State of the Union --Vulnerability Hangover Pending

LaFou, I'm afraid I've been thinking... A dangerous pastime-- I KNOW

I think I'm a better long distance friend than I am in person. There are very few exceptions to this rule. Very few people that I've allowed to see me vulnerable in person. That I've been completely myself around.  That I can tell the things that you don't tell other people to --the happiest thoughts and greatest fears and depressing thoughts. Tell them, like verbally, in person. I can count them on one hand. One literal hand. On the other metaphorical hand however, there are countless people that I keep in touch better with over long distance. Social media. Text message. That I can be more myself through written and digital communication only. And it's not them, it's me. At least mostly, I think. Maybe it's just another expression of my preference to compartmentalize my life?

...

I had a full on chest-tightness, palpitations, and tachypnea panic attack the other day in the middle of Wicked at The Pantages Theater in Hollywood. Why? Because I don't have a house and what if I don't have my house paid off by the time I retire --by the time my mom was my age she and my dad had owned a home for twelve years... and what if I don't have enough money saved for retirement and I really should be more... No, Stop. It's fine... Besides, it's not like I need to have money saved to put children through college, so there's that...

...

Running hasn't been enough lately. For the past few days I've woken up on the queen bitch side of the bed. None of my usual tricks work to snap me out of it. The other day I had met my four-letter word quota for the day before I had even opened my eyes thanks to the obnoxious tropical birds outside my window (first world problems) (and have you ever seen Failure To Launch?)

• Failure to Launch

   (2006)
  Buy at Amazon
• • Time - Phrase
  • 00:20:45 They can imitate car alarms, and telephones, and other birds.
  • 00:20:48 I called Animal Control, and you know what they said?
  • 00:20:50 They said I should just enjoy one of nature's most talented singers.
  • 00:20:54 -Yeah. -I'm gonna kill it.
  • 00:20:58 Okay, I'm all set.

Anyways, I stomped out of bed, caught up on the important goings-on of the world while I was sleeping (checked in with twitter and instagram) and grumpily decided to go for a run. It wasn't enough. My legs protested, my lungs burned, my stomach threatened to overturn itself and I was still mad at some unknown entity. So I kept going. I got to the end and still didn't feel any better, which just made me more mad --where were my endorphins dammit?! I threw my hands in the air and cried. Yep. Cried. Walking from the running path to the beach --tears streaming from underneath my sunglasses. And as if from nowhere I said to myself ...or maybe as a prayer of sorts... "I can't do this anymore! I can't do life by myself anymore, I need people!" Life is just hard sometimes, ya know? I kept walking, and kept crying, waiting for the sun-drenched sand to work it's magic. Then because God is funny, the next song on my Pandora was "Big Girls Don't Cry." Which actually did make me laugh... and the tears did stop. I appreciate humor. Then I made it to the beach and saw the most beautiful low tide, and I was ok.  I am ok, and I will be ok. Why is it so hard to need people?  Maybe I need to read THIS article again...

Hello Old Friend

New York. What is it about you?!  I'm having the most glorious day off today. I worked my hind end off at work all weekend, so I didn't feel too guilty about sleeping for ten (or twelve) hours last night. Then I woke up, brewed myself some english breakfast tea in my Keurig (best Christmas gift ever) Added some fresh organic locally grown lemon to my authentic Top Pot (from Seattle) mug, and sat down to watch part of the SNL 40 special from last night while I finished waking up. And then I cried. Because there was a montage about the greatness of New York City set to the tune of Alicia Keys. And it floored me. Because I miss it so much. And I kind of don't understand. I mean, I get it because it really is the greatest city in the world. I just wonder when the pull will loose it's strength. When the compulsion to go will weaken. It's still as strong as it was the very first time I set foot in the city --a bright-eyed and oh so naive early twenty-something year old. Or rather, the first time I got home from the week I spent there. It was literally like part of my soul was missing. I clung with tears to every clip shown of the city on every minuscule commercial, the yearning was almost overwhelming. I had to go back. And go back I did. And I lived there. And I vacationed there. And I lived there. And it was HARD. And I hated it. And I've never loved anything more. And it was over for a while. Or so I thought. I thought I was done with this obsession. Not that I didn't love it, I just thought I had played it out, ya know? But it's not so. There is something that just calls to me. Still. It's deep  and it's real. Maybe it's time to go back? I don't know.  But I do know that I will never be done with New York. I can't imagine ever visiting and saying, "Ok. I've done this, I don't need to come back." I can't imagine ever bidding farewell and saying thanks for the good times, never to return. I. Just. Can't. Say. Goodbye. I don't want to. I've been a lot of places and seen a lot of amazing things. And for the most part I dislike going on vacation to somewhere I've already been. Each place I go, I like to do it so well that I'm done. I can cross it off my list. On to the next new adventure. Greece was that way. It was the trip of a lifetime, but now it's done. I've been there. I don't need to go back. New York is the singular exception to this rule. I. Will. Never. Be. Done. With. You. Any of it. I will never be done with the smell and the garbage and the rats and the dirty underbelly. I will never be done with the way the sunlight filters down through the skyscrapers of possibility, and the endless hope and possibility that glitters through the ambition and drive and pulse of the buildings and the powerhouses within them. I will never be done with the rush of the subway and the strength of the people passing by. I will never be done with balconies overlooking the Hudson at sunset and the horizon across the rooftop at dawn. I will never be done with the raw realism, the superfluous shredding of all things facade, and the hard as stone truth that lies beneath. I will never be done with you New York. And I don't know why. No thing worth having comes easy. No transformation for the better is not in-part painful. And I wouldn't trade it for anything. I don't even try to shake the continual drive to go back. For a week at a time, or for a year at a time. Who knows. You crawled inside me so long ago and I can no longer tell which parts of me aren't you. So even as I leave these ramblings of my mind to go for my sunset jog on the warm sun-drenched beaches of LA, you are with me. I love my life here too, don't mistake my love for New York as a dislike of the beauty that is my west coast life too... A friend once told me, "For the love of God! Just pick a coast!" Haha! But... just... what is it about you?!