Goooood morning!

Art Nouveau Cast Iron Frame - Daydreaming Woman

It's 10:45am, and I'm just starting to feel awake. All my life, I have forced myself to be an early-riser, and now as an adult, I'm finding that that may not actually be who I am. I've just started watching this eBay shop for what they're selling, and have been enjoying looking over the art that they sell. I need to get a bunch of things together to ship this morning, and then I'm going to do some thrifting, see my Salvation Army pals.

I left pancake batter out for a couple days after I didn't use it all. After one day, it made good pancakes. After two days (i.e. just now, this morning), it was disgusting. Lesson learned. I may eat a lot of pancakes for a normal person who does not live in a diner. I'm okay with that. I decided a long time ago that if I want to eat pancakes, I will make them whole wheat/buckwheat, and I won't feel guilty. I will feel awesome for taking care of myself so well.

Someone confronted me about reselling over the weekend, and I responded without ire (very proud of myself for this). "Is that even legitimate?" "Yup", I responded, "without question". This is, at its essence, what all wholesalers do. Office Depot does not make all of its products. Junk warehouses make money from people digging through their wares. This is part of the economy. If you pay attention, it's happening all around you. Farmers sell their produce through stores. I'm all about buying direct, giving business to the little guy, and I'd like to remain in that role. I'd like to be the little guy who collects cool stuff to offer to people who happen to be looking for it, but don't have the time and energy to thrift constantly. I'd like to offer a service to people who love the hunt, but want to hunt on a larger scale (not everyone has thrift stores on every corner). Anyhoo, I was reinvigorated for my task at hand, and will enjoy the hunt that much more today (when I get off my butt and get down to it, of course).

I attend an amazing church that talks about refugees, and yesterday we talked about the Old Testament, the book of Jeremiah, and the realities of war refugees then and now. Please take a moment to read the most recent news about Syria, and consider making a donation to MCC, currently providing direct aid to Syrian refugees.

Does failing make you a failure?

Original Framed Oil on Canvas Painting

Today I am considering the idea that failing does not inherently make me a failure. I'm a person who wants to make everything right, do everything well. I don't consider myself a perfectionist. I am capable of letting little things go, and not agonizing over little trifles, but in the great land of "Being an Adult", I am finding that these skills only need to be amplified, strengthened, continually over time. It's not like a plateau we reach, where everything after that is straight ahead without potholes.

Perhaps I never would have identified this as a characteristic in myself, but I have been acting as though I'm finished as a person, that everything should be perfect now that I'm a fully functioning adult. I've been living in an imperfect body, with an imperfect mind, and wearing clothing that is imperfect, even selling things that are imperfect. Yet I have been expecting more from myself than I expect from anyone, or anything, else.

Now I'm going to sit in a pile of my own imperfection and hope it melds with my thrifty self. See you later :)

So yeah, this is me.

Vintage Crewel Embroidery Kit :)

I feel alone right now. I feel alone in a way that is new, not terribly painful, but strange nonetheless. I have, for the past twenty-some odd years, sought to demand love from other people. I have done this in a variety of ways, and have failed, miserably, time and time again. I have wanted desperately to fill holes in my heart that were never filled, holes that make me feel weak and vulnerable, scared and crazy. I have tried to get other people to fill them for me. Let me be perfectly clear: this does not work.

Now, all that "love yourself first" and "self-love" bullshit is true. I believe it. I call it bullshit because I think people use it to avoid pain sometimes, to mask a carnal dependency we all have as human beings. We all need other people. We all need relationships. But we cannot make other people love us if they don't. We just can't. I can't. I want to, but I can't. I want the people who I love to love me back, to feel as deeply as I do, to cross that relational barrier that divides us all. But this doesn't always happen. It actually happens very rarely, and that's okay.

The answer to that is not to turn inward and avoid befriending, coffee time-ing, and generally reaching out to other people. It may be appropriate to take a moment to deconstruct the reasons why a relationship didn't work out. It may help to make stronger decisions in the future. But it doesn't mean that we quit loving others, ever, or that we avoid the intimacy that got us tangled up in the first place. I've fallen down so many times now in romantic relationships that I don't want to get back up again. I don't want to bother. I'm a big fat failure, and I want to turn in my "coupling" card. I want to stop pouring my heart out to people who don't love me. I want to stop loving people who can't love me back. I want to stop obsessing over things I have no control over.

I think loving yourself means filling up your own damn holes, and then reaching out again to find someone who honors them.

Everything is okay. I'm not insane.

Thrift store oil painting - there's just something about it I love :)

I had a less-than-wonderful day yesterday. Maybe it's the pending end-of-the-world. Maybe it's the fog, or the rain, or the fiscal cliff. Maybe it's the holiday season. Maybe it's the last month of unnecessary and expensive medical tests. Maybe it's female hysteria.

Whatever it was, it was something I'd done before, and something I'll do again. So I went and hung out with my favorite teenagers and the dogs. I went to bed early. I left work early. I wandered my favorite thrift store until Bruno Mars came on the radio and I had to flee. I took pictures of inventory in my driveway. I made jokes to make myself laugh. I reflected a wee bit about the source of my bad feelings. I listened to talk radio and Madman Across the Water. I did the things that make me feel better, bit by bit.

So that's life sometimes, and it's okay, to be sad and a little crazy sometimes. I'm probably a little crazier that most people, but I'm pretty fond of myself most of the time.

Hope all is well with you. Peace out mofos :)

Perhaps all is not lost.

Vintage, handwoven, Scotland, mohair, hot pink!

...And one more thing: Don't think that the great love which was once granted to you, when you were a boy, has been lost; how can you know whether vast and generous wishes didn't ripen in you at that time, and purposes by which you are still living today? I believe that that love remains so strong and intense in your memory because it was your first deep aloneness and the first inner work that you did on your life...

Rainer Maria Rilke (Letters to a Young Poet - #7)