Blast from the past

I've been digging through my own pile of things lately, except digitally. I'm updating my resume and *attempting* to cut a demo reel together (video resume of projects I worked on) but it's disappointing work right now because I really only have ONE decent project worth showing due to the production company forbidding us from using ANY of their footage on our personal demo reels. I kind of get it, they didn't want me claiming I did work that wasn't mine, but on the other hand that was more than a year's worth of work and I don't have anything to show for it besides what was on my computer.

Anyway, among the files found were lots of old Word documents from my various writing sessions in the middle of the night (not kidding, the date on this one was 2008 at 2am!) which I will e-mail you guys once I've updated the file types (they are that old!). But here is one that I found pretty meaningful considering everything that's been going on with us the last couple of years.

"Have you ever had part of your life be perfect, just for a moment? Everything is falling into place, doing well in school or at work, you’re at a high point in your relationship with your boyfriend or spouse, and even your friends are happy too. But as soon as you take a step back to enjoy it, everything changes. If old problems aren’t popping up, new ones are coming in strong. A new semester starts, a new person at work who you don’t see eye to eye with, you start fighting with your boyfriend because you don’t know what else to do, or you even notice that something is bothering your friends. Somehow, when your friends are dealing with the same things you are, it seems much worse.

"You want to take the weight off their shoulders and carry it for them so they don’t have to be so upset. You want to make everything better so they won’t cry anymore and you can’t understand the people who made them cry. Even though you try to comfort them, you still feel helpless because you haven’t been able to resolve your own issues, so where do you get off giving them advice when you’re in the exact same boat? Even if you’ve resolved something one way, it might not be the right course for them, they have a different path that they need to find themselves. As much as it hurts us to see our friends, sometimes our very best friends, stumbling blindly along, we have to remember that someone did the same thing for us when we were trying to find our way.

"The nature of true friendship isn’t someone who points us down the right path, it’s someone who is walking alongside us making the same mistakes. The nature of a true friend is supportive and uplifting, you help each other, you’re there for support when they need it, they’re there for support when you need it, it’s a two-way street. A true friend is someone who loves you for you who are, someone who lets you vent and cry with a free shoulder to lean on, someone who’s happy when you’re happy and sad when you’re sad, someone who will talk to you openly and honestly especially when you need it. A true friend is not someone that runs away at the first sign of trouble, a true friend is the one who stands by your side when you go to climb that mountain and says, 'Let’s do this!' instead of 'Good luck.'

"Some people don’t know they need help and some don’t want to admit it. We do what we can for them, but ultimately we need to wait for them to come around, and they will in their own time. The hardest thing to do for a friend is nothing, but sometimes, that’s all we can do. Sometimes all we can do is sit back and be there for them when we can’t follow them down a certain road. All we can do is to help them up when they fall, only to watch them fall again a little later. Can we rescue them from their misery? Do they want to be rescued? Do they know that they can ask for help? The hardest decisions are the ones we watch other people make.

"Sometimes, we just need to move on. If there’s too much tension in a relationship, sometimes it’s better to cut it and be done. As cold as that sounds, bad relationships, be they romantic or otherwise, need to be treated like band-aids: the quicker the removal, the quicker the sting. Don’t prolong the agony by trying to fix something that’s beyond repair or by tearing into each other and saying things that hurt or that you might regret later. Make it as quick and painless as possible and be done with it, don’t drag it out, that only leads to more hurt feelings. You may patch things up for a while, but how long until there’s something else you’re not happy with? Do you want to walk on eggshells the rest of your life by continuing the relationship this way? Would you be a happier person if they were no longer in your life? In some cases yes, in others no, it all depends on the situation. There’s still no clear line on who’s right and who’s wrong, there’s nobody who can tell you what the right choice is. You need to look inside yourself and ask yourself some serious questions and you’re the only one who can answer them. It’s going to suck. The right answer is usually the one that you feel worst about doing. The easy thing to do is apologize just to get the fight over with, but in the long-term that’s not a good foundation for a relationship. Open and honest communication is critical and if that’s not there then the relationship will fail sooner or later.

Don’t get caught in the thick of thin things.

If there’s a dick in your hand, you put it there."


Those last two sentences were not mine, they were from a professor we called "The King of Cliches". Basically they mean don't make big deals out of things that don't matter, and you have the power to change your situation (or you are responsible for yourself, other people aren't responsible for you).

Busy

This past week has been kind of tough.  Not one thing on it's own was really that hard, but all of it happening at once?

 I took 3 DLPTs last week and still have two more to go. I also had epicly bad PMS. I've got a whole carton of rocky road ice cream in the fridge at work which I've been eating at regular intervals. Ugh.
I hit a parked car in the parking lot, although fortunately the insurance process was smooth as butter, it still really freaked me out. How stupid can you get?

Since college I've had a storage unit filled with junk. Kind of sucking money from me all these years. It finally got closed down and the contents shipped to me. Yay!  Which meant loads of stress arranging drop off and pick up times for the trailer (huge enough to fill my side of the driveway. )  Most of my 'free time' this week has been spent either studying or unpacking/repacking boxes. I've already donated two boxes to good will, and I have two more I have to drive over there. I've also got over 4 boxes worth of crap that I am simply throwing out (What was I thinking?? Why did I save that stuff?).

 On Saturday I moved all the boxes of books upstairs to my bed room. We don't have bookshelves there yet, but that is the plan, eventually.
Later in the evening Amanda came over and we dyed fiber. It was lots of fun. We made mistakes, we learned a lot, and we can't wait for our next dye session. I'm afraid I might have felted/overcooked my fiber but it's still wet, so too early to tell. That's the most common mistake made during the dying process.

On Sunday my back hurt SO  MUCH from moving boxes. Every time I sat up or bent over it was epic pain. Aaron and I spent several hours cleaning the house because it really needed it -__-;;   This weekend wasn't very relaxing. Oh well! Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do (Although Aaron did make an awesome steak and mashed potatoes dinner. He even bought red wine to go with it. Glee!).

It's looking like this week is going to be stressful too. My workload just doubled AND I have to get some training done in my spare time ASAP.  Sigh.

Love the Navy!