Today is the penultimate day of the Six Items or Less challenge!! I am so excited! I didn't anticipate missing my clothing this much. I know I've said over and over how easy dressing in the morning is with this challenge, but that's only because it really is. I'm just so...tired of it. I'm sure Wednesday will be a challenge in it's own special way, since I will hardly be able to decide "what to wear first?!" for my first day of free dressing! But I am ecstatic to be overwhelmed. I'm actually feeling a bit of agitated excitement right now in anticipation of being able to wear whatever the hell I want! Wednesday, I love you!
I hope everyone had a happy Easter! Mine was pretty darn good, I must say. A couple weeks before Easter I realized my dad never makes my mom an Easter basket, and yet she always has one for the three of us. So this year, finally, after years of being so self-involved I never looked across the table to see my basket-less mom (who never even complained about the oversight), I made her a basket of her own. And hid eggs. Aaaall around the house for her to find. It was fantastic! She really had a great time, and you could see she was so happy to be remembered. I can tell you now, I will never forget again. Everyone deserves a basketful of chocolately goodness, especially the Easter Bunny herself.
Later that day my Pepere came over for dinner. He didn't stay too long, as the elderly are best to drive while there's still daylight. It turns out, though, that we didn't let him drive home anyway. His car was spurting break fluid in obscene amounts, so my mom drove him back instead. Also influencing our decision was the fact that he ralphed next to my sister's car port before getting into his vehicle. Yes. Well. You sir, certainly aren't driving a probably brakeless car while your stomach is leading a revolt against you.
Today I finally purchased Gala Darling's Love and Sequins. The full series. It was half price so I could not resist! I had wanted to buy it in full previously, but the price tag was more than I could part with at the time. But half price is so generous, and so affordable, I couldn't let this deal slip by!
I love reading Gala's blog, and her radical self love philosophy makes me swoon! Reading her and Sarah Wilson's blogs have been really inspiring as of late. They are both really about taking chances, trying new things, respecting yourself, and making life better. And I have known for a while now that, in order to leave the job I hate, I'm going to have to act. I know, pretty simple to understand, really, but not always as easy to commit oneself to! It can really be paralysingly frightening at times. Acting can be difficult, takes effort, and does not guarantee the kind of success you may be expecting. It has the power to change everything. But, if you take responsibility for yourself (which can also seem scary!), you can influence whether that change is for the good or for the worse.
Nothing in my life will change if I don't make it change. If I don't act, I'll be staying put. I'll be giving in to everything that is, as it is, right now, and for always. I haven't always liked change, or challenging myself (because, unfortunately, it's so much easier not to), but I can recognize now that it's the things that have challenged me in that past that have been the most worthwhile. College, for instance. I dreaded it. Driving there freshman year with my parents, I had the largest pit of fear uncomfortably churning in and gnawing at my stomach the whole way there. But college helped me grow as a person, and I don't know who I'd be today without that experience.
Then there was study abroad. A few months before leaving it looked like I wouldn't have enough money to go. I had been anxious about leaving anyway, so this seemed a perfect way out of it, and I told my parents, "It's okay. I really don't have to go." But I found a job, made the money, and off I went, to spend four months in a country whose language I didn't speak. And it has changed me so much for the better.
I look back sometimes and wonder who the hell that girl was that made these decisions. I had generally been convinced she wasn't shy, timid me. But it seems that, in those moments of making a choice and acting on that choice, I really just sort of...stopped thinking (which is a miracle for me!). I just...did, instead. I acted, and let whatever was going to befall...befall me.
So I'm coming very close to taking action, and making a choice. I am already scared shitless, but I think I'm even more scared of staying where I am and remaining comfortable. I know that where I am now isn't what I want for my life, but day in and day out I do nothing about it. This blog itself is a testament to that - I started it to document my job search and getting out of exactly. where. I. am. now. Still!
So, it's coming. I don't know exactly what, but I feel the undertow of a wave I can't yet see. It's up to me to decide if this wave pummels me under, or carries me in to shore.
Monday, April 25, 2011
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You can do it Sarah! You can do it. And you will!
ReplyDeleteAs an English dweeb, I love the imagery in that last paragraph. Very nice.
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking about how much I've changed since I was 18 a lot lately as well! I mentioned to the guidance counselor I shadow on Wednesdays at the high school that I had been incredibly quiet in high school and she couldn't believe it. My kids told me once they thought I was a "tough kid" in high school. Seeing people's perspectives of me now versus how I still kind of see myself (I still remember shy-me, whereas a lot of people who I currently know didn't know me then).
I vividly remember driving to Stonehill for orientation... I was so nervous, I almost wanted to tell Mom/Dad to turn around and take me back, but at the same time, my pride wouldn't allow me to admit fear. India too... From about mid-April to mid-June 2009, all I could think was "HOW DID I GET MYSELF INTO THIS!?"
Now though, when I'm terrified of things (i.e. my boss is basically making me THE counselor next year and I do NOT feel qualified), I have to keep a mantra going in my head: basically that change is a good thing and any time I've run full speed into things I was afraid of in the past, I've grown and changed (for the better, I think).
My bad, I didn't mean to turn my comment into a mini blog post, haha. My point being, I know how you're feeling! I always ask myself how much worse would it be to remain stagnant? Which is why I think you should quit the job - that will force you to find something more fulfilling!
Also, I love you and I think you're wonderful & perfect the way you are. Except you live a little too far away. WHEN AM I VISITING YOUUU?!
Wow. That was a very long post. But I LOVED IT! Haha and thank you!! Every once in a while my inner almost-an-english-major peeks her head out and says, "Hey." Usually, though, she never does this when I need her on grammatical questions. She's mean and withholding like that.
ReplyDeleteSeriously. I have changed exponentially since high school. I am almost positive that I probably would have been friends with any of you back then. Not because you aren't good people, ahbvi, but I was just SUCH a different person then. Shy, angry, broody weird. I was hardly even friends with Elise, really.
God yeah! Orientation was a nightmare for me! I had those same thoughts, but didn't say anything because I knew my parents wouldn't actually turn around. Tough love sucks.
I'm mantra-ing myself up recently. Part of it is those blogs I mentioned. They are just so positive and inspiring it's almost like a mantra. Though, I have some now I will actually try reapeating to myself everyday as reinforcement. I can TOTALLY see how that (being THE counselor) would be scary, but OH MAN! That's also so exciting, so cool, and you can SO do it!!
And I kind of have a plan. At least, I have an idea. An idea that is slowly gaining momentum and turning into a plan. It's just one of those things that, until it's fleshed out and real and happening, I'm not going to talk about it. Until I know. That is the wave, really. And, should it come through, it will, most likely, require I quit this job, so that's a win. But that's all I will say! haha Sorry I'm like, all cryptic on your behind. It happens.
And YOU ARE WONDERFUL!! Seriously. You're fabulous and fantastic just as you are! Practically perfect, as Mary Poppins would say. Which I can't seem to get out of my head since seeing it last month. Seriously, Mary. Time to take your catch phrase and fly off on your umbrella. Please? Unless she'd like to loan you her umbrella so you could come visit!! Then Mary could stick around. hahaha I WANT TO SEE YOU SOOOON! I am cooking up a plan. Let's see if it works. What are you doing this weekend, by the by? Do you have plans?