My friend Stephanie challenged her blog readers to blog their hearts. No real rules, you just have to be authentic. I always try to be honest but not necessarily…vulnerable. I love reading her blog, so I’ll take that challenge.
When I was in high school, I liked the line "This is my heart, bleeding before you" from Jewel’s song "Foolish Games." (Did you know she has like 9 albums now??) That to say, this is making me nervous, but we’re among friends, right? Here we go.
My closest friends are warming my heart right now. I want to write each of them love letters. They’ve been surprising me with so much encouragement and…joy. They have made my little joys this week much more joyful. I mean, it’s like I expect to feel like I’m skipping when I talk with them, but instead, they make me feel like I’m floating. While eating cheesecake.
Dave and I are on an upswing. For a few weeks, we were in a valley. Last week, we plateaued out. Last night, we were back. Chattering and laughing and high-fiving for clever jokes. I think the momentum changed when we started watching The Walking Dead together. We’ve watched an episode a night for the last four nights. The long version is that we have a new common interest, something we look forward to when we get home every night. Not just something, but something that we do together, that we make time for together. Usually, I don’t think time spent watching TV counts as quality time, but we talk and yell at the TV during the episode ("That guy’s about to come alive – look out!" "Shoot her! Shoot her!!") and comment to each other ("I would not go back to Atlanta." "They can’t just leave him there!" "They need a fortress – that’s too dangerous."). The short version is that zombies got us back on track.
I get discouraged easily, and I don’t really like that about myself. Shouldn’t a person be tenacious?! I’m encouraging and optimistic for other people, but not for myself. Recently, I’m bummed out about scrapbooking. I’ve been reading more blogs and looking at more online galleries, but it makes me feel like another person (page?) lost in the crowd. I mean, how do these women have time to make all of these things? And how do they have time to post them everywhere and do these challenges? I know some of them don’t have 9-5 jobs, but most have families and other obligations. I can’t really speak to motherhood, but from what I understand, it’s not a cakewalk. So what gives? Part of me wants to stay in a little Waco bubble and be happy with my moms and friends complimenting my pages, but that’s not how you grow. Ughh.
I’ve been craving Wing Stop lately. Not sure what that’s about, but there it is. I haven’t had it in months. Two things are stopping me: 1. I can’t find a partner in crime, and 2. The self-loathing that will inevitably follow. That much grease does not make you feel good.
I changed my hair this week (blog post next week), and it pulled my confidence up. Dave once told me that he can tell if I think I look good by the way I look at myself in the mirror. Well, I’m making supermodel poses in the mirror. (I’m not really kidding. This is what it’s like to be a girl.) A coworker told me that I’m carrying myself differently. When I go about my day, I just feel more pulled together and more sophisticated. But when I look in the mirror, I think, "Oh, right! Dark and ravishing!" So maybe I could balance out the Wing Stop after all…
Let’s just go for broke – I often use sentence fragments in the blog because that’s how I think (there are five in this post alone), and sometimes I wonder, does it bother anyone? Since I know it’s technically wrong, can I get away with it? I bet I only have two readers (Paige and Papa) who even notice. And everyone else probably thinks I’m lame for even thinking about it.
Whew. So that’s what’s on my heart. Anyone else?
