Mid Fall Blues

Today the geeks celebrate a perfect binary day. By some fluke I happened to glance over at the clock this morning and it read 11:10 so ofcourse you know I waited for it to read 11/11/11 11:11:11.

Happy Veterans day to my peeps who have / are serving in the armed forces.

Now to the topic at hand. I am experiencing mid fall blues and can't seem to shake them. I got back home a week ago and I've been getting progressively more lethargic. Throw in the fact that I had a major exam to sit for this week and had to stack job interviews because of scheduling conflicts and I think I was long overdue for a body shut down. My mind called it a week yesterday and I feel extremely tired. I can't even drum up the energy to work on a site that I'm supposed to have finished next week. Bleh!

In other less depressing news, I have added something interesting to my bucket list. I want to hand build a cabin over a summer. I mentioned this to a friend and she just about died from oxygen deprivation courtesy of laughing really hard. For those who've never met me in person, know that I'm the scrawniest thing ever. I do however have more strength than is immediately apparent. SO the idea of me wielding power tools and messing with 6x6s will  probably be fodder for several jokes until I actually come round to building it in a couple of years.

Oooo and Ty jr maketh me proud. My niece managed to play the Halloween system and ended up with twice as much candy having walked only half the route. I am bummed out that I won't see her for Thanksgiving but hopefully I'll see her shortly afterwards.
Have a great weekend!

Life refracted

Salut! I've been super busy with conferences and the great job search. Being back in the Chi after all the time away has been a jolt to my system.

I miss my niece like crazy. I speak to her daily but it's not the same as being with her.

Being on regular people time has been an adjustment after spending months observing vampire hours.

Anyway I've been uber reflective these past few weeks and have found myself in a different head space. I decided to take Oprah's lifeclass --watch it if you get OWN-- and it's made me realize some things about myself. I also had an AHA moment after watching one of the lessons - the Terry McMillan class on letting go of anger. During the wee hours of the following day, I had an epiphany. I was still very angry about something that happened in my distant past and I had to let it go. I acknowledged it and took time to name the chain of events and let each part go. It was liberating. I hadn't thought about what carrying the baggage around was costing me emotionally, spiritually and physically.

Some mornings I wake up during the pre dawn hours. It's quiet. It's peaceful. The world hasn't imposed anything on my day. During these minutes of peace I get a chance to listen to myself, to reach into my subconscious mind and examine my thoughts without fear -- an internal fear, I scare myself out of really examining my life sometimes--. It's been an exercise in not judging myself and the choices that I made in the past and I'm beginning to see the other sides of myself through this. It's like looking at light as it refracts through a prism and choosing to see the entire rainbow spectrum in addition to the individual colors.

Final thought is a take home from Oprah's lifeclass: You become what you believe.

Tuesday Beat: Jessie J - Who You Are

This week's song is says it all - just be true to who you are.

Tuesday Beat: Lucy Pearl - Dance Tonight

One of my fave old school jams. Wonder where Saadiq is.

Giving myself permission

These past few months have been an eye opener of sorts and I've come to realize that I've been holding myself back. Both in the sense that I'm my own stumbling block as well as in the sense that I don't allow myself to do or experience things fully.

A year or so ago I decided that I would work towards living my life with no regrets. Not that I would do everything that I wanted, but that I would do what I felt was right for me when it felt right for me.

This summer I took a job that had nothing to do with my IT background, but gave me a chance to live life a little differently. I got to work and play hard while enjoying time with family. There was no pressure. I loved my job and the team that I worked with.

I loved spending time at the beach, out on the lake, parasailing and goofing around for no other reason other than that I could. It was exhilarating. It was like finding that part of me that I'd buried while trying to grow up and act like an adult. I still have a good bit of immaturity left in me and you know what, I am going to indulge that side of myself more often.

Spending time with my niece reminded me of what it felt like to live in the moment. We got into all sorts of things that we had no business doing. We walked around the stores playing with everything, we would play in rain puddles, chase each other around jumping on shadows, ... whatever struck our fancy really. What I came to realize is that in those moments, I was giving myself permission to be unconditionally happy.

I want to be happy but a part of me has a hard time getting on board with that because I feel that happiness has to be earned. Why earned, because that pretty much is what we are told in not soo many words ... don't believe me, watch the ads on tv. You can't skip to dessert you are always told. See I want to have dessert while enjoying my meal, not at the beginning and not at the end as the reward.

So I have given myself permission to be me, to dance in the rain when I feel like it, to hike my pants up and go splashing in puddle, to make snow angels, ... to do that which makes me happy not because I've earned it, but because it is what my spirit needs.