Things that I am working on:
– Being the kind of person I respect and admire
– Playing Skyrim less (it’s working)
– Drawing and painting more
– Losing weight, and being stronger
– Eating breakfast every day
– Respecting myself, and respecting other people
Things that I need to be working on:
– Owning more socks
– Grocery shopping on the regular
– Planning the trip to the UK
– Cleaning my garage
– Going to the woods to read poetry
– Throwing more dinner parties
And here I am again, at work, where I will sit at a desk and answer the phone for another 8 hours. I don’t mind working 8 hours/day at all – actually, life without a job tends to lend boredom and depression and apathy to my life, so hell, I’ll take the job. But. I do miss all the sunlight. Yesterday was so fucking beautiful, and today is sunny also; just makes me want to be outside in it.
But instead…I’ll remember that I’m glad that I have a job!
I had a pretty great weekend, all things considered. Had a good time on Friday hanging out with a (I hope) new friend. On Saturday, I went to give blood with an old friend, but they wouldn’t let me because – come to find out – I had a 99.9 fever! I felt just fine, though, so after we were finished we got some drinks and brunch. I’m assuming the drinks killed the fever as it was down to 97.6 when I got back home. Oh well.
On Sunday I got up and took a nice long, leisurely walk around the neighborhood (right after I woke up – so it was still cold and quiet). Came back home, took a bath in my sunny bathroom, then went to Michael’s for some paper and charcoals. Went back home and decided to blare music and draw – which lasted until mid-afternoon when I went to hang out with Ryan.
So it was a productive and social weekend, and oddly enough I’m not feeling over-socialized at the moment. That said, I would be perfectly content to stay in tonight.
I’m toying with the idea of opening an Etsy shop to do commissioned graphite or charcoal portraits. Or hell, I could add watercolor in there too, but those would take muuuuch longer. I do need to practice some though, so yesterday I re-established the fact that I am much better at drawing portraits of people whom I actually know as opposed to people whom I’ve never met. (grumble) Ah well – I just need more practice. Don’t think I’ve drawn an actual portrait since Matt. So almost a year ago, geez.
And this picture might be next on the drawing board (haha), actually. Janet posed this on FB yesterday. Just wanted to share.
Oh guys, sometimes I would just like to hug you and tell you all that I love you. So, consider this a virtual hug. And I love all of you who I know read this blog.
Man I really wish I could tell who reads this!! (Mom, Anna Laura, Katie, Nathan – I have four regular readers that I know of.)
Anyway, that’s not really important, I guess.
So I spent a good chunk of this weekend cleaning my house, because I remembered that being productive is one of the things that makes me feel good. And – surprise – I’m feeling better this Monday than last Monday! I have some things I need to take care of this week which are going to help keep the productive trend going. And my house is clean anyway, so that by itself makes me happy.
Today, though, is one of those days that makes me feel like I’m wasting away my life working in an office. I went home for lunch – and barely enjoyed my 1 hour of sunshine just because I kept thinking about how much I would love to be working for a landscaping company this afternoon. It’s sunny and clear, and probably in the 50’s. Pretty much the most gorgeous winter day that I can imagine.
So in cleaning the house this weekend, I happened upon an old journal from fall/winter 2011 – which is when Matt started the Vanderbilt job and also started seeing a therapist. I was struck with how much I had forgotten about that time. It wasn’t a very good time in either of our lives; I wrote about how much Matt ignored me, how I felt like his incidental roommate who did everything around the house for him, how I didn’t feel cared for at all, etc. A friend was just saying that it’s so easy to idealize the dead…and it certainly is. It’s much more pleasant for me to remember being happy with Matt, than for me to remember how his depression sunk both of us. It’s probably important for me to remember both sides, though…probably…?
Anyway. I’m hopeful that it will be a good week. And that’s about all that I have to say at the moment.
This post is not going to be entirely about the memorialization process. But I did finally download all of Matt’s messages from FB, and then requested that his page be memorialized.
I’ve reached a point where I don’t think about Matt as much as I used to. It’s hard to quantify this for you guys, though, because I still think about him every day and very frequently. I don’t dwell on what life used to be like while he was alive and married to me, though. It’s so, so painful to remember how happy I was. I read through a few of the messages from FB after downloading them though, which is making it really hard to ignore how much I miss Matt.
Katie made a good point over the weekend. She said that for the first year after she was separated, she would compare her life to whatever she was doing this time last year. I do this all the time too. This time last year, for example, we were both trying to get back into the habit of daily exercise and eating well – and I was happy. I’m almost looking forward to passing February 21st this year, because after that I’ll be able to say – “This time last year I was paralyzed with grief,” or “This time last year the only thing that mattered to me was that Matt was gone,” or whatever. I think it will be good for my perspective, and encouraging. But I’m not there yet…still have fucking Valentine’s Day to live through, not to mention the 21st itself.
Anyway.
I had an extremely unproductive weekend (unless you could making a couple of journals – but that’s the only thing that counts as productive). I’m remembering that I enjoy life a lot more when it has structure, and when I’m disciplined enough to live by that structure. So, I’m making myself a To Do list today. There are several things that I need to take care of (e.g. clean out the garage, get a new washing machine, do all of my laundry) – but most immediately I want to work on keeping my house nice and clean, and getting out of the house more often. Especially on weekends.
Woke up from dreaming about Matt to my alarm clock this morning. It was a weird dream and I can’t remember all the details. Mostly what I remember is that normally I can choose to not remember Matt’s skin and how it felt to touch him, but apparently I don’t have that discretionary power in my dreams. Because I remember all that clear as day right now.
I was feeling OK, though, until I went to Matt’s FB page just now.
It’s frustrating that I can feel OK and stable and excited about something — and then BAM! something will remind me of Matt and I’ll want to melt into a puddle.
I just looked up “prolificious” because I wondered if it was a word. Sadly, it is not.
I’ve been feeling the need to write lately, but it’s been discouraging because I haven’t had much to write about. Sure, I could write about Christmas and what I’ve been doing lately. But Christmas was depressing (I’m sorry – it had nothing to do with any of my family/friends). I cried a ton the 26th and 27th – I suppose to make up for ignoring Christmas the whole month of December.
Lately though, not much has been happening. I’m feeling stagnant, mostly because I’m getting tired of Skyrim which allows me more time to analyze my life and pastimes. I’ve been thinking about dating lately, too. It can be exciting, but it can also be so tiring and pointless. Instead of spending my time and energy on meeting new people, I feel like I should be trying to better myself or do something more worthwhile. Not sure what, though.
OK, so I do have some good ideas of things that it would be beneficial for me to spend my time doing.
So I guess the real problem here is motivation. I used to get all into household projects (and Pinterest helped a lot with that). But there are just certain things that I do not give two damns about, and household projects frequently fall into this category. Lately, anyway.
It all goes back to me wanting to find meaning and fulfillment in life. Those things are both really nice to have. I’ll settle for fulfillment, too.
I’m reading the Grapes of Wrath right now – and am really liking it so far. I’m about half-way in though, and expect several more depressing turns before the end. Making me thankful that I didn’t have to personally experience this part of history.
Watching Dexter lately, too. I had stopped watching it because I was afraid that Matt identified too well with Dexter. No more worries now anyway….
Took my Christmas tree down this weekend. The living room looks kind of sparse now. In a full way. That doesn’t make sense, I know. It’s OK.
No Promises This Time 