Palest Ink

According to Marion’s blog, an end of year post is obligatory, and according to Monique’s blog, a listing of 25 things about yourself is in short order. SO, I have decided to share 25 things about my past year, in order to be more efficient. Or lazy. Whichever.

1. This past year has turned my entire life upside down. Not necessarily a bad thing, since I hate to be bored.
2. This year I have become much more self-confident.
3. I have lost and then regained about 12lbs this year.
4. I decided this year to make my photography business focus on the art that I love producing, instead of boring stuff that is a dime a dozen.
5. I got a cat (or rather Larry and I both did). My first since early childhood.
6. I used internet on my phone for the first time. Now I am addicted to my iPhone.
7. I have learned to eschew extremes in favor of balance (ie trying to stick with a 100% raw diet in a cooked world).
8. I have gotten addicted to stupid internet games. Hmmm, sounds like a New Year Resolution to me.
9. I “discovered” indie music.
10. I loved two men at the same time.
11. I realized that my families approval or disapproval can’t keep me from being myself.
12. Discovered that my family is not nearly so judgmental as I had imagined.
13. I went skinny-dipping for the first time.
14. I realized how dependent I had become when I finally got a car of my own and noticed how weird it felt to drive myself somewhere alone.
15. I have noticed that I can be a bit indecisive.
16. I moved out of my first house, back into an apartment, and realized that I didn’t really mind living in an apartment.
17. For the first year ever, I can say that every wedding I shot turned out really well.
18. I lost all respect for a high school friend who could not recognize what my favor to her cost.
19. I got my second root canal.
20. I went to the East Coast for the first time.
21. I got a desk with space beneath it for my legs, after working the same job for 6.5 years without one.
22. I rented my first photography studio
23. I left my 2nd husband, even though we still love each other on some level.
24. I did not have a Christmas tree or give anyone in my family a gift.
25. I learned a lot about myself and life and my own ability to step outside the box.

So there you have it, 2008. I survived. 2009, bring it on.

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She was my best friend all through high school. We went thrift store shopping together, planned the band we were going to start, and shared everything, including Nate, our mutual ex-boyfriend.

Then, ten years ago, I moved away, and our lives changed. We saw each other once, about 6 years ago, which was nice but a bit awkward, and then managed to lose touch.

Several months, through the magic of facebook, we found each other again. I told her in an email a bit about what was going on in my life, something I was nervous about doing because my values have changed so much since we were close. I didn’t hear back, and wondered if that meant rejection. I started planning my trip back to Minnesota for Dad’s wedding,  and figured it was worth the risk asking if she wanted to see me while I was there.  Her response, “Absolutely!!! Give me a call.”

I did just that on Saturday. We talked for about two hours straight. She has changed too, and we have more in common than I had assumed we would. She wants to stay in touch this time, and I am excited to see her again in February.

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Christmas eve began a bit roughly. Larry was irritated with me over a small thing, and I allowed it to get me irritated as well. I started to cry in the car on the way down to his families house. It started being about the irritation between us, and the fact that it had stolen the little Christmas spirit I had been able to muster. After a few minutes, though, it became obvious there was more to it. Part of me was really sad at spending my first Christmas away from Neal. He may no longer be my sweetheart, but I still care about him and think of him as family. After a little while, I got that out of my system and managed to enjoy my evening with Larry’s family.

That night, after his family went to bed, we jumped into the hot tub. It was still snowing, and the contrast between the snow falling on our heads and the warm water was delightful.

Christmas morning was a flurry of gift opening, mostly the 7,000 gifts for April, the only child in the family. With a maturity beyond her 4 years, she meticulously examined each item, clothing or toy, before moving on to the next. This was humorous at first, until it became obvious that the mountain of presents was hardly shrinking after about an hour.

Gail, Larry’s mom, is quite generous and likes to include everyone equally, whether they are her child or not. She gave me several great books and cd’s, a sonic toothbrush, and a serger. I tried the serger out a little on Sunday, and am excited about how much easier and nicer my seams will be from here on out. My gift for her was a large framed portrait of her family. I took it about a month earlier, under the guise of needing it for my portfolio. She seemed happy and even a little surprised.

All in all, it was a pretty good time. I like that his family is pretty laid back, something mine has never been. Mostly though, I am happy that it Christmas is over for one more year, with all the stress that leads up to it.

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Having been pretty much snowed in since Thursday, I have had an unusual amount of free time this week. Whenever this sort of thing happens (which is not often), my creative juices start flowing, almost a driving need to make something original, anything really.  Perhaps there is something about the mind numbing repetition of going to work that stifles this urge.  You are not aided by creative originality in an environment where you are required to perform the same sorts of tasks over and over. In fact, it may well be a detriment, because you become much faster at things you have done over and over. That is not to say that my job is exactly like a manufacturing assembly line, there are areas where a bit of creativity comes into play. But overall, it is not the prevailing mental operation and therefore must get shut off by my brain.

It may also be related to the different paradigm caused by having your time partially “owned” by someone else. I am sure we can all admit there are things we waste time on at work which we would not at home, simply because it is not on your own time. That then gets you into a sort of momentum pattern at work, a rut, and by the time you get home you can’t break free of it enough to be motivated to create something for dinner, much less make art.

In short, for me at least, having a job is not good for my creative self. At least not a repetitive, mostly non-creative job.  Not that I needed a snow week to tell me that, but it makes for a good reminder anyhow.

Side note: snow days are also excellent for getting housework done.

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I was listening to a podcast from NPR’s This American Life this morning, a program entitled “Heretics”. Aside from being an interesting story, it brought to life my memory of an experience which changed my life. The story talks about the experience of Reverend Carlton Pearson, who also had his life turned upside down when he rejected of the idea of hell.

For those who have never been deeply indoctrinated into Christian theology, I’ll explain a little about how it felt, at least for me. The threat of Hell was interwoven into every aspect of my world view. Even my own mind was completely held captive. When you have always been taught that your beliefs and actions are your salvation from eternal torment, you do not allow yourself the freedom to follow your inclinations, or ask questions, even when two supposed truths contradicted each other. Not only did it shape the way I viewed my own life and the decisions that I made for myself, it completely dominated my perspective of other people. People were not interesting individuals, instead every single person was defined by whether they were saved, or not saved. I KNEW that those in the latter category were destined for an eternity of torment, and thus felt horrible guilt for every moment when I might have said something to someone about Christ, but did not. It was a heavy weight which I always carried, a weight which I was not fully aware of until it was lifted.

The day it happened started out normal enough. I was listening to an audio recording of a preacher, whom I had assumed to be theologically sound according to my standards at the time. The recording started out fine, he seemed normal, even interesting. He knew a lot about the translation of scripture, the history of the bible, things I had never really looked deeply enough into. My walls were down. Then.. the bottom dropped out of the world as I knew it. He gave an extremely logical, scriptural explanation of how the doctrine of hell was false. My head was screaming at me to turn it off, to stop listening, that this guy knew nothing, but my walls were raised too late. My heart had skipped a beat, my muscles frozen in the shock of sudden understanding. I just knew in that moment that Hell could not possibly coexist with a loving God. The possibility of a world without hell, all the possibilities that entailed, flooded over me at once. I was so moved with relief, with the release from the heavy weight I had carried, that I began to cry right there at work.

I had no idea at the time that the doctrine of hell was just the first thread as the sweater began to completely unravel. Reforming my entire world view took years, and was accompanied at times with a sense of vertigo. Not knowing up from down anymore, after having been so certain, was disconcerting to say the least. But the freedom was and continues to be invaluable. The ability to seek truth for myself is something I don’t think I’ll ever take for granted.

Hearing that podcast today, remembering the instant of my emancipation, made me want to celebrate. I only wish I knew the exact date, so I could make something of a personal holiday.

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I actually remembered a dream last night, something which doesn’t happen often enough. It was a strange combination of people,  but most of it was about a boy I knew in high school, who appears in my dreams quite often, despite the fact that we have had very little contact in the past decade. He and I were hanging out with his father, only not his real life father, in something like an army tent with cots. Then we went to a party in a mansion, and he got quite drunk, and I was trying to keep him from gambling too much. As many times as he has been in my dreams in the past, this role is something new. I think perhaps it signals an important change in myself.

Let me rewind a bit:  I was totally infatuated with him in school, but we were just friends. Those years, and many of the years since, I have thought of him with something of a feeling of inferiority. He could never like me, because I wasn’t cool/pretty/skinny/etc enough to attract the attention of somebody like him. I moved away shortly after high school, we were both married and I assumed that whole thing was behind me. Alas, no. He started showing up in my dreams about three years ago. The nature of the dreams varied somewhat, but basically amounted to my seeking validation (often in the form of love) from him, sometimes getting it, and sometimes not.  Then, a few months ago, we had a brief interchange online after he ran into my mother. I mentioned the dreams to her, and she got all excited, saying things like “He is your soul mate!” and “You need to come back so you have a chance to be together”,  and while I did not take her seriously, it did start me thinking about him again. I really considered what it would be like at this point in my life, and realized that I don’t want to lose who I have become since then. The hold he had over me was unhealthy at best, and I would not want to be in a relationship like that, for fear that I would lose myself in deferrence to him.

Then, I had the dream last night, this one different than the ones before. He and I were just hanging out, more like friends and equals, and in the end, he even needed my help. I think it is a good sign that my subconcious is finally coming to appreciate my value.  Incedently, I have also noticed that the thought of him no longer has the same emotional twinge as it has in the past. Funny, I first fell for him in Jr. High(1992) and I am finally over him in 2008. About time, eh?

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So, I know that everyone and their mother have been blogging for decades, so it was inevitable that I start sometime. So here goes, I now have a blog, just like your mom.
My point in doing this is to have a somewhat public forum in which I can be completely transparent, or at least as transparent as I can handle. There are so many people with whom I do not feel like I can be open with, like at work, or around family members with drastically different world views, so this will be a way to feel more free to be myself. Perhaps someday I will feel secure enough to be open with everyone in my life, but this seems like a good place to start. I don’t expect it will have much of a theme other than whatever is running through my head.

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