trip down memory lane

Did I miss out by not being a "normal" teenager? I wondered this as I was riding the bus yesterday morning. It was just after 8, I was on my way to meet a lady and her two little girls that I'm going to be babysitting. These teenagers got on the bus - two girls - and they sat up in the back. They were so loud - talking and laughing - at 8 o'clock in the morning!!! It bothered me that they were so loud, but hearing what they were talking about got me thinking again about how I was never like that as a teenager. I think of this every time I see a typical teenage girl - because I was just never like that! I hear them talking about boys or clothes or other trivial stuff - and the older ones talk about parties and getting drunk and using their fake IDs. It makes me stop and go whoa! is this what teenagers are like? Not to say that I was never goofy or trivial - but I certainly missed a lot of that typical teenage stuff. I always preferred hanging out with the "older" crowd, and I think I was more mature than most kids my age. Which is probably why I'm now dating a much older man - and finding it to be just the relationship I was looking for. I guess being homeschooled and living on a farm had something to do with all that. I just didn't grow up the way most kids do now - or even back then for that matter. Just kind of interesting to ponder...

I have a lot of good memories from being a kid. I should start recording them, write a memoir or something. I had a random memory tonight and had to write my parents an email to share it with them. It was one weekend, around 15 - 20 years ago, when Denver, Dixie and I were really little - Hiram was either just a baby or not yet born - and my parents went off to Hope, BC for a marriage retreat weekend thing, leaving us with my grandparents for the weekend. The one thing that really sticks out in my mind about that weekend was the little treats they left for us to have each day that they were gone. I remember juice boxes - which we didn't get very often, so they were definitely a treat - and those invisible pictures that you color over with a pencil to make the picture appear. I think there were some water color pictures too - that you paint with water to make the picture appear. And each day, maybe even at each meal - I don't remember for sure - we would get another one of these treats. They weren't anything huge or spectacular, but they sure meant a lot to us kids! I still remember them almost 20 years later!

My mom used to make paper horses with us. We would make them out of cardboard boxes - you know, the thin ones like cereal boxes and stuff. She would draw them and then we'd use one as a pattern and trace others - then color them with pencil crayons. In particular, I remember a yellow appaloosa - yellow, with a white patch on the rump and yellow spots on the white. I remember spending afternoons, sitting on the livingroom floor making paper horses...

Then there were the forts - including hay forts in the hay bales. There was the old barn we would go play in - finding all kinds of old fun things, like the cow bell, and the old rifle. There were the baby goats and horses we saw being birthed. Or how about the Saturday afternoons spent playing with cousins and other friends from church - the Densmores and the Andrews. There were the swiss army knives we did chores to earn, and hanging our heads over the bathtub "Sabbath" morning so Papa could pore water over our hair to get it wet. ("Hang your head over and hear the wind blow...") Hated it at the time. There was the playing dress-up with Mom's old clothes - and others that came from the thrift store or somewhere. And I could go on. So many memories. I really had a great childhood, and couldn't ask for better.

And there's my trip down memory lane for tonight...

survey time...!!!!

Been a while since I did a survey, so figured it was high time.

You.
Can.
Only.
Type.
One.
Word.
No.
Explaining.

Not as easy as you might think.

1. Where is your cell phone?
Close

2. Relationship?
Amazing

3. Your hair?
Short

4. Work?
Improving

5. Your sister/brother?
Miss...

6. Your favorite thing?
Touch

7. Your dream last night?
Weird

8. Your favorite drink?
Wine

9. Your dream car?
Stingray

10. The room you're in?
Kitchen

11. Best time of year?
Summer

12. Your fears?
Pain!

13. What do you want to be in 10 years?
Traveler

14. Who did you hang out with this weekend?
Jon

15. What you're not good at?
Gymnastics

16. Muffin?
Carrot

17. One of your wish list items?
MP3

18. Where you grew up?
BC

19. The last thing you did?
Workout

20. What are you wearing?
Black

21. What aren't you wearing?
Dress

22. Your pet(s)
Bonita

23. Your computer?
iBook

24. Your life?
Progressing

26. Missing?
Family

27. What are you thinking about right now?
Survey

28. Your car?
Gone

29. Your kitchen?
None

30. Your summer?
Short

31. Your favorite color?
Blue

32. When is the last time you laughed?
Yesterday

33. Last time you cried?
While

34. School?
Hmmmm

35. Love?
Challenging

agliophobia - the fear of pain

I hate the bumps in life - although I know they teach us things and cause us to grow and all that good shit. But they hurt a lot of times. They leave me bruised and a bit battered and wondering where that hard knock came from? I hit a bit of a bump tonight, a relationship bump, though I don't know how big of a bump it really is yet. But I already have a bit of a bruise, and my heart is feeling a little bit battered. My mind is arguing, telling me that it's all okay, that I'm imagining things to be bigger and worse than they are, that I need to just relax and give some room to breath. But my heart is hurting and saying, "This isn't right! I've been struck!"

I hate it when things seem to be going so well, I'm excited about something, I think I've finally found what I was looking for, and BOOM! Slammed with something unexpected and left aching and wondering what happened, how did I not see that coming? Again, my mind tells me that it's not that big of a deal, that I need to not dramatize it and make it sound so bad. I don't have the full story. I only know my side. I shouldn't jump to conclusions or let my imagination run away and make it seem bigger than it really is. But it hurts! I feel ignored and brushed off. I feel like I did or said something, but don't have any idea what!! Yesterday things were good, and today they are weird and abnormal. What happened between then and now that I don't know about?

So many questions. I hate that. I hate not knowing. It drives me crazy. I guess I'm a bit of a control freak. I can't stand not knowing and not being in control of a situation. I feel helpless and vulnerable. My heart is wide open and in a position to get hurt even more. But how can you live fully without having your heart wide open? I don't want to close it, hold everyone at arms length, keep the door closed on my emotions just in case I might get hurt. That's no way to live. But at the same time I feel so very vulnerable. When you open up to someone and start to care about them, it leaves you wide open to also be hurt by them. Yet life without caring is no life at all. I have to take that risk - but the fear of pain is oh so strong.

I've always been afraid of pain. Physical and emotional. I don't handle it well, and can't tolerate much. Pain has me running for something to numb me - an Advil, or a movie or something else to try and distract me. Tonight it was adult entertainment. But it only numbed it for a short while. Nothing, no matter how good it is in and of itself, is good to numb pain. The point of pain is to point out something wrong that needs to be dealt with. In the case of physical pain, it indicates something wrong with the body - something injured, or something not quite right health-wise. Something that needs to be healed. So it is with emotional pain. It also indicates something that needs to be healed. To ignore it and try to numb it will not make it go away. It needs to be faced. It's easy to see that and to say it, but how do I live it out? How do I face the pain, when it's pain I fear so much? How do I confront it head-on and find out how to heal it when it hurts so much I can't think straight?

There's another ditch that you don't want to fall into either. You don't want to wallow in the pain and give in to self pity. That's probably just another way of trying to numb it, really. Ignoring it won't help, but focusing on it won't help either. You have to acknowledge it, yes, and even grieve, yes. But you also have to let it heal. No self pity, no picking at the "scabs" and making it bleed more. Leave it alone, wash it, clean it, bandage it if need be, and let it heal naturally.

summer has come and passed

I can't believe it's November already. Why does summer always go by so fast? And why do I always feel like I didn't take advantage of it and enjoy it enough while it was here? Every year I say that I'm going to get out more and do more "summery" things, and every fall I feel sad because I didn't. How do I change that? Sure, next summer will come, and I'll probably say the same thing again, but I don't want to go through my entire life always feeling like I missed out on summer. lol.

My new job is.... interesting. I've had two shifts at the Caffe Mondo, and it's not perfect, but I am enjoying most of the job. They don't give breaks though. I'm not too impressed with that. My next shift I am going to straight out ask for one and say that I need my break. I worked 7 1/2 hours on Tuesday with no breaks - on my feet the whole time. Not good. Other than that, though, the job itself is alright. The other people who work there seem to be pretty cool - although the woman who was training me on Tuesday would drive me crazy if I had to work with her a lot. She's one of those who repeats things and explains everything, even the obvious, to the point that it's just too much talking. People like that drive me crazy... Thankfully, I probably won't be working with her too much. She's a nice enough woman, just a bit tedious to train with.

I have a new website client as well. A guy from Texas who found Spideys Web Design on Facebook. That was pretty cool. I did a facebook for my business because the guy who did the workshop I went to a couple months ago suggested that as one of the marketing tips. So it was pretty exciting to see that I actually got some business from it! Nice to have another paying client. Now if I could just figure out how to market properly and get steady new clients, so that I can do this full time. I really only need 4 new clients a month to be able to pay my bills. Then if I had steady clients who had regular updates for me to do that would make it even better! When I stop and look at it that way, it sounds so much easier. Four new clients a month - that shouldn't be that hard, if I can market well. It's the marketing that overwhelms me. lol.

I've learned a lot during this job hunting season. I feel much more confident in interviews, and have learned to write a better cover letter. Jon has been a big help, with critiquing my cover letter and resume. I had a group interview at The Body Shop on the weekend that was really challenging and good for me, as they had us demonstrate sales skills by role playing a couple of different situations. In one we had to demo a product with a partner from the group, in the other we were giving a scenario to role play - with one person being the customer and one being the sales agent. Was very challenging for me, but I actually did pretty good, and felt good about having to put myself out there and do something that stretched my comfort zone. And they liked me too. They called me for a second interview. I wasn't able to go, as I had another interview already scheduled for the time they wanted me to come in, but it's all good anyway. The Body Shop job doesn't pay very well - though the discount would be nice. Oh well...