Friend Hoarder

I like to call myself a friend hoarder.  I have been collecting friends for years now and I make a decent effort to see those friends whenever I can.  The holidays were the perfect time to have a few dates to catch up with friends I've known since pre-school or just since April.  I call this exercise Watering my Cactii (see previous post for explanation of cactus friend).

I drove in to Chicago and met up Alexa, my ex-Decatur friend who has already abandoned me for the bright lights of the big city.

Sean picked me up in the city and took me to Katie's birthday party where I drank the strongest Long Island Ice Teas I've ever had and caught up with Shane, Travis, Lauren and Justin.

My high school friend, Anna, and I traipsed around Wicker Park and talked about everything from boys to books, coffee to college.

My pre-school-through-college-and-beyond friend Mari, my one avid reader, and I had breakfast.

I ran into my friend Cameron from high school and chatted for a few minutes.

Politics friend, Amar and I went to go see the new Sherlock Holmes movie.... I loved it!

Jonathan, my college democrat/politics friend from ISU, and I went on a mini Decatur bar tour and talked about many things intelligent and silly.

Brandon, a Decatur friend that I see all the time, rented Water for Elephants and cooked me frozen dinner.  We talked about the impossibility of understanding the opposite sex.

Kathryn, my life-time-choir friend, and I sat around her living room playing with her four cats.

Meghann, my best friend from community college, cut my hair and and and and.....

Rachel, a community college friend/roommate, introduced me to her new-to-me boyfriend.  Its funny how you can pick back up with someone after 2 years apart.  Her mom and dad fed us pizza and punch. :-)

Alex, my community college friend and ISU roommate, was back from her exciting life in New York for New Year's Eve.

My friend Bekka, one half of my best match-making work, and I danced all night on New Year's Eve.

Lindsay, community college work-mate and music buddy, came back from Italy after 3 months of being an Au Pair.  SO jealous of her fabulous experience.

My college best friend, Doris, came to my family Christmas and spent the night at my childhood house for the first time.


I stopped by to see my oldest (based on number of years) best friend, Kiley.  Eloise (my cat) pooped in her mudroom.

I saw Rich for the first time since we decided to stop dating.  We had drinks and dinner and lots of great conversation.

I'd say that I am just the LUCKIEST person alive.  I have so many people who love and care about me.  I am grateful that we can pick our friendship back up and dust it off at any time.  I wish that we all had more time for each other, but I know that we are all very busy, spread across the country and the world, living our lives and pursuing our dreams.  <3

Love and Learn

I believe that when someone comes in to your life, it's because you are supposed to learn something from them. They come at just the right time and offer you just what you need.

After getting out of two relationships in a row that left me emotionally drained and damaged, I found someone who was good to me and appreciated me for who I was.  He was certainly not perfect- but I thought so.  I met him just when I needed someone to bring me back to life.  When he left, I thought that eventually he might come back after we both did some growing up.  But now I don't hope for that any more.  Him walking away was also what I needed.  When I was with him, I was able to hold on to my life at college and didn't need to fully immerse myself in my new life.  Since then, I've become a part of my new community and moved on to a new phase in my life.  

Every new place, every new job, every new group of friends is a new phase.  Sometimes a few people come along into the new phase, but there is no reason to mourn those who stay a part of the past.  Take pictures to remember the past and look back to appreciate what it was.  Keep in contact with friends (thank goodness for Facebook!) and visit if you can.

Learn what you can while friends are here and be thankful for them after they are gone.  Keep on loving and learning.  <3

Words I Live By, in no particular order

I read a lot of self-improvement stuff that I come across as I travel through the wonderful world wide web.  But in my (almost) 24 years, I've collected some knowledge of my own.  I stopped at twenty, but I bet I could have made it to One HUNDRED and twenty!

1. Take the saying "You learn something new every day" to heart.  Don't think you've learned anything yet today?  I like to stumble until I do.  Or Wiki-surf: go to Wikipedia and read the featured article (or as much of it as you are interested in) and click on one of the links in the article.  Do this several times over until you find yourself on a completely different topic.

2. Don't let clutter take over your life.  Every time you notice that your living/work space has become messy, pick up 3 things.  Sometimes this game turns in to 5 or 10 things, or an hour's worth of scrubbing when the mood hits.

3. Set small goals frequently.  For example:  do yoga every morning for a week, read 2 books this month, save $100 this month.  Even if you never reach them, it helps to motivate you for a while.

4. Be shamelessly thrifty.  Shop at yard sales, thrift stores and clearance racks. Why pay full price?  Here is my own guide to thrifting.

5. Volunteer Regularly.  When you volunteer with one organization on a regular basis, you form relationships that are just as rewarding as the work itself.  Volunteer for a cause you believe in and the experience will be so much more than a "resume builder".

6. Cancel your cable TV for a year.  Read a book. Cook a nice dinner for someone you love. Play board games with your family or friends.  Cross something off the honey-do list. Go for a night walk. Learn an instrument.  Pick up a hobby.  Do a puzzle. Get that regular volunteering in.   If there are shows you just can't miss, you can usually find them on Hulu.  Once you've learned to survive without it, I doubt you'll be in a hurry to get the cable hooked back up.

7. Don't waste time worrying.  Most of the time we worry about things that will never happen.  Don't think about problems that haven't arisen yet, and spend your time solving the problems that do arise.

8. Be your own best friend.  If you don't like yourself, how do you expect others to like you?  Do what you can to improve yourself, but accept yourself for who you are, not who you'd like to be.  Spend time alone to find out who you are when no one else is looking, for that is your truest self.

9. If you think you can't, you can't.  Approach every task optimistically.  Its amazing what you can do just by saying, "I can." You can run a mile.  You can learn to knit.  You can read War and Peace.  But you can't if you never try.

10. Be good to others.  We're all in it together.  When someone is rude to you, try to think of what they may be going through that would make them act in such a manner.

11. Take pictures often.  My mother always says "Life looks so fun in pictures."  I always reply "My life IS fun.  I take pictures to remember."  It's always a treat to look through old Facebook photo albums and think about how I felt at that moment.  Always be making memories, but don't forget to take a look at old ones every once in a while.

12. Try new things!  Don't box yourself in and settle in to the life you have.  Always reach for new things.  Take a different route to work.  Prepare a meal you've never tried before.  Shake up your Saturday Night routine.  Try on that skirt you think looks so great on the mannequin.  Even if it doesn't work out, at least you will have learned something about yourself.

13. Spend big bucks on experiences, not things.  Things break, get used up or get lost.  Spend your money making memories.  THINGS to invest in: a camera, a nice big bed and good walking shoes.

14. Stay humble and be grateful for what you have.  In Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas by James Patterson, Suzanne is always saying "Aren't we lucky?"  This is a saying I've taken to heart.  Be thankful for everything you have and everyone in your life.

15. People come in to your life for a reason.  People come in and out of your life- some people stay longer than others.  Learn what you can from them while they are there.  Don't mourn lost relationships, but cherish the lessons learned from them.

16. Trust your gut.  There are so many examples of this that I'm having trouble choosing.  This works as good test advice, moral advice or dating advice.  When you know, you know.

17. Call your mom.  On Hwy 20, there used to be a sign right outside Rockford that said "Call your mom."  I never understood what the advertisement was for, but I always called my mom.  I think it was good advice.  You should tell her you love her too.  Which reminds me....

18.  Say "I love you" as often as you mean it.  Love makes the world go 'round.  All you need is love.  Love conquers all.  Cliche, cliche, cliche.  But seriously.  Don't YOU love it when someone says "I love you?" Doesn't it just make ya feel good?  Well, others like to hear it too.  There isn't enough in the love in the world.  I bet terrorists would think twice if a few more people told them "I love you" every once in a while! HA!

19. Know what is going on in the world.  You don't have to read the newspaper every day or watch the 6 o'clock news every night, but you should have some clue about major events happening locally, nationally and globally.

20. Wake up before you want to.  Get plenty of sleep, but don't miss the best part of the day.  Mornings are magical.  Sunrise is the most peaceful time of day.  Hitting snooze feels good for 10 minutes, but 10 minutes of yoga will wake you up better than a whole pot of coffee.  Use extra morning time to relax before you start your day.  Don't start your day in a hurry.

A Dream Come True

I was listening to my Disney Pandora station while washing dishes -- okay, and I'm still listening.   I used to think I related to Disney Princess and one day I'd play one at Disney World.  However, I found out you have to be tall, beautiful and graceful to do so!  NEVERMIND! 

The song "Belle" came on and I know every word, of course. The line I always related to most was "I want so much more than they've got planned."  I imagine this meaning that I will travel the world and change the lives of everyone I come in to contact and I'll be world renown for my goodness and the good works I do.  Tonight I realized that what Belle meant by that was... to marry a handsome prince and live happily ever after.

As a little girl, you believe in happily ever after.  It happens to every leading lady!  Everyone finds their prince!  But after they win the prince, the movie ends.  You so rarely see what happens next.  Yea, I've had what I considered movie-love.  But then the movie ended and life went on.  Sleeping Beauty was never cheated on!  Belle didn't have to choose between a career and a family (not that I've had to choose either).  Cinderella didn't have to deal with mental illness and family issues.  You never even see them "grow apart" and "move in different directions" or have "irreconcilable differences."

Apart from the happily ever after fallacy, Disney also encourages girls to pursue men, not careers.  The newest classically styled movie, The Princess and the Frog, does encourage girls to reach for their career dreams.  However, this princess also gets her prince. 

I found this Second City series that gives advice from Belle, Ariel and Snow White.  There were also a bunch of videos dubbing popular movie audio over Disney characters.  This basically proves my point about Disney movies and Love movies in general: all the same formula, none realistic.  This is coming from a total sucker for formulaic love movies.

But we all know there are flaws in Disney movies.  The racism, sexism and stereotype is blatant but the catchy tunes always reel me in!  I will always sing Disney songs and watch Hercules and Aladdin over and over again, but I'm gonna be mad about it!!!

A Witch Worth Reading About

I thought when I graduated, I would have unlimited time to read books and do crafts.  This was true for a month or two.  But life moves quickly and once I started making friends and getting involved in the community, it has been difficult to find time to immerse myself in someone else's fictional life.


Last week I started readin The Witch of Portobello by Paulo Coelho.  Unfortunately, I kept having to put it down, but not by choice.  This was one of the most engrossing stories I've read since graduation (another is The Red Tent by Anita Diamant).  This book touched on many themes that I am struggling with in my own life.

The story of Sherine Khalil, who calls herself Athena, is told through the eyes of those who knew her best and were a significant part of her journey.  On her search for meaning, Athena learns to connect with "The Great Mother" (Mother Earth) through ritual dance.  Athena struggles against traditions in her attempt to bring knowledge to the world.


One of the themes I connected with immediately was this struggle against tradition.  In my work and my life, I have questioned "the way its done."  The message Athena brings is embraced by many she touches, but she also sees a brutal backlash which threatens her work, her life and the safety of her family.  The institutions and powers that be (i.e. the Church), feeling threatened, use the media to bring her down.  They distort her message and tell blatant lies about her intentions and rituals.

So many wise, intelligent, forward-thinking would-be leaders are brought down before they are able to achieve their "mission," as Athena refers to it.  The world is stuck in the traditions of capitalism and an idealized 1950s mentality which threatens to destroy the very planet which sustains us.  In June 2010, I attended the US Social Forum where I was part of a movement to advance progressive ideas here in the United States and abroad.  Thousands of people flooded the streets of Detroit, Michigan in a peaceful march and attended workshops for one week.  There was no national media coverage of the event.  Missing white children, Tea Party bloggers and the latest political sex scandal filled the airwaves instead.  The winds of change may be blowing, but we are locked up inside our air-conditioned suburban homes and cannot feel the refreshing breeze.  Athena is called "a woman of the twenty-second century living in the twenty-first."  I can relate to this feeling, but I believe that I am a woman of the twenty-first century.  I believe we live when we are meant to live.  There is a purpose for me to be here at this time.  I hope that purpose is to bring people out from their ivory towers and their glass houses and in to their communities.  That is my "mission" and I know I will not survive to see it fulfilled.  But I, with like-minded friends and strangers, will continue.

US Social Forum Opening March 2010, Detroit, MI.

Another theme in The Witch of Portobello is Love.  Coelho's depiction of love is quite different than our usual vision of love.  In Athena's final interaction with another central character, she explains that "Love is not a habit, a commitment, or a debt.  It isn't what romantic songs tell us it is-- love simply is." I tried to analyze this quote to show that I understand, but this is not an academic paper.  I understand this quote because I have suffered through a habit believing it to be love, I've tried to force a commitment from someone I love and I have loved purely because I was loved.  I understand because I've lived our incorrect perceptions of what love is supposed to be.

But I will admit, I love love.  I drop "I love you" like its "pass the salt."   Love is one of the driving forces of my life.  I don't need to look for love because I am surrounded by it.  Love flows like a river from my lips and my hands and my heart -- sometimes the water is high and the current is strong, sometimes a dry spell slows the waters, but the water always flows.  One thing I'VE LEARNED is that there is always more love.  Love is not a sum-zero game.  You do not replace those who you used to love with those who you love now.  The river may change directions, a new tributary flows in, a new stream may branch off from the main river, but my river, hopefully, will continue to flow.

 ALLLL RIGHT!  Enough with the sap and the metaphors.  Time to start a new book.  I will pass this one on to as many people as I can find to read it because its lessons should be shared with all those willing to listen.