Clever Escape

I don’t know how all you people do at keeping your houses clean, since I can’t really see you or your houses through the internet (wouldn’t it be cool to spy on that too? instead of just each others blogs? Go in and check out other people’s houses too? Hmm. Kind of creepy, but interesting all the same…).

My housekeeping comes in waves. The clean waves are usually much shorter than the messy waves. And most of it revolves around the time of year.

For instance, I usually start out the beginning of the school year with a pretty clean house that was the result of a summer of absolute boredom. Then I get super busy and cleaning my home is the first thing that goes.

By the end of the school year, I am barely at home for sleeping much less cleaning. So my house is total chaos.

Then everything in between is the clean-messy-clean-messy waves that last days, weeks or months, depending on, well, I suppose my level of laziness or business at work. And whether we are having anyone over. And how motivated I can get my husband. But that usually doesn’t work.

Give me a couple of weeks in the summer, though, and it is pristine. Not only does it take me less than two weeks of not working to drive me nutso with boredom (after being so ridiculously busy during the end of the year) but I am at home, looking at the mess, all the time.

Thus far this summer I have cleaned up and out most of the apartment. The outside parts anyhow. Haven’t really gotten into cupboards and drawers…oh wait I completely emptied, cleaned, and reorganized the pantry the other day. Guess I have started the insides.

Yesterday I decided to clean my sink.

Turns out, it was much, much dirtier than I had first thought.

Cleaning my sink:

• Emptied it all, washed the dishes, ran the dishwasher
• Filled up each side with hot, hot water and bleach
• Left for a long time, like an hour or something
• Water was still ridiculously hot, and it was bleach water, so I used tongs to take the stoppers out
• Broke out the Barkeeper’s Friend and scrubbed the bitch till it shined
• Wasn’t shiny enough so I rinsed it all off and wiped it down with Windex

Damn if that thing doesn’t practically glow. My husband got home and was messing around in the kitchen and I just stood there, looking at him, waiting for him to notice the new light that we had in our kitchen.

He didn’t.

The man is distracted by any shiny object in five miles of him, but he doesn’t notice the new reflectant light source in our kitchen?

WTF.

Anyhow, he was like, yep, that’s shiny all right.

And went on with life.

Not nearly as excited as me.

Well, I like my shiny sink and it is going to stay that way. Shiny and empty. He tried to put a spoon in it this morning and I stood there until he moved it the two feet required to place it into the dishwasher.

He ran water into the sink (gasp!) and I had to wipe it all out with a towel so it wouldn’t get water spots.

I have the feeling that I am going to be going through lots of towels because of this sink.

I looked at the sink in our new apartment, and it needs some more shininess.

Task number one, when we move in…clean the sink.

And this is what summers off get me. An obsession with my sink being shiny. I think I need a new hobby.

Three years ago Wednesday, my husband and I were married. Three years. Feels like longer…lol…We have been together closer to seven years. Hmm. 25% of my life.

I grew up in Central Michigan, otherwise known as the middle of nowhere. My town had (has) a grand total of 3000 people. My graduating class had around 110 people or so. I knew I wanted out, and wanted to go to a big city, and wanted to be in New York (My mom’s family is in New York), so I went to college in Buffalo, New York which is the second largest city in the state after “The City”.

In the dorms I got stuck with a crappy 18 year old roommate that was super annoying, so I managed to find another girl who was closer to my age and didn’t have a roommate. When they tried to move in an equally annoying roommate with her, who by some great coincidence had the same first name as my annoying roommate, we convinced everyone to shuffle and I moved in with Maria.

Thus commenced a year of bar hopping and partying at frat houses. It was fabulous fun! I did all the things that I knew that I didn’t want to look back and regret not doing. We made friends with our next door neighbors (one of whom was also from Michigan), some girls that lived down the hall, and one time when the garbage room on our floor caught on fire (literally) we met some guys that were pretty cool and started hanging out with them. It was good times.

Then Maria got a call from her older brother’s best friend telling her that if she brought some girls with her, he would pay for her ticket into an OAR concert that was in their hometown. Granted, the tickets were only eleven dollars, but to a college student that was a sweet deal. So she took me and one of our neighbors and off we went to the concert.

Once we got to the concert, we soon discovered that Maria’s brother’s best friend (haha) and I were the only two that were old enough to drink. So brother’s best friend (now my husband) basically dragged me over to the bar.

I asked for an amaretto sour, which was apparently a disappointment. Girly drink, you know?

So I suppose I surprised him when the next thing I wanted was a shot of Jim Beam, which was my drink of choice through high school and thereafter. I liked it because nobody else would drink or steal it from me.

We proceeded to spend all of his money, all of my money, all of his friend’s money, and all of the ticket money (he had bought everyone’s tickets and they paid him back), adding up to 200+ dollars, on alcohol.

Hello Long Island Iced Teas, more shots of Jim, some vodka cranberrys, vodka tonics…and on and on.

We were toasted.

We crossed back and forth, forward and back again through the crowd, up and down the stairs to the balcony. The next day I realized I hadn’t even paid attention to any of the music. I had no idea what kind of music they played.

Maria had to drive us home to her parent’s house where we both fell out of the car and passed out on her parent’s front lawn.

Classy, huh?

Good thing it was 3 in the morning and none of their neighbors were up. Somewhere in there we managed to crawl back into the backseat of is car and he sobered up enough to drive home (which was like a half mile away) and I stumbled inside and passed out on the couch.

And that is the story of how we met!

At least, I think…it’s all kind of blurry…

Have you ever thought about how fabulous breathing is? How good it feels to fill your lungs with air, and then slowly let it out again?

I love breathing (lol). It just feels good to sit and feel the air going in, filling up my lungs, then slowly flowing back out again.

It is not easy to concentrate on breathing. Conveniently, it is one of those things you don’t have to think about doing, it just happens. Thank goodness or I would have issues staying alive, since I tend to get distracted easily. But when you do just sit there, feeling your lungs filling and then emptying them, feeling everything going in and out, it is refreshing and helps me to focus.

My husband will probably read this and laugh cause he says this is something that Sunshine would say. One of those things that children wonder about. He says that to me a lot lately.

For instance, the other day we were in the pool and I commented how cool water feels. If you stand completely still in still water, you don’t really know that you are under water. Except that, you know, you are wet. Then you move and it all ripples around you. Wiggle your fingers and it flows right through. You can float on it, or suspend yourself in it. You can pick your feet up and not worry about falling. Push it around and you move. It is pretty cool!

I like to float on my back in the pool and watch the birds flying around. There is a pair of hawks that fly around above our apartment complex. It is very relaxing to watch them gliding along through the sky.

If all this makes me like a child, oh well! I like thinking about these things. I like to wonder at the things around me, things that I would normally take for granted during the course of my day. I think it is part of truly enjoying life. Take a second and just feel what is going on around you. The sights, sounds and smells of the world. What things feel like.

When we grow up, I think we lose the sense of wonder that the world brings to us. We take it for granted. We are told, whether directly or by example, that grown-ups don’t think about things like that anymore. That a sense of having already “been there, done that” is part of being mature and experienced, and that is important to be mature and experienced. Yet so many people let life and time pass them by while they concentrate on working and doing what society expects them to do, valuing what they are expected to value, believing what they are expected to believe.

What a waste of the one thing we can never beg, borrow or steal - Time.

Some cool sites I have come across in the last few days…

TimesOnline.com with “The age of rage: Why are we so angry?”

Telegraph.co.uk with “Intelligent people less likely to believe in God”

The Daily Green

EarthLab.com

I like things that make me think, so if you are in need of things to think about, here you go!

If you had to write a letter to yourself, from the perspective of your own best friend, what would you write?

Try to take that step back and look at your own life as an outsider. It’s not so easy. A screen of your own emotion blurs the reasoning behind choices you have made, memories of events, your perception of meanings and intentions of others.

I look back at my life and wonder how the hell I got to where I am. I think of who I used to be, and who I have become.

I distinctly remember who I used to be.

Part of that person I was, I liked, loved. I had issues, but I could deal with them. I could deal with them because of who I was.

My dad moving out when I was 16 was such an immense relief, a huge stress left our house and I could breathe for the first time. Not that he is altogether a bad guy, but there were major issues. None of which I want to get into here. Just issues.

I was raised Baptist. Being Baptist defined who I was, who I could hang out with, what I did, what music I listened to, where I went, what I wore, the movies I saw…everything. Everything was defined for me. I had no personal choices to make, they were told to me. I had no self.

Then my dad moved out and I discovered what that meant. It meant I could go, and do, and be whomever the hell I wanted to be. So I did. I went out and did whatever I wanted. My church lost all of my respect. I hate people that say one thing, then live another. Hypocrites.

I figured out who I was.

From my parents divorce I learned the value of independence. Of being able to do it all for myself. Of not having to rely on anyone for anything. I didn’t rely on my parents, my friends, my family, my boyfriend…nobody. I could do it all on my own.

I also learned not to depend on people to be there when you needed them.

So I didn’t trust anyone. Well, very few people. VERY.

I was strong, on my own. Independent. I was afraid of nothing. I thrived on change, new ideas, experiences, challenges. Very few things got to me. Except, maybe, on occasion, the fear of being alone. That has always been with me, somewhere in there. Usually even that doesn’t/didn’t get to me.

That person started to leave me two years ago. That person was forced to go somewhere…I don’t know where…but I wish I did. Cause that would make finding her again a whole hell of a lot easier.

Somewhere in there I lost who I was. I no longer speak out as much as I did, my thoughts trapped in my own mind like never before. Suddenly making other people happy became more important than making myself happy. Suddenly relationships with other people became really important to me. Really important. Where before, in most instances, they never really were. I never cared about having a lot of friends around. I had the ones I *thought* I needed, and that was enough for me.

Now I sit here, thinking over these two years, of everything I have done, the choices I have made, and I don’t recognize myself. And I don’t like it that much.

I used to cherish my alone time. Now it makes me nervous. I used be able to sit and draw for hours, and know exactly what I wanted to make and why. I haven’t drawn anything for two years. I used to know what I wanted in life. Now I have no idea. I used to love change and taking risks. Now the idea makes me nervous.

Sometimes I get confused when I hear feedback from people. Not everybody, just a chosen few, who have a perception of me that I don’t recognize.

I’ve been told I am ruled by my own emotions. I’d never heard that, until that moment. I have never considered myself to be ruled by my emotions. But looking back now, I can see where people who did not know me before, would get that impression.

I hate that the last eight months, basically, have been me being controlled by what I’m feeling. More so by what others are feeling. I have become so concerned and preoccupied by other people I have totally forgotten about myself.

I am so there for other people, yet they are never there for me.

Those first two months after my miscarriage? I found out who my friends are. The ones who actually called me, checked up on me, forced us to go out in the middle of my haze of not wanting to go, or do, or be with anyone. Those people are my friends. Those are the people that I should care about, despite being constantly distracted by people that don’t appear to care about me unless it benefits them in some way.

Those are the people I should be dropping, and shouldn’t be letting bother me. They are holding me back from who I used to be, and want to be again.

So what would I write in a letter to myself? I would remind myself of who I was, when I was happy. Who I was striving to be. Who my real friends are, and how I used to care less about those who weren’t. How much I used to love my life, and live like it. How strong I am, somewhere in there.

And that I can and will find that person again, if I really want to.

And I will.