There are parts of my job that are fun and I really enjoy. Then there are parts that I tolerate and are really stressful.
Friday night was both.
Then Saturday I went for a crazy person’s late-night run.
I have not been a great Halloween participant this year.
After The Big Cut I went straight to a party in Sugar House, where some of my most favorite people were dressed up and drinking. I was so excited to surprise them and show them my new hair that I literally could not contain my grin on the bike ride over.
And then they were so excited to see me and there were hugs and kisses and giggles and just basically the best of everything.
Also glowy bracelets:
Anyways, what I mean to say is that I’m always excited to see my friends, even when I am so busy and crazy-anxious and unbalanced that I fall off the friendship wagon and go spinning out into space. That goes for you too, e-Friends. Reads of this blog. I am always delighted to know that you are reading, but I can’t always be a-posting daily.
I guess what I really mean to say is: I’m working on it. Finding balance. And you are important to me.
Sometimes I condense my life down to a single gesture, like a Christian drawing his half moon in the sand, the subtle arch of a foot–now sickle, now bevel– which stands for a whole life and a world of beliefs and fears.
Except that mine tends to be a shrug of the shoulders, or a sigh without relief.
For a while I offered the universe my scrunched face, meaning I wasn’t sure. Meaning I didn’t know, but would try anyways, because Maybe.
Tonight I throw up my hands like goal posts, shoulders lowered, no combat here. I give it up.
And if you want to extend that gesture, the way a balloon released floats until it is a speck, until it bursts against the atmosphere, or the way the sun’s rays stretch through years to reach us gently here on Earth, where we sweat and fret and bemoan the heat, then you can picture my raised arms extending, up and up, my head tilted back, mouth open, where my silver-soft soul escapes my dry rough red lips, screaming silently and with a calm and strong gesture my hands go up, my chest lifts and head back and I crucify myself, pounding through the cemetery in the dead of night, while crowds gather in stadiums and I can hear them and fear them, but I am among the deceased and I am breathing. Steady, ready, hard.
* * *
Oh, and Happy Halloween.
I sometimes feel insecure, fragmented, anxious, though I want to feel confident, composed and strong. I sometimes want to be gutsy, to chop off my hair, but somebody else beats me to it.
I sometimes develop an unhealthy obsession with a young woman who I think is better than me in most ways.
(Later, we become unlikely friends, and I see that she is just as awesome as I thought, and better. I remember that I am pretty awesome, too.)
by Julian Barnes
This was far and away the most English book I’ve ever read in my life. Just…I mean, there’s just no way this book was written by anyone other than a Brit. An American could not write in this way.
It reminded me of Eddie Izzard’s description of American versus English movies–how there’s not even enough action in an English movie to eat popcorn. This was like the book version of that, for me.
I think I may be losing my mind. Just a little. Just a slight slackening of my grip on reality.
I guess this is what happens when you go through a lot of change in a short period of time and think way too much about it. Or, at least, this is what happens to me under those circumstances.
Also what happens to me is that Espy and I skip book club in order to eat samosas and run into a goat tied up outside of a bar, like a mother fucking episode of Little Lulu.
Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction, Friends.
Caught the FrontRunner up to Ogden for a night at Dad’s house. Like I do.
When I first moved to Spain my friend Laura was having boy troubles, caught between two guys that she was seeing at the same time without either of them knowing about the other. It wasn’t something she’d planned on, but like many things in life, the situation just sort of escalated.
Once again I’ve lapsed in my posting. Busy with work, and window displays, just like this time last year.
I’ve also been:
crying (found my tears)
but not throwing up (any more)
not cutting myself (except that once)
hardly eating (silver lining)
doing running-ballet torture-running-biking exercise marathons (“Conquer Thyself”)
* * *
Conquer thyself, little sarah, you foolish mother fucker. I love your aching guts.
Just another Sunday, running errands, visiting family. Coping with life the best I know how.
little sarah Big World 