it was not a great day. i won't bore you with the details (because in the grand scheme of thing--they're all just details) but let's just say: it. was not. a great. day.
it certainly doesn't help that i got a wee of a pinpoint headache two days before the new year which grew and grew and grew and then seemed to explode on the first of january. but with a little medicine and a good night of sleep it passed.
but alas it appeared again. this morning. on the opposite side.
i get these headaches at the back of my head to the right and the left of the occipital joint. (yup, i said occipital joint--that's juilliard schooling for you, i did learn some impressive things).
go ahead and google search pinpoint headaches. occipital pinpoint headaches, at that. and see how you feel after reading some of the literature out there. (this is why doctors tell patients not to google. and not to panic).
so i'm not panicking. because it's probably just stress. (and january).
yup, it's probably just january.
because perhaps the things that made today so... very-not-good... will--in the end--prove bountiful blessings:
the gift of time. the impetus to move on from relationships that are no longer meaningful. the courage to take risks.
time will tell. and tomorrow is a new day.
(and yes, i dare say january is the practice-round for the rest of the year--it's okay if it's something of a disaster. in fact, why not fail a lot now?).
2011 (two day update).
you think i'd be worried about 2011.
based on its auspicious beginnings.
like opening my closet saturday morning to falling storage containers and the fear of a broken collar bone. or leaving the grocery store only to realize several blocks later that i'd left the groceries behind. then there was the falling down the entrance steps of my apartment building. and the loss of one of my favorite earrings. all this and the seeds of minor heartbreak (from afar, no less--and most likely imagined {the worst and most cowardly of all }).
but i'm not worried. no siree.
i'm gonna chock all this up to january. (january and i have never been friends).
okay. okay. i'ts all a-okay.
happy new year!
i have so many new years resolutions for this next year.
not because there's so much that i want to change.
but because suddenly there's so very much that seems possible.
disclaimer: two years later
i get sad after christmas. in my stomach. a wet sponge of sadness. heavy and porous all at once.
the lines on my forehead are deepening. the skin around my eyes becoming ever-more fragile.
i sleep with the humidifier on. and i wake early just so i have time to read before the day begins.
my left eye still leaks. not much to do about that. it simply is, this little leak.
when no on is home, i pump up the music and remember how as a little girl i would pull out my big-bird-record-player and my father would move the living room furniture and we'd dance. oh, how we'd dance!
i don't have bangs now, i'm incredibly vain about my eyelashes, and i'm highly susceptible to any sort of sales-pitch. (one might in fact call me gullible. and they might in fact be right).
i love riding a bike. and i still yearn for a vespa--in my toes i yearn for it.
i long for a year in europe. the consumption of lattes without restraint. open-air piazzas and history etched into every nook. i long for trains and the lilting musicality of an unknown language.
i think a person can be a million things. things that seemingly stand in direct opposition. there is no end. nothing more stunning than a little humanity. or humility.
i want nothing so much as a little balcony. just off our apartment. wrought-iron fencing. and plants!
i want a life lived in color. vibrant and deep.
i believe in dressing up. for the theatre. for church. for morning meetings and nights out. i believe how we dress ourselves is an unconscious indicator of how we'd like to be treated. (i actually like panty-hose).
i'm a firm believer in strict-parenting. and boundaries. that education begins at home. and education, more than anything, will change this world. it transcends party lines, divisions between culture and country--it is the great equalizer (in the best possible way).
i believe that pleases and thank yous speak volumes of a person's character. that an unsolicited smile is a profound act of kindness. and that the more love a person cultivates for himself, the more he then delivers freely into the world. (and surely this world needs a little more love).
and yes, i climb onto soap-boxes more often than i should.
and yes, i get passionate--such is my cross.
and i'm so much better. so much better than two years ago when i first wrote this. so much better. so much fuller. so much more myself.
so much more aware that this christmas sadness will pass. that all things pass. that things change and deepen.
and that this life, hard as it is, is so damn worth it.
just so you know.
love,
me
the two-days-after-Christmas-gift
in finding love
you spend months, years, (a year?), weeks, fortnights, minutes, innumerable seconds pining after someone. wanting them, missing them, needing them. feeling unworthy of them-because that's the story that was told. by him? by you? somewhere in all that passing of time you've forgotten. where to lay the blame? doesn't really matter, you suppose. not anymore, anyway. or did it ever?
and then one day you wake and the light has shifted. and the lens comes into focus. and you realize that all along--actually--it was he who was unworthy of you.
and god does that realization feel good.