Santa Monica (Everclear)

Having acquired a snowboard on Sunday I have been itching for enough snow to try it out. Oddly enough the Alaskan winter has been slow in coming this year, the snow melting off pretty rapidly and leaving behind only thin half layers with yellowed grass poking out. Only the mornings and late nights seem to be dangerous, and those mostly because of the multitude reckless drivers late for work. The more time I have on my hands, the more I seem to spend shopping "for Christmas". My intentions are good, I assure you, but once I begin to look around the stores I find increasing amounts of items that I must have. So far there doesn't really seem to be a limit to what I might end up returning home with, from a T-shirt to a set of ratchet straps. I spend my mornings caring for my current nanny child, a twelve week old baby who spends most of the time sleeping. Being honest there is almost no easier job than taking care of a three month old. I get up at six (yes, A.M.) and am done by about three. I am fed by the family I sit for, and spend half the time reading or on Netflix while the baby naps... Basically I have the best job on the planet for my age. As time goes on I begin to realize more and more that life is exactly what I want from it. For a person who is able bodied and minded, all it takes is direction and determination. I'm still deciding exactly where I want to go with my time myself. The kind of job I have is almost inconsequential so long as I'm not performing heavy labor and provided I'm making good money. The more important thing to me is being able to do the things I want to. I have endless travel and experience ambitions that basically add up to the hope that wherever I am, whoever I'm with I will do my best to try everything that I can. I've heard it called Wanderlust, and I've been mistaken for being discontent; but that isn't really where it stems from, I feel. It isn't that I'm unhappy with where I am, it's that I am incredibly in love with the world and its gems. There is a wild excitement in my soul, a deep pleasure that I draw from seeing the world, observing individuals in their accomplishments, their relationships, their reactions to life's situations. I agree with the line of thought that says you never really know a person until you see how they react in the situations of life, especially those where they are tested by a difficult situation. One of the most important things to me is making sure that I am the type of person who handles the best and worst of life with grace. The wilderness in my soul is nurtured by ideas of hiking and camping, backpacking, road trips, boarding and surfing, and seeing new countries. It's empowered by learning. I've gotten two flat tires in as many months and  (other than the obvious fact that I need a new set of tires) I've enjoyed the empowerment of having the ability to handle the situation myself when it arises. Further, I feel empowered by the idea that I am employed in a job that pays well enough that I can do anything that I am willing to set my mind to and save for. Along with that is the strength I draw from knowing that I have and do continue to put in the time at school for my degree. I've considered so many options ranging from occupational therapy to financial managing, and I still seem to be clueless as to what my true calling is. Maybe there is no occupational "true calling" for me because my heart really isn't in the work itself. Certainly I'm an excellent employee, but I work as a means to the things I want and maybe there really is no occupation that I will "love". Perhaps the solution is to find something tolerable and profitable to fund my wanderlust. My current aims are in business.  I still believe that I contain all the necessary skills to become an invaluable employee, the trouble is simply getting in. I'll get there. At the moment I'm feeling extremely confident about my future. I have a tendency to come out of things on the fortunate end, and for that, I thank God. Look out world, here I come.

Thinking About Tomorrow

Ever since winter began I've been dying to give snowboarding a try. Well, to be honest I've been dying to do a million things (not the least of which travel - I'm still convincing my family that my twenty first birthday should be spend cruising the Mediterranean: Greece, Spain, Italy, France, Turkey, and when I'm done cruising just continuing on to biking, backpacking, or whatever other mode of transportation strikes my fantasy for touring across Europe). I might further add that my favorite travel destinations have become somewhat of a burden in the fact that most travel companions have their hopes pinned on more Westernized countries (I can't even get half of them to glance twice at Africa...). But refocusing on snowboarding, I've been scouring online yard sale sites and thrift stores, checking the used and new stores alike in search of equipment. I've done my homework, I've read up, listened up, and I'm beginning to understand what makes the sport tick. There's something about the idea of learning to maneuver across the snow like a pro that appeals to me. Meanwhile the house begins to fill up with the warmth and smells of baking increasingly the closer we get to Christmas. I always say I alternate years for Christmas enthusiasm. Every other year I am thrilled to death when the winter holiday rolls around, and the years in between are sort of something I muddle through. Shh. My Lego club is one of the highlights of my week these days. The kids are brilliant and have jumped in wholeheartedly. They look forward to the meetings, and it's taken only a few meetings for them to get warmed up and chattering like old friends. I'm proud to be coaching a club that is a great memory and learning experience for them. The Alaskan winter this year is becoming ridiculously warm. It took forever to finally snow, and even now we haven't gotten a solid set in of snow. None of the bodies of water around are fully frozen, and it continues to rain (freezing rain) between every snow. I hear the locals chatting casually about global warming, and I can't really blame them, especially in light of all the flooding down in California. I'm not committing to any theories here, but things are definitely beginning to warm up a bit around here. The online yard sale groups are the kind of odd addictions that creep in on you. At first you're just sort of curious and scornful of the ridiculous sellers with their skewed ideas on the true value of their items; but as time goes on you begin to get an "eye" for finding what you want and knowing what a good deal and a good seller look like. At least that's what you tell yourself to justify all the time you're spending scouring the overpriced, overused pieces of crap you can find on the sites. Every once in a while, though, you find that one item that totally makes it worth it. Yard Saling is a lot like Pinterest in that sense I suppose: You're always most ambitious when not directly faced with the task of making your ideas a reality. I'd like to think my sense of style has improved since spending time on Pinterest, but I'd be lying blatantly if I said my level of craftiness had increased... My music interests recently have grown a bit more varied. Rather than the typical popular pop, I've become interested in a bit more metal, rap, classical, etc. An interesting thing I've noticed about screamo is that the stretching of single notes is surprisingly similar to opera/classical type songs. If you have the tune to do it, you can actually sing the verses of a screamo song in a dramatic lilting voice that fits within the parameters of the song (even if the sound is totally hilarious). Speaking of strange renditions of certain musical pieces, I've recently become somewhat of a Thomas Sanders fan. Not only is he completely funny and cute, but his singing abilities are somewhat impressive. I like the turn the musical culture has taken toward raw vocal feats. It reminds me of the parkour fad, in that it takes raw bodily talent and practice to produce a result. The activities are something you can display with nothing except your own body. After quite a few years of idolizing individuals who could work with a objects and devices, today we celebrate the power of the lone human body, pure natural healing, the basics of everything.

A Little Thanksgiving Snow

This week has been eventful for me to say the least. On Thanksgiving we had our family friends the Douglasses over for dinner. We didn't stray from the warmth of our homes for Black Friday shopping, and in fact didn't participate in that end of the festivities at all. It was Saturday by the time we realized that a local outdoor type store was having a ridiculous sale on all the household favorite brands of outdoor clothing. But by that time it was too late anyway (even if some of us had been willing to stray from our Nazi-type Dave Ramsey inspired budgets ;). By Sunday afternoon it had really begun to steadily snow. Not dumping, but a steady downfall, which was enough to provoke the men of the house into initiating the first sledding trip of the season (meanwhile the women of the house occupied themselves with a few rounds of Just Dance, and layering down to our gym clothing in the warmth of the house). It was in the middle of this sweaty gaming that a crying Sam burst into the house quite a while later. Within five minutes we were loading a pained-looking Bradley into a freezing car and barreling down the icy road in a carful of foggy windows as the grey snow continued to fall unfazed against us. Along the way my mother and I dragged the full story from my brother and dad of how Bradley had flown down the largest hill in the just-fallen snow, sitting on his knees atop the sled and skidding off unceremoniously at the bottom. He wore only one black snow boot when we wheeled him into the emergency room lobby in a wheelchair. He sat uncomfortably through the filling out of the proper paperwork and when the nurses took him in we were finally exposed to the whole of the matter when they cut off his sock and most of his pants. Bradley's right ankle was twisted unnaturally to the left, bent at a chilling angle. The nurses swooped in and out taking blood pressure, rating his pain, inserting an intravenous feed and giving him both Demerol and a nausea fighting agent. They gave him warm blankets and ice packs for the swelling, but ultimately after a brief X-ray they were forced to admit that the breakage was beyond their abilities because they could not administer the necessary sedation. Twenty minutes later an ambulance arrived to take Bradley to another hospital ten minutes away. As usual the ambulance crew was the most agreeable, calm inspiring individuals on the scene, instantly setting everyone at ease as they joked with Bradley, sent the nurses scurrying for extra necessities, and spoke to my parents about the impending trip. We followed the ambulance to another hospital and my father and I waited for news in the lobby. We paced, read the classifieds in the newspaper (something I cannot remember ever doing before), read the pitiful funnies, played with the coffee machine, and eventually my dad left, telling me he needed a walk. I ended up in the lobby alone with a nearly dead phone, no book, no music, crappy reality television, uninteresting newspaper articles and an issue of some unpopular magazine. I suddenly remembered that I was starving and began to wander the hospital myself, questing for some kind of sustenance. I happened across a closed cafeteria, and then a row of vending machines that refused to take any of my bills except a single one dollar bill, with which I purchased a frozen burrito and proceeded to attempt to warm it in a microwave that must have doubled as a time machine on the weekends. By this time we had been informed that Bradley's ankle was severely fractured and dislocated, which may have necessitated surgery or possibly a second ambulance ride to the hospital in Anchorage. In the short time span of an hour or two, however, they managed to reset his ankle into a more normal position. By seven thirty my father and I met my mother and brother at the doors to the hospital, Bradley clothed in synthetic blue hospital shirt and pants, right leg in a temporary splint, and leaning against a set of new crutches. We lifted him sideways across the back seat where he leaned against me, still somewhat sedated. I held my brother close, realizing how little I had done so recently. Bradley has spent the past few days clad in the same blue hospital clothing, mostly sedentary and hobbling about on crutches when necessary. There's no denying it though, the cast will be cool.

Turning the Page

I used to be afraid of watching or reading anything scary. I was a lightweight, you might say, with all things upsetting. It wasn't that I couldn't handle them per se, but more that I thought by avoiding all things in that genre, perhaps I could likewise escape that entire emotional journey and instead feel only the things I wanted to. Ultimately life is an excellent teacher in these sorts of things, because when the reality of the matter and some pieces of the mystery of life were placed upon me, I was suddenly made to see that life is made up entirely of both good and bad things in order maintain a balance. I realized that sad things are sad, but they aren't the end of the world. My life won't come crashing to the ground if I feel a bit sad sometimes, and it doesn't make me a negative person; it simply balances out the ample good that I've managed to experience.
In a few short weeks I've begun to discover what an absolute game changer the past year has been for me. I've grown up, learned things, gotten better control over my life. There have been times when I thought I was further off track than ever before, but the more I truly think about the events that have occurred and the result (the person I am today as opposed to the person I was fifteen months ago), the more I realize just how wonderful things are going for me. I'm not afraid any more. I'm perfectly willing to make decisions for myself, chase my own interests, make my own money, pursue my own education. I want to travel and experience things as much as possible, I want to know things. I want my degree, and I want to build a prosperous career on it because I know that I have the strengths necessary to do so. I want to fall in love one day but I'm not in a hurry. Being single isn't a terrible thing, actually. It's freeing in the sense that you have the freedom to be absolutely selfish in whatever you want. The luxuries of life have been dropped all into my lap at once and suddenly I realize that nothing in life was holding me back before except my own mindset and cognitive horizons. Suddenly I want to snowboard and surf, I want to join the nearest theater group and play in something cool. I want to spend time in Arizona, Washington, or some little beach town in California. I want to backpack across a continent, visit my Australian relatives, be a foreign exchange student. I want to learn a language (Russian?), learn to dance, rappel, shoot, defend myself with nothing. I want to camp, take a rafting trip, kayak, go on a spiritual journey, get a degree. I want to travel to Africa and live minimally, take a few mission trips, explore in the lands my great grandparents came from, write a book... I want to be that person that sees what she wants and goes for it, no ifs, ands, or buts.
Life is full of things that you thought would never happen to you, or things you assumed would break you if they did. But when you're pushed down to that point at which you thought you couldn't handle, you discover something about yourself. The way you proceed tells you everything about who you are and where you're going. Do you bow your head, listen to the naysayers, and decide that life is just a bitter experience to get through? Or do you stand tall, break through the walls of that thing you thought you could never face and reach for the life you believe in regardless of the risk factor? Today I strive to be the second of these two types. The strength, self-confidence, and inner peace that I feel as a result are astounding.
I'm reveling in my regained sense of individuality. I'm enjoying my exploration of the world and its funny situations. Life isn't a century or so of enduring enough of the unpleasant to get a fortunate break. Life is about seeing the little things, fighting for the important things, and refusing to settle for anything less than what you want. This coming year I'm ready to turn the page in life, because I'm not in the least bit afraid of what's coming in the next chapter or of leaving the previous one behind. You see, I'm confident that my story is only just beginning to get good.

Opinions

No matter where you go today there's always some annoying git trying to shove their opinions down your throat. It's annoying that they all seem to be trying to suck you in like some kind of cult and brainwash you into supporting whatever they think is right. You could be at work, your favorite hangout, your parents' or friends', or even your own home, prey to the Mormon missionaries and Jehovah's Witnesses and cheesy door to door salesmen, and all are trying to sell you something. The internet took this phenomena one step further, and we are now being preached to, sold to, politically harangued, and emotionally appealed to every second of our lives. Wherever you are in this bright technologically advanced world of ours, you know by now that there is no escaping the crushing opinions and attempted persuasions of our compassionate fellow humankind. So sit back, enjoy the ride, and try to stay human. ;)