Birthday Wisdom.

Birthdays are interesting things. A time to take stock, sift through events from the past and look to the promise of the future. A time to make plans, throw away what hasn't been working in favor of brighter horizons, better opportunities.

Birthdays are also a time for tough love. Or perhaps they are merely a time of tough love for me. Especially this year. Having just left a '7' year behind me, and moved onto an '8', I'm pensive.

I've heard that seven-aged years, (17, 27, 37, etc.), are meant to be psychically super-charged. Events undertaken during these years are auspicious and the seeds planted destined to grow to greatness. But what of the years that precede or follow '7' years. Do they get bumpkus? Are they destined to be incrementally wonderful, or...?

I'm not a kid anymore, but then again, I don't really feel old either. It's strange. When I was younger, I yearned, as many teenagers do, to be 'older'. To be an adult...a woman. Then as I achieved all of these things, I found I felt no different, no older. I'm not sure I could ever really verbalize what I expected being 25 or 32 to feel or look like; I sort-of figured it would be a case of 'I'll recognize it when I see it' sort of situation. The problem with this logic is...I don't. I never have. I've stumbled through many situations, convinced X = X, only then with time and distance to realize that, X wasn't X at all. It was really Y, and it meant Z.

I guess I could undeniably say that at 38 years old, I have achieved 'older'. I am older now. It's official. Whether I feel that way, or look that way or even act that way, I am older. And it changes things. It changes my perception of other people and of what I want. It changes my perception of what I think I can get or even should hope for...and it changes my perception of where I think I will be in the future. And I don't like it. So much time is given to disecting the single woman's life. Is she too picky? Is she a slut? Is she expecting too much? Does she try too hard? I'm sure married folk and those in long-term relationships bear their own excruciatingly annoying burdens - burdens given to them by society and well-meaning types who only want the best for them, but it's exhausting. I find I can't defend my reasons for not wanting to go out every night or make myself painfully 'available' at single's events. I've never enjoyed such things and as I get older, their appeal is markedly less.

The truth is, I never anticipated being alone at 38. And now that I have this reality, I don't quite know what to do with it. I can't be the girl who wants to go out every weekend, yet I don't want to make myself a fossil on the shelf either. There's not much space in society for women my age, it seems. We are either desperate to be married, or cougars. Old maids who are of no consequence, or has-beens who were too picky.

I'm neither a cougar, nor desperate. Yet I do want to find a man with whom I can have a lasting relationship, and feel he is my equal both in spirit and expectation. Am I failing myself? Am I the one who is, truly, throwing marbles under her own feet? Like I said, sometimes X doesn't equal X. It's curious, this getting older. I don't know what the future holds for me, it's true. I certainly could not have predicted last year, or even the past 6 months. Nor would I change them. But given my druthers, I don't know if I'd have kept convincing myself that X = X after all.

Rating 2009.

Home, Bricks and Mortar
It has been the year of change; not much of makeovers but more on cultivating a homey feel -the result is more than cosiness and there will be more to come in 2010.
Score = 4.5/10

Work, Career and Finance
Much uncertainty hung over in '09 and will continue well into '10. This is the time when I need a crystal ball to guide me in a direction. Or tell me I’m just a dreamer.
Score = 5.8/10

Family
I’m ever so grateful for having my mother. Our relationship is improving.
Score = 7.2/10

Health
Bring on 2010 and optimism. Pronto.
Score = 6.5/10

Love, Relationships and Star Signs
There are times when you sunbathe and let the sun warm your soul. Other times you don your gloves, winter coat and long boots, and kick fate in the arse.
Score = 6.8/10

General well-being and feel good factor.
Like swings of the pendulum, they never stay still at one point.
Score = 7.5/10

Friendships and True Colours
A mixed bag emerged in '09. A best friend was exx-ed. A strong friendship shone all year like a bauble at Christmas time. A long-term friendship was rekindled, with equal gusto and enthusiasm from both sides. A beautiful friendship developed and strengthened like the blues of the ocean under sunny skies. One special friendship that I’ve always wanted to keep as a constant has somewhat changed; not for the better or for the worse, just changed.
Score = 6.7/10

Writing
Continuing with this blog after all these years, and another private project that will soon come to fruition, my Muse has kept me busy and inspired.
Score = 9/10

Highlights, Surprises and Disappointments
Two holiday plans didn’t eventuate. It was a year of lull mostly, but it was punctuated by an unexpected visit from distant friends whom I love so dearly.
Score = 5/10

Blogging
Deserves its own score, for having taking me on a full rollercoaster ride and back again to build my own track, one post at a time. Despite some disappointments and not-so-good changes to the medium, endurance is the word.
Score = 5/10

Final Score for 2009:
64/100

Christmas Random Shots II

You know you've reached the pinnacle of home cooking when you've been tasked to help with the Christmas dinner for an entire family clan. How can one say no to cooking the roast turkey, lamb, potato dishes and the salads?

There is more to life than keeping record of your daily life, even if it is in short shorts. There is also keeping a recipe book for all the things you love to cook, more so to eat, for the next generation to follow.

You know something is different about you when you're willing to do stupid things first so that the person next to you had to courage to do what she wants to do.

It is an unusual blessing for someone outside of the family to be the bridge between you and your own blood. Not that I'm complaining. I just don't know what to make of it aside from it meaning that it's always a good thing.

It's hard to have "me-times" in a household full of people getting ready for Christmas. The only chances you get are when you run the small errands that lead up to the big day. Nevertheless, any time alone is welcomed, even from the people you love.

Christmas Random Shots I

When will people learn. Senorita is always right. Well…not always right. Well…not almost either. The point really is that I'm right and you can keep standing on the left.

It's not easy being accustomed to so many people after spending almost a year by yourself. It makes you want to find a hole for some solitary "me-time". A wish impossible to fulfill when you have a very large and close extended family.

People tend to be masters of the obvious when they haven't seen you in a long time. I tend to be a master at being annoyed by this sort of mastery.

When the younger generation of your family seems so spoiled and carefree, you have to wonder if their actions are really as they seem or you're just getting a whole lot older.

Sometimes, the simplest thing to say is nothing at all and everything you can think of.

5 things I love today.

1) Balsamic vinaigrette
2) My kitty, Max
3) Procrastination
4) Water
5) Candlesticks

Recipe For A Success on a Wet Afternoon.

Vanilla Coke, Thai take-out, cookies and cream ice cream, a good book, Sixteen Candles movie and a glorious nap.

That’s all you need, really.

Random Musings of the Week.

1. Waking up in the morning to realise that the dream you so vividly remember when you were half awake is now all but forgotten may quite often be a blessing in disguise.
2. The only solution against the mind numbing repetition at work is the ability to love what you do. Passion is its own rose coloured glasses.
3. Love is not easy, but it is never complicated. Like trying to lift an engine block out of a car, you really need to put your back into it, but it definitely isn't something that requires you to be a rocket scientist to accomplish.
4. Solitude a heavy burden to bear, but what's sadder still is when the only place left to turn to for comfort are the inorganic machines in your life and the fictional worlds in which they hold.
5. You have all the reason in the world to fear a future you can't understand or see, but you have more reason to fear a future you aren't willing to step up to and face. Our destinies are shaped not by the fates that befall us, but the actions of what we're willing to do to overcome them.

Idle Thoughts.

Some days you are your own best friend.
Other days you can be your worst enemy.
Then there are the days in between.

K is for ....Keeping Up with Life.

The start of any relationship-friendship is often an exciting time of anticipation and discovery. We meet someone new whose company we enjoy, learn that we share commonalities, begin to enjoy conversation and reap whatever little pleasures they bring into our lives.

At the start, everything is fresh and exciting. We can be tolerant of their behaviours, attitudes, reactions as we progress through the discovery phase, provided nothing has offended us thus far. Such as, if they can’t meet with us on a particular time due to shift work arrangements, we accept it as we learn about them and what constitutes their lives.

But once a relationship-friendship is forged, and the initial getting to know you stage has settled, we begin to develop expectations of them. For example, if we’ve shared with them our passion for photography or a tennis match every Tuesday night, we expect to be asked about our interests every so often.

And that is when expectations can lead to disappointment.

The period of tolerance is ever so transient before we begin to interpret their behaviour as loss of interest or a change of heart. If we care enough about the person, resentment starts to build over time which can lead to passive-aggressive behaviours.

Simply put… it sucks.

Take the communication route and try to find out the reason for their change, and it can be misinterpreted as an accusation. Words can cut like a sword or denial can cause further uncertainty.

Did I say it sucks?

Expectations are a part of life and deeper human interactions. Remove them from the relationship-friendship equation, and we are left with apathy, and a shallow pool of acquaintances who don’t enrich our lives.

So what remains is to follow a different path, that of a slow and winding road to withdrawal. And watch the relationship-friendship disintegrate into chunks that eventually crumble into the dust of indifference, disregard and oblivion.

Only to be sucked by a Dyson.

Or deleted from the archives. Of the mind. Of email. Of memory. Just as they have.

Because in a fit of anger, they no longer matter.

Self-Acceptance.

It’s taken me 17 years to fully accept this but I’m finally there. I don't want to be Meg Ryan anymore. Just to be clear, I never wanted to be the current Meg Ryan; I always had hopes of being the Meg Ryan of yesterday. You know, “When Harry Met Sally” Meg Ryan or even better “When You’ve Got Mail” Meg Ryan. When people see her in those movies, they throw around words like ‘adorable’ and ‘endearing’ and who doesn’t want to be that? Plus she was the poster girl for how quirky could be sexy. And when you are 5″3, clumsy and red lipstick looked ghoulish on you? You embrace quirky like a warm blanket on a cold night.

The thing is, Meg Ryan (or more accurately her character- yes, I do blur the lines between fantasy and reality on a regular basis. Perhaps this is why Brad Pitt isn’t returning my calls?), differ in one important area. Okay, if you count the ability to wake up with great hair, we differ in TWO areas. I will never be a girl who cuddles while sleeping. See, if you watch any Meg movie (or any movie geared towards those possessing ovaries) you will notice that the classic “couple sleep” pose is man on his back, woman splaying herself all over him, cuddled up like a koala bear clinging to a tree branch. And she’s always fast asleep, her face nuzzled in the perfectly groomed chest hair of a man who manages to pull off being sexy, funny and able to say exactly the right thing before the two hour movie is up.

I can’t do that. I need my space. It’s not that I’m anti- cuddling, I enjoy a cuddle as much as the next girl- but when it comes to sleep? I need some room. And not “you move one inch over but let’s still hold hands when we sleep” space. I need “stay on your side” sort of space. Legs can tangle, arms can drift- and I actually like the idea of them being close enough that I can feel the warmth of their body near mine but a whole body smashed up against mine while I’m working on getting some REM cycles? No, thank you. There are roughly 1,287 things a couple can do in bed (thanks to Cosmo for setting some unrealistic expectations for all future bed partners) but sleeping is one thing that I have to do alone.

I’ve been thinking about this lately and when it comes to actual dating- I’m the same way. I sleep how I love. I’m all for couple time but I’ve never understood the couples who have to do everything together. I cringe knowing that this cliche is going to leave my brain but I need space. I need time away, time alone. Maybe this is just growing out of a particular phase or maybe it’s just growing up- realizing independence isn’t a dirty word. But I need a world where I can sleep without being crushed by the weight of another human being. I’m a small person after all. I wish just one time Meg Ryan would have told a man she needed some sleeping room. That there’s a fine line between basking in the heat radiating off the one person you adore and feeling the crushing weight of their body while attempting to get sleep after practicing some moves learned in that previous issue of Cosmo.


I wish Meg would have said she could do a million things with the man she loved but sleep was something she needed to do alone. I wish she would have one time told a man that telling him to shove over to his side didn’t mean she loved him less- it meant she loved him enough to show him this side of her. I wish she would have said that it’s important to spend time apart- even in bed, because in the morning when you reach across the tangled galaxy of blankets and pillows and find someone on the other side reaching back for you, well, that’s the best feeling in the world.

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Superstitions.

It never struck me before, but there’s a big “full of yourself” side to some superstitions. Think about it: it basically amounts to saying that some small action of oneself will influence the universe. Not that I think that we’re not having an impact through all our actions, but there are limits. To take an absurd example, “step on a crack, break your mother’s back”: I am so powerful, I have such influence over matter, that doing this little thing will cause great misfortune to someone dear.

Of course, we all have idiosyncrasies; some people need to always go out the same door by which they entered a room, or need do always do specific things in a particular sequence. But that has more to do with rituals, and their various benefits, than some force over which we have a strange kind of control. Could superstition be some sort of over-compensation, like someone with low self-esteem feeling the need to project a successful persona? It would be an interesting compensation mechanism, seeing as the person both has power through their action, but is also prisoner of that power and its rules.

Get to know yourself better

1. Open this website : http://www.quizbox.com/personality/test82.aspx
2. Take the Personality Quiz
3. Copy Paste the result to Facebook/or Blogger:
4. Tag your friends including me
5. Do comment if you think this is true about me!

Your view on yourself: You are down-to-earth and people like you because you are so straightforward. You are an efficient problem solver because you will listen to both sides of an argument before making a decision that usually appeals to both parties.

The type of girlfriend/boyfriend you are looking for:You like serious, smart and determined people. You don't judge a book by its cover, so good-looking people aren't necessarily your style. This makes you an attractive person in many people's eyes.

Your readiness to commit to a relationship:You are ready to commit as soon as you meet the right person. And you believe you will pretty much know as soon as you might that person.

The seriousness of your love:You like to flirt and behave seductively. The opposite sex finds this very attractive, and that's why you'll always have admirers hanging off your arms. But how serious are you about choosing someone to be in a relationship with?

Your views on education:You may not like to study but you have many practical ideas. You listen to your own instincts and tend to follow your heart, so you will probably end up with an unusual job.

The right job for you:You're a practical person and will choose a secure job with a steady income. Knowing what you like to do is important. Find a regular job doing just that and you'll be set for life.

How do you view success:You are afraid of failure and scared to have a go at the career you would like to have in case you don't succeed. Don't give up when you haven't yet even started! Be courageous.

What are you most afraid of:You are concerned about your image and the way others see you. This means that you try very hard to be accepted by other people. It's time for you to believe in who you are, not what you wear.

Who is your true self:You like privacy very much because you enjoy spending time with your own thoughts. You like to disappear when you cannot find solutions to your own problems, but you would feel better if you learned to share your thoughts with a person you trust.

Get to know yourself better

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Connected.

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Trolley-watching

I always think what people put in their shopping trolleys (or baskets) can tell you quite a lot about them.

- The little old lady with a basket full of chocolate and fizzy soda probably has grandchildren coming to visit.

- A young man with a trolley full of frozen pizzas, tins of soup and microwave meals. Student?

- How about the woman pushing round a trolley that’s full to the brim - a whole bunch of apples, three cartons of milk and the largest bag of rice available I've ever seen. She’s clearly got a big family at home waiting to be fed.

So what does my shopping trolley tell people about me?
Well, most days I look like the classic, single girl on my road to being a career woman. There I am with my half loaf of bread (because I’ll never finish a normal sized one all by myself), two tomatoes, a couple of yoghurts and the a packet of meat I can find - the one that contains mince beef for exactly two servings of pasta bolognaise, which look totally lost on their huge polystyrene tray. Just about enough for a busy girl to feed herself on for a couple of days without it going mouldy while she’s occupied with something else.

Then there are the lonely and depressed days. Those are the ones where I’ve had a lousy day at work and can’t be bothered to do anything, so I fill my trolley with chips and chocolate bars and a couple of those canned stuff like Spam or Corned Beef that you just heat up in a pan. On days like these, anyone who was glancing into my trolley would either think I’d just been dumped or was depressed about not being able to get a boyfriend. Why? Well we all know chocolate and crisps are the ultimate "just been dumped" comfort foods…

And finally, roughly once a week, my trolley reveals me as one half of a happy couple. Those are the days that I know M is coming over, so I can actually buy enough food to feed two people without having to either leave half of it or stick it in a tupperware for the next day’s lunch. Those are the days when my trolley contains salmon or maybe even some juicy steaks. If I’m feeling really decadent I might even throw in a bottle of wine and some posh ice-cream.

So what does your shopping trolley say about you?

Advice to Self - Stop Procrastination.

If you wish to get something done, stop telling yourself why you can't.
Begin telling yourself why you must. If you remember why you must--you will.

The High Price of Popularity

Crushing insecurity. Sadly, my self esteem is such that the more people there are who want something from me, the more people I have to worry about disappointing. While it was briefly exhilarating to be wanted by so many, by Monday night I was a raging bundle of insecurity, convinced I was going to fail everyone.

I think I’ll settle for a life of quiet obscurity.

Happy Halloween!

Cleaning out the wallet.

For the sake of efficiency I’ve removed all the fortunes, tiny scraps of artwork, receipts for indecent things, currency from other countries, useless business cards, pretty leaves, and notes to myself to help me remember all the important things I no longer remember. And now, my wallet is tiny.

Somehow, I feel less interesting.

The Problem of My Soul.

I need me some new adventures.

Quote of the Day.

“If everything is uncertain, why fear anything?”

“The key is to get to know people and trust them to be who they are. Instead, we trust people to be who we want them to be- and when they're not, we cry.”

“No man is happy. He is, at best, fortunate.”


~ Solon, Athenian statesman and poet, 630-560bc