The Inevitable Bubble Bursting......

In all things you do in life in an effort to better yourself, your situation, or a relationship, or job.... there exists a symbolic "bubble" of sorts. This being the one action, or idea, or intent that you nurture in order to improve and progress. It's that one specific thing that you so brilliantly came up with that will get you through it above everyone else that has ever attempted the like.

One can get very excited about their bubble ideal and hang on it to it a bit too tightly. As in all things in life... it will burst. It will blow up and break. Maybe in a huge disasterous explosion, violent and alarming..... or a small quiet deflation... silent and sad. But it will happen, and almost always at the hands of someone you know. The most frustrating part is why you are generally the only one who is enthusiastic about it... from start to finish, you think you have a handle on it.... I've finally found the secret! And boom..... and no one seems to care. Not even the guy holding the needle.

I get pretty excited about things.... I'm a fairly emotionally intense person. I get all jazzed up about work and doing my job well and truly believe in what I do (most of the time) and that philosophy carries into most aspects of my life. If I feel a passion for something.... I'll go in 100% hard and fast.... close your eyes and jump and worry about impact and recovery later. There is never a "right time" to do something.... you'll spend a lifetime waiting for everything. So.... I tend to be a little overzealous about life and the things that make me tick so to speak. And the bubbles that go with each one will break.... and break again... and again.... throughout my life.

I thinkI am getting better about dealing with it. I try very hard to ignore the eruption and focus on the next step. I find sometimes that I am even grateful for it, sometimes that's a higher power telling you that that is not the right path for your life. I don't see it as giving up.... but when you pour your heart and soul into something, and it repeatedly blows up in your face.... maybe its time to investigate your options. Life is far too short to spend your time and energies on things or people that don't nurture and appreciate who you are and what you set out to do.

So.... I find I am learning to cope with changes much better. And when my bubble bursts now, and the disappointment sets in..... I just try to bend my focus to find that part of me that knows I did the best I could. Not everyone will see the potential in me, I can't force it, whether it be as a friend, employee, partner, relative.... whatever category I may fit into someone's life.... I can't let the disappointment in, I have to realize that I see and feel things so much deeper than most people, and take to heart so much more of life's everyday interactions. So, as I write this I realize it brings me back around to my idea that we are all in control of ourselves, completely. The sadness and disappointments I feel are all me..... not them. I will learn to choose the "happy place" from now on. Let the bubbles burst and simply learn to giggle at the carnage, because it will always be there.......

As Forrest Gump would say, "That's all I have to say about that......"
-Cyn

When the leaves change and all the scenery to your life is altered …. The sky grays…. as does the lake….and it empties, and looks cold and unforgiving. The city shifts….. the lake front and the bike paths grow more and more vacant every day, and the traffic increases as people retreat to their cars …. Baseball ends, and football begins….as the traffic jams switch sides of town….. you find your jackets, and are forced to wear sox….. your skin dries and pales…. The furnace kicks on… and the noise of it forces the tv louder for a while. Sometimes when the seasons change, I find myself severely affected by the shift, and that it just shows me how quickly life moves, with or without you… it just keeps going and you better learn to keep up. It’s hard to believe I’ll be 33 soon….. and still spinning without much forward progression….. to some that may be failure… I just think it’s my life, and won’t make apologies for it. But it can make you wonder…. where will I be in one, five, or ten years……. Still here? Just like this?

Do you ever have days where you feel like you are existing outside your own body? Watching someone that looks and acts just like you…… going about their day, and you're following them, just observing quietly. Sounds crazy I’m sure….but for some reason I’ve had a lot of those lately. Some days it feels like a movie….. that I’m not sure how I got to, or when its over or where to go after it ends. And almost that I don’t belong there, like this can’t possibly be my life now. It’s like I’m hovering 4 inches above ground, so that when I try to walk or steer myself in a direction…. nothing happens. I spin my wheels but they make no sounds and there’s no friction whatsoever. Kind of like when Gracie tries to run on the hardwood floors…… she is so determined, and she tries with all her strength but her feet just slide under her and she gets absolutely no where. It makes me laugh, but now I am getting an idea how she feels……

So the question being…… what is this feeling? Do I think about it, analyze it, should I even bother with it…. was it even worth mentioning? I don’t know. It’s not an unhappy feeling, although after reading the first paragraph I can see someone may get that impression….. its not. Some of the moments are almost too good to be true, so I sit outside myself and think “this can’t be happening to me…. This is too wonderful to be my life” and that’s when it feels like a movie…. As if I’m watching some amazing story that could never happen in real life. I have to let it in…. and I’m not sure how. This is my life….. but will it last? If I let it in…. really allow it to take over…. will it disappear, and how much will it hurt when it does? Or will letting it all in just make it that much better, and more permanent, and life long….and I really will go out someday thinking I actually had everything I had ever wanted? Just doesn’t seem real. Like I’m missing something or forgetting something….

When you take a leap of faith… even if its only within yourself… you’re completely vulnerable, whether anyone else knows about it or not. It’s terrifying. On a day like to today, I want nothing more than to go my church…..not in the conventional sense… those of you that know me well, and are closest to me, I have taken you there… and it is a place so beautiful that in just seeing it, you can’t dispute that there is something greater than you, and all of us….. and I want to go there and just sit in the silence and fight back the tears that come every time I visit there….. the most amazing feeling, because I’m not sad… I can’t tell you why I start to cry… but I just do, and that’s faith, that’s a connectedness to yourself, and to your soul, that I need to experience to remember I’m human, and flawed, and wonderful, and loved, and afraid, and strong, and alive if nothing else. I don’t get answers…. I don’t necessarily pray, or ask for anything… I just sit there, and that inexplicable presence that creates a lump in my throat and makes my eyes well up with tears… that’s my answer to who I am…..and why I’m here.

So….. later today, when my work is done I will get in my car and make the very long drive up the shore and sit quietly in that place so that tomorrow I will wake up having rejoined myself in this life I all of a sudden have, and this happiness that I’m sometimes not sure what to do with..... and certainly not convinced I deserve. I will sit there quietly until I am reminded who I am, and what I am capable of, so that I stop observing and return to living the life I have been so blessed with recently.

I'll let you know how it goes....
Love,
Cyn

Careers I will probably never have.......

• Roofer - spent all weekend roofing.... don't want to do that again anytime soon. My knees hurt, and I can only go left, not right with my neck since I must have pinched something, my shoulders are sore and my right hand feels like its constantly asleep... or wishes it was.....
  
  
• Chef - made (tried to) a turkey last night..... and I don't think I will ever be the same.... handling the raw turkey was like handling a dead body. it didn't go or stay where you want it to... it smells somewhat funky.... the neck and the baggy full of squishy junk was enough to make me throw up in my mouth a little, I couldn't stop gagging.... then to rinse it out, and the water smelled bad.... and I cut the plastic thing that holds the legs thinking "why do they put this funny handle here, it's just going to melt into the turkey".... but learned that "no", that's not the case and its supposed to hold the legs on? So I had to tie the legs back up and together.... and whatever you do.... DO NOT look directly into the cavity of an uncooked turkey, or a cooked one for that matter! The dark meat seems raw and the white meat is dry and chewy.... forget the skin, it took John's circular saw to cut through it it was so tough..... (who knew you had to baste a self-basting bird?) Then when I got to the point of cleaning the meat off.... just as bad as the raw part, only this time I was burning my fingers off the entire time. The popping and snapping of the joints and bones made me start gagging again.... and I had just as much turkey on the stove, my shirt, and my glasses than in the pan. (Ever try to get turkey grease off your eye glasses? That's a whole other post for later.....) So I'm pulling meat away, and as I'm flipping the turkey carcass around back and forth I lose all sense of direction as it's breaking into sections and I start to wonder what parts I'm pulling from, which freaks me out a little and I'm thinking.... "was this the turkey butt? .... I don't want to eat meat near the turkey butt....." so I just stop all together and chuck what now resembles a pleasant smelling, hot pile of road kill down the garbage shoot in the hallway all the while having visions of a turkey carcass haunting me in the night by crawling back up the little garbage shoot slide..... (not sure why... just felt kind of guilty having gone through the process for the first time, when it looks like a chicken without the head, which is why I always eat my meat in a round or square patty on a bun... takes the reality out of it) . After all that, I am in no mood to eat any of this turkey.... so I have some stuffing and go to sleep.
  
  
• Dry cleaner - last night, while waiting for my turkey to dry out in the oven, I thought I would iron the 12 work shirts I have that I have never wear due to perma-wrinkles that only the dry cleaner seems to get out.... so I thought I would try. I actually made the shirt look worse than when I started. Before it just looked like I had slept in it, and when it was all over it looked like I had slept in it, and then stapled random sections together and then ironed exactly one-third of the shirt, not including the cuffs. I laughed out loud..... for a long time... even Grace looked at it from her end of the ironing board like "what the hell did you just do to that?".... so needless to say..... today I am wearing a sweater.

That's it for now..... just a few things I experienced this weekend that made me glad I have the job I have, and respect those who do all of the above.

Good times,
Cyn

Snow forecast for Thursday...... still no internet at home..... the harbor will be cleared out in 4 days.... hopefully I will have internet at home by then.... Don't give up, check back soon.

Happy Tuesday.
-Cyn