The Best Day of My Life
~OR~
The Facts:
I bought my dress second-hand, paid for it in cash. $32.61. I knew as soon as I tried it on that it was the dress I would get married in. A winter wedding dress.
little sarah Big World
Tag: chicken wings
February 9, 2012
Haven’t Slept a Wink
~OR~
I’m So-oh-oh Tired
Because I am just going with it, living in the moment and going with friends to late-night bars, where we indulge in late-night bar food, juicy secrets, and the honest truth.
And because I work an early morning job now, all coffee and sunrise, so I am up and at ’em by 7 at the latest, sometimes as early as 5:30.
And when I’m not staying up late with friends, I’m staying up late baking, and doing laundry. That’s life, I guess–it can’t all be chicken wings and beer.
But I am also very calm, which is a new and strange thing for me. It’s partly due to exhaustion, and partly due to something else, unnamable. Some sense of grace that I’d so long hoped for, and I am feeling more grown up of late. I feel prepared for 26, whereas I dreaded 25, didn’t think I’d earned it. Wasn’t ready to grow up.
Not that I’m ready now. BUT, I am calm. And strong. The days pass by in little slivers and I appreciate most everything. Making a salad for work…
…how delicate and tart and fresh and pink an apple can be…
…and taking a moment to snap a photo, even in the middle of a whirlwind-busy day. Because it’s the right thing. Suddenly the right thing seems so obvious, if I only slow down enough to listen. Today it was: buying a little gift for my Dad, just because, and baking bread for the staff meeting.
It’s strange, because last week I was feeling so dis-jointed, so distant and isolated and irritable. (Probably also due to lack of sleep). But…I just let it go. I let it go, and I think things are going to be fine, and everything else is out of my hands, so I will probably just eat a salad and bake some bread and read in bed ’til I fall asleep about it. What else can I do?
Last week I felt like I just didn’t care anymore, about anything. I didn’t freak out about it, I just let it happen, submerging myself completely in the feeling. Like swimming through a lake, and now I’m on the other side. Not sure where this is, exactly, but it feels new, and real, and good, and calm, and utterly blameless.
A man just came to the desk where I’m working and donated the remainder of his clementines from a meeting in one of our public rooms. I have been craving citrus lately.
Artwork by a young patron. A gift. Okay, it was a barter.
January 22, 2012
Sidetracked
~OR~
What We Talk About When We Don’t Talk About Busking
Yesterday it was too rainy, and then too snowy, to head up to Park City. Instead, we had tea and cookies, followed by vegan burritos while clusters of soft flakes plummeted to the ground outside shrink-wrapped windows.
Then we walked through the park, discussing gender roles and stereotypes and slurs. There were ducks, also, but no chicks. No chicks, no queers, no gyps, no jews. (You know, slurs).
And then…a wintry car ride up a steep hill, drinks with my moms and their friends, and on to a hardcore show/bake sale/benefit.
I didn’t stay the whole time, didn’t even stay until my friend’s band played. I was supremely uncomfortable–needed to pee, but there was not toilet; desperately thirsty, but didn’t want to add to the bladder situation; etc. And it’s just not my type of music. Not at all. I might not even be correct in referring to it as “hardcore,” I don’t know.
I used to date a guy who made me feel like I was closed-minded, because I didn’t like some of his favorite music. (311, Phish, etc.–if you must know). And I believed him, thought it was just a question of opening myself up to different things. I suppose I can’t lay it all on the boyfriend, that’s what I get for dating too young, before I knew myself. But I do know myself now. I know that I don’t like screaming, or loud noises in general, or needing to pee, or the cold, or standing alone in a room full of strangers. Hell, I don’t even like crowds. And I still don’t like Phish.
So I left. I drove home and indulged in vegan chicken wings and a salad. Yes, that is how I indulge these days.
Because I am more of a walk-through-the-park-on-a-snowy-day type of girl. And I know that now.
little sarah Big World 