Life Under Construction

Archive for the ‘Life’ Category

If you haven’t read this article, you’re missing out on something truly incredible (a big thank you goes out to Wil Wheaton for always sharing such great articles he finds with his readers).  I don’t know the person who wrote it, but I can definitely relate to her.  I understand where she’s coming from, and what she’s written gives me hope.

I’ve been miserable before.  I’ve gone through life feeling hopeless and sad and bored and empty, like nothing.  Heck, I feel empty almost every day lately.  It sucks.

When I was in middle and high school (ask any of my friends) I obsessed over things I was passionate about.  I found something that made me happy, and I focused on it.  I put energy into it.  In 7th grade it was The Beatles.  In 8th it was Star Wars.  In 9th and 10th it was drama club (and drama club boys, but we won’t get into that right now).  And I was happy.  I was a lot happier than I have been in recent years, and I’ve wondered several times if it had something to do with the lack of an object or topic to obsess over.  In other words: a passion.

I asked myself: What have I been passionate about in the last 10 years? Has there been any one thing I’ve been passionate about that lasted more than a couple months?  And why is that?  Is it because I get bored and lose interest?  Is it because I find something, and I love it so hard, but people patronize me about it?  Like how much I love Harry Potter?  So many people were telling me I’m too old for it, making fun of me over how excited I got (still get) over it.  So maybe I say things like “Expecto Patronum!” in my head with a terrible English accent, and yeah, maybe I did cry when characters died.  So what?  Yes, I listen to Wizard Rock and I fantasize about going to Wrockstock and meeting people that have some of the same interests as me, and I join Harry Potter forums and websites.  What’s it to you?  Why do you have to make fun of me about it?

I think I went off on a tangent there… but moving on….  It’s likely both of those reasons and more.

I can’t think of anything I put energy into anymore.  I don’t even put much energy into blogging (don’t even get me started on how many people in my real life give me shit for blogging as if anyone cared what I had to say).  I don’t have any passions right now.  I feel like I’m just waiting for something to come along, I feel like I have all this passion and all this love and attention to give to something.  I just need to find what it is.

I may not be happy 365 days a year, but I’m on my way to being happy with my life as a whole and reading what the author of that post had to say really put some things into perspective for me.  I’m slowly learning to be proactive, to take charge of my own happiness.  I’ve been working on it for a while, because if I can’t make myself happy nobody can.  But it’s hard because while I can’t rely on others to make me happy, they definitely have the power to put me down.

I want to know what you think.  Read that article.
Can you relate?
Do you have any words of wisdom to add?
Are you passionate about anything?

I’m wicked tired, so I hope this made sense.

Just A Common Soldier

(A Soldier Died Today)
By A. Lawrence Vaincourt

Our Country is in mourning, for a soldier died today.

I don’t often share poetry or quote songs, but this is one I’ve come to love that’s touched my heart.  My grandfather fought in WWII.  My uncle is a veteran of the Vietnam War.  A lot of the men and women I work with, have come to know and love, have served in the military.  And my husband, my best friend, is in Iraq right now.  He’s risking his life and mine for this country.  Soldiers and veterans deserve much more respect than they are given, especially veterans.  The men and women that came home, more often than not they came home changed.  Life is harder for them coming home than it would actually be staying at war.  It’s harder than most people realize.

So if someone in your life is a veteran, even if you aren’t close to them, let them know you’re thankful for the sacrifices they made.  You’ll never know what they lost to fight in a war.  You’ll never know what they lost to come home.  But try and brighten someone’s day, if you can.  It could be your friend, your brother or sister, a cousin or an aunt.  That uncle or grandfather that you’ve never thought of as a soldier is a survivor, and because of them you are too.

Thank you, to all the veterans in my life.  You’ve made the life I live possible, and your sacrifices haven’t gone unnoticed.

When you’re reading a book, what do you like the most about it?  What do YOU like to see in a novel?

(I’m participating in this week’s Sunday Scribblings writing prompt.)

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.  I want to be married.

Sure I want the dress and the day and the presents, but more than that I want the being married part: the ‘for better or for worse’ part.  The part that comes after the show: the comfortable silences, making the bed that belongs to the two of us, the arguments about money, the overcooked experimental dinners, the whining-screaming-beautiful children.

I’ve dated guys that would never give me what I needed, dated them for long periods of time even though I knew that it wasn’t going to go anywhere in the long run.  I’d let my love for them get the better of me, and when the harsh reality of it hit me that every effort was mine it would all fall apart.

Let’s face it, people.  Love is never enough when two people don’t value the same things.  Don’t listen when anyone tells you that you can live on love.  You can’t.  Separately, ALL of my relationships have taught me that.  No matter how hard you try, how deeply you love, or how much you give… if you’re both not giving it your best shot, if you don’t want the same things in life… it just isn’t going to work out.

It’s taken me a few years to realize that I’ve found my other half, my equal. Now I think about it all the time: being married.  At least, eh, every other day.  People keep telling me it’s my biological clock ticking, but I know it’s because I simply found the right guy.

Let’s back up for a second.

I wasn’t the little girl that played “house” with her dollies, instead I cut all my older sister’s Barbies hair off (she had a LOT of Barbies!) and ripped their arms and legs from their bodies.  You can totally ask her and she’ll tell you I’m not lying.

Sarah?  Any thoughts you’d like to share with the class?

Moving on…

Getting married never sounded like fun to me.  That is to say it never occurred to me.  I never thought about getting married someday, but I never thought about not doing it, either.  I just never thought about it.

Somewhere along the line there, between 11th grade and my 20th birthday, I realized that I did want to get married.  I wanted to belong to someone.  I wanted to be someone’s wife.

These days I know who I want to marry.  I’m lucky.  I’ve come to understand that being married isn’t just an event, that it’s a way of life.  It’s a full time job that not everyone can handle.  People get divorced all the time because they think marriage is just this thing you do and then life goes back to normal, but it’s not and it doesn’t.

Louise said the other day that I should have been born in the 1950’s.  She and Deb were talking at work about how we shouldn’t let our jobs be our lives, and I overheard so I had to voice my opinion.  You see, I want to be a housewife, a homemaker, a wife and mother.  I want my day to begin with making breakfast and end with making sure everyone is safely and soundly asleep in their beds.  I want to do laundry and spend my afternoons in the kitchen making dinner.  That job will be my life for a long time (at least the first 18 years).

For better or for worse I want the works.  What’s your take on marriage?  Do you want the traditional I’m so fond of or something else?

Look.  Someday there will be a point when I’m too old to do certain things:

• wash my own back
• change my own diaper
• walk upright without the help of a cane or walker
• drive

Someday in the future, decades from now, when I reach that last one (which is hopefully before I reach the first three) I’m going to give up driving.  I’m going to do it.  And I’m not going to give a flying fart in space how anyone likes it!  Especially the people that will have to cart me around in their set of wheels.

Chances are, if I’m elderly and I need a ride somewhere, someone owes me a ride anyway.  I plan on having kids.

I was at the grocery store today and the old couple that was parked next to me (they were beyond elderly, I’m telling you) was backing out of their parking spot.  They had so much room behind them and in front of them to just whip it!  But the woman is driving and the man who appeared older than the woman by at least 5 years (you can totally tell when they’re older) was squinting into his passenger door rear view and they were arguing.  Obviously she wanted him to tell her when to stop but he couldn’t see well enough, and he obviously didn’t want to admit that he couldn’t see so he was snapping back at her.

And all this with the windows closed.

Look, I’ve lived with old people for more than half my life.  Just this past January I moved out of my grandmother’s house where I’ve lived the last 14 years of my life.  I know how old people get.  I know how stubborn and reluctant they are to let anyone in on the no-so-secret that they can’t do much for themselves anymore.  My own 87 year old grandmother does 35mph down RT1 and thinks she’s going too fast.  That isn’t necessary, folks.

The guy on the other side of the row was waiting to back out of his spot and leave and I was waiting to pull out of my spot as well, I had work to get back to.  But for over two minutes they sat there in their car, parked entirely blocking the row on both sides, arguing with each other and trying to see out of their respective mirrors.

If the woman could see properly, she’d have been able to tell that there was at least 8 feet between her bumper and the car in front of her’s, and she could have made it just by pulling forward.

But no.  We had to wait.

And wait some more.

It took the guy across the row angrily backing out of his spot and then backing out of the entire length of the parking lot to the other end of the row for the old people to realize that they weren’t the only people in the Stop & Shop parking lot and that we were all waiting on their old asses to GTFO.  Then the woman drove forward and then backward a series of small wheel turns a few inches at a time, I’d call it about a 22-point turn, and then finally drove away.

I decided right then and there that I never wanted to be those old people.

Sure, I want to be old someday.  I look forward to my elderly years and spending them with Walter, probably bickering and laughing and being ridiculously old together, but there WILL BE a point when I shouldn’t drive anymore.  And to save myself and others (mainly myself) the inevitable accident and annoyance I’m going to quit altogether!

I will not whine.  I will not protest handing over my independence.  I will throw my wrinkled old hands in the air and announce to the world (or at least all within reasonable ear shot) that I am done driving.  And that should be that.

Elderly driving should be stopped.  How hard is that to understand?

~

PS  -  This is what I look like when I’m drinking out of a water bottle.

You’re welcome.

I know I’ve said it a million times before (and I’ll probably say it at least another million times in the future) but I’m going to say it again:

I often want to write but have no idea what I want to write about.  Sometimes the urge to write is so strong, but I end up getting frustrated because I feel empty of ideas.

And I don’t just mean in relation to blogging.  I mean all the time, in my blog, in my journal, in letters, or just writing for the sake of writing.

Does that happen to any of you guys?  Does it frustrate you like it frustrates me?

I love writing.  I haven’t always loved writing, but at some point in high school I developed this love for writing, writing anything: taking notes in class, English assignments, writing notes, poetry (I used to write a lot of poetry)… I never really cared for it before and when it hit me it really hit me.

Is this writer’s block?  I hear people all the time say that writer’s block isn’t real, but if it isn’t real then what is this?  What is this nearly overwhelming desire to write with nothing coming to mind if it’s not writer’s block?

I don’t understand ‘getting paid to blog’.  How does that work?’

Kat over at Tough Girl 101 posted a blog yesterday about how she gets paid to blog, called Can You Make It As A Paid Blogger? I answered that I didn’t quite understand the mechanics of it, but I wanted to make a blog out of my response anyway to see what you all think about it.

I’m not against getting paid to blog.  On the contrary, I would love to get paid for it.  But at the same time, I think it would lose it’s attraction if I felt I was obligated to do it.  Blogging is something I simply love to do.  But if I were to feel obligated to do it, it occurs to me that I might not want to do it anymore.  That maybe getting paid for it won’t be as fun as just doing it for me?

I mean… who pays you?  How do you claim that on your taxes?  Do you consider yourself to be self-employed?  And what do you blog about to get money?  Do you have to blog about specific things?  I’m sure I can’t get paid to blog about how I sit at my computer every morning before work and debate over whether or not I have time to play WoW, or about the enormous amount of ice cream I ingest on a weekly basis while I watch TV shows with my sister.  I’m just sayin’.  I think there’s only so much out there to get paid for blogging about, isn’t there?  I don’t know a whole lot about any one specific topic (except for Star Wars), not enough to blog about anyway (except for Star Wars lol).

So can someone explain to me how it works, this blogging for dollars thing?  And what do you think about it?

Mike will be working from home and therefor will not be in the office today.  That makes me sad.  But we’re getting dinner on the company later, which is good.

I don’t know if I want to make a peanut butter and Fluff sandwich today for lunch.

There’s (finally) a new Grey’s Anatomy on this week.  And the preview for it looks good.  Better than good.  I hate when they have particularly dramatic two-parters and then take a couple weeks off.  Who wants to watch reruns mid-season?  What’s wrong with television these days?  Why can’t TV shows just run from September to April like they used to?  Things made sense then.  It made sense when children’s shows were only on on Saturday mornings instead of every day at 3:30am, and when shows like Sex & The City were only aired on HBO because of the content.  What happened to the world?  Why do professional sports celebrities and movie stars get paid more than doctors and teachers and firefighters?  AM I THE ONLY PERSON WHO SEES THE STUPIDITY OF IT ALL????

I hate when my computer tells me that updates are ready and it interrupts what I’m doing because the stupid pop up thinks it’s more important than any other program running and needs to be at the front of the screen.

I miss my nephew when I don’t see him for more than a day.

What am I supposed to be doing with my weekend?  I have all this time to myself which is wonderful, but I have no plans and I’m kind of nervous about it.

It isn’t even 9am and I’m contemplating where my life is headed.  Isn’t that a bit heavy for this early?

All Dogs Go To Heaven bothers me.  It’s sort of dark, but I don’t know if that’s it.  The movie itself was good ten or twenty times back in the day (back in the day = when I was wee), but after that it’s just annoying.  I can’t stand any of the music.  It’s like the only Don Bluth film that I truly can’t stand.  Now The Land Before Time, that was an excellent one.

I despise Myspace these days.  I dread logging in but can’t seem to stop myself.  I do have a Facebook now, however.  I broke down and made one ’cause Courtni told me to.  There’s a lot less drama on Facebook.  And I only friend people I actually know and don’t feel bad about it.

What’s the point of life?  I know that’s the age-old question if ever there was one, but it’s eating me up.  What if I’m not doing it right?  What am I supposed to have at this point, being 25?  Am I supposed to have accomplished anything?  Shouldn’t I know myself better than I do?

I don’t understand ‘hanging out with friends’.  What purpose does it serve?  What does it accomplish?  I need to understand, what is the point?  What do you get from it?

What do you do when you’re ‘hanging out with friends’?  Does it improve upon the quality of your life?  And if so, how?

These are serious, burning questions.

Also watch my video blog from this morning.

As I was driving home last night from my grandmother’s house I heard on the radio that Gisele Bündchen and Tom Brady are not engaged and that she is still available. Not that I really give a rat’s ass who in Hollywood is dating who or who is available and when, but it’s how he said it that bothered the crap out of me (a classic case of ‘it’s not always what you say, it’s how you say it’).  It was something along the lines of the following:

“Gisele Bündchen announced to the press today that the rumors being passed around of her supposed engagement to football star Tom Brady are not true.  You hear that?  Guys – Gisele Bündchen is still available!  And ladies- Tom Brady is still available!  I’m sure a lot of you are happy to hear that!”

What pissed me off?  No, not the assumption that all the women in the world want Tom Brady (um… no thanks) or that all the men want a Brazilian model for a girlfriend.  No, it actually wasn’t anything like that at all.  It was the way he says they’re “still available”, implying that couples who aren’t engaged or married can’t have the same loyalty and emotional commitment as those that are.  As far as I’m concerned, being in a relationship makes me unavailable.  Period.  There’s no room for negotiation there.

I may not be engaged but that doesn’t make me any less emotionally committed and loyal to Sean.  I can only imagine that other couples that are in serious relationships feel the same way, they’re not available just because they don’t wear a ring.

Man.  I don’t even know you dude, and I want to kick you in the balls.

There.  I felt offended.  I’ve said my piece.  I feel better.