Countdown...

I will be an aunt in T minus two days :) This makes me happy and I can't freaking wait!!!!!!!! I mean I love being an auntie to several of my friends adoreable babies ...but now it gets to be official! Yay!

Today's "Things"

I knew today was going to be a good day. I got to work and found out that not only was the air conditioner in the staff ladies bathroom fixed (who wants to pee in a sauna? ew), but ALSO, the lady in the cafeteria cut my sandwich in triangles instead of squares. What a good day it was indeed :) And it was a great day at work as well ...as evidenced by our fearless psych counselor ...and remember it's a Monday AND a full moon:

Ah, Marilyn

I know I've quoted this before, it's one of my favorites. It's especially applicable today. "I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you can appreciate them when they're right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together." --Marilyn Monroe.

Trust no one but yourself. I used to be such an optimist. A hopeless romantic, idealist, and optimist. I'm quickly becoming a pessimistic realist. Which is ok, I mean it is what it is... But there's only so many times you can be disappointed in the world before optimism fades to jaded bitterness. I still want to hope, I still want to believe that people are basically good (thanks Anne Frank, I'm trying), but the dark and twisty side of me is putting up quite a battle. One of my favorite Grey's Anatomy moments is from the bomb episode of season two. Meredith is refusing to get out of bed, and is ranting to Christina. "...You never think the last time is the last time, you think there'll be more. You think you have forever, but you don't. Plus, my conditioner decided to stop working and I think I have brittle bones. I just ...I just need something to happen. I need a sign that things are gonna change. I need a reason to go on. I need some hope. And in the absence of hope I need to stay in bed and feel like I might die today." After this Christina kicks Meredith out of bed and tells her, "Whatever! Everybody has problems, now get your ass out of bed and get to work. NOW! MOVE, move move move!" (thanks Wikiquote, you're a great invention :) )

I don't have anyone to kick me out of bed and make me go to work every day. I do however have bills to pay, so I do it. But the point is, things change, people change, they disappoint you, the world is quite a disappointing place. No one's perfect, and eventually you learn to trust your heart and your deep dark secrets to no one but yourself. Don't put people on pedestals because you'll get hurt when they fall off. And they always fall off. So do you, so don't try to climb on any. So all I need now is a sign. A sign that things are going to change. That good things have fallen apart because better ones are falling together. I need a reason to cleave to the last shred of desire to hope for better things. It's out there somewhere. Right?

Alone

Alone and lonely are not even close to the same things. A girl can feel lonely surrounded by millions of people. As anyone who's ever live in New York City can attest. A girl can also feel lonely surrounded by her friends. You can distract yourself from the loneliness by work or workouts or movies or tv or the internet or other activities. A girl needs her friends. A girl needs her girls. She needs them to sit with and to talk with and to help her through. It's true what they say on SaTC, it doesn't matter what you're going through or how long it takes you to make it through, you never get there without your friends. But eventually you are alone. Just you by yourself. Alone. And sometimes you're alone and lonely. But it is in these moments, when you're truly alone that you figure out what you're made of. You've been given the advice, the love, the encouragement, and the support that you need, and you need to be by yourself to figure out what you are and how you work. Alone and lonely is tough. But it doesn't last forever. And eventually when you're able to stand on your own, you're not lonely any more. Even if you are alone.

I'm Back!

I really love vacation, and I really fell in love with the south. Among the things I discovered in North Carolina is a new (to me) band, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals. They played one of the nights at the Bele Chere Festival, and I was hooked. So I came home and downloaded their album to my iTunes. Good stuff. You should really check it out. I went to visit an amazing friend of mine, Serena. I met Serena when we were both travel nurses in Seattle the first time I was here. We were both travel nurses again together last summer at the same hospital. I have since become permanent staff at Valley, and she has since moved home with her husband and step-daughter and has a new three-month old baby and is permanent staff at an ER in NC. We really are two of a kind, Serena and I. Very very very similar. We were raised almost identically. We think the same, we act the same, our mom's are alike, our dads are alike, even our past relationships are nearly identical. I have many great and amazing friends, and I love them all. They are all very wise and have many very wise pieces of advice and moments of insight, and I appreciate it more than they could know. This trip in particular though, I unlocked a key discovery from within myself. During a spur of the moment 2 hour road trip to Charlotte (long story involving multiple flight changes and cancellations) she helped me discover that I just needed to find myself. I have so lost myself in a sea of trying to be what others think I should be. And trying to be what I thought I needed to be to save and hold onto relationships with friends and more-than-friends. When the reality is that if I myself am not 'good enough' then so be it. I don't need you. So, I'm on a new mission. Operation find myself. I'm not sure how to do it or where the journey is going to take me, but I know that it will be somewhere amazing. It's amazing how instantly freed I felt when she said this one sentence. It was so simple and so true. I don't know who 'me' is anymore, but I'm going to figure it out. Ah, sweet freedom. Freedom from expectations of others who don't matter. I am who I am, and I might not know exactly who that is anymore, but I do know that I'm done worrying about what anyone else thinks about who I am.

So, Grace Potter. Was listening to the new album today on the way home, and took note of the lyrics to one of the songs, "Fooling Myself." "Maybe I feel like I'm fooling myself, either that or I'm fooling everyone else... Maybe it's hard just to let it all go, but it's goin' goin' gone right out my door." There it is. An amazing visit with an amazing friend. An amazing self discovery. It's good to be back :)