Get Off the Track

Another Monday is upon us and I am already looking forward to the weekend. Not only do I get to have a three day weekend...Sunday is also my BIRTHDAY! Even though I am not little and don't really have birthday "parties" anymore, I still get really excited about birthdays. I'm turning twenty-five and I can't really believe it. I still feel like sixteen was just yesterday. Twenty-five feels like the age where you become a REAL adult. From 18-21, you are just an extended teenager...either living it up with a max amount of freedom and limited responsibility at college or you are figuring yourself out with the excuse of being young. From 21-24, most people have really just dipped their toes out of the nest and are still in the process of figuring out who they want to be and how they are going to get there. I feel like when you turn 25, you better get your crap together and start your game plan for your major life goals. 

There's a line from a song that says "Well you'd like to think you were invincible. Yeah weren't we all once before you felt loss for the first time." That line always really resonates with me. These past couple of years I have felt tremendous loss. Loss of  family members, loss of my nuclear family unit, loss of my childhood home, loss of close friends, etc. If you have never felt like you are free falling through space, consider yourself extremely lucky. 

One of the oddest things I have realized about growing up is how your perceptions of your family members change. I only had certain perceptions of people based on how they related directly to me.My parents were like the border tires on my go cart track. I could drive like hell but really I was just driving around in a loop. If I got to close to the border, they would just bump me back. I rarely had to think of them as individual people. I still have a hard time with it really. People often say, "At least your parents got divorced when you were grown up." I hate that.  It's like saying "At least so and so died when you were grown up." Your feelings are the same when you are five or forty-five. Those hard things don't get easier with age. One day your parents move all of the tires off your go cart track and tell you to get on the highway. And then you realize you are driving a crappy slow car with no protection trying to go 70 mph alongside semis. It's scary.


When I was little, my perception of my grandparents was endless hugs, blueberry muffins, summer vacations and endless spoiling. When I got older and my needs changed, these relationships didn't. I took notice of new aspects of personalities that I had never noticed before. I didn't need a blueberry muffin or someone to come and pick me up when I called them from time-out. I needed someone to ask me how I was doing and offer me support. I need the hug sometimes in a more figurative type of way. I have realized that a lot of my family has this quality of emotional stoicism. Let me tell you, I do not. I am like an emotional freight train. I have cried through at least three Thanksgiving dinners in the last five years while everyone looks at me nervously and tries to change the subject. As you grow up, you have to figure out how your relationships have to change. It's a very strange feeling.


Even though I still feel lost sometimes (okay a lot of the time), over these past two years I have had to figure out who I am by myself instead of in relation to my family. I have had to refocus my energy on what I want as an individual for my future. I've spent a lot of time thinking about what I want career wise, what things are really important to me ( fancy car or quality time?), and what is important to me in a life partner ( I don't want my future family to experience the heartache that I have). I have had to focus on goals for myself in order to set aside feelings of sadness and change that comes with growing up. I've had to invest in hope for the future.


And now less than a week away from my twenty-fifth birthday, I feel like I have finally accepted that I have to throw away the road map I've been following for twenty five years, draw my own and drive like hell.

Did you know?

Believe me, I want to tell you the WHOLE story of Kyle and I but it would take the special and sacred out. Here's our story via song. 

The story starts back in 2005 when we looked like this....

And we felt like this... Side Walk When She Walks by Alexisonfire

Dressed to kill, you look so right
I am drunk with lust tonight
Your wounds are opening wide
And they might be just my size

Now I'm afraid of open water
But I often bathe in sin
Let's be honest, you know you shouldn't bother
'Cuz with me, it's impossible to win

Dressed to kill, you look so right
I am drunk with lust tonight
Your wounds are opening wide
And they might be just...

There was always
Warmth between us
There was always
Warmth between us

Dressed to kill, you look so right
I am drunk with lust tonight
Your wounds are opening wide
And they might be just my size
Just my size, just my size
Just my size, just my size

Just my size, just my size
Just my size, just my size
Just my size.

But I didn't know...And then this happened..."Light Outside" by Wakey! Wakey!

 I know you want to stay in bed 

But it's light outside  

It's light outside
So know I am going to stay right here 

Because you saved my life once 

You saved my life
And I will try to get you out because it's beautiful outside 

And we'll fall  

We'll try  

And do our best and I love you all the while

  Because you saved my life once  

Because you saved my life once

But I didn't know about that either.... And then something happened that made me feel like this..."A Decade Under the Influence" by Taking Back Sunday.

 Sad, small, sweet, so delicate
We used to be this dying breed
I got a bad feeling about this
I got a bad feeling about this

You kept still until the long drive home
You slept safe and close to the window...
I got a bad feeling about this
I got a bad feeling about...

Who's to say you'll have to go (I could go all night)
Well say you'll have to go (I could go all...)
To hell with you and all your friends
To hell with you and all your friends, it's on 

And Kyle felt like this..."Evil In A Closet" by In Flames...But I didn't know...

 I sink in waters deep
Your presence kept me floatin'
Far from depths where secrets lie
Maybe in another lifetime
I could be the first you meet

I once read a poem
Held my breath
But that moment's gone
First time I felt life somewhat hurts
Need an option, a reason and some hope

Yell at me, I want to be your light that shinesA
But my ground's shakin' and I might fall
I wish that I could say
I wish that I could be your
Evil in a closet

And that's where we left it for six years...when we figured all of this out..and now I feel like..."This Is For Real" by Motion City Soundtrack

I've got emotion
Dripping out my pores and I
Thought I would let you know
You are the night light,
Ripping through my wicked world
How you make it sparkle and glow,
Before I lose control
There's just one thing you should know

This is for real, this time I mean it
I'm coming clean, please don't let go
I said from the start, that you could take it or leave it
I'd prefer that you keep it
Don't let go
Don't let go
Don't let go

I had some nightmares,
Clawing at my skin and bones
I nearly did explode
You smoked the demons
Gave me back my feelings
Now I am good to go
Before, my face hits the floor
There's just one thing you should know

This is for real, this time I mean it
I'm coming clean, please don't let go
I said from the start, that you could take it or leave it
I'd prefer that you keep it
Don't let go

This is the best thing that I've ever had for real
This is the best thing that I've ever had for real

For a physical challenge I'm notoriously bored
Intravenous delivery, electrolytes and more
Everytime it's the same routine
Out with the bad, in with the clean
Before I lose all motor skills
There's one thing you should know

This is for real, this time I mean it
I'm coming clean, please don't let go
I said from the start, that you could take it or leave it
I'd prefer that you keep it
Don't let go

This is the best thing that I've ever had for real
This is the best thing that I've ever had for real

AND NOW I KNOW.

 

Are we there yet?

It's getting harder and harder to come back to Houston on Sunday. At first, it was very much stress related. We are VERY busy and quite frankly, understaffed. So the pressure is ON. I realized this past week that I really have to let a lot of the work related stress go if I am going to survive until the end of the summer. Being here has put some things into perspective for me like what my top priorities are. 

                                                            #1 Priority (family)

                                                     (I snuck that picture, sorry Kyle!)

Dallas is home. It might be different if I had my "family" with me but I really do breathe a little deeper when I drive in to Dallas specifically. Houston has great food and lots of stuff to do, but I HATE the humidity (and my hair does too!) and I hate the driving here. I feel scared for my life at least 3 times a day and I literally live five minutes away from work. Dallas is home and it's really not an option for me to move away permanently anytime in the near future. 3 months is way too long to be away from these guys.

Several people at work have questioned how I can drive back and forth on the weekends so often and really why wouldn't you when somebody makes you breakfast like this....

But for real, being at home recharges me and the drive is still worth it to me. It definitely isn't easy. It is physically exhausting, but right now I have to make the choice between physical exhaustion and mental exhaustion. I will admit that Sunday afternoons/evenings are not always pretty. I threw a pretty major fit last weekend ( If I was five, it would have included flailing limbs on the floor. Okay, it almost did include that and I'm weeks away from twenty-five. oops.) I think it was just pretty overwhelming to realize that I am only halfway done. I LOVE my clients here but I am ready to get home for good and back to my life. Right now, it feels like I am at work summer camp. ( I never did real summer camp as a child so I should have known better).

                                                               Is it August 31st yet?

I Tried Not To Go There...

Honestly, I try my very hardest not to talk politics on Facebook or really anywhere else for that matter anymore because people get so up in arms about it. But since this is my blog and you have the option about whether to read it or not...Here's my take because it has really been on my heart lately.

I really feel like people spout off such strong feelings without really knowing why they feel the way they do. I really truly believe that most people (especially around my age) have no idea how lucky they really have it.

The general vibe I get from the American public seems to be this "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" type of mentality. But here's the thing. Picture this : You have a human tower of 500 people. You tell everyone that the goal is to get to the top. It's going to be a lot easier for the top ten (or 50 or 100) people to climb up the other people to the top than it is for the bottom 100 right? As you get closer to the bottom, those people have to get beyond the weight of all of the other people to climb up. 

That's how life is y'all. I am well aware that I am 500 steps ahead simply based on where I grew up, the family I was born in to and the work they put in for me. But what about those other people? It seems to me that people make blanket assumptions about the poor based on a very small percentage. The face of the nation's homeless or those living under the poverty line is not those people you see on the street corner begging for money to go buy beer. What about those people who had to drop out of high school because their younger siblings needed more food? Those are the people working three minimum wage jobs and still living below the poverty line. Please be my guest and tell them to work harder. Tell them that they don't deserve health care.

For every No answer, picture yourself ten people higher in the tower.

1. Did you grow up in the ghetto?

2. Did you grow up in a single parent household?

3. Did you grow up worrying about how you were going to eat each week?

4. Did you grow up in an abusive household?

5. Did you grow up with people telling you that college was never going to be an option for you? Let alone, expected from you?

6. Did you take out your own loans to pay for college?

7. Did you grow up  in household that made less than $40,000 a year?

8. Did you grow up with the knowledge that every female in your family works the streets and that's what is expected of you? (This actually happens!!)

9. Did you grow up in a household where there was the presence of drugs?

10. Did you grow up with an alcoholic family member?

11. Did your family immigrate from a different country?

 I could go on and on with that list but I think you get the point. Every little tiny thing affects your placement on that human tower. It's the people who I consider to be closer to the top of the tower who are always telling people (in general) that all they need to do is work harder. Get another job! Go to college! Work longer hours! Remember, other people's hills are steeper than yours. Keep that in your heart.

If you have ten dollars in your pocket, it's ten more dollars than someone you pass on the street has. I don't really care how hard your worked (or didn't work) to get it.

And now you say.. Wait, how is this related to politics? Of course I care about poor people! Do you care about poor people once a year when your church goes on a mission trip or do you care about the poor people in your neighborhood? Do you care about that hospital in Africa or do you care when clinics get shut down who provide desperately needed preventive health services because 1% of what they do is abortions? You say that abortion is wrong, but do you care enough to pay more taxes to help raise that child? To help provide medical services for that family? To help that child be ten people up in the human tower?

The "American dream" can be yours. Just work harder. 

Will Run For.....Egg Sandwiches

So I have been working out consistently all summer...4-5 days a week. I have done a mix of cardio and weights. Usually I do cardio exclusively twice a week and lift the other three. Lately (this week) I have added in some extra warm up cardio before weights..Here's why.....

                                         I HAVE TURNED INTO A RUNNER!!!!!!!

This is big news guys because I have always HATED to run. I HATE HATE HATE to run. Well, I used to. I used to do every machine on the planet before I would straight up run, outside OR on the treadmill. Yuck. So that is what I have been doing for about month. Every other machine on the planet. Unfortunately, my options are pretty limited at my apartment gym ( I can't wait until I'm back home with so many options at my regular gym!!). I know that the consensus on the elliptical is that it's very easy to cheat it. Most people don't burn as much as would normally be associated with their elevated heart rate on it. One day, after I had slept through my alarm and decided once again that I would exercise after work...it was of course PACKED in my tiny apartment gym. As I surveyed all of my options for cardio time...everything was taken except for one elliptical machine and one treadmilll. I stood there for probably about three minutes. I didn't really want to do the elliptical but I REALLY didn't want to do the treadmill. 

I opted to try the treadmill with the mindset of "I'm just going to jog for a little bit and I'll get off whenever I want." That day I RAN for 25 minutes ( half of the time on an incline). I nearly peed my pants when I got off. I have never run for more than 5 minutes on my own without a coach blowing a whistle at me and extreme peer pressure. 

Here's what I have figured out:
I get easily overwhelmed by certain things. Like unloading the grocery cart on to the belt at checkout. I dread unpacking that whole dang cart. BUTTTTTTT I totally don't mind unloading the groceries bag by bag at home. It seems manageable. I can focus on one little bit at a time. That's kind of how I am about running. I know that serious runners generally prefer to run outside. This seems completely overwhelming to me. I have to run someplace and then I have to run back. Yuck. I know that technically you could run in a circle but still...overwhelming. I can get on the treadmill, completely zone out and pretend like I can get off whenever I want to. And since I spent all of that time building my endurance NOT RUNNING...I don't feel like I am going to die when I start. I finally found that place where after you have been running for awhile, it's kind of like your legs are on autopilot and I keep telling myself..Just five more minutes. Just five more minutes And then I look up and its been 45 minutes.Its manageable.

It is a freaking miracle!!  All of you serious runners out there are probably laughing at my measily time on the treadmill but everyone has to start somewhere right?? 

Right now I would rather jump on the treadmill than do any other machine. I never thought I would say that in my whole life. 

(Okay so I did have to bribe myself the first two times I ran with the promise of eating an egg sandwich if I ran for   THIS    amount of time. But we'll just keep that between us okay?)

Question : What does your exercise routine look like? Do you have a favorite activity?

Random Thoughts Tuesday (favorites)

My brain is a little scattered today so I apologize if I am all over the place in this post. I think I would like to just share a few of my favorite things right now....

1. So lately I have NOT been able to get up in the mornings to get my workout done before work. Five AM is just incredibly early. I have heard good things about those apps that are supposed to wake you up when you are in the light sleep phase instead of deep REM. I found Sleep Cycle for a dollar and decided to try it. I have no idea HOW it works but let me tell you...IT WORKS!! I made my 5am workout this morning. (Actually it tracks your movements while you sleep so that it can determine what part of your sleep cycle you're in...but on my iphone?!?!) 

2. As you previously read (hopefully), I am temporarily working in Houston this summer. Since we are a temporary location, we have rented space from a local Jewish school. The only stipulation is that we not bring ANY meat (with the exception of sushi) on campus. Since I bring my lunch every day, I was a bit worried about this. So far it has been fine. I went through a salad phase for awhile and have now moved on to a sandwich phase. (Those of you who know me well know that I eat in phases.. I eat the same thing over and over until I'm sick of it and move on to the next thing). Since meat sandwiches are out..I have tried to work in different ideas with nut butter. Currently, I am LOVING.....

 Seriously ya'll.....45 calories per serving (as compared to 190 calories for regular peanut butter). You mix it with water which I actually like because you can control the consistency. It tastes like REAL peanut butter. Maybe because it IS. Peanuts. Salt. Sugar. Water. That's it! Never going back. 

I also really enjoy ....

But I had to stop eating it because I could not stop myself once I decided to have "one spoonful of treat" before bed. :)

3. My favorite breakfast currently consists of greek yogurt and gluten free granola...I seriously cannot get enough. All of the gluten free granola that I have tried has been delicious..but I can find Udi's pretty much anywhere and it hits the spot!

My absolute favorite greek yogurt is local to Dallas! I buy it at Natural Grocers, but it is available at several locations around the metroplex ( I even found the drinkable variety here at Central Market in Houston!). Honey and blueberry are my faves. Support local products!

I hope you all have fantastic plans for the 4th tomorrow! I unfortunately work for the only company in the country that never gets off for Independence Day. Major bummer. Enjoy some pool time and fireworks for me!

The Best Day

I have had one of the most memorable weekends ever. Words will not even be able to do it justice. I wish that I had some more pictures to share, but I was too busy having fun to stop for a picture.

Kyle arrived in to Houston late on Friday night. We slept in (until 11!!) and then got started with our ultimate adventure Saturday. We left the apartment with the intention of exploring downtown on foot. After a little rain and a lot of homeless people, we quickly decided that we needed a new plan. We decided to head to the beach...first stop.. Kemah.

After some lunch and walking around, we decided that we might as well head on down to Galveston. We drove along the seawall and stopped for some tourist t-shirts. My family has a beach lot on Boliver Peninsula so we decided to go take a look at it and get some beach time in.

                                          Here is our beach house before Hurricane Ike

                                      
                                          Here it is right after Hurricane Ike in 2008

 In order to get over to the Boliver Peninsula, you have to take a ferry ( you drive your car on to it). After waiting for about an hour, it was finally our time to board. It is not uncommon to see dolphins swimming a long side of the ferry so naturally, I was keeping a look out. Just as I turned to Kyle and said "Well I guess there aren't any dolphins today.." a few peeked out of the water. I'm pretty sure I squealed with glee.

I hadn't been back to the island since the hurricane, so I wasn't sure if I could find our land, but luckily my memory served me well and we found it pretty easily.

                This is the view if you are standing by the ocean looking at where the house should be

The island has rebuilt and everything looks GREAT! After scouting out the spot in the daylight, we headed over to Stingaree's for some delicious seafood. It was so awesome, I definitely should have taken a picture. We both had the snapper (I had grilled and Kyle and pecan crusted). It was dark after dinner so we headed back to the beach to set off some fireworks. We definitely weren't the only ones with that idea, so we got to set ours off and enjoy many shows going on around us as well. Setting fireworks off into the ocean is something I will never forget. 


We caught the midnight ferry back over to Galveston and enjoyed the night view until it started pouring rain and we had to make a run back to our car. The hour drive back to Houston really felt like nothing after the driving back and forth to Dallas that we both have done lately.


One of my favorite things about Kyle is that he has really showed that it is okay to color outside of the lines. I am an extreme type A, follow all of the rules, stick to the same routine, etc, girl. Before Kyle, I hadn't even ever thought of mixing soda when you grab your own out of the fountain! It sounds silly but that's how extreme I am. You order one soda, you get one soda. Now I am a sprite/lemonade/fruit punch drinking girl! I have come so far in this past year... I know my mom is peeing her pants reading that I ate snapper! When Kyle used to suggest that I try something or do something that was out of my comfort zone, he was always greeted with an ehhhhhhhhhhh, I don't know.... Now I say sure without hesitation. Saturday was all on me to come up with spur of the moment ideas. 

All of this to say a day full of non-plans turned in to one of the best and most perfectly planned days that I have ever had. 







Coming up.....some of my favorite food and products this summer. Check back for my next post. I hope you all had an amazing weekend!