cha-cha-cha-changes

I'm kind of upset with life today.
Not in the sense that I don't like my life or that I'm unhappy,
just in the sense that I'm feeling sad about some of the changes life has brought.
Specifically the people that it has taken out of my life.

The truth of the matter is that I miss people.
People who I don't often see anymore for one reason or another.
Some have moved away.
Others are just on different paths than I am.
It isn't a bad thing that life changes, in fact, I'm usually one of those people that tries to embrace change.
But after so many years of change I am finally realizing how much my heart is aching for those lost friendships.
Because they are people that I really cared about.
People that I still care about.
And I still want them to be in my daily life.

I don't think I will ever say that these friendships are over.
Because I just couldn't give up on people like that.
And because there are no hard feelings towards any of them.
They are just not the same, because we don't often see each other.

I do have newer friendships, that I absolutely love and cherish.
Friendships that are deeper than any I have had in a very long time.
But no one will ever be replaced.
I still have those little holes that their absence leaves in my heart, and that isn't something I want to be filled by any one or anything else.

Now here I am, at the cusp of new changes and new adventures.
Which I am excited about.
But I'm also scared to lose the current people in my life.
I don't want to push anyone away unnecessarily just because I am overwhelmed with life.

None of this is necessarily a bad thing.
And the last thing I am trying to do is be all depressed about my life.
I'm just realizing that one of the facts of life is that it changes.
And sometimes those changes push and pull people in opposite directions.
It's a sad experience, but it happens.

I accept the change.
But for now I am just missing some people who have been amazing friends to me at one time or another.
People who I will always have room in my heart and life for.

Tampons and Birthday parties

I just spent the last half hour trying to get my internet to work.
I was just starting to think that maybe it was a good thing it wasn't working when I finally figured out what the problem was and fixed it.
Lucky for you guys I can now spend the next hour writing and reading your blogs!
Unlucky for me I will now be horribly unproductive for the rest of the day.

I have to tell you guys about something embarrassing that happened to me last night.
It was one of those moments when you realize how much easier life might be if you weren't living with a guy.
Although it would be much less interesting and enjoyable.
Last night Alex was working with one of his recording clients when I got home from work.
{For those of you that don't know my husband is an audio engineer in his free time, meaning he does recording for bands and cool stuff like that in a spare room in our house.}
I got inside and just vegged in front of my computer for a little bit, when I noticed the giant box of tampons that I had bought on Tuesday sitting out on the coffee table.
Which really wouldn't have been that big of a deal if Alex didn't have a client over.
I figured they probably hadn't come into the living room at all so the guy probably hadn't seen it.
When Alex was done with his recording session I said, "You guys didn't come into the living room, right?"
Alex- "Yeah, we did..."
Me- "Seriously...?"
Alex- "Yes, why?"
Me- "Do you not see the huge box of tampons??"
Alex- "OH!.... whoops... I'm pretty sure he didn't notice."

Right... the huge white box with pictures of tampons all over it, which was the absolute only thing on our entire coffee table, went completely unnoticed.
Also there may or may not have been a pair of my underwear on the floor in our bathroom.
At least the guy spared me my dignity and didn't say anything about them.
I think I need to be home at all times when anyone is coming into my house so I can make sure all the unmentionables are cleaned up.
Or maybe I need to be a cleaner person so things like this don't happen!


Moving on to less embarrassing topics... or maybe more, depending on my dancing skills.
I forgot to tell you guys about my weekend!
Which was pretty much amazing!
Remember how I told you that some of my friends came into town from Washington to celebrate their birthdays?
Well it was probably the most fun weekend I have had maybe ever.
I'll let the pictures from my phone speak for themselves.

It was such a good weekend!!

Happy Birthday Sara!!

Thank you for being such an amazing friend!
My life has truly been blessed by our friendship and I'm so grateful to know you!

And, you are seriously gorgeous!!!

Alright, I'm out to catch up on some of my blog reading.

Love you guys!

My absolute favorite thing about blogging?

100% hands down is the people I have met!

I feel sooo unbelievably blessed to have such a support system here in the blogosphere, and it really does reach out into my real life! Awhile ago, before I really started being serious about my blog, I would read posts about how much people loved all of the friends that they had made since starting a blog. Over the past couple of months I've actually started figuring out what that looked like!

[How many times can I say blog in one post??]

Seriously, I can't even begin to express how much these women [YOU women!] have impacted my life. Sometimes I will be having a conversation with one of my IRL friends and I will say something like, "Oh that's funny my friend so-and-so was just talking about that the other day!" Which translates to, "OMG my blogging bff just wrote a post about that!!".

[In my head I am always way more excited than I express in real life... if you know me you know this is true]

I don't have a giant successful blog, but I am still going to lend my advice to all you people out there...

Here it is: If you blog, reach out to the people around you. Seriously, it will change your entire experience of this whole realm of life. 

My whole experience changed when I stopped focusing on how many followers I had for my own blog, and started building some real relationships with the other people out there. I'm sure some of you would like to hear that this is the key to increasing the number of followers, but it isn't. My blog has grown a tiny bit, but the real thing that has changed is that I've actually made some friends in the process. And the best part is that they accept me for who I am and just want to be a support!

If you don't blog, you can still reach out to the people around you! Through this whole process I've learned that I can actually make friends, or be closer friends with the ones I already have, and not just with people who are a million miles away and who I don't have to have a real conversation with. I'll be honest, I have a hard time making friends, and an even harder time keeping friends. It's hard. It sucks. I always wonder what is wrong with me. But I think through meeting and making blog friends I realize that people just want to know that you care about them, and to know that you value who they are! 

Part of this comes with learning to truly accept people for who they are. I'm not in my friendships to change anyone. They are the ones that are changing me! I'm so incredibly blessed by the people that are in my life, and they continually teach me to love and accept myself, as well as others.

So I just want to say thank you to those of you that follow along here. Even if you don't stop in to read my posts, I'm honored just to be on your little "blog roll" of blogs that you do follow! And I'm thankful that you have been an encouragement to me in one way or another.

There you have it. The thing that keeps me reading everyone else's posts far more often than I read or write my own!

Weekend camping trip

This weekend Alex and I went camping with some of our amazing friends Sara and Collin. It was such a fun relaxing weekend.

At least up until 3am Sunday morning when I woke up feeling horrible. During a long walk to the bathroom I threw up in our neighbors yards... not fun! Unfortunately we had to come home a day early. Now, after several hours of not working on homework and hardly being able to keep my eyes open, I finally feel a bit better.

Lots of traffic on the way up. Shocker, huh?

On saturday we spent the afternoon oystering... is that what you call it? Clamming? Well whatever it was, we did it.

And I have to confess to you guys something...
I HATE BARNACLES!!
Feel free to call it a phobia. I don't care.
I. HATE. THEM.
This may seem a little strange, but I think they are the most disgusting thing ever and they literally make me want to vomit. Honestly, just thinking about them makes me sick to my stomach. So I basically had a heart attack when we went to meet our friends for our clamming/oystering adventure and I found my self COMPLETELY surrounded by barnacles.

Maybe why I ended up throwing up later that evening? Probably from my torturous barnacle dreams? Probably.

How could anyone not find these things absolutely repulsive?? 
I will never understand.

Well... now that I have made myself sick by looking at this picture. I've gotta go.

Health update

So, last tuesday I told you guys how I was having abdominal pain. They did an ultra sound to find out if it was gallstones or not, because that is where the pain was located.


The Good News? I have no signs of gallstones what-so-ever!! Which also means no worrying about if I would have to get my gallbladder removed!

The Bad News? I'm still having pain. The radiologist did say that he seems to have found some kidney stones, which is a whole different issue. I went back to the doctor today and he seems to think I have an ulcer...

On the plus side, according to my doctor, an ulcer is fairly easy to take care of and get rid of. They prescribed me some antacids and if it is an ulcer, this should cure it.

If not, I'm afraid I will have to have an endoscopy done :(.  For anyone unfamiliar with what that means, they will have to stick a camera down my throat so they can get a view of my stomach and see what is going on. But, the chances of that are unlikely so I need not worry. Especially because if it is an ulcer, worry is what has gotten me into this whole mess in the first place.

So what does this all mean to me?

I need to stop stressing out. I'm very happy that I have started seeing a counselor for my anxiety. The doctor said that anxiety can definitely cause ulcers so the two absolutely go hand in hand. I'm sad that it has gotten this far. I wish I could just snap my fingers and have my old self back, but I'm getting there. Alex and myself have both seen very big change in my confidence level ever since I began my first session.

The biggest lesson that I have learned is that I need to stop blaming myself. For everything. Which I didn't even realize I was doing, so much so that it is hard for me to know how to change. This is what I have done my whole life. When something goes wrong in one relationship or another, I feel like I should have done something differently to fix it. If I had acted differently I could have changed the outcome.

But life isn't like that. The only thing that I can take responsibility for are my own actions. I can't blame myself for other peoples actions. Just like I can't blame them for mine.

I've also had some toxic relationships in my lifetime. Ones where I blamed myself, and they blamed me also.

But I can't live like that anymore. For one, because it is giving me ulcers!! And two, because those aren't the kind of people I want to have in my life.

I have to stand up for myself, and for who I am.

I've always been afraid that if I said things like, "If they aren't going to pursue a relationship with me, then I am not going to pursue a relationship with them," that would make me selfish. But I'm learning that it isn't always selfish. Sometimes we just have to realize when we are being treated unfairly, or when our friends are abandoning us to say enough is enough. Maybe they actually aren't good friends {which are the exact words my counselor used}.

When the going gets tough, a good friend will be there by your side, or at the very least, they wont abandon you.

I do have some great friends. I'm excited to begin to build those relationships, and step back from the toxic ones.

Just a couple things I'm thankful for...

Today I just want to say how thankful I am for my friends, all of them. There are a couple friends in particular that I know, in some shape or form, will always be a part of my life. There have been years where we haven't talked at all, years that we have fought, years that I thought we would never speak again, and then years where I remember that my life would be so different had I never met them. Sometimes we live in different cities, states, and even countries, but somehow our paths have always found a way to meet up.

This is true friendship. Not one that is fake, but one where life pulls you apart and pushes you together and even in the times were you are angry with each other, you couldn't imagine your life without them. 

I just want to say thank you for sticking with me through my personal battles and constant ebbs and flows of life, and helping me grow and become a better person along the way. Both of you mean a lot to me, regardless of what we have been through, and I'm so grateful I met each of you so many years ago.

Moving on...

Last week my husband and I took a vacation to celebrate our one year anniversary. It was so great to get away from all the responsibilities of life and have fun with each other, without having to worry about what time we had to go to work the next day, what we were going to make for dinner, or what bill was due. We just relaxed. Well I'm not sure if you can call walking up and down the hills and streets of Seattle, coming home with our legs sore relaxing, but it was just what we needed.

Anyways, I'm not writing this to tell you about the details of our trip, but rather the sole searching that happened while we were away. Like I said in my last post I have been having panic attacks for over a year now, and being away helped me evaluate some of the important things in my life as well as the things I need to let go of. I'm sitting here trying to muster up the courage to describe what I am really going through, and to do my best not to just rant to the whole world (wide web).

Here is the truth, the honest to goodness I couldn't sugar coat it if I wanted to truth... I am hurt. I am going to repeat something that I quoted from my very amazing friend Sara in my first post, "When you get married you realize who your true friends are." I guess I just now realized how true this is (even though I wrote about it five months ago) or maybe I just realized how much that affected me. When Alex and I got married, there were many people who had their own opinions about it. There were people telling us we were making a mistake, that we didn't understand what we were doing, and then there were people who just abandoned us and decided not to talk to us anymore. I am an incredibly relational person, and to lose good friends is probably one of the hardest things for me to deal with. I have had a lot of really close friends over the years, and I have lost nearly all of them. Some have ended badly, some moved away, and others where we just grew apart. For awhile I wasn't ready to let go, I thought maybe these friendships could be salvaged. I tried very hard to defend our marriage because I thought when people realized that we hadn't made a huge mistake then they would begin to accept us as a couple and be able to move past their opposing opinions.

After many painful months I have decided that it is time to stop trying so hard to hang on to something that is no longer there. That doesn't mean I wont talk to old friends or even hang out, it just means that I think it is time to let them be what they are. I think I just began to lose site who I really am because I was trying to fit into the mold of what these "friends" wanted to me be. In this process I think I have missed out on the opportunity to make new friends and to just let myself be who I am. I just wanted to be somebody who was liked, but instead turned into something that I have never wanted to be. Paranoid, self conscious, judgmental,  anxious, dramatic. This is not me. I like to "go with the flow" as my dad always says. I am a laid back person, I don't like to argue about stupid things, and I don't like to worry about who wants to be my friend and who doesn't.

After listening to one of my good friends who is having similar problems, I took her advice (though she doesn't know that she was giving me any) and have decided that my real friends are the ones who actually want to spend time with me. This could sound incredibly mean or selfish or whatever. I don't mean that I will never ask another friend to hang out, I mean that I'm not going to ask people to hang out over and over again when I know that they may never make time for me and cannot accept my new lifestyle. That is just stupid and it is obvious that we aren't actually friends anymore, and maybe we never were to begin with. I am not going to harbor bitterness and resentment towards them, just that I am going to allow life to take us in different directions. If life happens to bring us closer again someday, great! If not, that is great too.

On a much lighter note, since I have discovered that I need to let this go I haven't had any panic attacks! I have driven on roads that I thought I would never drive on again, and worked out more than I have in almost a year and a half. There is still some fear of having another panic attack left, and I am still working through this letting go thing. However, I feel a huge weight taken off my shoulders. I am learning to be comfortable with who I am. That means that sometimes I am going to be in a big crowd of people and not say a word. Not because I am shy or because I am uncomfortable but because sometimes I just don't have anything to say. When I do, trust me, you'll know. It has been a rough year, but I think I am finally understanding that I'm not who everyone thinks I am, and maybe it is time to let my true self out. If people aren't accepting well, I know that my best friend will always love me and think I am the most amazing woman in the world. I love you babe, and I wouldn't take back one second of our life together!



Just as a side note, please don't assume that this post is about any one person in particular. It applies to many people so don't take it offensively. If you do have a problem with anything I have written please talk to me personally.