Big for your Britches

Make sure you realize exactly what the title says. Even as I was typing, it looked funny to me. I'm typically not one for profanity...or at least not today.

So here we are 5 days from Christmas and for some reason it just doesn't feel like Christmas to me. Maybe it's because the year seems like it's gone by so fast. Or maybe it's because my brothers aren't around to literally tickle me until I cry. Maybe it's because I'm married now and this is the first married Christmas I've experienced. Or maybe it's just because I'm getting old.

The other day Husband and I were talking about going to my parent's house for a few days over the Christmas break. My parents have had a bit of a hard year and I promised myself that I would make it home more often to visit them. Unfortunately I broke that promise. Somewhere life became too busy...just like it always does. And I got all distracted...just like I always do. The excuses to stay in my new home were just too plentiful...like they always are. So we are going to venture home for an overnight stay for the very first time as a married couple.

It's weird. Lots of things are weird about the situation. The whole "sharing quarters" is weird especially when my door is a few feet from my parents. And I think going home anytime, after living on your own and growing up, is strange. The moment I walk in the door I feel all my old habits rushing back over me and they are once again difficult to shake.

It's not that I haven't changed because I have. It's been six years since I moved out and a lot has happened in six years. I've changed. My parents have changed. Life is very different. But it's amazing how quickly those old habits reappear and how difficult it is to fight them off.

And yet, no matter how long it's been since I've been home, it still feels warm. It might not feel like home anymore but it still feels warm. Time has been kind and has erased some of my less fond memories, leaving more good than bad when I reminisce.

Sometimes when I go home, I feel like I've outgrown the place, like it no longer fits...like I'm too big for those britches. And other times, it's like that comfortable sweater that you forgot you had. When you put it on, it just feels right.

Control

I have been getting up every morning, leaving the comforts of my deliciously warm bed, taking a shower, putting on my face, doing my hair and waiting. I wait. For an hour, sometimes more, sometimes less, until I get tired of waiting and I go back to bed. Why the waiting you ask? Well, I'm waiting for a call that will tell me I am needed at some school in some classroom to enlighten some little minds. It seems silly that I get up and get ready only to head back to bed but that's the way it is these days.

This has left me thinking about being prepared. I do it because I don't want to be rushing around if I'm needed somewhere. I want to be ready with the guns (figurative not literal) loaded. I realized that it's a litle weird to need to be so prepared because being prepared is just another way of saying you like to have control and I've realized that's exactly what I'm saying. I want...I need to have control.

Don't misunderstand...control isn't a bad thing all the time. It means you're on your game, you know how things should go and you are ready to make things go smoothly. It seems like it would be a great character trait. And it probably is. Unless you are me. I seem to let this idea of control run my life. It seems like I am constantly reaching out trying desperately to grasp control and because that seems to be how I live most of my life, I lose the fun. I want things to go my way and I get so distracted if I see things starting to run off course that I sometimes forget to find the humor in life...in the world...in myself.

It seems easy to say, "Well then, silly, give up some control. You can't control life anyway. It just happens." I would say to you, "I know." And I do know this but knowing that doesn't change me.

I think if I could give up some of my need for control, I wouldn't feel so stressed out about not having a job right now. I wouldn't be so worried when I see my bank account sinking slowly. I wouldn't get frustrated when Husband does something irritating. I wouldn't let those things bother me because I would understand that life is just life. It happens in its own way. I have to roll with the punches instead of trying to control how the punches are rolling.

Note Taken

When I'm in the mood, I like to go back through my previous blogs from the same month in previous years. For example, I just looked through my blogs from the last few years during the month of December. I guess I didn't realize how incredibly depressing I usually am...or at least in the month of December. Holy crap. Even in 2005 I was all "Whoa is me" and jazz. And I was in college then! Before the real world actually started! I am a pansy.

This is something I should work on. Note taken.

Half-way

Optimism is how I roll in most situations. I am, usually, a glass half-full type person. But I recently realized that there are times when half-way just doesn't count, doesn't matter, and just seems to cause more frustration.

I am usually the kind of person to applaud any effort because, in my mind, I never really know what's going on in another persons life. Maybe that half-effort is all they really have left in them. Who am I to judge? But maybe supporting that is more like encouraging that and allowing someone to not give their best. Maybe I'm an enabler.

There's no award for half-way making someone a lasagna or half-way doing the laundry. So you got part of the way there? Big deal. Try again. Sometimes, half-way just doesn't cut it.

Tight Pants

Sometimes I have this insane and unhealthy urge to leave everyone and everything I know and run away...to Mexico or Alaska or somewhere else. Like the other night, for example, I got frustrated with husband so instead of talking it out like a normal person, while he was in the shower, I grabbed my keys and made a run for it. I wasn't going anywhere important. I wasn't going anywhere really. I could just feel the walls starting to close in and I knew I had to get out...to take a breath...to stretch my legs. So I drove down the street and ended up getting lost in my thoughts. He wasn't so happy to get out of the shower and find both me and the car missing. And I can't say I blame him. I wouldn't have had a joyous reaction either. But it was just something I had to do...for my sanity.

And today, I have the urge to grab Him, the dog and my favorite pair of shoes and just go. Where? I don't know. I don't care. I need to get out of this place where I'm trying so hard to find a job, to be a wife, to make friends...and it seems that I'm doing all to no avail. Depressing. I know. Not really what a person wants to read. But I'll tell you what. I'm about done with this forcing a smile and pumping my self up daily just to be shot down and weary at the end. I feel like I'm constantly trying on a pair of pants that don't fit. And it just makes me feel terrible. So...if you know of a place where the pants always fit, please give me that zip code.

Deep Thoughts About Cookies

I've started this post three times now. One time I felt like I was writing something sacreligious. The other time I felt like I was rambling. So this time I'm going to try to do neither.

I've been feeling a little blue about the whole no job and loss of life direction thing. When I feel lost or sad or bored, I bake. Currently the kitchen counters are covered with cookies and bars and these brownie marshmallow things. Well today, during my blue mood, I decided to release the frustration through baking chocolate chip peanut butter cookies. I'm not a huge cookie fan. I have to be in the mood. Today, apparently, I was. So I mixed the batter and plopped those chocolate chunks down on the cookie sheet. I set the timer, carried on about my life and then, like any wonderful baker, I took the cookies out at the appropriate time. I have to say...they looked beautiful. All golden brown with that soft discoloration in the middle, telling you they are done but not too done. So I grabbed a cookie and a short glass of milk because that's what they do on tv. When I bit into the cookie...at that moment I remembered how cool life is. So today I'm glad for lots of things...like the fact that I can walk and see and do laundry. I'm also super glad for delicious warm cookies straight from the oven.

Dear Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookie,
Today you reminded me that life is delicious, bad days fade away and maybe a lack of direction is all I really need to figure out where it is that I'm going. Also, you are very tasty.

Mind-reading Robot

I'm pretty sure I don't know anyone with the ability to read minds but some days I really wish I did. I wish someone could look at me and read my mind to me because I don't really know what's going on with it. Maybe it's just part of being a girl. Or maybe it's just part of being a crazy girl, but most of the time I feel something and I don't know why.

Husband will ask, "What's bothering you?" I will reply, "Nothing." I know something is because I can feel something inside me moving around, changing my facial expression from a smile to a frown. I just don't know what happens to be moving around. And he doesn't understand that not only do I block most emotions but I block the origins of most emotions so while I might be feeling something, I've decided to block out why I'm feeling it or where it came from. It's how I am and I'm not sure why. After a month of marriage with constant mood changes, shouldn't he know that by now?

But instead, he gets frustrated because I won't share my emotions and I get frustrated because he won't leave me alone to figure out what's going on inside my head. Today I decided that it would honestly be easier if someone could read my mind and tell me what I'm feeling and thinking so I wouldn't have to spend my time trying to sift through the wreckage. I tend to store things up inside so when I go digging through them, I run into all kinds of interesting details that I'd rather forget completely.

So when someone invents a robot that can read minds, believe me, I'll be first in line.