That's Just How Much it Costs.

I hate the down to the last grain of rice, one can of canned tomatoes, rotting cucumbers in the vegetable drawer, wondering what I can cook with chicken broth, an egg, and hot sauce from my mom's trip to Mexico in 2010, been using watered down shampoo for a week kind of HAVE to go grocery shopping. I hate it because it means an all day excursion to 4 different groceries and spending more money than can conceivably be justified on food that will be gone faster than you can say "when is pay day?"

The price the stores charge for food is staggering. And while I am extremely grateful that we have money to buy the essentials, I have really had to come to grips with how much things cost. How can the dentist charge so much, the emergency room, the doctors office; why do these wonderful things that do so much good seem designed to punish us for getting sick? Why does opening a bill or passing a police officer while going 5 miles per hour over the speed limit make me breathless?

The truth is that for my own brain to function in the expensive reality of life is to accept that it is just how much it costs and be thankful that I have all the wonderful things I have.

And not to get all crazy philosophical but it is a metaphor for my life.

Each person I have loved, each friend that has come or gone from my life, each pain that I have suffered at the hands of another, an ill wish, a grudge, a wonderful day. They cost me something. Many times, I am willing to pay. It's what I want. Sometimes, I have to bury my head in a pillow and cry my mascara off before my heart will let me accept that I will have to make a payment that feels too great a price.

And sometimes even when I have been exactly the person I thought I should be, done all the right things, been all the things I could be-when I have gone to the wrong store they have made me pay for things I didn't want. But that is just what it costs to have love in your heart, to be a good friend, to do the right thing. Those people will make you stand in the aisle and question the purchase. They will make you put it in the cart and take it out before buying. And after you bring it home it will give you nothing but trouble.

These people make me angry. They make me hurt. They make me wonder if loving and living and being are worth the cost. Why is the exchange for my friendship and loyalty your nastiness?

And I remember that in order for my brain to function in the expensive reality of life I have to accept that it is just how much it costs.

Sometimes trusting people completely, opening your heart to friendship and love is a risky venture to be sure.

I just have to remember that it is worth the cost for the people that it is free for me to love. I have to be thankful for those ones; for a kindred spirit a thousand miles a way, for lovely best friends for an amazing family, for a steadfast, strong, and kind man. And I know that I am blessed.

And I remember that they pay too; the ones that have chosen to be unkind. So always remember when you choose to be ugly that the debt collectors will come knocking.

Germany

The Frankfurt International Airport is the most incredible airport I have ever seen. It is a city under a canopy of glass and metal where you have to take the rail to other terminals. There are restaurants, supermarkets, and carts outside selling German chocolate and pastries. There are trees and bustling people and all the cars lined up along the sidewalk are Audis and Mercedes.

Exhausted from a 10 hour overnight flight in a country where we didn't speak the language, we hopped in a cab where the cabbie took the scenic route to our quirky old hotel and collected his hefty fee. We found ourselves blinking into the sun at The HotelAm Berg:

The Hotel AmBerg

A friendly German fellow greeted us and escorted us up creaky stairs to a simple room (with a shower!) and handed over the skeleton key for the door. I thought the place must be haunted but the ghosts seemed friendly enough and we settled in for our one night stay.

The first photo I took in Europe, the view from the room in Frankfurt

We decided to salvage the rest of the day and went to find something to eat. I will never forget the beautiful roses in the front yards of every row house, the stone streets of the wine district where we stopped for a drink. Cigarettes are sold in vending machines and the smell of marijuana hung briefly in the air around every corner. Everyone was kind to us and we never did find anything to eat. we stopped at a Shell station (oh that beautiful, yellow bastion of America) and bought some snacks. The labels were written in German and we had no idea what we were actually buying and we sat on the couch in our haunted hotel room happily eating what turned out to be plain potato chips and sipping sparkling water.

I didn't realize until looking at this picture later that there

were American flags in the windows of this little pub

Our first real meal in over 24 hours was delicious!

Just one short day in Frankfurt

The next day we boarded a bus to an airport town outside of the city. Imagine my surprise to find that just outside of Frankfurt there are acres and acres of fields. Somewhere in the first hour my mom fell asleep and somewhere between jet lag and wakefulness I became hypnotized by the steady lull of wheels on pavement, by the passing blur of green, and by the kind of moment that comes so rarely that you will hold it in your heart forever.

There is something amazing about listening to a language that you do not understand and as the men behind me spoke to one another in German I thought I would slip into dreaming. But I just listened and was able to find that quiet place that isn't worried or confused. That sees things crisper and cleaner and even more beautiful then they might be when overlaid with stress and anxiety. And in that moment my mom snored, just a little, and I looked at her and I smiled. My mom is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen up close. And she looks the same to me as she always has; and I saw clearer little things I hadn't noticed before. A few white hairs laid against her temple and were tucked behind her ear. There were a few lines in the olive skin next to her eyes from too many smiles. I could hear her laughter and her voice. Her opinion and her love that I always seek and find. There is nothing in the whole world (and I know, because now I have seen it!) more precious than a good mother.

They say we all become our mothers and I can only hope that it is true. Everything I hope to be is everything my mother has been, always.

I learned a lot more on my trip than I even knew :) And now, more gratuitous photos from Germany.

I went on an early morning jog about 3 miles down this path along the road

in Lautzenhausen. All along the pavement there were slugs! I didn't figure that out 

until I was stepping in them.

LAUTZENHAUSEN

A blog for tomorrow

The world is still with the warmth of my own energy. And sleep evades me as it always does when I am feeling impervious to reason. I think of friendships; old, new and recovered. I think of love; lost, abandoned, and unrequited. My soul feels a thousand things that cannot be put into thoughts. And I must, I must, I must write because the burden is too heavy to leave it all unsaid.

It's been a while since I wrote a blog. My heart has been light with content. I have been participating in the things that are good for me. Yoga and hot tea. Falling in love with lovely souls. But all this trust in things going well makes me worrisome.

As I think on everything and nothing a quiet discontent grows in my chest. I can feel it building like fearful thoughts; one "what if" on top of another until my eyes close tight as if to ward it all off. This is my space that I have created. To let someone in happens slowly. Tentatively. I have learned that I am not as willing as I used to be to disregard the potential for heartbreak. Letting people into this space is more scary than it used to be. I used to think it's because I am somehow jaded but I truly think that it is because the space is so much deeper than it used to be. And cluttered. It makes me interesting and quirky but it also makes me scared that whoever I invite in to this hoarder's heart will find the fault there. Here I have to stop myself and start to climb out of the bottom of my space or be subjected to contemplate only the things I have done wrong.

I breathe deep, the clutter starts to shift, and I struggle into the lighter part of the space, where I usually reside. I remember who I am and who loves me and all the people I love. All the things that are real.

Life is beautiful, now don't you forget it!

Anyone out there?

That's right. You've got it. I AM BACK! I know, you're so excited. Of merely secondary importance in the history of the universe, a new blog post written and directed by yours truly. There hasn't been anything this big since James Cameron defied logic by killing Leonardo DiCaprio whilst simultaneously sinking the biggest ship evs.

 Which brings me to my next point; I went to Europe this summer. Like actually went. I didn't do that thing where the spirit leaves the body and travels the world.. It's called astral projection and it's a real thing. I am not an expert, but I am telling you that you should definitely Wikipedia that shit. I swear this is a point to this. I swear the point is not that I have spent too much time on the Craigslist and therefor and unable to put together a coherent sentence.

The point of the above paragraph is to illustrate very non articulately the following formula: Airplane+Europe=Magic. No really. I am not making this up but you have to know the back story to understand this. YOLO, so read this now because it might be your last chance to hear this very important story about my life.

 I read a book, which one occasionally does, when I was 18 called Outlander. It is hard to explain the whole premise but basically:

 Claire Randall, a married combat nurse from 1945 who is mysteriously swept back in time to 1743, where she is immediately thrown into an unknown world where her life is threatened. When she is forced to marry Jamie Fraser, a chivalrous and romantic young Scottish warrior, a passionate relationship is ignited that tears Claire's heart between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives. (I copied this from IMDB, so what)

Got it? Good. "But how did she end up back in time," you ask. Obviously she stepped through a split stone in an ancient stone circle. It happens all the time and I don't understand why you had to ask. The book takes place in the Highlands of Scotland so of course I strapped on my hiking backpack and my mom pulled her suitcase and we headed northward from Edinburgh to Inverness.

Now, I don't know if you have ever driven on the wrong side of the car, on the wrong side of the road, shifting gears with the wrong hand, in a gigantic city you don’t know...but it was terrifying and I wasn't even driving. Inverness is such a lover's city but I was being sort of a brat because I was homesick and about to start my period or something so I think I ruined the first night there. Sorry Mom. But after that it was really amazing. Really. Wow. I took public transportation to Culloden Field which was really super fun because the bus driver was sexy and had a fun accent and said, "where are you from?" And I asked him to marry me and he said yes. JK. I got to Culloden and all joking aside. Whoa. It was beautiful. And haunting. It is really hard to put into words. It was lovely and clear that day but you could really see the freezing, starving highlanders pushing their way across the field; fighting until they had no fight left.

If you study the rising you know what a serious impact this had on the lifestyle of the people; it quite literally changed their way of life forever. I spent all day there. They have done an amazing job with the visitors center; tons of information, presentations, and guided tours of the battlefield. Then I walked to the Clava Cairns. I passed sheep and highland cattle, and rabbits until I found myself in this shady grove. This is where many people believe the inspiration is for the split stone from the novel and hundreds of people travel there dreaming that the stone will sweep them away too, to their destiny. I spotted it almost immediately through the mossy trees and giant roots. I walked toward it with purpose and for one completely silly moment I believed that I would be gone. As I stretched my hand toward it, I knew I would wake up in the past. I held my breath. And as I pulled my hand away, I sighed and chuckled to myself. I am ridiculous.

The bad (ish) news is that I was still in 2013 but the good news is that at 26, I still believe in magic. And my destiny? It's mine to find. Mine to embrace. Life is so stinkin' cool. I hope you all had a totally magical summer. I know I sure did.

"The" One.

My Facebook marital status has been "single" for over two years now. It seems almost impossible that it has been that long. But the months go by whether we will it or no and in that time I have given A LOT of thought to what I am looking for in "the one". Wakefulness was keeping me tossing and turning last night and I started to put all these little thoughts together and I wrote them down in my journal which is filled with much more juicy detail than I would ever dare put here but I wrote the following summation at last:

I will wait for someone who has armored himself with the strength and presence of a man. Who, underneath, is filled with tenderness, good humor, and love. And when the hard day is done I can look to and trust because his core is composed of the sort of honor that separates men from boys.

Those are really big shoes (preferably covering the feet of someone tall and handsome but I am really not as picky on that front). There are certain conversations I just am not willing to have with my future spouse. They are things I won't need to tell him because they are as intrinsic as the quiet comfort of a darkening horizon.

I don't expect that things will be perfect or even close but in the infinite wisdom of my best friend, "you don't have to compromise on being married to a grown up."

And I don't intend to...anymore. We accept the love we think we deserve. When I opened my heart to this one line, social media repost my choices became limited, sure, but the sort of love I am destined for became the kind capable of gripping the soul and spanning a lifetime. And my heart can't settle for anything less.

Book Club?

I remember reading my first romance novel. Stolen (borrowed) from the overcrowded bookshelving in the office at my parents' house, the yellow front cover displayed two cherubic angels pulling back lace curtains to reveal a Victorian style bassinet and proclaimed the title in huge red lettering, Nobody's Baby But Mine.

I don't remember much about the book really except that it was about a really smart woman who wants to have a baby with someone dumb because she doesn't want her child to be ostrasized by society for being a braniac. Then it turns out that the not-so-smart professional quarterback whose child she carried was actually *gasp* SUMMA CUM LAUDE at his very prestigious, ivy league school. And imagine her surprise! But then they forgive each other, get married, and live happily ever after (with a few super steamy sex scenes, of course.)

And I don't know how many Jude Deveraux novels I read after that. There is one I remember specifically for some reason called Twin of Ice. His name is Kane Taggart. Her name is Houston Chandler. You already must know where this is going even just knowing their names but at the end of the most scandalous chapter my 16 year old eyes had ever beheld Kane Taggart stands up with pebbles stuck to his backside (imagine!) creating the dimpled look common to sitting on wicker.

The truth is, no matter how cheesy, I have not met a book I didn't like. Except for anything I had to read in high school English. No Mrs. Boch-Parker, I would not like to read this meandering, pointless novel written by a manic depressive feminist. Being on Hitler's blacklist does not make you a good writer...well, unless your Anne Frank because she is amazing. Okay, so maybe I am being too hard on Virginia Woolf but I hated that book and I was pretty sure that my teacher knew I only read half the Spark Notes version.

The only exception to the high school syllabus reading exception is THE EPIC OF GILGAMESH which I don't think counts because watching a classroom full of teenagers look on horrified as the words "scented bush" are read aloud makes me lol even ten years later.

Really, long story short I want to start a book club. Because I am obsessed with books. And I want to talk about them with people. Would anyone want to do it? We could do it online as a Facebook group even?

PLEASE!?

We to me.

Anyone who has ever gone through a serious break up probably knows the long process it takes to truly "get over" that person. In the first days, you forget that you aren't together and reach for the phone to call them before you remember you can't. It makes your heart hurt down to your finger tips where you ache to dial their number. And it doesn't really matter if you were the break up-er or the break up-ee. If you truly loved that person, whatever the reasons, it just flat out sucks.

Weeks and months go by and you might still be fighting. Everything you see, think, or do seems to rip open the fresh wounds. You might see them in the grocery and it shakes you to the core.

Because there is anger, annoyance, frustration, pain and then, hopefully, a tentative forgiveness until you talk very little or not at all.

Somewhere in that time I assumed a new identity. Instead of referring to myself constantly as "we" I began to say "I". Me. I scarcely knew what that meant. I had been in one relationship or another for so long I had never developed a full sense who I am; what I want.

I was afraid. Of doing the wrong thing. Of someone being disappointed in me. Of being alone. But if this season of of life has taught me anything it is this:

Stop waiting for other people to tell you it is okay to live.


And I will be in Scotland on my 26th birthday. And Germany before it and Ireland after. And I am going to stop waiting to start living. Every decision I have made has been influenced by someone else. I guess that is the way it always goes but the problem is that I have been dangerously susceptible to not believing in myself. And I do now. I believe in myself.

Me. And that's okay with me. How freeing.