have you ever heard that expression that death comes in 3's and 7's? i think i heard it the first time on a grey's anatomy episode. but lately, the superstitious bone in my body is starting to make me believe it's true. so many people i know have been affected by a death recently and it really hurts my heart. death is such a sad, sad thing that everyone has had to deal with in some way. but it never gets any easier to deal with when it happens. at one point in my life, the whole concept of death was really hard for me to wrap my mind around. when i said earlier in the blog that i get lost in my own mind, i wasn't kidding. there have been extreme times where i've even struggled to know what reality was, much less the thought of someone that used to be in my reality that will never be again. what is your reality? what separates your reality from your dreams? and where does death fit into all this? because, i mean, i know it's entirely illogical to believe that everything we experience is a dream. but didn't inception get to any of yall? (ha just kidding.. sort of) i know at the lowest points in my life were the times when i had the most vivid and realistic nightmares/terrors. and that's only one definition of the word 'dream'. my other dream is to become a doctor of psychology and there's absolutely nothing stopping me from making that dream a reality, right?
i know i'm starting to sound a bit insane and overly existential, so i better stop before i go all Faulkner and start writing in complete stream of consciousness.
i love this song right now.
i'm sure you've all heard foster the people by now because i learned from twitter that they played on the VMAs? this specific song, waste, was playing in the background in my car the other day and the chorus caught my attention in a big way.
and every day that you want to waste, that you want to waste, you can
and every day that you want to wake up, that you want to wake, you can
and every day that you want to change, that you want to change, yeah
if you want to read the lyrics in their entirety, you can here. this chorus just keeps bolstering my (Buddha's) thoughts that whatever you think, you become. i wanted to wake up this morning and go to work, so i did. i have this breath and this heart that keeps beating and this day to do whatever it is that i want to do. and i'm so lucky and grateful to have realized this. my hope is that everyone i love spends their days doing exactly what they want to do.
another great weekend for the books. i love my friends. and i love that my friends share my semi unhealthy obsession with my morning jacket. i still have a sharp pain near my collar bone that i decided came from laughing so much this weekend, because every time i laugh is when it hurts.
i realized something about myself this weekend: when i really like something, i tend to become obsessed with it. a few examples are the color green, mary-kate olsen, rufus, my morning jacket, emoticons, abnormal psychology. i'm not sure if it's a good or bad thing. i'm just going to count it as a positive because it shows that i'm a passionate person, right?
pinterest makes me want an entire new wardrobe for fall, unnecessarily. (pinterest is another one of those recent obsessions) however, i feel like this green pea coat i have my eye on may very well become a necessity. i love fall so much! its my favorite season. it also includes my birthday, which is 29 days from today. and i'm always exceptionally excited around september 20th ± 1 month.
i feel like i need to call jim james "his majesty" when i look at this photo.
lots of things happening recently. i feel like i'm living life very fast.
here's some semi vague updates:
i made my moving situation super complicated and stressed myself out so right now i'm technically homeless with no physical address. luckily, i have the most understanding and best friends a girl could ask for and all areas of that situation have been placated.
some of my relationships have changed in the most mature way possible.
took the gre and did better than last time.. stillll not good enough though. i will get the score i need in october. i will.
nashville has become a little soft spot in my heart. i've been spending a lot of time there lately and i just love it. i keep going back and forth with nashville and chicago. the uncertainty of where i'll be next year is scary + exciting.
i got new glasses from see! they're green. i love the color green.
do yourself a favor and go ahead and jump on the pinterest wagon. if you need an invite, ask!
rufus has been extreeeemely busy himself.
here's his new workout routine... boxing, the pendulum swing, downward dog, etc..
my bebe sister moves in to her dorm this weekend!!!!! how exciting is that. i can't wait for her to love ut as much as i did. i wish i could go back to the beginning of college.. knowing everything i know now. ha.
..... also... does somebody want to buy me this ring?
the airport lost my luggage on the way back from chicago and i didn't get it for a couple days
my check engine light came on so i took it to toyota and found out nothing was wrong- they just had to reset the light. i still had to pay $103.
got my first ticket in the mail for not stopping completely while turning right at a red light.
rufus continues to routinely wake up at 6 am every morning to play for an hour, juuust enough to not let me be able to fall back asleep.
i move tomorrow and i haven't packed one thing.
here's some good things:
presented at my first work conference (that was cool)
visited the northwestern campus and fell in love.
went to nashville to see my friends and had a really good weekend :)
realized that i take the gre in a week!
move in right across the hall from my bff tomorrow!
my sister moves to the same city as me in a couple weeks.
my hair has stopped falling out (for real... i think)
disclaimer: even though i listed all those bad things, i was really proud of myself for not letting them even alter my mood in the slightest. really been on a positive thinking kick lately and it's helping. and relaxation exercises/my form of meditation really do wonders.
so my little brother finally made the move to my old room now that i've been out of my house for almost 5 years. last time i was home, i attempted to help my mom clean out some of the things in my closet and drawers so my brother could start using them. (but you know how when you start "cleaning out", it just turns into looking at old pictures and reading old things and going down memory lane. well, it does for me at least). so i found allll my old journals (i think there was a total of 6 or 7) and started reading a few pages from each. the most comical one to read was the first one i started in 1st grade. every page started with "I am happy because.." and i thought it was refreshingly simplistic and genuous to remember that i really was extremely happy every single day. then i opened one from middle school and high school and read all the complaining and emotional teenage girl things i was going through. and it made me think. after all the perspectives i've seen at this stage in my life, it's really hard, actually impossible, to get back to that simplistic mirth. but the least i can do is try.
i talked to a good friend the other day who always pops in my life just at the right times to remind me about what's important. i have a tendency to get so lost in my own mind that sometimes all i need is someone to say, "hey- you're so lucky/blessed/fortunate/whatever form of that word you wanna call it" and it brings me back.
so, as an attempt to get back to the daily "I am happy because.." journal entries, i've started thinking about something every morning that i am so happy i have in my life. and it more-or-less leads to positive thinking throughout the rest of the day.
& if this was my iphone, i'd put in a couple of my favorite emoticons at this point. haha
not really sure why i'm still up because i'm usually out by now. i think part of it is that i have a headache that just will not allow me to sleep. another reason is that i had a (i've been trying to think of the right adjective to put here, but i can't so i'll just say) strange day. and maybe a third reason is because i just redid my blog template thing and i'm excited to have a new post on it.
work has been very busy lately. i have a tendency to get overwhelmed if i feel like i'm behind, but the key words there are 'feel like'. because i'm really not i suppose. just have a lot more going on these days. work days go by so fast. anyway, so on my lunch break i went to subway and right when i walked in the door wanted to turn back around because the line was so extensive. i'm talking like 12-15 people in front of me. but i knew i already had to pay a dollar in the parking garage no matter what so i figured i'd stay and hope the line abated quickly. i end up being in subway for a total of 35 minutes- just to get my food and rush back to the office for a meeting.
what made the subway line bearable was that the man in front of me started a conversation right when i came up behind him in line. when he first started to talking to me i really wasn't interested in what he had to say because i just wanted to get my sandwich and get back to work (because of all the things i kept going over on my internal to-do list). but then after talking for about 5 minutes, i realized he was a harmless old friendly man who was trying to pass the time just as much as i was. we ended up talking about how he just moved here a couple months ago and was asking about more places to eat (subway was the only place he'd been for lunch since he moved here- the lady there had his order memorized). then he asked about what i do, and from that we got into a discussion about autism. and i don't know. there wasn't anything extraordinary about our conversation- he was just a good-natured old man and it made a 35 minute line seem like not that long.
then when i was in my car on my way home from work, while stopped at a red light i started going over one of those to-do lists in my head again and kind of leaned back in my chair and put my hand on my head. my window was rolled down and i must have looked like something was really wrong because the people in the car next to me rolled down their window and the guy got my attention and said, 'hey! everything's gonna be alright. everything's gonna be alright..' i kind of laughed and said thank you. and then he rolled up the window and the light turned green. and i thought... yep, i guess everything really is gonna be alright.
"There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life."
John Lennon
"A human being is a part of a whole, called by us a universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest … a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."
edisto island is the cutest little island in south carolina. it really is like a step back in time. 2 full days of lying/walking on the beach and card games (the picture below to the right is our wheat thin poker game-heh). even though i would've loved to stay a full week, those couple days were just what i needed. on the way back yesterday, i couldn't help but feel completely content. i love those moments when you feel absolutely aware of the moment you're in and you can appreciate it.
jon was so nice to drive most of the way there and back so i could study for the gre. i got a good portion of my study book done (it's about 400 pages) and i feel much more prepared than last summer taking it. sometimes when i start studying for it, it's hard to even keep my mind on the questions because all i can think about is when i get to start applying in november. haha.
here's us being happy that we're at the beach..
to finish off our 4th weekend, we walked down to worlds fair park to catch what we thought was going to be about a 45 minute firework show. it ended up being about 15. but at least we got to see some (because they're illegal in edisto). hope everyone had a great weekend! back to work..
