Maybe we are the lucky ones, the ones that sleep alone.

We can love as many people as we want. Spread our time over time zones. Have the covers to ourselves in our fitful sleep. Watch a lot of episodes of 30 Rock and spend our allowance on fine cheeses.

We're really over-thinking this.

Friday in Des Moines

I know I always crack up Iowa to be really oustanding, but even those expectations are too low for how I really feel when I am here.

Loved and cherished. Surrounded by beauty and everything smells good. With my sweet Judy who never stops making me laugh and loving life.

I am a wholly optimistic person when I'm here. I wish I could bottle it up and take it home to the me that is always trying to escape, but sometimes I think God just wants me to taste a small taste of Heaven so I know what we're fighting for back in the trenches.

and the next day and the next

This is the part of the movie where the montage and the sad song are done playing, and you have to pick yourself up and have a cup of coffee and return proofreading projects, go to second interviews, show up at work and pretend you're not going to interviews. Go to the studio, record Christmas music with your band. Finish busy work for The Internship you seriously thought was over. Buy macaron and scarf them before you even get out of the parking lot. Laundry, laundry, and your regular hair color is starting to show through.

I don't have time to go on vacation, but I'm going to anyway. And after that, I have this vision that I'll be all sorted out and work less hours, and sit in an armchair and read a book. Stop biting my nails. Get this job that I want so bad. Go running again. Write handwritten letters. Go to parties. Just my usual life that I've been missing, but with more holidays and Sabbaths.

Here I come, ready or not.

don't swallow the cap

I'm writing this post during the day, firstly because I am awake, and secondly because I know I won't get as morbid.

Sometime around midnight, I lost my dog to an early death of disease. Last night I didn't really want to face what it would feel like to come home from work today and not have her waiting for me at the door. Not getting to go on a run with her anymore. Not taking naps together.
My eyes feel like I was punched in the face at a bar fight, even though I was home most of the weekend weeping, and I learned enough in 2009 to know that drinking just puts off the grief until later.

As my dad took her to be mercifully euthanized, I couldn't help but say out loud, "God, why are you stripping blessings away from me one by one?" And then I read Job and felt ashamed.

God is good, and I have to learn like a child, over and over again that we're all going to die. We're all going to hurt, but that we are meant to live life for Him while we still have it, to rejoice and to praise Him because He is merciful, and He deserves it.

Revelations 21:4
"He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away."

I hope that it teaches me to appreciate what I do have right now.

Pressing onward.

yet it is well with my soul

God works in mysterious ways.
God gives, and then He takes from me.
Jenny Lewis


But God is ultimately good. And it is well with my soul.

passing trains

Makensy: So anyway, I heard in highschool she had a tattoo of her own name on her back, so I said, "Yeah, some tattoos are so dumb! I heard of this girl who had a tattoo of her own name, isn't that stupid?!" And she said, "Maybe it was special to her." And I said, "Stupidest thing I ever heard!"
Me: Oh my gosh, Makensy. You are crazy.
Makensy: I think God gave me a special gift of being good at getting revenge.
Me: I don't know if that's really a thing.

I am done with The Internship.
Here's to life after nightly phone calls to people who don't want to hear from me. Here's to remembering to wash all the shampoo out of my hair before I get out of the shower. Here to maybe getting to the gym a few days a week now. Here's to spontaneous dinners with friends again.

I'm sitting in my bathrobe at 1:55pm and waiting on a phone interview call.
My boss asked me this morning if I was looking for other jobs and I answered her honestly that I kind of was, slowly, and she sighed a really long sigh and then stared into my soul. Her eyes are the only thing left about her that still look young and vital, but her kids and 2 jobs and health problems are killing her slowly.
"I love working here," I told her, "But I have to think about my future since I'm alone, and Starbucks isn't going to pay all my bills forever. If you could pay me $15 an hour, I'd stay."
"Maybe I should get another job too," she said, rubbing her face with her hands. I ate my Spaghettios and nodded.



Let's take a nap instead of thinking so hard.

doppio con panna

I saw Celisse after 9 days of not seeing her and barely texting her, and I realized that we still didn't have that much to tell each other because we are both on a marathon of working 50 or 60 hour weeks.

I'm juggling a lot of bosses, and emails, and to-do lists, but coming out of the sickness (flu?) I am so grateful for everything.

It is a good thing to work. You don't have time to wax philosophical or realize that your favorite month (September) disappeared into a cloud of phone calls and that you hit your one year anniversary of the love affair with Europe, or that two years ago you were in your beloved senior year of college.

And the paychecks show up in your account so that you can get the hell out of here again one day.
It's actually pretty great to be single with no responsibilities. I remembered again this week.