Eat and Run

I've definitely stepped up my commitment to my fitness regime in the last three months and finally I feel like I'm seeing some change and not just "feeling" stronger. I was getting frustrated with the actual results though as it seemed that none of my numbers were improving. Finally, last week I saw half an inch difference in my hip measurements. It's ridiculous, I know, but I needed to see something to assure me that I wasn't just imagining it all.

That same week I also came across a blog post by Lauren Fleshman, an Olympic hopeful in running. Lauren wrote about a fashion show she did during New York Fashion Week for her sponsor, Oiselle Running Apparel. Photos of her walking the runway were posted and she looked every bit like a champion.

But Lauren didn't feel these pictures were totally honest and wanted to set things straight.

"Out of the thousands of photos taken at the runway show after all that tanning and primping and posture-holding, one or two of them looked good. A lot of them looked pretty gnarly. Weird facial expressions, lumpy bits, zombie walks…but nobody would ever know…"

Lauren posted photos of herself taken later that week to prove her point. She showed pics of a soft belly hanging out and another one of her grabbing dimpled flesh on her inner thigh.

Thigh cheese on a world class runner

Lauren can run a 5k in under 15 minutes and was ranked 7th in the world in 2011 and sometimes her stomach sticks out. This gives me comfort followed by immediate discomfort for the fact that I need to be reassured that even fast running Olympic candidate athletes have chubby parts and wobbly bits. I think the way to break this vicious circle of comfort/discomfort is to eat a cookie. And then run. And then eat a chocolate bon bon. And then run.

Pain tolerance

Gah. I hate it when I have the blogging voice in my head but I ignore it and put off writing for days and then the words, memories and thoughts build up and start crashing into each other to the point that I can no longer untangle one post idea from another. It's like a laundry pile of bloggable stuff up there and I need to sort it out into the darks, lights, sheets, delicates and the stuff that needs to be pre-treated. On the upside, the blogger voice has taken up residence in my head again. (Who in the hills gets excited for voices returning to her head? This girl does, apparently.)

I read an article that showed up on my Facebook news feed this week and found it strummed on my strings. What do you think the most important question you can ask yourself today is? Mark Manson  writes that it isn't "what do you want out of life" but rather, "what pain do you want out of life" because everyone wants the same pleasure, but we all differ on the kind of pain we'll endure to get the rewards. What are you willing to struggle for, Manson asks?

Everybody wants to have great sex and an awesome relationship -- but not everyone is willing to go through the tough communication, the awkward silences, the hurt feelings and the emotional psychodrama to get there. And so they settle. They settle and wonder "What if?" for years and years and until the question morphs from "What if?" into "What for?" And when the lawyers go home and the alimony check is in the mail they say, "What was it all for?" If not for their lowered standards and expectations for themselves 20 years prior, then what for?

Coming around to month eight of the Stillian Relationship Adventure, I still get jumpy and nervous whenever I say something and Stephen states that he believes the opposite. How can we live happily ever after if when I say black he says white, when I want almond milk he wants beer or if my dream is for X but his is for D, M or S and there is no room for X. On Thursday night Stephen told me he missed mushrooms (I am strongly opposed to them anywhere on my plate) and asked if he would ever get to eat them again. 

"Couples do that, right, they eat different things sometimes, right?" he asked. On Friday when I was grocery shopping I looked at the fresh mushrooms and considered them as an ingredient in an omelet I'd make for him (mine would be 'shroom free, and cooked in a different pan altogether, that's how much I dislike their flavour). For him I would put mushrooms into my shopping basket, of course I would. My mom was always so good about working around our family's various nutritional needs and preferences that I see this kind of accommodation as an act of love and a challenging opportunity to be creative in cooking. It's a pain, but it's one I enjoy and will choose to take on.

"On the other hand, I am willing to live out of a suitcase for months on end, to stammer around in a foreign language for hours with people who speak no English to try and buy a cell phone, to get lost in new cities over and over and over again. Because that's the sort of pain and stress I enjoy sustaining. That's where my passion lies, not just in the pleasures, but in the stress and pain."

When I read this part of the article it grips my heart. Sometimes I shake my head and wonder why  and how people endure my nonsense, but I remember that Love is a choice we make. We shrug off the pain and stress, even enjoy the challenge of it. Not everyone would make the same choice but we find happiness in the path we take. I had a big exhale in the moment I realised the simple truth: I don't have to be the stress-free, pain-free option to be chosen by Love. How freakin liberating is that? Hey people who love me, I may be a royal pain in the hindquarters but I am YOUR pain in the hindquarters. Yup, you choose me and I am beyond humbled and grateful.

My heartbreaks, my regrets, my joy.

A day of plot twists, it was. First was the pie, the birthday pie I was asked to make for Stephen's mom's birthday. I had made the pastry on Saturday in my mom's kitchen, under the supervision of my baking mentor, mama. I've made pastry maybe a few times in my life. I've made maybe four pies on my own. Cake I can do in my sleep. Pies are still a new challenge, and boy did this one set out to test my mettle.

I am constructing the pie in Stephen's kitchen and hadn't packed flour in my toolbox for rolling out the pastry so it sticks to everything, the rolling pin, the mat, me...etc. I have corn starch with me so I cross my fingers and make it a substitute for the flour. Unfortunately I have to roll it out twice, once for the failed attempt where the pastry refused to let go of the mat and then a second and final time. You need to be careful when working with pastry that you don't overwork it or it will end up tough and may shrink when baked. Sure enough, it shrinks in the pie tin. Plot twist number one.

I then set to make the lemon curd filling. This requires five egg yolks; the whites would be saved for the meringue topping. It is very important that no yolk gets into the whites or the meringue won't work. I bust a yolk on egg number 4. Despite our best tries, neither Stephen nor I can collect all the yolk out of the whites. They would make a lovely omelet, but are useless for meringue. Plot twist, plot twist.

Finished with the curd on the stove, I pour it into the crust and then we leave for my house. We had our first real dumping of snow the night before so I needed to get home to do some shoveling. I had also forgotten to pack my hair dryer and needed it to make something out of my goldie locks.

While Stephen starts on my driveway I retrieve the carton of egg whites from my fridge, my hair dryer and my snow brush for my truck. I go to find mitts so I can join Mr. Plow outside. I keep my winter things in a bag in my closet and this is my first time accessing it since March. I pull everything out but only manage to find three different mitts, no matches. I consider wearing a mismatched pair, thinking at the very least it would make Stephen laugh, but I can't even do that since I'd only found left hands.

Stephen had found my scoop shovel for pushing the snow off the driveway.

"That thing hurts my knee," I say.

"It works great, you just need to learn how to use it properly." Stephen proceeds to demonstrate pushing the scoop across the snow and then dumping it with a slight tipping action after pushing it up the newly established bank. He then offers the scoop to me.

"You learn by doing," he says. Right. I'm dating a teacher. The thing is, my dad had given me the exact same speech and demonstration numerous times. It's eerie, really, to hear the same words coming out of Stephen's mouth. He is a movember-stashed, splash pants and blue toqued version of my father. He's also recently taken to affectionately calling me JB, which previously only my dad had ever addressed me with. This starts feeling weird.

Back in the boy's kitchen, I get to work on the meringue. It turns out lovely. It's my new favourite part of lemon pie now. I spoon it onto the filling and put it in the oven to toast. It gets a bit over-toasted but otherwise is good. When we eat the pie, I am happy with the meringue, mostly pleased with the lemon curd, but know the crust would not pass the Barrott standard of excellence. I still have practicing to do.

At the end of the night I gather my weekend luggage in the kitchen and get ready to leave for home. I'd brought so much stuff this time I feel like I'd traveled hours from home. I loathe this part of Sunday nights. They feel sad, heavy and arduous on my arms and my heart.

I don't get very far down the back lane before I realize I'd forgotten my cell phone and iPod. I pull up to the front of Stephen's house where he is shoveling his steps and sidewalk.

"Cell phone and iPod," I say. He is not fazed by these Alzheimer's moments of mine. I still beat myself up about them but am consciously trying to be more accepting and forgiving of it all. I just don't want to come to terms with the fact that I forget and lose things because I think that it means my brain is smaller than everyone else's. I shake my head at the terrible insults I hurl at myself when I make a mistake, but when someone I love err's, I know I am good at smiling and forgiving. Why can' I lend myself the same level of compassion?

I go around to the back of the house and into the kitchen to retrieve my electronic devices. When I come back outside, Stephen is there to meet me. I am set to hurry back to my truck, but he stops me, smiling.

"Hey, where's my bonus kiss?"

And right then and there in minus seven degrees I start to melt. He kisses me once, then again, and then again. The weekend that had zipped by is suddenly on pause as he and I become the couple of the moment to share a tender kiss with the snow softly falling around us. I think about that moment the whole drive home. I think about it so much that I miss my turn off and have to drive an extra six kilometres. Never mind twist, this is a plot detour.

If I hadn't forgotten my phone and iPod tonight, I wouldn't have had that sweet moment that I will replay in my head when I need a warm thought. I forgave myself tonight for my brain of fluff.

This post title is blank because gremlins ate my blog

I just sat through an entire gaggle of UFC fights (what do you call a group of fights anyway?) and blogged happily all through. It was a grand post. Awesome. I was doing this whole comparison thing between fights and those on again off again relationships that we all do and then go why, why why?

I was working on Stephen's laptop. It's evil and hates me. (see, I just typed that and then the cursor jumped to the middle of the sentence to spite me. Evil possessed thing.) So as I was finishing up this grand post, the Laptop highlights three paragraphs and replaces the words with an A.

GAH!

So to fix this, I quickly closed the post, hoping to catch it before auto-save kicked in. Didn't work. I hit back on the browser and BOOM, the whole post disappeared. Yeah. Awesome.

Plot twist, plot twist, plot twist. Oh Jillian, those words just weren't meant for public consumption.

Pen and paper have never failed me. I am going back. At least Stephen doesn't have a dog to eat my work and his fireplace is a nice, safe, electric one.

Let it go...

Journey

I am home again, clean again and will sleep on stable ground again. I'd almost trade it all in for more train time.

I left Winnipeg on my seven month-aversary of being with Stephen. I'm pretty sure I've gone through all the dwarf characters--maybe a few stellar Snow White moments--in that time. Sleepy? Yup. Dopey? For sure. Grumpy? Yeah...Happy? Definitely.

I didn't catch it until just before I left the house, but Stephen sent me a sweet text message that morning to wish me a good trip, tell me he would miss me, and acknowledge our special day. My heart fluttered. It still does that whenever he sends some random "I am thinking of you" message. It's not quite so romantic to press your Blackberry to your heart and sigh as it was in the past when you'd press a hand-written love note sent by homing pigeons, but the effect is the same, I am sure.

I planned to send Stephen some kind of happy hello when I got off the plane. But when I pulled my phone out the little battery icon was glowing orange which means CAUTION! YOU HAVE ABOUT 20 KEYSTROKES OF POWER LEFT ON THIS THING SO USE CAREFULLY! I had three missions upon de-planing

1. Find the Toronto Pearson Airport Good Life gym and check it out
2. Charge phone so I can tell everyone that I have landed and am ready to start my adventure
3. Find some WiFi so I could send my press release to people in Winnipeg for distribution

I didn't find the gym. I found all kinds of signage once outside of the arrival terminal telling me it was back in there and that they even rent shoes and work out gear. Why would you put the signs on the outside and not inside the terminal, with great big arrows to say RUN HERE? Dumb. That's what I say.

I walked in circles to find a place to plug in my phone and had to give up. I got into a taxi and headed for the train station where I also wandered around but this time found an outlet. I parked myself on a bench that had a lovely view of a bank of payphones and the men's washrooms. When I had enough battery power again I thought about sending a message to Stephen. I wanted to say something grand and heart-melting but couldn't come up with anything. Then I reminded myself that the message doesn't matter so much as the simple reminder that someone is thinking of you and missing you. So I went with that theory and hit the send button.

Once my phone was almost full again I ventured down Front Street toward the restaurant where I was to meet my travel mates, Hailey and Helene. I still had an hour to kill before dinner. I stepped into Starbucks ordered a grande cup of Passion tea and made a home at one of the tables by the window. 

Although the Internet access at Starbucks is free, the signal is quite clogged up with people watching and doing all sorts of pipe clogging activities. I couldn't get logged onto my work files so I couldn't send my press release. Grr. I gave up, wrapped my hands around my paper cup of sweet and spicy tea and watched the world go by for an hour. It was dark and boring.

I met Hailey and Helene at seven o'clock for dinner at Jack Astor's. I'd been there before with Vince and Chris and remember loving their nachos. This was probably five years ago. I didn't think cheese and corn chips had changed much in that time, but at Jack's they did and now they were not so delicious. But that was an insignificant detail of the evening where I met two awesome girls who would make this trip fun like summer camp.

"Are you married, seeing someone, not currently with anyone?" Helene got down to the important details immediately.

"Actually, I am seeing someone and today is our seven month-aversary. It's the first time we haven't been able to celebrate it together," I said. Helene responded with a heart-felt "Aww" and demanded more information about how we met and such. Later in the evening she noticed I'd used the crayons on the table to draw a heart on the brown paper table cloth and that I'd written a note for Jillian and Stephen in it.

"Let's take a picture!" Helene picked up a crayon and wrote "Stephen" on a napkin. Then she put it over her face and came over to sit beside me, ready for Hailey to snap a picture. We'd known each other for 30 minutes and already she had lent me her compassion. That's Helene.

Helene tries to stand in for Stephen but doesn't
quite have the arms for it.

I sent the picture to Stephen right away with this note.

Having fun with the girls in T.O. Before we get on the train. I celebrated us with a steak and glass of red. The steak was lame-o but the wine is doing me wonders. Ooh and they are playing a song from the cutting edge. I will try to email again from the train tonight or tomorrow.

Love,
Jillian

I had managed to get enough of a corner of the Internet to get my press release out. We left Jack's for the train. I was feeling excited.

On the train it didn't take long before cell service was lost and I was officially off the grid. This became my biggest source of stress for the rest of the trip.



There are people who love taking the train. It costs more than flying and takes longer to get you there so how this can be true was a bit of a mystery to both Hailey and me. The idea got more confounding when we checked out our sleeper car "room".

There were bunks on one side, a sink on the other and a toilet in a closet.

Hailey is coming out of the toilet closet

Kicking back and relaxin' on the bottom bunk

We lucked out in that it was Champagne night in the lounge car. We also lucked out with having a singer/song writer/guitar player on our train all the way to Winnipeg. VIA sponsors artists to ride their trains and share their art with the other passengers.

Helene made quick work of making this guy our new friend. His name was Justin. He was from Winnipeg and yes, he took requests.

"Do you know any Journey?" I asked.

"I do, but not the song you're thinking of," he said. I'm not sure which song he was thinking I was thinking. It wasn't Don't Stop Believing, which would have been my first guess. I was actually hoping the only Journey song he knew how to play was Open Arms, because it's Stephen's song and I wanted to tape the performance and send it to him as my "Sorry I can't be with you today" gift.

Open Arms was not the song, but I liked what he threw down anyway.

It's sad
ohh, there's been mornings
Out of the world without you
Without your charms

Journey - Lights

I never got to send it to Stephen. The Internet connection left when we left the station and it was never strong enough to upload the video. My cell phone service also disappeared. The bar tender in the lounge told me it would be pretty flaky until we got to Sudbury, and then sketchy for the rest of the trip. He wasn't just whistling dixie.

The bar tender of bad news
(but otherwise nice guy)

When I woke up on Wednesday morning, cell service was still but a memory. Hailey and I went to breakfast ahead of the other two girls. On the train they don't have room for solo diners or those in pairs. You are assigned a chair to fill tables. We were seated with two young women with their own interesting histories and reasons for their journeys. One was a film maker from Vancouver who had lived all over the world. The other was on her way to The Pas, MB to move in with her girlfriend who she met on World of Warcraft. I can't make this stuff up and I'm good.

 Cell service was not coming back any time soon. This was frustrating for a girl who was hoping that her event plans were all knitting together nicely back home. I couldn't do any work because I couldn't access any files. All I could do was sit in the sky view car, watch the scenery and journal. I let go of the frustration and grabbed hold of gratitude for the time to get reacquainted with journaling. I stepped into my troubled mind, grabbed a cup of tea and got comfortable.

The disconnection did start to get to me by the afternoon though. I learned in Pensacola that I can travel solo, but I need to be able to connect with my peeps at home at the end of the day to tell them all about my day. I tried to connect when we arrived at a small town. My voicemail was full of messages. Something had gone off the rails back home and I couldn't do anything about it from where I was. All this stirred up a bout of homesickness. I sat on my bunk and looked out at the bleak, grey world passing by, not nearly fast enough for me. I missed Stephen.

I called my parents. My dad talked me off my ledge. I hung up and joined my friends in a game of Bananagrams which is kind of like Scrabble but without a board. I had some mad skills.

The afternoon passed by slowly. Around five I had cell service again. I was checking my phone constantly. Every time it blinked my heart lept. Every time it was an e-flyer from The Gap or Beyond the Rack I sunk. We had sing alongs with Justin.  There was a beautiful sunset. A radio station wanted an interview and then changed its mind.

I still missed Stephen. The simple and logical thing to do would be to grab that cell phone signal by the horns and send the guy a note, a text that said "hey, it's been a yo-yo of a day and I would love to hear from you". But I'm not so good with standing up and saying I need someone or something, so I put the phone down and sang more songs and watched out the window until it was too dark to see any more.

Around five I got cell service again. I decided I was being ridiculous. Adult relationships mean you have to be uncomfortable and vulnerable sometimes. They mean not hanging onto the things that happened in the past and using them to feed your fears in the present. I messaged him and put the phone away.

Sleep on the train was elusive to me. I drifted in and out of consciousness, weird dreams and being wide awake enough to sit up and press my nose to the cool glass of the dark window.

At midnight between Wednesday and Thursday I was awake and my phone was blinking. Service was back. I had voicemails and emails from journalists. I replied to what I could, silently apologizing to my bunkmate for the tap tap tap of my handheld QWERTY. When I saw the reply from Stephen, the butterflies found their way to my heart again.

Event day went amazingly well. I lead the girls through a whirlwind of media interviews before the publicity stunt I'd coordinated. We got good media coverage.

At the end of the day I found Stephen. I was bursting to tell him all about the trip and simultaneously held together by his strong-armed embrace.

I am a girl who gets to do some pretty awesome things in her job. This used to be everything to me. Now I am also a girl in love with a really great guy. I need him. I need his smile, hugs, jokes, loyalty, forgiveness, patience and his no-holding back style of love. When we were still getting to know each other better I came to the conclusion that either he'd never had his heart smashed into pieces and smeared on a wall or he was really, really good at forgiving and forgetting the people who had treated him so carelessly because he seemed fearless in the face of love. I could stand to learn something about that.

Button it up

So I have been working on a post about my train trip the last few days but I'm not quite finished yet. I'm taking a pause on that project though to bring you this breaking news story.

New development in my ortho treatment. As of today I have to wear elastics to control the alignment of my bite. To facilitate this they had to glue on buttons to two of my top teeth. The elastics then hook onto the buttons at top and hooks on the bottom. You take them off when you eat but otherwise you have to wear them 24/7. And when they say "cute as a button" they aren't talking about these things.

One button is on a back right molar so it's just an irritant to the inside of my cheek. The other button is on my upper left canine tooth so when I show a big ol' happy grin it looks like my tooth has a pimple. I know, vanity is a troublesome thing I need to throw out the window. But I have a birthday coming and then Christmas holidays with my guy and family I've never met before. Way to bring on the freak show for the holidays. Wah wah wah.

No more random happy kisses from Stephen, I'm afraid. If he starts looking at me with that sparkle in his eye I'm going to have to run to the mirror to un-hook my jaw first. Awesome.

Oh and boy does it hurt. Except when I was in my gym class today the pain went away. I guess my body was busy with the ab, butt and thighs pain so it laid off on the mouth pain for a while.

Okay. I'm done whining. You can now go back to your regularly scheduled programming. Thanks.

Planes, trains and publicity stunts

Tomorrow I get on a plane to Toronto where I will later board a train for 34 hour ride back to Winnipeg. Upon arrival I will coordinate multiple media interviews and then host a fitness boot camp event outside at Portage and Main with a Canadian sweetheart famous for receiving a set of pulmonary fibrosis damage-free lungs.

What does one pack for all that?

Thursday will be a big, busy and crazy day and I couldn't pull it off without my support team. My mom will drive me to the airport on Tuesday. My dad is my production assistant/courier/audio guy. My co-workers are being good sports and will come out for the event and at the end of the day I will find my way back to Stephen's big open arms for a welcome home/I missed you/congrats on a successful event hug.

It will be over before I know it.

I feel pretty

Yesterday was the first day after a haircut. Women know what this day means. It is the big test to see if they can recreate in their tresses all the bounce, shine and fun that their hairdresser did. I armed myself with hair product, my blow dryer and two different brushes to try to coax my locks into showing volume, shine and sleekness. I was nervous but felt prepared and had a tactic in mind so I set to work.

I had already done my make up and was pleased that my face was not red and cranky much. I had managed to apply just the right hint of eye shadow to enhance my peepers in natural shades. If I could get my hair to do what I knew it could, I'd be set.

I started off with good volume, but I couldn't get the hair to lay in the right place and stay. My bangs fell hopelessly infront of my eyes, no amount of sticky paste or hairspray could convince it otherwise. On top of that, I had over-done it on the product. My strands looked heavy and greasy. I was dismayed.

Stephen had just arrived looking cool in his green hooded sweater, jeans and a moto jacket and suggested that we start our afternoon out with a drink.I stood in front of the mirror and assessed. My hair was a small fail. My outfit, comprised of a red t-shirt layered over a long-sleeved white and black striped t-shirt and dark jeans, which had seemed fine a moment ago now showed a frumpy side. I frowned and the little red balloon in my heart that carries my spunk and confidence completely deflated. I felt un-pretty.

I don't think guys can really understand when a girl says she doesn't feel pretty or what difference it makes. I know Stephen looks at me and sees the same blue eyes he saw on our first date. The clothes I put on don't matter much and he has told me he still thinks I'm beautiful with my face all washed off for the night. He says lovely things but still, I want to feel pretty on my own terms. 

It didn't really matter before Stephen, but now it does. I want to feel kissable when I am with my beau. I want to feel like the girl he wants to plant one on in the middle of the produce section at Safeway. A frumpy outfit and bad hair doesn't make me feel kissable. It makes me feel like the friend who is tagging along on the outing.

It's hard to give love to someone else if you're not feeling in love with yourself first.  To do that takes care, time and a strong effort at being gentle to one's self in front of the mirror. It starts with appreciating your bare skin and loving all the freckles, lines and scars. Then it means loving the hug of the clothes on your body and seeing the features that are so striking they command the world's attention. A smile, vivid eyes, a beautiful neck, legs that go on forever--anything. It is seeing all this and knowing it comes with the soul of someone with beautiful, loveable qualities and quirks. When I lose touch with these things I need time and space alone to find them again, which is hard when your boyfriend is standing there looking la-ti-da amazing himself and you have about 15 minutes to get out the door so you can get your to-do list done.

On top of feeling un-presentable that afternoon, my house also felt like a mess. In the kitchen I started to spin out from it all, This climaxed with me trying to find a place for the microwave plate cover in the refrigerator.

"AHH! What am I doing?" I slammed the fridge door shut and threw the cover on the toaster. Stephen grabbed me by the shoulders, spun me around, and hugged me. Bad hair, frumpy outfit, messy kitchen me. 

I did end up changing my outfit and I covered my hair up with a cute hat. I smiled in the mirror when I was done with the transformation. I felt pretty and when Stephen and I walked hand in hand out of the restaurant, I felt happy, beautiful, and loved. 

Take me back to Pensacola

I was looking today at a post I'd saved in draft from way back in April when I was vacationing in Florida. I don't know why I didn't just hit "Publish" on it then, it seemed complete when I read it today, but I guess in the moment I was writing it I felt I had more to say.

Today I saw palm trees, blue ocean, white sand, lifeguards and pretty drinks with little umbrellas. I walked everywhere, as my blistered feet will attest to. My feet may be giving up on me, but I am love, love, loving this trip to Pensacola. I found my hotel last night in the dark without the help of my GPS, which has decided to take a long nap. I am pretty sure I found my way by heart because this vacation has been calling to me for a while now.

I was so full of happiness today I had to hold back tears. I love the sun, the heat, the sand, the walking around in shorts and tank top over bikini and that delicious scent of sunscreen on my skin. I do not miss the extended weeks of winter in Winnipeg one bit.

I booked this trip while holding my breath but smiling. I was nervous to take a trip on my own but I was excited for the adventure it would bring. Until now I was waiting for a special guy to do a getaway like this with. I always figured I wanted to wait and share this kind of trip with someone special. This year I broke out of that box because I was tired of waiting and I wanted to do something that would grow my independence. Funny things happen when you think you are making a bold move.

"I'll miss you," he said and I smiled. I'd always wanted someone who would miss me.

I was warmed by the memories of sun and sand. I was happy for the girl who was moved to tears with her joy and I cheered for the girl who broke out of her box and took a risk. The boy who missed me then still misses me today when I am not close by.

The girl of that post was nervous about the risk she was taking, but not afraid to do it. She believed that no matter what happened, she could deal with it. Get lost? She could find her way out. Rain? She could have fun inside. Hopelessly homesick and bored? Oh well, now she knows she can't vacation solo. I love that girl. I am that girl still, somewhere.

I think the things that I am afraid of right now are the highest stakes I've ever faced. Saying, "oh well, if it doesn't work out I'll get over it, I'll figure it out," feels rather impassive, indifferent, nonchalant (playing with the thesaurus here), even if deep down I know the statement is true (minus the casual feelings about it all). Getting to the place where I am okay with that or finding another path to peace in my heart is my challenge right now.