i'm about to f*ck you up with some truth.

I haven't been feeling the blog lately.

It's not you, it's me.

But really, it's me. And I'm about to explain why, or try to.

I've still been writing I guess. Weird little stories and emails that could fill entire encyclopedia volumes. Words are still spewing out of me, but not here.

Which has been caused me to pause and consider,  why not? I started this thing so I'd have an outlet, a place to just let it all flow out. It was a project to bring me up from the depths of feelings of total helplessness over having a job I hated, feeling defeated professionally and locationally, and not knowing where to go from here. And also to get me through Winter. In many ways, writing here has done me a great service, given me something to get excited about.

I started this blog to help me get through a particularly tumultuous time in my life and to help me find some direction. To help my be honest with myself. To force me to think about my life in terms of what would be next, and maybe that would have happened if I'd had to sense to keep it anonymous. But I didn't. I told my friends and I told my boyfriend because I was proud and excited and because I don't know, I guess I needed some sort of validation from the people who I care about.

I didn't think it would be a big deal, my people knowing that I was posting random shit about my life for everyone to see. I didn't and still don't anticipate my blog becoming a space to vent out my feelings about them in a fit of frustration or anger. Except apparently sometimes about Manfriend. Which is sort of passive aggressive of me, I suppose. Sorry about that, M. Anyway, I don't really bitch about my friends, I internalize that kind of stuff.

So if that's not what I'm afraid of, what is it?

Why is being honest to myself, and strangers, and my closest friends proving so damn difficult?

This whole post is a kind of a snoozefest.

I guess my point is this. I'm frustrated. I know I'm a decent writer and I know I can tell a story. But I've been at this almost a year and it still feels unnatural.

I still feel like I haven't settled in and found my voice.

And I'm still no closer to figuring out what that even means.

So here's what I'm saying. I'm not going to write about stuff like bad hair cuts and what makeup products I recommend anymore because I don't really give a shit about that kind of stuff. I don't care about celebrities or reality TV or really even fantasy football all that much either. It was only ever filler and forced material. And if you do like those things, I think that's awesome because I believe everyone is different and that's why I almost never get bored. If you write about it in a funny way or are still a genuine person, I will still love you to death and I'll still read it.

But it feels wrong for me to write about stuff I don't give a shit about.

The truth is I like being outdoors, and reading more than anything else, and this weekend I was in a cabin in the woods at a bachelorette celebration and I'm the only one who didn't bathe the entire time, and I don't even feel remotely weird about it. I've showered twice since and my hair STILL fucking smells like an campfire. I eat fast food more than I should, I feel so passionate about politics that it sometimes makes me cry AKA every time the president gives a speech I cry tears of hope. I'm bad with money, and I mentor little kids because they're interesting and funny and have so much to give if we'd pay attention.  I think my job is giving me an anxiety disorder and at this point I'm ready to resign myself to the lifetime of waitressing that my liberal arts degrees guaranteed me. I can be charming, and also super bitchy, and also a really good listener. Usually not at the same time.

I try. I'm doing my best all the time at being a decent person to share the Earth with, but sometimes I'm just not that good at it. And a lot of the time it makes me feel pretty hopeless, but I'm not going to stop trying.

So that's me. I'm only going to write about stuff I feel something about now. I used to be the kind of person that literally never cried and just rolled my eyes at sad movies and stood like a stone pillar at funerals. Now I'm much more in touch with my feelings, which I honestly like better, except when I'm driving home from work and Adele comes on and I start getting hysterical and before I know it, I'm glaring into the rear view mirror at myself crying and mouthing "I hate you" to myself. Then being in touch with my emotions kind of blows.

I can't promise this will be funny, not that it ever was. But now, it will at least be an honest account of a real life train wreck trying to get back on track. Sometimes that's hard to look away from, right?  I can't promise that I'll post regularly or frequently, but I do promise that everything from this point on will at least be honest.

And that's not nothing, right?

I hope you keep reading, if not, happy trails to you.

XO Sara

the way we were.

Mary, Mary, Mary.

She's the lady I can't seem to get off my mind, the long-lost friend from yesterday.

There are a precious few people I've met in my life who require absolutely zero discerning self-adjustment in the delightfully uninhibited category. As it sometimes is with important people in my life, I met Mary at the absolute. perfect. time. Just when I needed her. Everything came easily.

We met on Drama Island, Summer #1.

It looks like it wouldn't destroy your life and self-worth, but it does.

Someone I knew up on Drama Island once said in a drunken ramble that everyone who works up there during the summer is running away from something, and I think that's probably true. It works well for people like me, because it gives you the absolute best and absolute worst times of your life, and I SUCK at moderation. What was I running away from? That's perfect material for another post, at a later time.

Mary and I were dating/trying to score free meals off of/getting drunk and making out with two guys who happened to be best friends. We got thrown together and the guys eventually got thrown to the side. They were losers, we were ARE much better off.

In a resounding blast that's blurred with late night lake swims, fountains of vod, aimless road trips, and the ability to successfully create a two-person scene, Mary and I grew thisclose. Almost instantly. She kept me sane and encouraged me to get a little crazy. I never felt self conscious or bad-weird about myself with Mary. She was unabashedly non-domestic, stylistically fabulous, occasionally socially awkward, and exceptionally smart. The Betty to my Veronica.

After that first summer and the following year and the next Summer for Drama Island: Round Two,  Mary and I were thick as theives. She was genuinely my most honest and reliable sounding board at that time in my life, she always made herself available. When we weren't geographically close, we'd send greeting cards like we owned stock in Hallmark. I graduated from college, when she still had a year left. She always had something to laugh about or a reason we should slam back a few more shots, or the time to get in her car in the middle of the night to drive down to hell-Kentucky where I was working, to find me wedged between the toilet and bathtub of my hotel room, in my underwear, just staring off into space with my body all clenched up in my own arms, to force me to take a pregnancy test (NEG, WHEW) after a particularly reckless and terrible decision following the most henious post-breakup period of my life.

She was my friend. A great friend. We were there for each other. We made each other shine and helped buff out the dents and dings that life had thrown. Stories were shared and plentiful. The hard to express, less-happy moments, of the first sting of childhood disappointment and even her fear of how a future love might propose.

"Mary, Marry me?"

"Marry me, Mary!"

Bahahaha.

Every time we saw each other, we ended up at Bob Evans the next morning to suss it all out. From our issues with our mothers, to how godawfulterrible Bride Wars was, and how much our credit cards couldn't handle another trip to Nordstrom-  and we always ordered the same thing. I could still order for her: Egg white omelet with spinach, tomatos, and mushrooms. Dry wheat toast. Coffee, side of skim milk. Me: Omelet with bacon and as much cheese as you can give me. With a side of Bacon. Sour dough toast, extra butter. She is slightly more health-conscious. After the meal, whomever's turn it was to pay would buy a Pez dispenser and a rock candy. Pez for her, rock candy for me. Little traditions popped out of everything.

Until it started breaking down, little by little.

When two people grow to trust and let each other in, and then depend on each other so quickly, it's easy to miss the blurry line between 'support system' and 'enabler.' It's already a fairly fine line, in my opinion. Mary and I both went through rough stuff. Typically boy drama, post college, Drama Islands wrecking our sense of reality, normal, growing-up kind of stuff.

And we enabled each other's misery.

It's hard for me to say that because it was almost impossible for me to see when I was in it. We supported each other in the only way we knew how- it usually involved reassuring the other one that she was justified in her choices, like drinking an entire bottle of wine while reading every fbook message correspondance between she/me and the Worst Ex in History. We both had them. Calls became less frequent. We had a hard time making it out to see each other. Stuff gets in the way. I let it. She let it. I grew tired of hearing her bitch about the people closest to her and worried she was venting about me behind my back. She grew tired of my constant boy drama and busted self-confidence.

I think becoming best friends with a person virtually overnight takes its toll sometimes- even someone as kindred as Mary was to me-  Not that you grow tired of the person or the friendship, but the rest of your life eventually catches up and refuses to be ignored. That happened.

We were still close, but also incredibly stressed and caught up in the bullshit of everyday living and growing up. Things were strained. Mary went back against my protests for Drama Island: Round three. In a weird turn of events we both ended up living in Chicago in the Fall of 2009. I was coming off a job-loss and she was moving in with her boyfriend who was in grad school there. I was thrilled.

And then we didn't see each other.

Or talk.

The last time I saw her was Halloween of that year. I had incredible energy that night, I remember it clearly. As I was getting my costume together and preparing for a night on the town with a group of my favorite people, I felt better than I had in such a long time. I looked good, I knew it. Walking around I had that bounce that comes after great sex or an exceedingly good hair day. I was ready to take on the world head-first.

Mary and her beau showed up two hours later than expected and left after an hour, something about train schedules.

I was pissed and I let her know. Of course I did it tastefully, in front of a group of people on the street, sloppily drunk and dressed as a gypsy flower-child. I always like to keep it classy. I may have also taken that chance to let her know that I felt she'd been neglecting our friendship and I felt she was constantly fixating on the negative and I was willing to help her find solutions and take action, but I would no longer stew with her about things she'd done nothing to fix.

END SCENE!

I proceeded to get super drunk and have a great time after she left.

And then I got a facebook message from her a few days later. I don't even really remember what it said, although I can recall one line VERY clearly.

"I need this to be a low-maintenance friendship."

Um, what? hubbbbbababababababa? I'm sitting on the couch of my fun and adorable Chicago city apartment, pulling out my hair. Suddenly I itch. All over. My hair is still wet from the shower. I had the sudden need to go stretch my legs, get out, walk away from what I'm reading.

CONFUSION.

This was NOT how we rolled. I was blindsided by this, so I did what any mature adult woman would in that situation. I screamed "THAT BITCH!" and defriended her on facebook. And then I waited for her to call me.

Only she never did.

And neither did I.

Did I mention that we're both unbudgibly stubborn? Yes, I'm fully aware that I just made up that word. Regardless, we're both STUPID stubborn. We don't budge.

And so I guess we both moved on with our lives because we had to, but I still feel guilty, that pang when I think about a friendship that should have been fought for. That's my most failed friendship and perhaps my biggest blunder.

I guess I've got a serious question looming when I consider contacting her to make amends. We met at exactly the right time, the chemistry was just there. Now though, it's been a year and a half since we last spoke. She's gone through MAJOR changes from what I've heard. So have I.  I just don't know if lightning can strike twice in the same place on this one.

But, one can hope, because we had one hell of a time the first go-around.



Marebear and Sarebear: Vacation 2009. We have fantastic leg genes. My teeth are not always this gigantic.  



XO Sare

baggage.

There are people that treasure a brief jaunt down memory lane over coffee with a long-lost friend.


There are those people that are caught up in the past, or planning for the future, or just living in the moment.


All kinds of people.


And then there are people that hoard memories to the point of needing a token, a tangible reminder from every fucking county fair, movie theater, trip to the hospital, concert, novel dinner locale, job, etc... that they've ever experienced.


I've recently discovered that this is the group that I fall into.


I've been feeling really bogged down with all my stuff lately, plus I have to move AGAIN in just over a month,  so I've taken on the project of compulsively organizing and taking inventory of everything that I have.


I've honestly never been so pissed off at myself.


Tiny scraps of paper, everywhere. Boxes that I can't account for and certainly don't contain anything that a rational person would categorize together. I found a broken desk-lamp in a box with some unopened arch supports, several binders of random papers, and a half a dozen shot glasses. So.... yeah?  I can't just let things go. And I'm terrible at packing, apparently. What's worse, if I can't find something I already have- I'll just go buy a new one. I get that from my father; it's probably a byproduct, like road rage, of having shotty patience.


For the record, I own two glue guns, five staplers, and about a dozen finger-nail clippers.


I could get robbed and never even realize it!




It doesn't make sense, because I'm a compulsive organizer, but it happened. The project just got too big, too daunting for me and so I just made myself forget about all the unorganized boxes of crap that I've been toting around, unopened, for years. I'd open my closet, shake my head at the boxes, make an empty promise to myself that 'this weekend is the weekend,' and shut the door again. Something better, more important, always comes up when there's a task looming that I dread.




On the one hand, maybe I should feel a sense of pride that I can fully document every activity Manfriend and I participated in together during our six-year-long, sexual-tension-filled friendship that eventally led to me pulling a homewrecker around year seven, after he threw in the towel in year six, and and staking my claim.


But I mean, I lived it. So, meh.


Anywayyyyyy.


At this point it's honestly taken weeks of spurts of motivation to wade through the junk and just THROW THINGS AWAY. It's stressful, my jaw gets tired from clenching. Do I need a pom pom that I got at an involvement fair my freshman year of college? I think not. Good memory, really, but I DO NOT NEED a fucking pom pom.

I never realized what a sappy, sentimental, sucker I am.


Last night was the kicker. Cards and letters. Old library cards, movie tickets. my student football ticketss from college, concert tickets, awards. I guess I think of these sort of things as 'the guts.' The things that are -or were- really important, that demonstrate how I have taken shape over time, that could show anyone what was important to me leading up to now, be that living on drama island for two summers or geeking out over road-tripping to warped tour during my high school teenage angst phase.


It's fun to see all that stuff, like the cards my mom sent me when I moved away from home for the first time. A fourth place ribbon from my favorite cross country course. The library cards from every place I've ever lived. I love that I have post cards sent to me from everywhere you could imagine, I've been collecting them since I was a wee sprout and they make me so happy.


But it's also exhausting.

I've always been a person that keeps a vice grip on the people I love, even when that involves my heart being spread around the god's green earth.  It just means a lot to me that I stay in touch with people. I've got the post cards, letters, mail in return to prove it. And I just really feel that you can't throw stuff like that away. And when they're right there in front of you again, it's almost impossible not to invest the time to read every last one of them. It's a lift, to realize you've done a great job surrounding yourself with heart-felt, caring, enthusiastic people. But it's also a blow to the innards to make see a stack of letters from someone that's no longer in your life. At all.

And I keep them all. Every single written correspondance I've ever recieved, I have- because I think fan mail is evidence of a well-lived life. It's a snap-shot of a moment in time and we get to keep it. Like I said, I've recently discovered that I'm incredibly sentimental... annoying. With the exception of a particularly soul-crushing ex-love, of whom I ceremoniously burned every reminder, love letter, poem, gift, in an attempt to rid myself of his toxin and relentless grip on my rational mind, I've got everything anyone has ever written me. That shit takes a lot of time to sort through. And a lot of wine.

I've made peace with most of my failed friendships and relationships. I look fondly on the boy I first fell in love with and gave my virginity. There's a group of fleeting, yet poignant, characters whom I've discovered on summer adventures and short-term living situations, and that I will never doubt their importance in my life. After all, they cared enough to put something into words for me. I accept that not everyone who was once important can always be important. I know we've got to grow, and not everyone does that at the same pace. We've only got the capacity to keep track and emotionally invest in so many people.



But some things still sting.


So, amid feeling a boost at reading the people I love and have loved telling me how awesome I am, I felt heavy. I can't purge this stuff. And I can't ignore the falling out I had with a person who largely supported and encouraged me through some of the roughest times I've ever had. I think it may be time to chug some of my pride and break the now two-year silence. The thing is,  I'm worried that it's too late and some things can't be fixed.

As I sat in my room last night next to my now-empty wine glass, surrounded by what would probably look like a disaster area of junk to any sane person, I made the decision to reach out and try to repair something that once seemed easy to walk away from. You never know until you try, right?


XO Sara

silver lining? my pee is clear.

My job is easy.


Like, if not for fear of electrocution, a beaver could simultaneously build a dam and do my job successfully. OK, I really don't like that analogy either, I'm sorry. A dog. A dog could do my job. Let it be known that I adore the entirety of the canine species, but we don't keep dogs around for their smarts. We keep them around because that tail a-waggin' is such a candid expression of joy that giving them a pat on the head is completely undeniable. Dogs are loyal, and bad ass, albeit dumb.


A dog could easily do my job.


Which is probably why I don't particularly care for the way I keep myself in the black, so to speak.



I loathe my job with the heat and fury of 100000 suns.



However, having a job that requires so very little actual brain power has its perks. Very FEW perks, but still, they exist. Minimally.


For example, despite the fact that my boss seems to get his kicks out of treating the workday like an eight hour criminal lock-down, I get to spend an undue amount of time worrying about things that in my normal, everyday life I wouldn't even really consider, let alone set aside actual moments for. Such as hydration. I can honestly say that I've never been as well-hydrated as I am at this particular, peculiar point in my life. It's almost a compulsion. I fill up two water bottles, I drink them. I go back downstairs to the water-cooler and re-fill them. I drink them. Repeat for eight hours. My piss is clear. It's fucking almost water-clear. It's phenomenal.


Thanks, job. I don't give you enough credit for forcing me to find valid reasons to leave my desk as many times a day as possible. The water distraction is two-fold because it also makes me pee about 23874387 times a day.


Another reason to leave my desk? I'll take it!




Also, I must say that my nails and hands have never been in such great shape. Being that I stare down at my hands the majority of the time that I'm not staring at the computer screen in front of me, I've really taken an interest in putting my best hand forward. I moisturize, A LOT. In fact, I even have to take off my ring to do this task, so it takes a few seconds longer. If I look down at any point in the day and my hands look even the least bit parched, I stop everything I'm doing to attend to lotioning them up. Equally as important, my nails and cuticles. I thought those movies and shows I saw as a child where ladies working at desks are always picking at their nails were just to make them look worthless/trashy/lazy. But really, it's because it's true! I have almost an entire manicure kit in my desk.

I feel at this rate, I could someday be a potential candidate for a hand model in a national commercial. I know, I know, it sounds crazy, but I like to set my sights high.

Finally, I spend OODLES of time staring at the computer. I'm the kind of person that's interested in almost everything... but I'm a bit absentminded, and I take a slightly ADD approach to life. AKA I'm always stumbling upon giant piles of awesome that cause me to go "WOAHHH, man, I gotta read/listen to/buy/see THAT! And then I wander away and can never quite remember where I saw it or heard of it, or what it was called, just that it was rad and I forgot and I'm an idiot. Seriously, a lot of my life is that whole song and dance. HOWEVER, since I'm basically confined to this desk all day, with an UNLIMITED amount of post-it notes and ink pens, I've developed a strategy! It's called writing it down AS SOON AS it happens to strike my fancy, whatever it is that I've discovered. I've got more interests and interesting things to tamper with then I even have time for! Tiny scraps of paper everywhere!

Plus, my cubicle has a window.


I know, you're still jealous about the pee thing.


HYDRATE, fools!

XO Sare