happened, things have changed, the world has been spinning, 

but sitting here trying to name what and why and how,

I find myself at a bit of a loss.

"Being happy is a very personal thing and it really has nothing to do with anyone else."
-Esther Hicks

I suppose one big recent thing is I started making a quilt at the beginning of this year.

I have sewn before, but never made a quilt.

I'm done with the main piecing of the top and just need to get to work on the quilt back.

And then quilt it.

And then bind it.

Such little sentences for something that's going to take a fair amount of time!

I hope to be completely finished by the end of the year.

Goals and all that.

I love this ladies face.  She just looks so determined.  Me too, friend. Me too.

For a long time, I stayed away from doing art stuff.

I might doodle a little, but nothing that major was happening.

I've been slowly picking it back up, if for no other reason than to use up supplies.

I actually went through and got rid of a boat-load of stuff.

But the things I couldn't bring myself to part with...

I made myself the 'use them or lose them' agreement.

I don't have enough space in my house to hoard things...anymore...

Or I just got tired of looking at the mess.

I've had those number die cuts for *old lady from Titanic voice*84 years.

What have I learned?

For one, I think we never really have things figured out.

We do have to keep moving, like sharks.

Stupid, emotional, irrational sharks.

I've been thinking a lot about my twenties lately.

I'm 38 years old...that's right, practically a dinosaur.

I've been missing my group.

When I was in my twenties, I had a group of friends that I would hang out with.

Some of them were very special.

Others were just...people I didn't mind passing the time with, I suppose.

But they were all there.

Now, as I near forty, I've started to become nostalgic for my group.

Some of them just drifted away.

Some moved to far off places.

And some have passed.

No matter the circumstances, these are all people that are gone from my life forever.

One of my friends, the best one, killed himself.

It's been ten years since he's been gone.

Ten years worth of grief and overwhelming sadness and regret.

I still feel those things, some days worse than others.

But lately, I've been missing the group.

I don't think of myself as a people person.

I'm more of a person person.

I've always been kind of ok with being close to a very few...or only one...

Now I find myself looking back and longing for the people I could just be stupid with.

We weren't all that close.

Nothing was ever too serious.

All of them started out as my husband's friends.

I moved to Tennessee when I married him (almost 18 years ago...geez, I feel old) 

and didn't know anybody.

He was from here.

So all his friends were my friends by default.

And I was just one of the guys.

I miss that.

I think I miss getting to know people too.

Most of the time people are a disappointment (ever the optimist, right?), 

but everyone I know now, I've known for a long time.

I know their stories.

I know their thoughts and opinions and ways.

I want to talk of other things.

It feels like familiarity is becoming stagnant.

Maybe that's what 'familiarity breeds contempt' means.

Don't get me wrong, I do care about the people in my life.

They are comfortable and consistent, which I find myself appreciating more and more the older I get.

But I find myself longing for an injection of newness.

I want to be surprised by conversations.

I want something beyond myself and my sphere.

I'm tired of searching for something to say, because we've already talked about everything twenty times at least, so now we talk about the weather and what was had for supper the night before.

Maybe that's a lot to ask for.

It's been pointed out to me that the older we get, the harder it is for such a thing to happen.

Because priorities change as we get older.

But I don't want to accept that.

If I want this, then there has to be someone else in this great big world that wants it too.

There are far too many people out there for us to be alone in our feelings.

And maybe that's another thing I miss.

I'm tired of naysayers.

Let me hope.

Be excited that I'm excited.

Even when you really believe it won't work out and you're just trying to save my feelings, 

let me think, if only for a moment, that I can find what I'm looking for.

There are so many things to be excited about in the world.

But as we age, it seems like we learn harsh lessons about tempering our excitement.

We get worn down by disappointment and we learn to be calmer.  More realistic.

Let me have, just this once, high hopes.

The excitement of a small child who's never had a reason to distrust that things will work out.

Let me fling my arms open and just know that the universal will drop what my heart needs directly into my waiting grasp.

I've been hunched over with my arms wrapped protectively around me for so long.

I can't do it anymore.

I have to straighten up, hold my head high, and move confidently in a new direction.