MY CHANGING LEAFS

So tomorrow is my last day at Le Peep. It's been a fun run, and I'm really going to miss it. The people that I work with have become a sort of second family to me and I love my early mornings with them. The deep and meaningful conversations mixed with the inside jokes and yes, even some of the drama, has all been a positive experience. It isn't without it's downfalls, because nothing in this life is perfect,  but this job was pretty awesome. 

It feels like transition periods are always bittersweet. On one hand, I'm leaving to train for a management position at a local juice bar. So this is valuable experience I will be able to put on my resume and I love, love, love the girls there. And on the other hand, I'm leaving behind a place that I have really enjoyed. 

This feels kind of like when I moved away from Moscow to go be a student teacher. It's so weird that college went by so fast when it started out being the slowest of the slow. Now when I go back with Nathan to visit his family and we drive through campus, it's almost a foreign place. We drive by the buildings I used to inhabit on a regular basis and all my memories come flooding back to me at once. 

I did not want to leave Moscow. I was not ready to be done with school and with my independence or with any of my studio classes. Maybe it's the teacher in me who is just never quite done learning all of the things. I'm filled with this hunger to keep furthering my knowledge and I guess there are worse things in life. 

But then, after I moved back home and started student teaching and my life kept changing, it didn't really make me miss school less, but it helped to see that I was applying my knowledge correctly and that my students were learning. And since I've been back in Coeur d'Alene it seems that my life has not really quit changing, because hello! Here's is another life altering transition for you!

I'm a firm believer in the Everything-Happens-For-A-Reason and the If-It's-Meant-To-Happen-It-Will and I know that this is where I'm supposed to be. There is a purpose for my transition from Le Peep to The Wellness Bar and this is the beginning of the Adventure Of Why. 

It's funny that this is happening now, as the seasons are changing. Welcome Autumn and instead of the changing leafs signaling the start of a new school year, it's instead signaling the start of a new job. 

Today I did laundry and went grocery shopping. I cleaned the kitchen and tidied my bedroom. I bought a cinnamon pecan swirl scented candle and tonight I will make dinner and probably watch Netflix. And tomorrow I will wake up for my last hostessing shift and spend the night out with my friends for a happy Halloween. So far, it's been a good year folks. 

mondays are my least favorite

Mondays I think are my least favorite day of the week. They always come too quickly to end the weekend and they force me back into reality. And reality generally just kind of sucks, do you know? There is so much going on that I don't write about here, and it's really not my favorite.

I used to write about everything I felt on this blog, but lately I've been keeping all those questioning thoughts and inward wrestling ideas in a private journal. I'm not sure if that's better, but at least it's something. At least it has potential to help me sort out my own thoughts and feelings - although sometimes that doesn't help. Sometimes no matter what words get put on those lined pages, I still feel a little lost. I still feel a little foggy. I still feel a little directionless.

It's not in every aspect of life though, you know. I've figured some things out. And I know how I feel about certain stuff. I'm still not good at talking about how I feel - writing is one thing but verbalizing is another. I think maybe that's because I feel like if I put feelings into words and confide them in another person then that means they are real. That means I am vulnerable. That means that people can hurt me. And that is terrifying.

I'm scared to hear answers that I don't want to hear. I'm scared to have discussions that I don't want to have. I'm scared to make decisions that I don't want to make. I'm worried that the hard thing and the right thing might be the same - and I don't really want to choose either one. In my mind things are black and white and I can either make this decision for that result or I can make that decision for this result. Often I forget the grey areas and I always expect the worst possible outcome.

Seriously you guys, it gives me stomach aches.

I suppose that's why I resort to putting up walls and stuffing my feelings down deep inside. I'm afraid to feel things because I could be wrong, or I could be the only one, or I could be crazy. I hesitate to ask the tough questions because I'm not sure I want to know the answers. Part of me wishes I could just run away. Far away. Leave everything behind, buy a ticket and just go.

I never thought that growing up would be this messy. It never occurred to me that it would be difficult - you know? People grow up all the time, I thought, how hard can it be? And really, on the positive side of this I know I can do it and that I will be just fine. One day I'll be happy again and all this stuff will be a memory. One day I'll fly again, but for now I'm still cleaning my feathers.

I spend a lot of time wondering what God is doing with me. Why am I here? What's the point? And I suppose that if I stop to really listen, and give it plenty of time, then I'll be able to figure it out. I guess I didn't realize that when I chose courage as my word of the year I would really be putting that into some serious play because I can tell that in the near future that word is going to be a prominent fixture in my life.

free falling

Sometimes there are moments in time that we would like to freeze and hold on to forever. A couple of those moments happened to me this weekend. In my head I keep reliving it over and over again, because it makes me smile.

This boy of mine, he is something special. I was visiting him this weekend and the more time I spend with him the more I like him. Which is both scary and exciting. He was sitting on one of the couches in his living room and as I went to sit down on the futon in the corner he grabbed my hand and said "C'mere you" and pulled me down next to him. In a joking voice, I asked him if I was no longer allowed to sit on the futon and his reply caught me completely off guard. He said "No, I just wanted to be near you." It was just as simple as that. But it's been so long since a boy has said something like to me that I just didn't know what to do. So I blushed and smiled and buried my head in his shoulder.

My stomach does this little lurching thing when I catch him staring at me. It usually results in me making an awkward face or mouthing the word 'what' with questioning eyebrows and a smile. Being stared at makes me a little uncomfortable. I don't know what to do. Which makes it entertaining for him to just stare and see what weird thing I will do next.

Which is something I like about him. He is weird. I am weird. And together we are the most awesomely weird that weird could be. We get lost in our own little weird world. It's been a long time since I've let a boy that far in. PC and I split two years ago, and after that I said no more! SVI was a little closer than the smattering of other boys who tried to infiltrate my world, but I used the fact that I was moving away as an excuse not to let anyone near me.

And then, well. The Boy.

He makes me want to think about the future. He makes me want to go on grand adventures. He makes me want to let him in. He makes me happy. He makes me feel like I can do anything. He makes me feel comfortable enough to be myself.

That was actually one of the first things that attracted me to him. We were comfortable around each other. We could be weird and nerdy and just plain not normal around each other with no worries of impending judgments or scaring the other person off. It was okay to say something completely and totally random and off topic or make a funny face out of the blue. I never felt that way around SVI and it has been so long since I felt that with PC that I almost forgot what it felt like at all.

I'm scared to like him as much as I do. I feel like each time I've tried to do that, I've been let down. Fear isn't something that should keep you from trying because then you will always walk around wondering about the what-ifs of the situation. But I remember the heartbreak after PC and I never want to go through that again as long as I live.

I just don't want to get invested in this boy and then get left high and dry again. But then I wonder if I am going to be missing out on a wonderful opportunity because I was too scared to try. And well bet me if I'm going to let that happen.

So I decided to jump. I want to see where this goes and I'm willing to risk the heartache to do it. Those last two sentences scare the crap out of me. Thinking it in my head is one thing, but putting it in writing in another. And this is even the second time that I wrote it down, the first being in the long conversation I had with T Lily earlier.

Fear should not be a defining factor in this kind of decision making. Not unless I'm going to be okay what-if-ing my life away. Besides that, if things fall through with this boy and I need someone to pick me back up off the floor and glue me back together I have plenty of people who will be there for me if fit hits the shan.

Things are gonna be okay. I jumped and now I'm falling. Someone catch me.