spent so much time underground, i guess my eyes adjusted

Well, put this little nugget in the "it’s-about-goddamn-time" category.

you love me and that’s all that i can think of right now

This article on appreciation really makes sense to me. Marianne Williamson has a great lecture on this subject and I think it’s worth thinking about and acting on. See how much you can "baby" someone in your life this week, especially strangers. They’ll love it, and I bet you will, too.

Speaking of babies………. it’s mighty hard to believe, but mine is turns 1 this week!!

More on that later!

and you’ve got something that i can’t resist

I can’t believe the Christmas “break” is over.

I’ve had such a fun four days, and I must say this was the most low-key, yet pitch-perfect Christmas Day ever. Since I’ve become an adult, I must admit I’m not a holiday person. I don’t think my parents were into the holidays either. I remember one Christmas at my dad’s when we got a tree and maybe one at my mom’s when we got a tree. We never had stockings or stuff like that, and no holiday traditions that we participated in. The older I get, the odder this seems. I was a brat, though, when I was a kid. I never got what I wanted and I always pitched a fit.

I think when I was a kid, I always thought that Christmas would be the reward for all the stuff I had to deal with in my family. But it was never ever enough, and I know that it could never be enough. Ah, angst.

I always say that my 20s were my favorite decade, and lately I think that it’s because my 20s were when i finally got to enjoy myself a little, have fun, get love and do my own thing without having to worry (as much) about the crap I had to deal with when I was a kid. Now, I think I’m finally growing up. I’m able to appreciate people more, I am inclined to put up with less bullshit, I’m more OK being me, and know that I’m OK no matter what happens.

Well, I guess the older I get, the cheesier I become, but the truth is that waking up with my boyfriend in my arms on Christmas morning was the best present I received in years. I knew I was in the right place, doing the right thing, being the right me. We had the best day, just us, and presents and food and sweetness and it flew — FLEW — by. I think I can appreciate the gift of time, of someone’s PRESENCE in your life, in your day, in a way I never could before. For me, it’s a new level of maturation and it makes me extra excited about how I will meet all the surprises 2006 will bring.

seasons wait for you not

One of my top 10 lists will be my TOP 10 EXPERIENCES of 2005. I’ll roll these out every so often throughout the end of the year, counting down to my favorite experience of the year. These are the moments that stick out when I glance back over my calendar…

#7 :: The Ebb & Flow of Friendship

I’ve thought a lot about friendship this year and re-evaluated a lot of my relationships. Does it feed me on any level? What do I get out of it? What do I bring to it? Is it working or just floating along on residual energy for years? Is it fun? I firmly, FIRMLY, believe that people are the stuff of life. It’s all about relationships, but when you start to drift away from someone, how do you know when to just let it drift? I used to hold on for dear life, but now I just tend to let them drift………………

I made this post a year ago and, despite a few notable exceptions , it still largely captures the way I feel:

the more i am away from the things i love, the more i realize i don’t need them. i miss my guitar tonight, feel like it has something to say to me, but it is not here. five minutes pass and i realize that it’s ok. i’d probably just play the same old songs over and over again. i’ve been stuck on two lately: arrow by mae moore and is this it? by john flor sisante….i could just play them for hours… it’s weird though how songs have their life. next week i probably won’t even think of those songs when i sit down to play. last month it was edie carey’s under a sky. over the summer it was why must i by til tuesday.

i talked to frances on the phone tonight for the first time since about january. she asked me to give her away at her wedding next year. weird, how we used to talk every day on the phone and i’d spend every thanksgiving with her and her family. the older i get, the longer i live, the more i realize i don’t need anything. i don’t mean that in a hard way, but i don’t need anyone in any certain form doing any certain thing for any period of time. i sometimes feel like i do with every fiber of my being, but i don’t. i really don’t.

In short, I’m changing, evolving the way I do my life and the way I show up for it. I might appear to be less happy to others, or less available, or less open to their advice and opinions. The truth is, I don’t want your advice or opinion unless I ask for it.

I’m angry more, I feel pettier sometimes, I notice a stronger tendency to complain, but I think my evolving connection to the friends in my life mirrors the ways in which I yearn to feel a wider range of feelings as I move through my day-to-day life. It just feels more honest. Uncomfortable, too, sometimes, but worth it to feel more complete and true to myself.

I don’t want to be boxed into being a certain way that I know I’ve trained people to expect from me. I want to be me, and the other people to be them, and the rest is gravy.

maybe i was first, maybe you were first, it doesn’t really matter

“An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.”

I just googled this favorite quote of mine and found several sources that attribute this to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Who knew?

so i ran further than i thought and you can’t find me

This horoscope from MSN is freakishly on target:

You have covered a lot of ground lately. You will cover a lot more this week. You won’t necessarily go anywhere different. You may not do anything special. Inwardly, though, you will feel as if you are living in a different world. After all your years on this planet, you are starting to make sense of a subject that has long confused you.

With each passing day, you understand more about what you are capable of, how you could change your life and what magic your future could hold. You are nervous of this possibility. You don’t want to set yourself up for a disappointment. There is, though, nothing false about the progress you are now making. Trust it.

and this “we are one” crap as you’re invading

"In the end, it’s about how fucking hard it is to love somebody, to really be intimate, to really let go and be open to that, no matter what the context." — Jake Gyllenhaal, on "Brokeback Mountain."

just to see how hard you can make me cry…

What a twisty, sort of screwed up day. I’m trying to sleep, but I can’t, so I figured I’d type.

I’m such a dork!, but I think about Anne Frank during times like these:  She refused to give up on the good in people, despite betrayal.

Tonight, it seems like this poem i wrote bears re-running.

El Norte

frozen sheets
fall away
into epic shards
on oil-stained asphalt

inside, glaciers
shift in an
unexpected ice age

meltfreezemelt
until winter
is all that can be trusted

rocky crevasses
conceal
tectonic plates
sliding imperceptibly
along hidden seams

rearranging
earthen memories
of a lost continent

– lucas miré, 03/04/05

I’ll write about tonight’s Tegan and Sara concert tomorrow, if I’m up to it.