More Social Interaction, Please

Okay, so yeah, fine, I admit it: I need social contact almost constantly. I need to be talking to someone, or at least be near someone almost all the time.

There are times when I don’t want people around of course – you know, when I’m going to the bathroom. Or in a really foul mood. Or crying hysterically. Or uh… That’s about it. And I’m even flexible on the crying thing.

Am I alone on this?

(Excuse the pun.)

It really doesn’t even need to be my friends or my family or Mr. Man 24/7. It just needs to be people. Really, honestly, we don’t even have to acknowledge each other all that much. Ordering something from a barista at Starbucks is good enough for me for a while. Hell, making eye contact is good enough.

I need a cat. Or a room mate that doesn’t hate me.

Oh God, I’m going to become that crazy cat woman that lives alone.

Plus, cats don’t like to cuddle. I like cuddling. I need cuddling. I was made to cuddle. I can only watch so much Friends or Sex and the City or dance around my room to music before I need to physically look someone in the eye or talk to them or hug them. Touch is my love language and I need someone to come home to every night that will watch TV or eat dinner or gripe about how much our lives suck as broke students with me. I realize that’s not cuddling, but I don’t cuddle with everyone. That would be weird. I mean, hello, I’m from TEXAS, we have this thing called “personal space” down here. We don’t just run around touching everyone, that’s why we all drive our own cars to work and don’t have any semblance of public transportation yet; we don’t want to have to touch people we don’t want to.

Anyways.

Maybe what I need is a puppy.

Except no, because I already have a puppy, and she’s getting really old and probably –gulp- dying, and let’s not talk about how I have cried several times since we realized she’s deaf and in a lot of pain on Sunday because I will start crying again.

It’s not even just seeing someone, or touching someone though. I just took a 30 minute break from writing this to talk on the phone to Mr. Man and already I feel less lonely. Talking to other people online, even people who I’ve never met or whose voices I’ve never even heard, is good, because it’s still a person who is talking TO me.

The funny thing is, I totally got myself into the situation that led to all this thinking and upset. I decided to stay in College Station for summer school until July 1, fully knowing that the town would be practically empty because all my friends would go home. I thought it would give me plenty of time to write and read (plus keep my job a little longer), except I have no drive to do any of that when all I want to do is cry because all I freaking want is a hug from Mr. Man.

Seriously, am I the only one that feels a physical need for hugs?

img cred.

Secret Telling Time!

Okay, maybe you guys haven't noticed that I've mentioned a few times that I've been keeping a family secret. And that it's making me anxious and happy and a whole other wealth of emotions I can't even begin to express.

But I have noticed! (Duh.)

And, now, I get to tell y'all! FINALLY I'VE BEEN DYING TO TELL PEOPLE HOLY CRAP.
Drum roll, please...

My family is moving to Colorado! :)

Okay, YOU may not think it's a huge deal, BUTIDO. We have lived in the same place for about 13 years now. It's boring.

It's going to be below 110 degrees F in the summer!

We're going to be near ski resorts. I love snowboarding!

We're going to be out of Republicanland Texas, which is great because if I have to be surrounded by diehard Republicans that cannot fathom the idea of hearing the other side of an issue any longer, I'm going to tear my hair out.

There's nothing wrong with Republicans. Honest. I lean Republican on some issues. It's Texan Republicans. Specifically Texan Republicans between the ages of 15 and 23 who only have those opinions because Mommy or Daddy told them to believe that.

THINK FOR YOURSELF!

Sorry. I used to be a lot more moderate. And I really wouldn't call myself a Democrat, because I don't agree with everything that party is for either. But for all those who said that traipsing off to Aggieland would make me a diehard conservative: hahawrongsuckers. If anything, attending TAMU has made me much more liberal, mostly because of aforementioned 15-23-year-olds who refuse to have an opinion that wasn't fed to them.

A-hem. Right. Colorado.

We're going to be near mountains where we can go hiking and fishing and snowboarding!

We may move into a cutesy little cabin!

Did I mention that I'm GOING TO GET TO SPEND MY WINTERS THERE, SNOWBOARDING EVERY SINGLE DAY?

I may get a Jeep (my little sports car + snow = BAD)!

This, by the way, TOTALLY counts for my #12. Because I'm not renting a cabin in the mountains to go snowboarding IF I OWN ONE. (And by "I," I definitely mean my parents.)

So, Colorado is where we're headed off to during my spring break. House-shopping and snowboarding and OH DID I MENTION THE BEING OUT OF TEXAS AND THE SNOWBOARDING?

Writer's Workshop: Maya Angelou

Remember how last night I was pretty much having a mental breakdown about this weeks' prompts? Yeah, well, I figured out what I'm going to do... Basically combine all/most of them into one post. ARE YOU READY FOR THIS AWESOMENESS THAT WILL GIVE YOU THE JEALOUSIES*?

“The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.” ~ Maya Angelou

I think I have a really weird concept of what "home" is. Last May, I said this on the subject: "...home is not a place but a time and a feeling."

Which, I think for the most part, I still feel. And, I kind of think goes with what Maya was saying there -- I long to be simply accepted, no questions asked, and I feel like there's no single place where I can get that. I get that through certain people, like my parents and their friends, or Mr. Man, or The Cynical Optimist. When I see them, and we sit down for dinner or coffee or whatever, I feel like I'm at home no matter where I am.

To some extent, I also feel very at home when I'm snowboarding on a quiet mountain slope, or when I'm writing in a coffee shop and surrounded by people I don't even know. That too feels familiar, unquestioning, accepting.

I'm sure a couple of psychologists would tell you that I lack attachment to places because I didn't have a stable home life as a child because we moved around a lot and so I didn't create long lasting social bonds with anyone outside my family until I was like 10. Factor in all the ridiculous amount of travel we did and how insanely huge my family is... I'm a social deviant waiting to happen!

Maybe I'm okay with that. Because I LIKED moving that much. The act of searching for a new place to live, even at a young age, felt familiar, home-like -- much more than the actual living there. It was fun for me to go to the next neighborhood and peek into the previous owners' life through all their pictures on the wall and the way their bedroom was set up. And when we planted down in North Texas and stayed in the same house for 12 years, I got restless A LOT. I still get restless if I stay in the same place too long. That's why every time I refer to the apartment on this blog, it's always "the apartment," not "home," because I'm already so BORED of CS and it's not homey to me.

At the same time, I long for the accepted feeling I had in high school when I had this, admittedly less-than-stable, huge group of friends, but it was at least CONSISTENTLY unstable. I could COUNT on one of the guys dating another guys' ex-girl and another cheating on his girl with one of my friends while she in fact was cheating on someone else, and rumors being spread between the 10 of us girls, and DRAMADRAMADRAMA. And as I merged into another (much) smaller group, I could count on the fact that by being the only consistent girl in it would lead to every single one of the guys having at least a brief crush on me at one time or another and it causing some drama, minor as it was. But I could also count on video games and racing our cars on public streets and sneaking out at 3 am for trips to IHOP, and they felt like home too.

But, that's how I met Mr. Man. And if that's not a stable social bond that feels like home, I don't know WHAT is. Because, when Mama Kat put it as "the heart that just wouldn’t quit," the woman knew what she was talking about. When I was 15, that boy burst into my life and demanded that I love him, hands down, no questions asked. I may have been in denial and fought it tooth and nail for over a year, and I may have gotten scared and run away when I was 18, but my poor heart never really had a chance. And he knew it all along, so he just bid his time until I finally CALMED THE HELL DOWN enough to be ready to admit that no matter what my head says, my heart won't quit running toward him; that wherever he is, that's home, his arms are home.



*The Jealousies: That feeling when you get when you read a really awesome blog post and think "WHY DIDN'T I WRITE THAT?!"

Classic Christmastime

I'm finally getting a chance to sit down and email in a post about how wonderful Christmas was. Six hour drives will do that.

We visited Dad's family as we always do, and with five kids running around funny moments are always bound to come up. Yesterday, the
youngest, Austin (10), managed to somehow get a splinter in his finger. His dad and Grandma were trying to get it out when his older
sister Grace (14) started antagonizing him. I don't remember what she said first, but I know we were all laughing at it, which Austin took as laughing at him. He lunged at her, but luckily his dad caught him before he could attack. He said, "Come here, let's look at this thing in the light." to which Austin replied, "Hold ON, I have to beat her up!" It was hysterical an a classic family moment. :)

We also saw Sherlock Holmes that night, which was good. I definitely recommend it for anyOne in the mood for some fun action and a little mystery. Plus, you really must see Rachel McAdams and Robert Downey Jr act alongside each other, it's great.

How were your Christmases? Any funny stories?

Home Again

So, I'm settling back in at home and it feels great. I'm back to working "too much" (I love my job, honestly), writing, drinking waaaay too much coffee (I've been to starbucks/Buon Giornio's four times in the past 24 hours), and just being happy. I'm not doing so well on that list of 50 banned books that I wanted to read, but I have been reading a lot. I read The Prince by Machiavelli, which Cyndi let me borrow, I'm almost done with Jackie after Jack: Portrait of the Lady by Christopher Andersen, which has been a great book about the mysterious Jackie O. Both books are definitely ones I'd recommend, especially if you're interested in politics at all. I also, without consulting the list, ordered blink by Malcolm Gladwell and Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen J Dubner. So I'll probably start on those tonight while I'm working from 2:30 - 9. My friend Kevin, the one who was nice enough to give me a ride home on Saturday, is also going to start helping me learn guitar soon, so that's really awesome. Maybe this time I'll actually learn. How great would that be? I found some of the people I met randomly on vacation on facebook, so now we're all friends and hopefully I'll be able to keep in touch with them.

On top of all the wonderful reading and working and getting paid (I forgot to go deposit my paycheck! Dang it!), I've been going to this Bible study recently that my friend Jenny started, which has been really great. It's been cool to have a group of friends I can talk God with because not all of my friends are religious so bringing it up can occasionally turn kind of awkward. I've been having a lot of conversations about God with a lot of people recently that I would have never expected to talk with me about it though, so maybe it's a sign that I need to be more comfortable talking about it.

Well, it's time to grab lunch and head to work. Hooray. Have a great day, everyone. :)

Home

Today I realized that home is not a place but a time and a feeling.