Laundry List (Part Trois)

As I turn another year older, ’tis the season to revisit my laundry list from 2 years ago

1.   Be a full fledged physical therapist   Done and done!!!!!

2.   Lose another 20 – 25 lbs —work in progress!

3.   Pay off my car. I only have a few months left on it  :)  — paid it off last August

4.   Read Dan Brown’s new novel,  “The Lost Symbol”  — done! Now reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

5.   Have my car detailed. I haven’t done it since I bought it LOL… car washes — yep, detailing — to follow —  well I’ve got no excuse — I’ve just been lazy

6.   Buy a new laptop — got a brand new spankin’ one!

7.   Go to Disneyland  (yey!)  — on the list next year

8.   Learn how to ski  (or even snowboard — again) — on my list next season

9.   Go to Vegas!!!!!!!!!!!  —October, baby!!!!!!

10.  Expand my social circle. — I have and it still continues to grow

11.  Throw away all my junk.

12.  Run more often (that would require a LOT of work LOL).  hmmmm……….. yeah LOL

13.  Speak up —- oh I’ve been speaking up lol

14.  Go on vacay —   already in the books for next year … wait, do mini-vacays count?????? I’ve got Florida in the books this November woot!!!!!

15.  Take more pictures. 

16.  Reconnect with old friends.

17.  Do I dare say fall in love again????  —  I am soooooooooooo ready!!!

xoxo

Turning Thirty

I’ll be 30 in about six weeks.

Just saying that makes me feel, um, I don’t know — old. I know, I know, age is nothing but a number but this is different. This is the big three-o, the end of an era kind of thing.

Suddenly I felt like Joey from Friends, making a deal with God to be 29 forever. If only it was that simple.

It’s not that I’m dreading it. It’s not the end of the world for crying out loud — well, that’s what my 30-something friends say anyway.  I still have at least a month and a half to enjoy the last days of my twenties…. just in case the world does end.

Before, thirty is so far away! It’s so far away that it’s a dot. Now the dot has become a splatter. Pretty soon, it’ll be that dark cloud looming over my head, taunting me. Mocking me even.

So as I approach the last days of the last two-decades-and-then-some of my life,  I find myself  looking at the mirror, staring at what it seems like the same yet different girl.

Jaded. Cynical. But still funny as hell and passionate and loyal to a fault.

I may be wiser and a tad more mature but I still find fulfillment in simple things. A simple life. Simple wants and needs.  Although life is already complicated as it is.

So turning thirty, eh?  It doesn’t feel that significant anymore — unless you’re going to buy some booze and you’re wanting to be carded. Like when you’re at the check out counter and the cashier looks at you and just proceeded to ring up all the alcohol one could fathomly consume in what’s supposed-to-be-the-end-of-an-era-night-kind-of-thing and not even ask for an ID and you giving him the death stare with your eyes in slits thinking, “I am not that old!!!”

Thirty. Treinta.  Dertig.  Trente.  Dreißig.  Trinta.  тридцать.  kolmekymmentä.  Tatlumpo.

Many ways to say thirty… but the thing is, it’s just that. A number. No more, no less.  What matters most is what you’ve become at thirty.

So, should I still make a fuss about leaving my twenties and entering the next decade of my life?  Well, I don’t really have a choice, do I?

xoxo

Crossroads

I’ve never been good with goodbyes. Actually,  I suck at it. The last time I had to, I ended up holding on more than I should’ve, believing all the empty words and false hopes, before reality slapped me in the face and left me reeling. The last time I had to, I ended up looking stupid and in the process lost my dignity, when in fact there’s nothing else left to do but to pick up the pieces that were left behind.

It’s such a simple word isn’t it? If only by saying it can make things that simple. If only by saying it can make things alright. Like magic. One snap of a finger and everything’s better and you don’t have to worry about tommorow and all the what ifs and the what nots. But I don’t have a magic wand. I don’t even have a fairy godmother nor even one of the seven dwarfs. I even have trouble pronouncing wingardium leviosa . Is it wingardium le-viosa or levi-osa? Where do you enunciate?

Can there be any sadder word?

But along with goodbye comes change. I don’t think one could exist without the other.  And since I suck at  farewells, it is safe to assume that I’m no fan of change either.  I have to have a constant in my life.  The irony in that is that nothing is more constant in this world  except change.  I don’t think I’ can just pack up and leave like some people can. But I am trying. To embrace change, I mean. I know better than argue that it is good for the soul, because it is.

With change also comes vulnerability.  Nothing makes you more human than that.  To be stripped down to your bare essentials. Who wants to bare their all anyway just to get battered and bruised in the end? Who wants to be seen on their most desperate and weakest moments?  The whole paradox of it all is that you are only strongest at your weakest.

So  as winter fades into spring, as the leaves start to blossom and as the last remnants of cold slithers away into the warm sunshine , a new beginning waits for me.  Another chapter to be written. Another frontier yet to be discovered. Another round of firsts.

Am I excited?  YES!

Am I scared?  Hell yeah but I’m taking one deep breath. Then one giant leap with eyes wide open.  I’ve worked too hard and too damn long to chicken out now.

To my Forest family, I wave goodbye with a heavy heart and a heavy hand. I look back with fond memories. It was my home away from home. It has witnessed a lot of my triumphs and heartbreaks. All my dramedies and tears. I couldn’t ask for a better place to start than there. And as cliched as it may sound, all good things come to an end. This is my stop. This is where I get off. 

I’m all grown up now. Gone is the naive 22 year old girl that first set foot there seven years ago.  Although it may seem like nothing has changed, the truth is that everything has changed.

Goodbyes. Changes. Vulnerability. It’s a lot to take in.

The best thing about saying goodbye?  That one chance to say hello.

And this time, I’m not scared anymore.

xoxo