it's the time...

The time has come for the blogging to start again. It's been so long that it feels like a foreign process; to write, to compose, to share and to be transparent all seem like such a reach after going into a mode of privacy for so long. There is so much to share. A move, a wedding, a pregnancy, a baby, a marriage and a life. I'll spend the next week or so catching up and sharing about each event and then we'll start with the current goings on... the daily dazzling beautiful organized chaos that is our life. I think I'm ready....

In the meantime you can enjoy baby pictures!

and here is to 2010

i love my life. i have a great life. i have a wonderful daughter who is funny and smart and loving. i have a family who is good to each other and loves each other. i am proud of my siblings, their choices and of the people they have chosen to be in their lives. school is exciting and a challenge and i have really enjoyed every minute of it! i have amazing friends... amazing friends... that support and love me through thick and thin. lastly, but not least, i have a boyfriend who is a pillar of strength in my life. he is my best friend, my lover and everything i could have ever hoped for in a man.

2010 will hold big changes for us.... some of them are bigger than i can imagine. some have already happened and i'm so grateful. there might be less blogs in 2010. i seem to have less angst and that was what i blogged about. please don't take it personally. i hope to find something else to put here - daily photographs maybe? to fill the daily spots.

happy new year!

pictures are up!!

we had an amazing time having our pictures taken by aubrey - you can find her website here at photobyaubrey.com  she was fun and funny and took it in stride that we were a little late and a LOT hung over. it was important to us as a family to be able to have these photos taken and i am so happy about the way that these turned out - we can't WAIT to see the rest!

 

 

 

 

you'll know when you get there

two things happened tonight....

1.) miss lowercasesandcapitals changed my life by pointing out that this - Daytrotter Session Archives - available and free to download. it's music by everyone who is anyone in the daytrotter world and it's revamped my music collection. 5 hours of amazing music so far and i'm nowhere near done. i was in serious need of new music. everything i had was either old or reminded me of someone i don't want to be haunted by.

here are some tidbits i think are worth listening to: (you'll have to right click and find what i'm referring to... but it's a great investment of your time)

anya marina - move you

bon iver - flume

these united states - so high so low so wide so long

2.) the same lovely lady changed my life by having the time to just talk it out with me. i feel like i'm the most selfish person on earth needing to talk it out. needing to ask for help is difficult for me. i hate that he was the one i talked to and now i feel like i have all this talking to do and can't reach out to the person who has been there for the past two years. i know we're all sick of listening about it. shit, i'm sick of hearing about it. i'm sick of talking about it. i'm sick to death of it. i'm ready to just be OVER it. but it doesn't work like that. you don't fall in love with someone slowly and give your heart, trust and secrets to someone piece by piece and then switch it off in one day. maybe "you" do. but i don't. i'm just not like that.

tonight as we talked about my "it" and we talked about her "it" i realized that this too is the thing that is going to be painful and uncomfortable up until the point that i can look myself in the mirror and say "that was the most painful thing that's happened to me and i'm grateful for every single second. i wouldn't change it for the world. it's made me who i am. it's mine. i lived it." when you can say it and mean it... that's when it's over. and not a second before that.

until then i'm going to keep being grateful. i'm going to keep doing all the things that make me happy. i'm going to keep all the great things about myself and let this one part help me to move into the person i know i'm growing into.

in the meantime... please excuse my construction.

it's a music sunday

i'm in love with www.coverlaydown.com

i can't say enough about how well it's put together or how it makes me happy every single time he posts. it's well written and deep and it involves music. i recommend you have a little rss feed that links to him and that you give donations to his blog in all your friends and family's names for christmas.... i think it would be selfish not to really.

here are some gems i found tonight:

lucas mire - part missing - (orig. lori carson)

david potts - dupre - i am trying to break your heart - (orig. wilco)

and you know who you are... don't you?

sometimes in life it seems, from my perspective, that people just don't know "who" they are. they have ideas and thoughts and experiences but they leap from situation to situation without any real growth or responsibility. they are always looking for the next thing that will make them feel good without any thought about the long run. when you look at the track record of those people it's clear to see that destruction is left in the wake of their selfish manipulations.

sometimes finding out "who" someone is can change the way everything looks. the change feels almost immediate and the relief in the core is palpable. that's how i feel today. i realize, now, that i have been waiting for the return of a person that never existed. i have been waiting, bloody heart in hand, day after day after day for the return of a fictional character.

it's sad and it's shocking... at first... and then after an hour or so it's just a huge relief. like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders.

my brain literally said: "you mean i don't have to wait around for mr. hyde instead of dr. jekyll? you mean i don't have to sit through blaming and accusations? you mean i don't have to compromise absolutely everything and then apologize for that not being enough? you mean i don't have to pretend that love means you sleep with another person? you mean i don't have to trust a liar? you mean it's no longer a hostage negotiation? i don't have to do business with an emotional terrorist?"

and once i realized that it's over... it's really over it suddenly felt as if i could breathe again. as if i've been holding my breath all these months. and i don't know if you know what that feels like. what it's really like to finally exhale and then inhale again. but i can tell you, from my perspective, it feels good. really really good.

tgifriday?

i've had the longest night in the history of long nights. well, at least the longest night i've had in a few years. sometimes people still surprise me. just when you think that know someone... you think you really really know them... they come up with something that complete surprises you. strangely, that's never that they make a perfect chocolate cake from scratch or that they help the homeless... it's always something that is a kick in the teeth.

but because it's friday and i'm tired. i'm letting it go. all of it. i'm forgiving and forgetting. as long as this ghost of my past life promises never to haunt me again. and if you'll be so kind as to indulge me...

then good ol' 43 hits...

relationships ending is weird. it's uncomfortable and it's strange... or maybe i'm just uncomfortable and strange inside of the experience.

today i remembered the break experience #43 - when you concretely realize that when "i'll always love you" was said it really meant "i'll love you until it's not really all that convenient and then i find another girl (who doesn't think i'm an asshole) to sleep with me, which will be pretty quick after we break up because in all actuality i really don't love you all that much"

it's harder than #7 - telling a friend you haven't talked to in awhile that the relationship is over but you don't really want to talk about it

and definitely harder than #22 - realizing that things that were your "couple" favorite - movies, songs, jokes and little intimate things - are now off limits

but it's not the most difficult thing in the world.... hopefully.... because i have other stuff to do this week and i'm tired of thinking about it.

the start of a new journey

it's been so long. so so so long. so long since i've sat down to write. to put my words out there. not for you. just for me. i've had so much to say and yet this just wasn't the forum. it wasn't the place that i could come back and spill what i felt needed to be said. and now... on the other side of this part of the journey i feel that i am more prepared to write. to be open to the positive things that come from being transparent.

my life is so good. it's just so good. i can't even describe how fortunate i've been these past few months. i am so grateful that we're in wisconsin and i'm finishing school. i just kept putting it off because it was easier to get distracted, it was easier to do other things. now i'm committed and working at finally getting finished and i can see the finish line. the metaphorical light at the end of the tunnel. and i've made it a long tunnel. 18 credit hours this semester and a research project. and it's worth every second. every hour spent studying and every moment of doubt that maybe another degree or another path would be easier. nothing in life that is worth having is easy. if it was easy everyone would have it.

and now to the other part of the blog... but first the soundtrack:


the part of my life that difficult right now is the heart part. i just want to say - without preaching - that everyone should know... they should fundamentally understand what cheating does to a relationship and to trust and respect and finally to love. it destroys it. there are people who overcome it - people who find that it was a wake up call in their relationship to make things better and i wish my experience was like that. but it wasn't. my experience was that he simply chose to sleep with another person... even though he said he still loved me. i don't think love is supposed to feel like this. i don't think love is supposed to shatter your heart.

i'm not going to go into the details because the person reads here. but knowing. and continuing on after finding out that he slept with someone else has been easier and harder than i could have ever imagined. the part that keeps my stomach in knots is knowing that the moment between them may have only been trivial to him but it was everything we had together. the two years that we built a frienship and a relationship. all the moments that were so dear to me. that were sacred. that's what he gave her. and i hope she's happy with it... i hope it fits her well.

we've tried for months. we've continued to try. in hope that i suppose we'd be able to revive what was lost. but after last night's conversation i have given up hope. i have to move on.

and so now... that's the direction i'm moving. towards the future. and what a beautiful future it's going to be.

you're back

wait.. i'm back.

i've been on hiatus. it's a long story. you should know that it's not you... i promise it wasn't about you. it was about not being able to post. really. it's a long boring story without a good ending.

but let's not talk about the past.

let's talk about what i'm currently in LOVE with....

drum roll please....

lowercases and capitals

it's pure awesomeness. if awesomeness was hot, had great music taste, drank jameson, a great sense of humor and could write amazing posts.

go there immediately and read everything. everything i tell you.

and then come back tomorrow and i'll have something for ya.

love and love alike

my dear friend the incredibly helpful jay and i decided to both love this album together - the decemberists - the hazards of love. you should totally love it too. no really. do it. love it. it will make you happy in a calm relaxed way in which you realize the world is better for music having been made. everyone needs that in their lives.

just in case you are concerned about my music credentials after my last two guilty pleasure posts, i'm going to admit that you have every right to be concerned. but at least i'm admitting my little secret pleasures and opening myself up. by my logic that should make me more of an reliable source. jay on the other hand is just awesome and is my favorite boy to love things with. you can trust him. he's very tall (just to show off mostly) and we all know tall people hear things more clearly.... sigh. maybe that's why i like bad music. i'm practically a midget at 5'4" or 5'3.5" technically. i keep hoping i'll grow but 33 is right around the corner (or 28 for the 5th time) and i'm pretty sure there are no 33rd year growth spurts. although i would take one if i could get my hands on one.

anyway.... here is what you should love love love. besides yourself and of course jay and i.

the decemberists - annan water

the decemberists - the hazards of love 4

lala's day

today is my sister's birthday. she is fabulous. i would say more but what more is there to say about the most perfect 20 year old that ever lived?? seriously... she's everything i hope to be or wish i was... and i think she is the best kind of friend a girl can have. she is funny, fun and helped me invent uppie doos and the word gggrrraaarrr. she doesn't take herself too seriously and i appreciate that. i need that in my life. more than anyone knows. and so to her... i say happy birthday and i bid you goodnight.

these united states - get yourself home

san diego's southern cross

'cause the truth you might be runnin' from is so small
but it's as big as the promise, the promise of a comin' day
so i'm sailin' for tomorrow, my dreams are a dyin'.....
think about how many times i have fallin'
spirits are using me, larger voices callin'...
....

crosby stills and nash - southern cross





i have learned many things from this past weekend in san diego. i have learned about myself and about what it means to be alive and in this life. i have learned more about family and friendship and about the bonds that hold us together and move us apart than i ever knew was possible. i learned what it means... to love someone so much that the love will endure beyond what we understand. i don't mean romantic love. i mean the love of a family and i mean what happens to the love and the bond when we cannot define it by life. and in some ways i think i mean a romantic love... a romance between a man who is the best father i know and the strongest woman i've ever met who chose to stand beside him. the woman who will continue in his place to be the solid rock and flexible ties that holds a family together in a house with a garden that feels so much like home that i feel lost now that i am not there.

i have not written about this, although it has been going on for quite awhile. i wanted to give privacy to those who needed it and not speak about a future that had not become definite. i still was hoping (and in my heart am still hoping and praying) that the one thing i was most afraid would not come to pass. i write about it now because this is the piece that i can give... my words and my perspective as a salve or an outlet for how much my heart hurts.... unfortunately i am probably the only one who can or will be helped by my words that seem to be unable to express fully what my heart feels like.

my best friend's dad is dying. i don't mean in the abstract way in which this life is not permanent and we are all slowly dying by a series of breaths. i mean in the concrete way in which he will not be living in a set amount of time. i mean that he, for all of his strength and his fight and his power has come up against cancer and it is killing him in small increments. in small enough increments that we still hope that somehow it will turn out differently but big enough increments to rip that hope and your silly human heart to shreds.

it seems that when i think about it logically that it cannot possibly make sense. you would have to know him... but it's not possible. and that cannot possibly be true. it's too awful and it's too big and it's too much and it's not fair.

and i love him. like a father, a mentor and a hero. i love him because of a thousand things but mostly because he is simply him. i love him even more because he gave me my best friend. she has been in my life for 29 years and she is the other half of me. some days it seems she is the better part and the better half.

and some days, like today, my grief seems so big that my heart seems to hurt from growing large enough to hold onto it. the grief is senseless and frightening and beyond what i can manage with human feelings and human words. the grief feels so big that it makes everything else seem pointless in it's wake... like school or grocery shopping or getting new shoes. those small things are all swallowed up into a undefined mess of daily tasks that must happen but seem to hold no joy or interest... but the hardest thing is getting past the feelings of powerlessness and anger at how this could have possibly happened. the even harder part is that she is my best friend and i know how she hurts and i know how i am impotent to help her. i don't know what to say or do... except to say that there is nothing i can do or say and there isn't a way this will be okay.

i will admit that i have been standoffish to my friends and to my boyfriend. i have had a hard time talking about it - my feelings, my fears and what it all means. i know that talking about these things supposedly makes it better but everytime i talk about it i feel like others are overwhelmed with the duty to say it will be okay and it won't. it can't ever be okay... maybe it won't be as bad but it's hard to believe that it will be okay.

and so it is with that knowledge... the knowledge of exactly where we are that i leave you. we are in unchartered territory - on a map of life. and it is just life. and it's terminal. and it works out okay in the end. and it's already tomorrow in australia. and i've been around the world looking for myself (the only woman-girl i know) and i've got to trust that above all things love endures.

and to dawnielle - even though you may start to like karaoke... "what heaven brought you and me cannot be forgotten" - we are family linked together through happiness and tragedy and "you understand why now (we) came this way" and i wouldn't have come any other way. i promise that if you need me i will always come. i'm sorry i cannot do more.

comin' home from cali and this life's so thick that you can hardly swim on through it

it was a long weekend in cali... i'm not ready to talk about it.

i haven't dropped off the face of the earth... i'm just processing the circle of life and what it means to really live. i'm facing what it means to be in my thirties and no longer be a child protected from black news and black days... to have to face what is inevitable about living and about breathing and that is that one day you will cease to do both.

i'm learning, processing, breathing and being grateful for absolutely everything in my life. sometimes when you can do nothing else you can recognize that you get today. there are no other promises and when it has to come down to it... today is enough.

i have pictures to post of trees. i have heartache to blog about. i have things to think about. tonight though, i have to sleep.

and this song is the new cali song... because as dawnielle said today it just makes her happy in her heart. and some days... because she is the one i've known my whole life and more days than not she is the best parts of me... making her happy makes me happy. and i'm grateful for that.

nick rallis and these united states save the day

my ip0d is sorely not me anymore. i hate it when that happens... when suddenly everything you listen to seems to just fit another person or another life. when all the songs remind you of how things used to be like something else or of someone else. suddenly it seems that you have outgrown yourself and you spend a few days wondering what you're going to listen to instead. in truth there is a whole lot of soul searching right before that point but the ip0d is where it's noticed... as if everything was fine until you just can't stand the music you used to love.

i have been on a quest for new things and new ideas... i've been combing hypem.com and every music blog i can find... it's tough going though... not everything is made for loving.

here are some things i have found...
Drag the River - Jeff Black Song

i fell in love with these united states again... specifically the song so high so low so wide so long...
i mean for real... i have a heart pounding sugar coated love thing for them.. like how i feel about mango ice cream. i don't even like ice cream... and yet i love it. i digress...



and if that's not enough to make your heart pitter patter and your face light up at the sheer genius then go here and watch them in the secret garden video:
Hoovesontheturf.com

the music search is probably temporary but while i'm in the throes of missing good tunes feel free to make your suggestions... i'm gettin' desperate here. which i suppose is indicative of more crucial things...

i guess it's something about getting your heart broken... i mean really broken. the kind of heart break that leaves you feeling sort of empty and wondering when it's not going to seem dark. the kind of heart break that only comes from realizing a friend that has been in your life for years has become the worst version of themselves. sometimes addiction and heartache break people and those people just can't honor the good things in their lives. they become thieves and liars. and initially i thought i could forgive it. forgive the theft and the lies. but i cannot. and i don't know what has me so in a funk... i guess simply the loss of the friendship. just in case you've been reading along these past few weeks and wonder what i'm on about lately... i've had to face that a friend is so addicted to their negative vices that he is not able to be anything but a liar. and it has broken my heart.

not like "that"... i have a boyfriend. i always have. we have been on again and off again for years. he's a really good boy. the best kind. he allows me to fall in love with bands and to have my own life - blogging and talking about all these obscure things, to raise my child, to be the person i want to be, to make mistakes, to succeed, to have male friends that break my heart. he supports me and sends me sweet text messages first thing in the morning. he writes me poetry, sings to me (well, he would if i asked him to and does spontaneously sometimes) and if i let him he would even make me banana pancakes. it's so strange that being loved by my best friends, my lover and my family doesn't change how crappy i feel about being betrayed. i suppose all i can continue to do is study for my calculus exam and then wrap myself up in my covers and listen to nick rallis. up loud.

loud enough that it doesn't matter that i found out last what everyone else seemed to know... drug addicts and alcoholics that don't want recovery cannot be saved no matter how much you love them. and while they are stubbornly un-recovered they are ticking time bombs waiting to go off and then lie to everyone to avoid taking responsibility. jameson anyone?

yesterday, today, tomorrow

strange things have been in the works... it feels like change and for once i think change is good. it just seems like although i am in the same place and doing the same things and not planning on changing anything that there are things in my life changing despite myself. things dying and things renewed and gain and loss and things without tally or without definition.

one of the things changing is love. learning and relearning what it means to love, be loved and to lose love. the other changing is letting go. learning and relearning what it means to let go, to be released and not be lost in the midst of it.

i woke up this morning and thought that i would like to be shown about love and about letting go and then... without warning jay sent the following websites to me:

love letters

and

so there

you should go to them both and then love jay. i went, i read, i will keep going back, and i love him more than unicorns. (specifically more than i love unicorns but also possibly more than unicorns love him... either way you want to read that... they're both true)

here is an excerpt from so there:

I want you to know that I've always loved you. I've cherished your name, relished in your presence, sighed with poignant love at your voice. Such elegance in your awkward body; I know love's hymn lies somewhere in your soul, if you would only sing it.

Though I believe we will never be more than strong, loving friends, I want you to know I will always look to you differently. It doesn't seem right to leave you in the dark, not knowing someone has such strong feelings for you.

I'm scared. I don't think I have the strength if you reject me. I don't think I have the courage to send this letter.

wanted...

wanted...
1. one afternoon by a river in connecticut. i've got the place if you've got the time.
2. one day with cody, to read, talk, sing, laugh and just be together.
3. a first edition of atlas shrugged.
4. a time machine
5. an internship for the summer
6. tickets to see sam beam live
7. a week of porch time in the valley to get my head and my heart right
8. another perspective
9. a friend to hold my secrets
10. everything ever written by chuck plahniuk
11. an evening in new york to see the dalai lama speak
12. a bike to ride in missoula montana
13. stationary to write some apologies
14. more energy
15. a new pair of sunglasses
16. to not have found my 3rd grey hair
17. a cabin in the woods
18. a plane ticket
19. earl grey ice cream

paul simon could write a book...

or maybe he should just keep making albums

deer tick - still crazy after all these years

i've had this moment... and sometimes i feel like this song is my life... about how things don't change, about how we are destined to repeat our old patterns and when you see that old friend, old love, old life you realize how much you've outgrown it and how nothing seems to have changed at all. it's so hard to know... so hard to ascertain what is growing and how to measure it.

once upon a time

once upon a time i came across a poetry book that was a compilation of authors, styles etc... and it had the most exquisite poem in it. i wrote in my journal the following in reference to it.

"a red sun stains the lake like colored glass. Day is stopping." - Kayaks, pg. 425

i wrote it to myself as a reminder to return when i could.

i have often thought of that poem like an old lover, a set of sheets that i loved, the phone number of my friend in 6th grade named ian, my lost teddy bear from when i was 9 ... named bearspot...

there are things in the world we lose and we know where they go... our innocence, virginity, money, common sense... and there are things that we lament... relationships, the perfect mixed cd, opportunities.

then there are things that we long for. this poem, in it's entirety is one of those things for me.

for the incredibly helpful jay

the band we fell in love to... azure ray..

i appreciate you. i'm so glad we're "it's complicated" and that we were once married on myspace. you make my computer happy... although it is is somewhat disorganized still....

let's see each other soon and have a snowball fight and make s'mores and have a pillow fight and do each other's hair...