Oh the things we can do...

It's the weekend! (almost)

Finishing up lunch break now. I ate over half of a small pizza, so much for "eating healthy." Oh well, I deserve it seeing as I've actually been excercising lately (here we go again, right?).

But I'm so excited about this weekend. Mainly because my plans are minimal which leaves a ton of room for improvision.

So far I want my two days of freedom to include: a run through second-hand shops, a few hours (at least) in the sun, a ride on my bike, and good times with friends. I foresee all of those happening. Yay! :-)

Oh, I also want to start on my new and oh-so-cliche (wait is that a completely contridictory statement?) photography project. Something that has to do with macro shots and the town I live in. Yes it's probably been done, but not by me.

I'm off to make it on the final stretch: 3ish hours and counting. Oh gah, I shouldn't have thought about that number...

Maggie Update

Maggie Super-Star: Spotted after bath-time, and sporting fabulous vintage aviatoresque sunglasses. 

And only a few moments before Maggie had enjoyed a wonderful bath in her Aunt Sarah's sink. 

24 Hours: To VA and Back

A reunion in a garden (How poetic)

Today I had lunch with two very, very special people. My art teacher from h.s. and also an old friend (and former classmate) who I haven't seen in a long time, LP and Lew respectively.  

In high school I was in GT Art (Gifted & Talented) that was an audition only class taught by the talented, insightful, and did I say talented, LP.  It's amazing to see my first painting I ever did under her eye and then the last one.  She saw her role as a teacher as being able to channel our styles and ideas of art, not mold them to the standards of what ppl expect art to be.  She also made sure we got experiences that otherwise, students in Small Town USA wouldn't have been able to see.  

We went to Atlanta to see Dale Chihuly's exhibit in the Atlanta Botanical Gardens, "Chihuly in the Garden" followed by a trip to the High Museum of Art to see their show of Vincent Van Gogh.  (I recall may jokes from one classmate in particular about the irony of an art museum being called "high."  I laughed. tehe)  Then there were trips to New York City that same year and the next year was Chicago.  Amazing experiences that gave me my first look into something outside of my little corner of Southern US (sans the family trip to Washington DC in summer 2002. That was definitely an experience.)

And then there's Lew.  Except for the visitation after Mama died, which doesn't count because I was pretty drugged/in-shock so I don't remember, I haven't seen her in over a year.  And while it kind of sucks that we never get to see each other more, she is one of those friends where we pick up right where we left off.  She's truly an amazing person.  In fact I know few people with her kind of conviction, moral code, honesty, and healthy ambition (I say healthy ambition, because ambition can often be considered a very bad, unhealthy, thing).

It was wonderful to see them again.  Kind of a mini-reunion I guess you could say.  And before Lew got there I was able to tell LP exactly what has been going on in my life.  I told her about my plan for the year 2009 that I have to be back in school for that fall, but not without a little dread.  I'm always worried how people will react when they find out I'm not going back to school this fall, especially people who's opinions really matter to me.  I always dread that look on their face that says, "Sure she's going back to school next fall, that's what everybody says."  Because everybody does say that.  

So many people leave school and have no intention of going back because they lack the ambition to do so.  Sure there's circumstances, etc. etc.  But I'm sure a lot of people who leave school, aren't actually going to go back.  I don't want to be one of those people.  And the look I saw on LP's face this afternoon told me she doesn't think I will be.  I must say, that made me feel much better about the decision I made.

Another thing about this lovely lunch was that we didn't meet at an air conditioned cafe, we brought our lunches to the botanical gardens.  It was great! I had forgotten how beautiful the gardens are.  I also realize that it's the sort of place that you can go when you just want to enjoy nature alone.  There were so many people just walking around with their cameras, but then again, you see almost down.  The perfect public garden to go when you're feeling anti-social.  I have a feeling I'll be spending several Sunday afternoons there in the future. 

Not this upcoming Sunday though, because we're going to Virginia.  I'm actually sort of excited about going.  The past few visits I have dreaded it completely, due to family tension that I don't feel like spending the next three hours writing about.  But I feel like a lot of that tension has subsided, and I'm looking forward to spending some time with my grandparents.  They're getting older, and I'm starting to realize that, besides them being my grandparents, they are the people who knew Mama, kind of the last link I guess you could say, to her childhood and her past.  Wow, that's a rather numbing thought...

But anyway, this was a lovely day for a reunion.  And now I'm going to do laundry and force Sarah and Bobby to go on a short bike ride when it cools off a little outside.  And then tomorrow work....(UGH). 

rant #589720198751

Wow my blog is turning into an all out bitch-fest. yay.

So I was super disappointed today because my bike is still not fixed. It was supposed to be fixed but they ordered the part and it didn't fit, so now they're having to go through the manufacturer to get the part...Which entails weekend mail, and finally me not getting my bike until Wednesday. I mean, I walked into the bike shop preparing to be super mad customer (not really, because I'm not good at that, and plus I've worked/work in customer service and know how irritating that is) and walked out just feeling frustrated because it's not their fault at all. I'm very sad...not really, but you know...

Anyway so that's about the highlight of my day.

Besides the fact that I'm about to take a nap. For some reason I always reserve my naps for Friday evenings when I get home from work. It's kind of like my, "Good Job Susanna, you made it through another work week, you get a nap." Wow, maybe that's a little pathetic...Naps for Work, naps for work. Ugh. I definitely need to think of a better perk for myself...oh wait, I bought two pairs of uber cute shoes. Which are still sitting in my Jeep because I don't want to admit to Sarah that I not only broke my budget for the past two weeks, I destroyed it. But now I guess she knows because she reads this blog. Oops.

Oh well...

So now i'm going to take a nap on this fabulous, bike-less, non-plan filled Friday evening. And when I wake up I get to go to family dinner with Jennifer and Sarah feuding. Maybe I'm not supposed to write about other people's feud, but they are, they're feuding, so it should be a high emotion highly entertaining (HA. maybe for reality TV, car crash stalkers) night.

Okay serious, Nap time....

Fear, Loss, Losing

[a ramble on what I saw today and the thoughts that followed]

Tuesday night filled with mindless TV (ew) and more take out (even ew-er). But something actually caught my attention. We (Sarah and I) were watching the WeTv series, Secret Lives of Women (which I could potentially be completely addicted to) and the topic was the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ (FLDS). Obviously, most people now know about this group because it was all over the news in April when the kids in Texas were taken by Texan authorities. Anyway... back to my point.

In this episode they told several stories about women who had escaped from the FLDS with (or without) their children and loved ones. The part that really caught my interest was when one woman was talking about her oldest daughter returning to the group and also the diagnosis of her young son with a form of cancer. I don't recall the exact quote, but more or less she was talking about how her son's cancer was something that she could "control" by going to the doctor, and doing treatments, but she couldn't help her daughter, and her daughter returning to the FLDS was even more frightening because of that.

That literally made me stop dead. The idea that someone would consider something else in this world more frightening than cancer was before then unfathomable to me. It made me realize how truly terrified she had to be of that group of people.

I started thinking...

...does everyone have that one huge thing in their life, that dominating factor that they can't control, that is literally twisting their lives around?

In my family's case it was cancer (and I'm sure we share that with many families across the world...ugh), in this woman's case it was this group - the FLDS - that had torn her family apart, to someone else it might a force of nature (Hurricane Katrina for example, or the tidal waves in Indonesia), or to a victim of abuse it could be their abuser. And the thing about this is that no one else can understand the fear that people have for these subjects. No one. Even if someone shares the same fear, it's still different. Losing a mother to cancer is different than losing a mother to alcoholism, or drugs, or a car crash. Losing a sibling in a war is different than losing a sibling to a heart attack. Losing your best friend to some strange, unidentified heart disease, vs a drug overdose, vs a drunk driving accident, vs a plane crash. Maybe different emotions - but still a loss. Losing your home to a force of nature along with thousands of your countrymen and women can't be compared to losing a house to a fire. It's all different, all the same, people understand and people have no idea. It is loss. Loss. Losing. Lost.

Maybe this goes back to what my therapist at Clemson told me in that first session: everyone has a greater experience. No one can relate to what has happened to you, even if it seems every factor is the same...it's never ever the same. If I met another 20 year old girl whose mother died during her fall semester of her sophomore year, it still wouldn't be the same, because we are still two different people.

I officially don't know what my goal was in writing this. I think I'm still trying to grasp my own fear of the things that have happened, and seeing that random lady on TV today actually helped me understand that someone else's "Greater Experience" is complete different than mine, but just as real, and just as painful... And in that sense it kind of makes me feel better. Maybe not better, maybe better is just a simple way to unify all of the ways it makes me feel: It makes me feel relieved, subdued, obscure, and coexistent...etc. etc. etc.


(L-R, Sarah, Bobby, Aunt Jeanie [holding Ben], Uncle Rocky, Me, Jennifer [pre Baby Maggie], Tom, Emily, Grandpa, David, Grandma, Jessica [pre Baby Riley], Mama, Anna)
I think this is the last photo of our entire family together. July 2007.
(Minus Daddy, and cousin Matt, because he is always somewhere else when a family photo is being taken)

*Regards to cousin Amber, I think stole this off your MySpace :)