i am a junk food person.

Lately I've been snagged on this idea about myself, that I'm a junk food type of person. There are people who are good for you, good for themselves. They do well, do right, offer the kind of emotional nutrition that can sustain you in the long term. I fear and suspect that I am not this kind of person, or at least that I am not this kind of person anymore. 

You see, I am a fix. I am a short term sugar high. When you meet me at the right moment, I will spin you away into a whirlwind that's addicting and undeniable. I know the draw to me, can feel myself pulling people in. And it's grand and sometimes spectacular and there is a chemistry to me that will make you want to see me again. Make you need to be around me again, consume what I have to offer. 

But that is where it stops. Because I'm not the healthy sort of relationship that can give you the long term effects of a well balanced meal and plenty of sleep. I am the sugar-drenched machiato that tastes great for the five seconds you place your lips to the straw. I am the greasy fast-food bag that you ravage like a rabid creature and then, embarrassed, hide the pitiful wrappers under your sink so your friends won't know you gave in to the temptation. 

I am fun, a good-time girl. And everyone needs one of those to turn to when the stress grows too much and you've got to blow off steam for the night. I am only a faithful servant when what you're ordering is irresponsibility, laughter, poor choices, and a rough tomorrow morning. 

I induce a crash. People lose interest in me because I have so little to offer in the long term. I am that regrettable ice cream cone, that last shot at the end of the night that you didn't need. I'll leave you teetering somewhere between the grand moment I bring and the moment directly afterward, when reality sets back in. 

I'm charming, enticing, by nature. I can convince you that what I am suggesting is so logical it may as well be the only choice, but then four hours later you're hugging a porcelain bowl in some strangers dingy apartment and I'll be spinning my promises to someone new. I'll never desert you on purpose, it's just that my feeble effects wear off so fast that it won't be long until you are able to see me for what I really am. 

I am that weak moment you had. I am that lovely, inviting thing that never delivers on its promises and just plain isn't good for you.

Junk food. 

And we live in a culture of junk. Of consumption and denying the negative effects. There is a place for me, but I fret over the fact that it's surface level and not long lasting. Not the kind of thing adults with any impulse control whatsoever reach for in weak moments. 

I am a cigarette, a beer, a fast food window, a bag of chips. I'll satisfy you on a moment to moment basis, but either you realize what I really am, worthless, and move on, or you start to crave me in a way that makes it impossible for me to deliver. 

It's not your fault. I can only be what I am. 

whirlwind.

I thought I'd get back to myself a bit while I was back east or something. That I'd find myself or get back to who I think I am or just remember why I left in the first place. Something, you know? Like, give me some fucking answers, Universe. I feel I've gotten so far from myself lately that I am struggling to get through anything except the bare minimum of going to class and writing papers when necessary. Motivation feels minimal and not in the end-of-the-semester way I remember from undergrad.

All I really got out of my trip personally was to feel like Indianapolis was suddenly huge. Sprawling, climbing into the sky, whizzing past. Parts of that were okay, I like to drive fast on the grids of street that stretch in all directions. But you know, I've never felt intimidated by the size, the number of people, the way the suburbs span on forever and ever past the belt that sucks in the cities' waist.  Until now. There's so much of it, you know? How quickly we forget. How badly I wanted to when I left. And it's not like it's even close to the biggest city I've lived in, it's not. It's just what I went back to is all. 

And then there were other moments where the places that used to offer me comfort only served to make me want to chain smoke and drink heavily. Whenever, whatever. Not all of them, but enough that it wasn't a balm for my soul.

To be around the people who hold your context, who know you that well, with that longevity, and still love you forcefully and protectively when you need it, it's good. I think maybe it will always feel good. It's good in a way that feels frenzied and forced, though. Like you have to make some epic times or have some life-changingly meaningful conversation. Like you have to find a way to express to them how much they mean to you. But, you can't. Not really. The secret to it is in the way that you live. And it's not even really a secret, it's just a sucky truth that I usually deny or ignore. You can't really search for something that hard if you expect to remember where you put it in the first place. It just seems to make me doubt everything.

It is in the way that you live, though.  It's in picking up the phone, even if you're only going to say "I have to call you back later." It's in driving five hours for a hug, because you finally can. Because it's ONLY five hours. It's in doing the right thing, I guess, even though you don't want to. Listening when you have a million of your own things to say. Your hurt parts that need bandaged. 

Anyway. My niece turned a year old and she got baptized and I am her god mother and I can't wait to tell her about love and trusting herself and how faith can (and maybe should) look different for everyone because we are all experiencing life in our own beautiful and terrible way. About how church can look a million different ways. About how, for me, church feels like listening to someone you like talk about something or someone they really, really love. Even though I don't go to the actual building with the steeple anymore, I have faith. I think that's right for me. I'm new to the whole godmother thing, hopefully I do an okay job. 

My sister is having a tough time and my grandparents are taking care of each other and my parents are still a safe place to bounce ideas off of. My friends are still hilarious and supportive and reaching and striving and making things happen. And I think they're happy, too. Which makes my heart a little less heavy. 

I got back to Montana and I was exhausted. I feel like I really never stopped moving the entire time I was out east. And that's okay. But 12 days is a long time to be in motion. To worry about what other people want more than you. To feel like if you spend time with one person, you're disappointing all the others. I needed to come home to the mountains to think straight. To be alone. To get back to myself, I guess. Maybe I shouldn't have looked so far. At least I got to get back to some of the people I love for a little bit, who for now are fully in the east. Who are not far from themselves. Who are home. 

And now I realize my home is not theirs anymore. But they still are mine in some ways. For me, that feels fine.  

hodgepodge.

this is my new light switch cover. i put it on myself because i am a regular handywoman.  also, it was a gift from my friend brie who is amazing and knows me well. 

I don't understand running skirts. I've been thinking about them a lot this week for whatever reason, and they actually really irk me.  I chafe when I sweat, man, and when I run, I sweat. I need leg sleeves. Aka pant legs. And don't even get my started with skorts. Why do you want to LOOK like you're running in a skirt? You're not being tricky. You look ridiculous. 

I've been watching a lot of The West Wing. I love that shows to bits. I love it TO DEATH. Enough that I didn't leave my house last night (Saturday) because I was watching it. I'm a Saturday night kind of person, but my love for this show kept me hunkered in. That's some serious love. It makes me wonder what my life would have been like if I'd gone to public policy school like I planned. But you know, I didn't. So now I'm going to talk about feelings forever for the rest of my life and I think that's pretty okay too. Also, real life isn't like the West Wing, real life is way less witty and has a lot more sleep.

I tried out the new doughnut place in town this morning. They had some really damn good doughnuts. I had a glazed and a maple bar. I don't eat enough doughnuts. Maybe none of us do and that's why people are such assholes sometimes. I never want to act like an asshole to someone when I'm in the act of eating a doughnut. Unless they're trying to take my doughnut, and then I'm like, "Back off, buddy." But instead of 'buddy' I am thinking in my head 'fuckface.'

I got into a screaming match with my best friend's ex-boyfriend on the street on Friday night. I probably needed a doughnut to calm me down. But seriously, that dude sucks and the world needs to know it. So now the crowd that witnessed our altercation knows exactly what I think about him. Which is that he is an untalented wannabe cowboy man-child. And also a sociopath. And also a piece of shit. They also know that he finds me naive and petty. Touche, sir. It just got to the point that I couldn't hold it in anymore, you know? I just had to say something. And one thing led to another and next thing you know, you're nose to nose telling a grown man that he's a shitty writer and that he only cares about himself and it's pathetic. What can I say? I speak the truth.

I got a new job and it pays more than minimum wage. Like, double what I've been making almost. Thank goodness, I'll be able to buy bread and wine in bottles instead of boxes again. I'm really getting my shit together, obviously.  Have I mentioned how much of The West Wing I've been watching? Adulthood, guys. It has its perks.

Oh, by the way, I also went back east to visit family and friends for twelve days. It was a long trip that flew by in mere moments. I'll write about it soon. I didn't get to spend enough time with anyone. That's kind of what life is like for me all the time, though. I'm back in the mountains, now and it snowed last night. There is still snow up in the mountains, but it's melting and dripping off of roofs and cars hoods and lawns as I type these words. Nothing comes out of me eloquently right now and I'm sorry for that, but mostly for myself. My record player is on the fritz, the speakers won't play. I haven't unpacked my suitcase yet, though coming home to a spotlessly clean apartment with new sheets and fresh towels was the best thing I have done for myself all year. Easily. 

I'm going to watch The West Wing and take a bath now. Happy Sunday. 

my niece and i during my visit home. i can't believe she's already lived through an entire year on earth. wild.

inner voices and actually listening.

Last night a friend texted me with free Josh Ritter tickets. He had to work, so he couldn't go. His loss, my win.  

Now let me drop a little background on you, I've wanted to see Josh Ritter live for approximately six years. Six years. My attention span on most things is like 1/10000 of that length of time or less. The last time he was in my town, the show sold out like four people in front of me in line and I threw a temper tantrum, complete with tears, in the parking lot beside the bar he was playing that night. It was a classy move, because I have always been an adult that controls my emotions and has my shit together. 

After that fateful night of near-miss, Josh went on tour in Europe and I graduated from college and started this constant locational drift. Whatever. Good times for both of us, I'm sure. Probably better times for him. 

Fast forward to last night. Here I am on a Monday early evening in Missoula. I have zero real obligations until 3pm on Tuesday.  And I've just been offered free tickets to see a man who has eluded me since the days when I was still dying my hair- at a venue that is less than a half a mile walk from my apartment.. Serendipity, right? 

This is the part where I tell you that I didn't go. 

Don't get me wrong, I almost did. As soon as I got word that the tickets were mine, I furiously texted some friends to see who could go with me. I took a shower. A shower, on Monday night, that's unheard of for me! I also blew my hair dry, something I have done MAYBE twice in the past month. I wanted to look my best for Josh, obviously. 

And then I was getting dressed and I looked at myself in the mirror and I realized that my body was exhausted. I mean, I already knew that I was really, really tired, but I happen to hold the philosophy that I can sleep when I'm dead if there is something exciting going on in the near perimeter. I live for concerts and flinging my body around in joyful dance and tall boys of beer and people watching and laughter and all that energy. But you know, I just didn't have any energy to add. I had nothing to bring at all. 

Probably a younger version of myself would have gone anyway, drank too much so I forgot I was bone tired and flirted my way up to the front. Maybe I would have stayed for the show and the encore and then visited the friend that gave me the tickets at the bar where he works afterward. Forced myself to fake enough energy until I made it through the night. 

But not this version. This version that I am right now, today, last night, finally, finally listened to the voice inside, despite my wildest desires. I heard myself saying what was really right for me, to stay home, to go to bed early. And that's what I did. Surprisingly, it wasn't even that much of a struggle to make the decision, once I just acknowledged what it was that I actually wanted and needed. And maybe part of me is a little bit sad that I missed hearing Josh Ritter yet again, but a much bigger part is so, so glad that I listened to myself. 

Until next time, Josh. 

Oh the heart has no bones you say so it won't break/
But the purpose of loving is the pounding it takes

mountains and writing and beer.

Let's be honest for a second, when I'm not writing, I'm a fucking crazy person. And like, some people can be crazy in a good way and that's great and nice for them. I am not crazy in a good way, I am crazy in a maladaptive drunk way. Which is fine, but it's not an outlet. I need an outlet. Writing is my outlet and I essentially deserted it when I moved out here- like now that I have mountains to conquer, I don't need writing. 

But I do need writing. And I don't like thinking of walking up mountains as conquering them because it sounds really militant, and nature is a place to be calm and tranquil, so scratch the conquer part. 

The mountains are still great, by the way. They're great and I'm great and we're great together. But it took me a while to realize that I can have more than one thing that makes me feel happy. So basically, I can have mountains and writing, kind of like having two best friends. Also, beer is my third best friend, but i'm kind of trying to see less of them right now. We got really close when I moved out here, but it was kind of too much too fast for a while. 

I'm just saying it's time to transition out of permanent vacation mode back into I'm-an-adult-and-I-need-writing-to-feel-centered mode. I'm in fucking grad school, you guys. I need to be wearing turtle neck sweaters and thick glasses and drinking red wine. Okay, I already do that stuff. But seriously, I need to get my shit together and not risk seeing my clients out at the bar on a Wednesday. 

Ya dig? 

Plus I've been experiencing some really embarrassing things lately and I need the shadowy veil of the internet to make me feel safe sharing. Also, I deleted facebook as one of my new years resolutions so I'm obviously not spending enough time on the internet anymore. I'll tell you all about life without facebook, too. Because apparently even if I omit social networking from my life, i can never really stop talking about it, thus it kind of wins anyway. But whatever. I'm probably a less hateful person now. Or I just don't know where people I never talked to anyway went for spring break. Poor me. 

I missed you, internet. And writing. I'm giving you a cosmic hug. xo. 

hiiiiii.

there are questions that i ask myself sometimes, ones that i am confident i will never have the answers to, yet i ask them anyway. 

do you ever forget the phone number of your first, real love? i haven't. maybe other people do. i can't. it's there. i've thought it was gone at times. it always comes back, stubbornly. it could just as easily not be his number anymore, i know mine has changed, but in my mind at least, he hasn't. 

he hasn't changed. 

he comes to me in dreams and is just as pure and kind and good as he was when i knew him, but i don't know him. i don't know him at all anymore. 

it's futile, and i know it. but i wonder all the same, if all the twists and turns i've made, the choices and the things that have forever altered everything in the course of my life since and still coming, have really changed the fact that i loved him. could i still love him? 

is this what growing up feels like? the more I actually experience the act of growing up, growing older, the more i wonder what things really stand the test of time. 

fundamental things have changed in me. i can't deny any of it. i have done these things. but it helps me, i think, in some way to really know for myself that i have loved a good and pure man. 

good and pure men. more than one. and others that can't be classified in that category at all. 

but then again, i fall in love so easily. I dwell and pine over people that i've met once. somehow cocoon myself in possibilities that  never had any chance of panning out in the first place. 

it's been my experience that anything i can imagine, anything that i can see in my own mind as a viable scenario or fantasy or anything feasible, that's the thing that never happens. it's become a thing for me, the minute i start dreaming in the possibilities, i know that i have killed them once and for all. that's just not the way of my world. is anyone else like this? 

i almost texted him tonight, that number that, at least now, is only digits in the universe to me. why? to make contact? to connect over a shared thing that happened when i was 18, 19 years old? i don't know. to put it into perspective that way, to realize I was only a teenager when i find myself surrounded by teenagers, doesn't do anything to give that time in my life any sort of legitimacy. 

maybe i'm even a regret. a black mark on an otherwise great record of judging for character. maybe I am the mistake. maybe to the right (wrong) person, we are all capable of becoming mistakes. 

it's not comforting to universalize. not in this case. i want to be special, i think we all do. to be that person that you consider seven years later, remembering what it felt like when you slept together in that same position every night that wasn't like the position that you've slept with anyone else in every night. 

to have been there when things happened, things that mattered at the time. to be the person that got the whole story, as much as anyone would have been able to tell it. 

to be the person that you actually live out that dream of watching the sunset with, listening to frank sinatra croon as you leave the park after a long walk. but that's not a memory of the phone number love, that's someone else. maybe i'm jumbled in with both of their memories of women they have loved. women they have hated. 

what's more important? to be remembered fondly, or to simply be remembered at all? 

i don't know. i don't know. 

Phone post! Thanks technology!

Ohhhh my god you guys. I'm a one hour meeting and a fifteen pager away from completing my first semester of grad school.

Fuck to the yes.

The truly hilarious part of all this is that my computer won't turn on. Whyyy, Mac? Why? Seriously, I need to know.

So anyway, if anyone has a fifteen page paper lying around, detailing the effects of birth order and sibling relationships on early cognitive development, go ahead and shoot those my way. Excellent, thanks in advance.

On a positive note, I plan to write the shit out of this break, which I'll be spending in Montana. Hopefully things get weird.