Thirty-three and Still Counting: A Year in the Life...

From birthday 2010 to birthday 2011 (March 21st) was quite the roller coaster. A year in the life of Cat... As far as years go, this was probably the most eventful for myriad reasons. There were losses and gains. The losses, at the time, hurt like hell, and the gains have made my life so bountiful in ways that I'm not sure my limited capabilities can express. SO, here goes nothing. Let's measure this year in the life...

March 21, 2010 was six days before I was supposed to walk down the aisle and pledge my life to another. However, March 27th ended up being a day and night where, instead of pledging eternal love, I gathered with friends and family to watch the paper symbols of that event go up in flames. It was, in a way, my own Phoenix moment. Looking back on this past year, I really feel like I have risen from those ashes, the death of a love (but was it ever really love?), stronger and more cognizant of who I am as a woman. I have purged my life of all physical connections and reminders of that time in my life, but I'm not sure I will ever purge the memories. They still come upon me like waves on the beach. Sometimes they are calm, little waves that merely graze my feet, but at other times, (although these powerful waves are so rare these days, they still show up) they are sizable waves that come and knock me on my arse. The waves force me to deal and process and discover who I am and what I want my life to represent. I have learned from the heartache and the tears. At times I still want to punch the wall, and the tears still stain my cheeks. BUT then I look inwardly and around me, and I know there are endless reservoirs of strength at my disposal.

In April of 2010, I became a homeowner. Honestly that decision and action almost literally scared me into incapacitation. THIS wasn't how things were supposed to play out. I wasn't supposed to purchase my first house on my own. These were not the decisions I was supposed to make solo. BUT, I did it. I learned. I figured it out.  I walked around with an anxious pit in my stomach for weeks as the process unfolded, unbelieving each step of the way and seeing my unbelief turn into belief as each step began to fall into place. I still have the pen I signed that mountain of papers with at the closing. Pushing that key into the front door and knowing that THIS worked when everything around me seemed to not was a moment that I will treasure.

Later on in June of 2010, I ventured, for the first time, 700 or so miles off the coast of Miami to the tiny island nation of Haiti. This trip has become a milestone in my life and in the year 2010 for several reasons. Call it a reality check. Call it an eye-opener. Whatever it is called, this trip changed me. I have helped people before. I have seen poverty before, but nothing prepared me for what I saw during my first trip to Haiti. I don't want to dwell on the negatives of this country though because it gets too overwhelming. It is definitely a place where a middle class girl from suburban Texas can get blindsided by the tragedy if she doesn't look into the eyes and hearts of the people, eyes and hearts of people who live immersed in community. It truly takes a village in Haiti. The smiles and spirits of the people in the midst of such brokenness resonated to the depth of me. I was searching for the meaning of relationship and connectedness when I got on that plane. My world had been ripped apart at the seams and shattered, and I was still making desperate attempts to reassemble it.  While there, I saw the beauty of community all around me in the spirit of the Haitian people.  The beauty that I saw there forever changed me.

Spaced throughout late spring, summer, fall, and winter 2010, a friend whose presence I didn't realize had been desperately missing returned to my life. Thank you, thank you, Ann Pittman. She is the first friend who was a sister to me. Although the distance from Midlothian to Austin keeps our friendship physically apart, I have no problem heading south on 35 for the conversations, Biblical discussions, musical viewing, movie laughter, and the partaking of coffee, drinks, and meals where much of the aforementioned happens as well. Ann keeps this mess that is Cat in line, and I owe her more thanks than I will ever be able to express.

2010, the holidays, oh the holidays. Thanksgiving saw me back on a plane headed to Haiti once more. I can't think of a better place to give thanks for the things that truly matter. I can't think of a better way to express thanks and love than helping a family rebuild their home that had been destroyed by the earthquake. I can't think of a Thanksgiving meal that has ever tasted better than the one we had on Friday, not Thursday, because after all, it's Haiti, and you just roll with it!!! As the sign made by the Haitian workers said at dinner that night, this truly was a "Happ Tanks Given!" Christmas was a different story. Christmas didn't have the distractions that Thanksgiving had that kept my mind off the loneliness. It's hard to be the single, no children having family member and friend during the holidays. I searched for the joy and found it, but in the midst of the joy of the holiday season, I still cried a few tears when the loneliness really crept in.

On the anniversary of the horrible, no good, very bad day (February 8th), I fondued it up with two amazing friends at The Melting Pot, what a beautifully symbolic name for the restaurant chosen to celebrate the year that brought me to that night. We laughed, we talked, and we raised our glasses to what didn't happen and what amazing things and people have entered my life because of the horrible, no good, very bad day!!! I'll take the valleys. I'll trudge through them with amazing people at my side. I'll go through them because I have learned the valleys make the mountaintops that much more glorious and mind blowing.

To reference my FAVORITE song from the musical Rent, "Seasons of Love," I have measured March 21, 2010-March 21, 2011 in love. Part of the year has to be measured in the loss of love, but most of it is measured in the love I have been shown and the love I have had the opportunity to show. I leave you with the lyrics that always cause me to reflect and ponder. May you also measure in love!

Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes,
Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Moments so dear.
Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?

In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights
In cups of coffee
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife.

In five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes
How do you measure
A year in the life?

How about love?
How about love?
How about love? Measure in love

Seasons of love. Seasons of love

Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes!
Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Journeys to plan.

Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes
How do you measure the life
Of a woman or a man?

In truths that she learned,
Or in times that he cried.
In bridges he burned,
Or the way that she died.

It's time now to sing out,
Tho' the story never ends
Let's celebrate
Remember a year in the life of friends
Remember the love!
Remember the love!
Seasons of love!

Oh you got to got to
Remember the love!
You know that love is a gift from up above
Share love, give love spread love
Measure measure your life in love

The conversations over coffee matter. The sunrises and sunsets remind us how small we are. The strife and tears and bridges burned cause us to grow and make us stronger. We learn lessons from our journeys. LOVE holds it all together and binds us to each other. Measure in love!!! Love, when it comes down to it, is the overarching theme of this year in the life of Cat!

New House But Not Really A Home

My friend Ann wrote recently in her blog about the places she feels most at home, whether it be her house in Austin, a great friend's house in Nashville, or some place from childhood. It really made start to think about what is "home" to me. It seems like lately I have wanted to be any place other than the place I'm supposed to call home now. I signed the papers on my first home on April 22nd, but right now it just feels like merely a house. There is nothing there that connects it to my heart and soul the way I feel when I drive past 4442 Oak Hollow where I spent the years of my childhood until my parents moved when I was in my senior college or 508 Sunset where cousins grew up more like siblings building tents and swimming until we only had enough energy left to gorge ourselves on red Koolaid and cheese dip and then falling asleep on the snuggly sectional couch in a over air conditioned living room or even on a recent trip to Waco when I drove past my fire hazard of an apartment on Speight with the beautiful hard wood floors and French doors or the duplex I shared with Ann and a revolving set of roommates on Bagby. Those places have connections to my heart mostly because of the people and experiences I had while living in each. This place, with it's cookie cutter design and its 600 square feet that I don't even enter because I don't need it, is only the place I go to sleep each night. I usually walk out the door at 7:45 each morning and don't press the button to raise the garage door until 10:30 pm later that same day. I'm so proud of myself for having the courage to take this step and buy a house, but now I don't want to be there because no part of it feels like "home." There are my personal touches all over the house, but even so, it just serves to remind me of where and who I thought I would be by this point in my life and how I'm still waiting on that "someday" to come along. I think I'm just waiting for the day when my heart doesn't sink in the pit of my stomach when I see a couple who are totally in love or when my sister-in-law and my cousin, who are more like best friends than relatives, talk about having their next babies. I don't want to be mopey or depressing about any of this, but when all of these things run through my head, especially lying bed in my house that is much more than I need but was such a steal it was too hard to pass up, I just wonder when the space between these walls will start to feel like a home and can it really feel like a "home" if you are not sharing it with anyone. There have always been family members, friends/roommates, even ex-fiances that have made the place I came to each night be a "home" to which I'm returning. Now when I raise the garage door, turn the key in the back door, and step inside all that greets me is silence and darkness. How does a house become a home?

Big Girl Life: Growin' Up and Growin' Smarter

Big changes could be coming in my world for the POSITIVE!  I made an offer on a brand spankin' new house in Midlothian last Saturday, and the crazy people took my low-ball offer!

Of course, the financing still has to be approved loan wise, and it could all still fall through; however, I feel like such a "big girl" with this decision.  I feel like, flexing my muscle and putting my fist in the air Rosie the Riveter style while singing "I Will Survive"!  Please let me live up to the "single gal doin' it on my own" cliches for a moment:)!  What is it about moments like this that make a girl feel like she can truly take on the world.  I also made the deposit on my part of the relief mission trip to Haiti this summer, research papers are graded for 2010, Spring Break is knockin' on my door, and it's almost the time of year when I get to ramble on and on about Shakespeare!  Yeah, I'm feelin' pretty good right now, and I think I deserve to a little bit!  Through the last month of my life I think I learned how to truly appreciate the little things that will bring me joy and comfort.

Don't get me wrong.  There have been some less than peaceful and calm and joyous moments recently.  I had to ball up my fists last Friday night tucking them under my pillow, put my earbuds for my iPod in my ears playing distracting music, and repeat the mantra "go to sleep" over and over to keep from writing a text or making a phone call I didn't need to make.  I think of the old movie title, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly when I think about my life right now.  No, my life has nothing to do with the story line of the movie, but the title fits it perfectly!  I'll take the bad and the ugly, if I get to have the GOOD too, even if the good takes it time showing up.

"And Miles to Go Before I Sleep"

Between reading Eat, Pray, Love in my "spare time" (term used very loosely), watching Simon Birch with my students, and breathing deeply and contemplatively during an hour and half yoga session last night, my emotions are raw and on the very brink at the moment.  It brings to mind the quiet and the solitude of the lines from that beautifully and achingly lonely (my interpretation here) Robert Frost poem "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening."  Yes, I know spring is knocking on the door of Mother Nature right now asking to be invited in to spend some warm afternoons laughing and singing its bird song and wind tunes in the leaves, but my heart longs to feel more like those quiet, dark woods on that wintry evening so long ago.  The woods in the poem are tempting, and if you have ever stood in the stillness of a snow covered, winter evening surrounded by unadulterated nature, you know the immensity and the peace that can be found in that one, quiet, still moment.  I want to be able to enjoy quiet and stillness again, but last night, I sat alone in my car in the parking lot of the fitness center where I take yoga, and I could not hold back the tears anymore that were trying to push themselves free during final relaxation.  I drove home, only to find a dark, empty house, put my car in reverse, and headed over to my brother's.  As he opened the door, I was wrapped in his strong hug only a brother can provide and felt the freedom to just weep.

I will admit this week has been a tough one.  Phone calls, texts, and invitations from various sources have forced me to realize that instead of grieving and dealing with these events and emotions, I have been stuffing them down for them to erupt almost vomit like to the surface whenever there is trigger, and there were multitudinous triggers this week.  The time has come to begin processing, grieving, and truly dealing!  This scares the CRAP out of me!!!  I'm not sure what I am going to find, but I have to cross this bridge in order to find the peace on the other side.  I need to be able to be alone again and not feel anxious.  I need for my thoughts to quiet themselves, or I need to quiet them.  This is ugly, and it is challenging; however, I believe it is beyond necessary.  Family is helping, friends are helping, yoga is helping, but I think the time has come that it just needs to be me.  I have questions, and I may or may not find the answers.  If I don't ask and I don't talk, I'm not going to get past this, EVER!

Literary Journey to the Heart of Me

First of all, I have to admit that my motivation for the picking up the book I am currently reading has less than pure influences.

It was the book that my ex told his ex through a facebook message that I hacked into (oops..but don't worry we shared each others' passwords) that he was reading in the message in which he also informed her that he would be ending our engagement in the next week, that would be four days before I got the same news.  The book is entitled Eat, Pray, Love, and despite the fact that my motives for procuring this book last night at Barnes and Nobel were less than pure, all I can say about the twenty chapters of the first part of the book I have read so far is WOW!!!  I feel like in so many instances this woman is speaking straight from my heart as she speaks so nakedly honestly from her own.  Let me share a few of my highlights thus far:

"I don't want to be married anymore.  I don't want to live in [a] big house.  I don't want to have a baby."

"[A]s  my twenties had come to a close, that deadline of THIRTY had loomed over me like a death sentence, and I discovered that I did not want to be pregnant.  I kept waiting to want to have a baby, but it didn't happen.  And I know what it feels like to want, believe me.  I know well what desire feels like.  But it wasn't there...And every month when I got my period I would find myself whispering furtively in the bathroom: Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for giving me one more month to live..."

"I had actively participated in every moment of the creation of this life--so why did I feel like none it resembled me?  Why did I feel so overwhelmed with duty[?]"

"He'd already been watching me fall apart for months now, watching me behave like a madwoman (we both agreed on that word), and I only exhausted him.  We both knew there was something wrong with me, and he's been losing patience with it.  We'd been fighting and crying, and we were weary in that way that only a couple whose [engagement] is collapsing can be weary.  We had the eyes of refugees."

"God waited me out.  I pulled myself together enough to go on: 'I am not an expert in praying, as you know.  But can you please help me?  I am in desperate need of help.  I don't know what to do.  I need an answer.  Please tell me what to do.  Please tell me what to do.  Please tell me what to do...And so that prayer narrowed itself down to a simple entreaty--Please tell me what to do --repeated over and over again.  I don't know how many times I begged.  I know that I only begged like someone who was pleading for her life."

"I would say if you really want to STOP knowing someone, you have to divorce [obviously it was just an engagement] him.  Or her...I believe we shocked each other by how swiftly we went from being the people who knew each other best in the world to being a pair of the most mutually  incomprehensible strangers who ever lived."

"Loneliness watches and sighs, then climbs into my bed and pulls the covers over himself, fully dressed, shoes and all.  He's going to make me sleep with him again tonight, I just know it."

"When you're lost in the woods, it sometimes takes you a while to realize that you are lost.  For the longest time, you can convince yourself that you have just wandered off the path, that you'll find your way back to the trailhead any moment now.  Then night falls again and again, and you still have no idea where you are, and it's time to admit that you have bewildered yourself so far off the path that you don't even know from which direction the sun rises anymore."

"When a friend complimented my new look, all I could say, grimly, was, 'Operation Self-Esteem--Day [Effing] One.'"

"What I write in journal tonight is that I am weak and full of fear.  I explain that [Anxiety] and Loneliness have shown up, and I am scared that they will never leave..I'm terrified that I will never really pull my life together."

This is where I am in the book so far.  There is much to digest as I read through this woman's journey that seems to so closely mirror mine at this stage of the book.  I'm intrigued, to say the least, to see where her journey takes her physically and more importantly emotionally and spiritually, as I am also intrigued to see where my complimentary journal also takes me.  I can say that I can't honestly see him finishing a book such as this, but I've been wrong about things concerning him before.  I do hope he can go on a journey of his own along the path of self-discovery and discovery of the heart; however, this journey that I find myself on of literary and spiritual proportions is mine and no one else's.  The valleys are more than likely going to be low and the mountain tops will be contrastingly high.  There will be tears, and there will be pain  But there will also be moments of clarity and moments of peace in the midst of what feels like a raging storm.  

Showers, tears, and rainy days

The weekend that started off with so many laughs and smiles ended in tears last night.  I hadn't cried in quite awhile, but after attending the bridal shower of the bride-elect of someone I will always remember as scrawny little kid playing in my Mama Lou's pool and encountering certain people at said shower, the thoughts and the questions and the emotions were hitting me like a tsunami!  I guess I'm not processing through this as much as I thought I was, or maybe this just triggered the next round.  Who knows?  Funny that right now while my 3rd period works, the cheesy song by Cher "Believe" is playing via the internet radio in the background ...yes I do believe in life after love Cher, but man it SUCKS at times.  Last night was one of those times.  As the tears rolled down my face in bed last night and as I awoke this morning from a crazy dream of reconciliation that truly I don't really want shattered ring(symbolism much???) and all, the rain coming down outside reflected my emotional turmoil.

I'm looking forward to getting through some work related responsibilities, both local and state related, and this weekend holds the promise of hanging out with a dear, dear friend in AUSTIN! YAY!!! Keeping busy seems to be one of my great forms of solace these days.  I'm not sure if that constitutes avoidance or moving on with my life and not wallowing in the muck and the mire!  Whichever it is, it has definitely been entertaining hanging with friends and sharing those fun times and laughs, and singing at the top of our lungs at Pete's Piano Bar Friday night was most assuredly cathartic!  

I'm heading to B and N this afternoon to pick up some DVDs for my classroom and some new reading material for my psyche.  There are few things in life that bring a smile to my face like wandering through a bookstore, no matter how commercial that bookstore may be, with an over-priced, designer coffee in my hand choosing my next literary adventure.  Then, there will be a play-off basketball game in my future this evening as well, going to support the blue and white.  I'm looking forward to seeing what this week brings, ups and downs!  

Festive Friday Fun

Since I have embraced my newly self-appointed role of social coordinator of all things awesome (yes, that's an official title), I have re-discovered some friends from my past that are still just as great as they used to be back in the day, if not better than ever!  Plus, I have these amazing new friends that make life just as fabulous!  As far as festive Friday fun goes, we are heading out to Cow Town tonight to see what kind of havoc we twenty and thirty-somethings can wreak upon the unsuspecting streets and establishments of good ol' Fort Worth.  It's been about four-five years since I have had fun out there.  It should be good times with great friends tonight!

I love the outlook my eyes have these days and the ever shrinking waistline around my middle. Between yoga and just plain ol' sweatin' running, my stress level is pretty much non-existent, and I even have dreaded research papers to grade.  I had forgotten how great it feels to have that regular feeling of health in my life.  Don't worry I'm not going to become a tree hugging, health-nut, although there is absolutely nothing wrong with that as far as I'm concerned.  I'm looking forward to just being a down right healthy, down home country girl who stills loves to embrace the FUN that life can bring sometimes, cheese puffs and keyrock included:)!!!  

These are my festive Friday fun ramblings.  I hope they find you well and livin' it up in your own way!!!

Peace out homefries!