The side blog lives!

I’ve put up a coulple things over on the side blog now… go check it out!
And be assured it’s back on for daily creations.

Final Showdown

This morning I saw the ex for the first time in a year and a half… and hopefully the last time in my life. It’s sad, to spend a quarter of my life with someone and not be able to civilly end the relationship and remain friends.

The arbitration was very smooth, very informal, and went very well. I was very nervous when we left my lawyers office to head over… I wasn’t positive why. I already knew that I had moved far past the emotional side of the breakup, I was no longer angry at him for what he did. It was more… I tend to get very soft spoken and shy in uncomfortable situations nervousness. I did wonderfully. Upon stepping into the office where the arbitration would take place… I was calm and collected. Not a drop of nervousness. I was relieved, it was finally here. One thing I’ve managed to overcome over this time is the shyness. I spoke loud and clear. I didn’t say any “I think” or “probably.” When being questioned I had no issues… there was no reason for issues because I had nothing to hide. No lies. The ex however, wavered in his statements, contradicted himself and answered questions with defensive questions. We’ll hear the judgment next week sometime.

I can finally finally FINALLY forget this. I don’t hate him… I feel bad for his hurting, I never wanted to hurt him but at the same time I could never be friends or be in contact with someone who would screw me over like that… and now I don’t. Either way… win or lose, it’s DONE!!!

So let’s move on.

Tomorrow I’m back on track. Today I’ll hit the gym… but I feel like I need a good day off of life to recoup from the stresses. I feel great. Just fat But we’ll get back on that tomorrow…

Last night M and I had a good talk. I have an odd way of looking at the world. I wouldn’t say it’s bad, but it’s not typical. M was (and has many times) talking about some reasons he broke up with his exes… sometimes he’ll say things like “she had migraines and I was like, do I really want to be with a sick person who can’t enjoy weekends?” I don’t think that way, AT ALL. M is a man. M is typical in his thinking and comparing to other people. I don’t do it at all. I do not look at someone and say hmmm… he’s going to be bald in 10, 15 years… do I want to be with a bald person? So to hear M say things, even though he’s saying them lightly or jokingly… even though “at the core the relationship wouldn’t have worked” I start to wonder if I can be comfortable in the relationship. Someday my ass will sag and my hair will be white. Someday I could be in a wheelchair… and is he going to be sitting there thinking shit… now I’m stuck with saggy ass mcgee in her wheelchair when that hot chick at the bar was hitting on me. What did I pass up!?

M assured my crazy little mind that with me, it’s different. That with me, it’s right. He’s supposed to be with me. He will always love me no matter what… he’s never told someone he loved them unless saying it back. He wants to spend forever with me and he’s never felt that before. He promised to continue to assure me of his love… and my little mind and heart melted.

While sometimes I think about this “project” I’m doing… this changing by 24, and I worry that I’ve spent 6 months and gotten no where. Granted, I haven’t made huge strides in a lot of areas… but I am realizing my accomplishments. M and I are doing so much better. I have some good friends coming into my life recently and things are back on track with my dad and I. Money is steady and to a point I think I can start saving and planning and such. I have a great job for my life needs… I’m creating again! I made (sewed any everything) two notebooks for my sister’s birthday! I’ll be updating the side blog again.

Yay!

Thursday is the day.

Thursday is the day I get to start a new chapter of my life. Thursday is the day that the ex and the lawsuit are things of the past. Thursday is the day where I can wake up and not feel the stress of having to find a deposit on a closed account’s bank statement… the day that I can wake up and not have to find an emergency email from the lawyers in my inbox… the day that “oops my BIG bad” is just a memory. No more meetings, no more nasty emails, no more arguing. Done, one way or another, whether I win or not.

Wednesday however, is the day I face the ex for the last time. I’m over it… I never in my entire life want to see him again. If I win, all I want to do is cash his checks. If I lose… I get what I want 100%, never ever in contact with this good for nothing BOY again.

No… I’m not bitter. What I want is for this to be over. And finally, yes, the light at the end of the tunnel is shining bright into my eyes.

M and I just got back from a short trip to NM to surprise my dad for his birthday… it was a lot of fun. I had wanted to come back and start eating fresh, organic, healthy diet foods… get in shape… all that stuff I’ve wanted to do, but tracking down two deposits and freelance will consume any free time until after Wednesday. Which brings us back to Thursday being the start of a new chapter of my life…

I am roughly at 6 months into my 23rd year. I still very much hope to achieve all my goals and better my life and self by my next birthday. Now that the huge piece of drama in my life will finally be gone… I have a steady job… M and I are doing better… I feel like I can finally get back on track.

So here’s the plan…

I am going to shift my eating to all fresh foods. Basically, I’d like to cut out frozen dinners, meal bars and anything processed or preserved. I’d like to cook more healthy meals and eat more fresh produce and meats. I saw an article in Woman’s Health that listed 10 foods which make 40 healthy recipes… gonna try it out. I’m going to check out the book “You, an owner’s manual” to understand what vitamins and stuff I need and start taking them daily. Cut out soda and most sweets… and chug water like there’s no tomorrow.

As for working out… and working, I’m going to take another look at my overall budget and bills. What do I need to stay afloat and make ends meet? What does that translate into hours at work? Then I’ll decide on the best work schedule for me… it will likely be leaving at 7am… working til 2:30pm. Then, I’ll work up a workout routing that tackles the main concerns of weight loss and jiggles… and work it around my work schedule… ie, run at 6am… go to work… lift at 9pm… go to bed, etc.

Then I would say the third most important thing to tackle is my emotional self… I’m still a bit of a mess. I need to create more and get back on track with my side blog… I need to be writing and journaling… all that stuff.

I also want to get moving on some ideas. Business and “hobbies” because I’m gonna be stuck in Denver a bit longer than wanted… so I may as well use my mainland time to my advantage and get things rolling.

So that’s the scoop… I’ve been a little MIA and off topic lately. But come Thursday, things will be back on track and I will make things happen!

Why’d you have to do that?

Today something came in the mail for M’s ex wife. Yes, EX WIFE. There’s a whole lot of drama around that… one thing, I thought she’d never go away. It would never just be us… she would always linger, always want a friendship… always TRY. Very stressful situation for everyone involved… finally, she went away. I breathed a sigh of relief. But she kept popping up… he kept checking in on her to make sure she was okay… I, being selfish yes, wanted her to just GO AWAY. So after months of peace… mail comes today in her name. With OUR address. Being crazy I first thought about throwing it away… then I thought I’d just “return to sender” but that for some reason felt “sneaky” even though I’m just returning mail to some one who doesn’t live here. Ugh. Then I thought, why did M have to get married. He wasn’t thinking is always what he says. Why couldn’t you just THINK. I don’t want to be this person who has the urge to erase an ex. The only reason I do is she was so involved when we were involved. She’s not just the last ex… she’s not just some old girlfriend. She was his WIFE and she was still around when I came into the picture.

UGH. In an effort to communicate better with M I sent him this email:

“Just so this doesn’t eat at me and I “communicate” with you, because yes, I am still crazy… it bothered me that something came in the mail in [Wifey's] name with OUR address. And yes, I did think about throwing it out and wished you had never been married… Sorry, wish this wasn’t such a damn issue with  me, but it is.”

Bleh.

A “me” moment…

M is off to play some ball this evening. After running errands all day sat and then cleaning, yes CLEANING, all day today… I am enjoying the peace and quiet in my almost clean home. Gray’s Anatomy is playing on my screen and I just had some tasty ice cream. Aaaahhh…

This week some things are gonna change. The “work” plan will now be to leave at 7am so that I get into work before 8am and can work a good 6 - 7 hours and still leave early enough to have some LIFE. Still early enough to freelance and have some time to do what I want while making enough money. I’ll leave work at about 1:30 or 2:30 and hit the gym that’s 3miles away to run off the stress of having been at work for 6 or 7 hours… then I can do my thing… and do my second workout later in the evening.That’s the plan…

I’ve been eating better and figuring out how to replace cravings… like the 3pm popcorn craving is now eggs and bacon. Yummy, and healthier. M and I are falling into our own schedules a bit and staying on the happy side. Things are good.

Friday I’m flying down to NM to surprise my dad for his birthday. I booked the tickets for M and I last week and he called yesterday with excellent news… my car is running! I may have never talked about this, but I have a classic corvette. My love… my baby. She stopped running awhile ago and he took her down there to store since I couldn’t register her. He fixed her! Which means… I get to drive her!!!! Yay!

Okay… I think that’s all for now folks.

I need some space…

My… OUR, apartment is a mess. It is horrible and I am so stressed out and pissed off right now about it. There is no where for me to work. I need a space that is MY space. I have my corner of the “dining area” where my desk sits squished between M’s and the wall and the kitchen and the 8 tubs of supplies. So I started working on the couch and coffee table when a section of it emerged from under the mess… now my markers, thanks to kitty, have made their way under the couch… my supplies are under soda cans, move cases and misc crap. I moved my ream of paper before it got crushed only to watch M pile his bags on top of it when we came home from errands. Ack! What to do. Even it it’s clean… there’s no where for me to work and have SPACE THAT IS MINE. Something that’s SO important to me… ugh.

Just a rant…

Feeling Worthless…

but about to go out for some excellent Mexican food! Which is my reward for eating good all day and not binging on popcorn and ice cream when I got home from work. Yay.

So back to the worthlessness… I just got up off the couch to blog. I spent a good hour there. Just feeling bleh. I wrote the post the other day about needing to finish something… anything. How I feel like I need to do that now… it needs to be a priority. Just choose something and get it done. I feel like I need to know I can finish things or else I just feel like I’m spinning my wheels… going nowhere… wasting space. Well over at Original Impulse… a new e-book came out on that very subject! So, yes, I bought it, even though my funds are limited because I need to do this. I need to finish SOMETHING.

So I’m reading down through it… partly thinking $10 for this 35 page doc? and partly thinking how much I hope something in this thing works. She talks about the importance of finishing… which I agree. Then I get to the part about choosing something to work on. Choosing the first project to complete. I just can’t seem to do that. I can list out all my projects… filter through to the ones I want to do now…. the ones that can wait… but there are so many I want to do RIGHT NOW. The frustration cycle continues… I’ll just pick one. But then I think about what I have to do and I think do I really want to that first? Maybe I’d rather do this first… no. Maybe that. I can’t decide… I am missing the plugin that allows me to choose one.

So I retired, defeated, to the couch to ponder the point of my existence.

Then I started thinking about all the uncertainties and frustrations. The expectations and the pressure. Then I thought…. I should make a book. I should make a book full of all these things. A page for each expectation. For each feeling of worthlessness and for each label of who I am and ought to be. Take each one and really look at it and decide whether or not it’s who I am. Determine who gave it to me or where I picked it up for myself. Make my little book and then l lock the sucker away. Kill two birds with one stone. Why not? I can’t seem to do anything else…

(sigh)

I’ve been working a lot lately it feels like. Freelance… then the part time job. But honestly, I’m not working enough at the part time job to make it worth the drive out there. I’m thinking about going in earlier anyways, despite the fact that they don’t need me til around 9:30am. This way I can still leave around 1:30 - 2:30 and have worked 6 - 7 hours. I’m just struggling… you know, nothing new. I wish that I could just focus in. That I could work hard… but my head is so lost with trying to figure out what I want… I feel horrible being stuck there. I’m trying to motivate myself with the complete creative freedom I have. And while there’s not a whole lot to do, I can redesign their websites should I deem it necessary… and it is, very necessary.

This morning I bought Mat Kearney on iTunes. I’m really enjoying the album and have been listening to it all day. Something different… I didn’t work out last night. Getting up early in the morning wiped me out. I didn’t get up this morning as well… but I’m going to go tonight and who knows after that.

Not me.

I need to finish. NOW.

Today, it clicked. I need to finish something. Whether it’s a notebook for my sister… a piece of art… a short story all put together in a little booklet. I HAVE to finish something. I still feel strongly that I need and want to really lose myself in my projects. I want to learn everything about everything so that I can put together the best, most brilliant piece or project–for myself. I have a lot of big ideas. Big projects… big art collections and many, many personal projects. Too many. But this also equals hours and days and years of creativity and self expression. That’s all fine and dandy… but until I finish something, I will constantly be stuck in this frustrating cycle. The cycle where I tell myself one day I need to do this… I need to work on one thing. Then I start to think about that one thing… how long it will take, how I may just be wasting time when I should be finishing something else… then I think, duh, I need to do this, not that. Cycle continues… and perhaps this is the same thing, but let me break it down for you…

I’ve had a lot of ideas and brilliant plans and creative genius. I’ve also never. finished. anything.

Honestly, what have I finished in all my years of great thinking… there was the chicken wire sculpture idea… not done. Never even finished the frame. There was the poetry book, uh, still in planning. There was the series of paintings I was going to do in high school… the books I was going to write. The this and that and the other thing. All. Not. Done. Yes, I accomplish some things but not to the degree I really feel they are complete. I made my mom a photo album for Christmas… but I didn’t lay the whole thing out as beautifully as I originally intended. I did draw her a picture once for her birthday… I suppose that can count as done. Sure, I’ve finished many design projects for work and my own business… but those as well are not to the level I really feel proud of.

I need to finish something and I need to do it now. The poetry book will obviously not be this. It can’t be because it requires and deserves much more attention and time. It deserves years of focus. Something small perhaps? But what…

I need that thing that’s done that makes me go, that’s perfect. It’s beautiful… it’s exactly what I wanted it to be. I need that to excite me to push myself further. To take on a bigger project… to be proud and know that I can finish these things… that their time will come. They will come to fruitation someday, even someday soon… because look, look at what I’ve already done. I can finish and I will finish.

I struggle so hard with what that could be… I need to tell myself, it doesn’t matter if it’s award winning, publishable or everyone will love it. Where the hell did this come from anyways? Who gives a shit? You didn’t used to? What happened? You never finish a damn thing so why not get on something cool that’s sparking your interest and just flippin’ do it already.

Okay… one more thing.

I’m going back on the blogs and creative sites fast. I still think it’s important and will help me get better at expressing myself 100% without feeling like I should be doing something else. It’s an odd place to be really… I was just writing in my journal about all this. I have some “friends” on myspace that I went to school with but never really got to know… there’s one guy who’s always posting his artwork and gallery opening announcements. I was always kinda of proud in a way… my fellow classmates growing up and growing their artistic careers. Then another guy posted a bulletin about his clothing line being picked up by a clothing website… awesome. Then another girl posted looking for someone else who wanted to be in a gallery opening she is going to be in because another artist dropped out… uh, yes, good for her… but what the hell am I doing?

I felt like a failure. I’ve always had such big elaborate plans for my life. By 24 I was going to have two degrees… I would be opening my design studio (or already running it), I would have poetry published…. starting a clothing line. I was to be so much further… but as I’ve learned and everyone learns, it doesn’t always work out just how you plan. And that’s okay… but as I’ve said over and over I’m TIRED of wasting my time. I’m tired of wasting time dwelling on wasted time. I’ve come along way since the chaos started a couple years ago… I’ve come out of my depression… I can FUNCTION again. I’m much more creative which is an excellent sign of “recovery” for me… things are moving.

After making my little list of priorities… I realize that self expression, is the MOST important thing for me. It’s the key to my peace of mind… my full depression recovery… my happiness and my creative success. The juices are flowing again… but not much is coming of it. After my slip and reading about one featured etsy seller who seemed so passionate about everything she’s doing… I realized I miss that. I miss being engulfed in my art. I’ve chosen my project to start focusing on, my poetry book. But I’m by no means “engulfed” by it. I’m by no means… aggressively and excitedly working on it. I guess I’m still battling with the expectations. The fear of not being “good enough” for someone imaginary… the fear that my family won’t like it… that people will hate it and my work will be heavily criticized… then I wrote something important in my journal. FUCK IT and FUCK ANY OF THEM. Screw you if you have nothing better to do than beat down my work. Screw my insecurities and expectations. Who cares if no one likes it? I will like it… I will LOVE it and it will make me feel great to have done it.

Another thing I realized is I really don’t dive into anything anymore with passion. I miss my passion. I miss my drive… my curiosity. My eagerness to learn. I’m doing a free online class right now called The other 90 percent: unlock your vast untapped potential. I read through the first lesson… didn’t do the exercises… read into the second lesson and realized after reading about being original and standing out from the crowd… that I am racing through life without really experiencing it right now. Something I was never one to do. Everything I read felt like a blur… last week felt like a blur… I’m not doing anything with focus and care and I need to figure out how to do that. I need to stop thinking about the end result all the time. For example… I constantly feel a need to write. I want to write… but when I put pen to paper… I don’t. I can’t. And I think it’s because I’m thinking… well I want to make a poetry book, I should write poetry or maybe I should write something about the ex because I wanted to do a collection about that… etc. I don’t JUST DO. Because I’m constantly feeling like I should be doing something else. And I’m impatient. We finished the Green Mile the other night (great movie)… and M was watching the extras like he does. He came to tell me about how Steven Spielberg would sell his short stories to students for $1 to make movies… and the director of Green Mile spent THREE YEARS making a 30 minute movie out of one… Spielberg liked it so much he let him make one movie which lead to another which led to his success… THREE YEARS perfecting it. Making it the perfect piece he wanted it to be. I don’t do that anymore… I think too much about where I should be and how I would like that NOW. There’s NO TIME!!!!

Enough’s enough. There’s no rush at all. In fact, all I’ve wanted to do lately is have the world just slow the hell down for a minute to let me catch my breath… when in reality, I am the issue. I am my own problem. I’ve wanted to do this poetry book forever and ever and ever. Since the first poem. 9 years ago. I want this piece to be amazing and beautiful. For me. No more thinking about how maybe, just maybe, it could get published or maybe someone will buy one on my online store… I want to slave over this thing for as long as it takes until, to me, it is just right. Just perfect.

And that’s what I intend to do. Starting now… no more million things multitasking… no more self imposed deadlines on the wrong things. Focus. Care. Creativity. No more starting a book so I can read X a week. I want to put care back into everything I do.