nerd alert

it has recently come to my attention that i am a nerd.

i have the glasses to prove it.

but it's ok, because mr. k is a nerd with me.  for fun we do wordsearches. we watch shark week and crocodile documentaries on netflix. we play cards and aggravation. he quizzes me on nfl and nba teams-- i've gotten quite good. i help him with homework and usually find it enjoyable.  recently i've spent many of my hours reading. i bought 6 books on my last trip to barnes & noble... whoopsies.

i am not obsessed with star wars or twilight or anything signaling fanaticism, but i do love learning. some days i miss college-- not the tests and homework but the learning aspect-- of having your universe open with new ideas, history, and age-old theories. science and technology have never been my forte; i can't identify with chemistry and computer nerds but i believe i've earned my own right to nerdicism. i love words--reading them, threading them together on my own, learning their meaning, finding them in puzzles. i also love spending time in the kitchen. my friend once called me a "baking nerd". he joked that it was a good thing i was an excellent baker, otherwise i'd just be a weirdo excited about bundt pans and marzipan.

 in my old age of 23, i'm embracing the nerdiness. are you an unorthodox nerd, too?

weekend get-a-way

last weekend i went up to yellowstone with the kays. it was marvelous. the ride up friday we listened to johnny cash and other classics, watched a movie, and took a few little siestas. we swam at the motel pool and enjoyed relaxing in the hot tub, playing games, and generally enjoying a vacation from real life. 

saturday morning we woke up bright and early for our snowmobiling adventure! 6 of us rode into yellowstone on snowmobiles. we were decked out in snow suites, mittens, boots, helmets, and anything else that would keep us warm. we were lucky to escape the blizzard in utah and had blue skies and 30 degree weather. hallelujah! we made a few stops on our high speed (35 mile an hour) adventure to see bison, cow elk, bald eagles, coyotes, and other wildlife as well as the famous geysers. 

 a little brotherly love.... err wrestling

sunday morning we took a detour and headed to jackson hole. after some meandering we found the elk reserve and took a sleigh ride in to see the beautiful animals. there were dozens!

 this guy was GIANT! even sitting down!  i think he was an 8 x 10?

 we had fun on the car ride

 at least we have each other, right?

 look at the size difference of our fingers! hah. i'm a baby. 

needless to say, it was a blast!

triggers

we all have triggers. reminders. 
they can be good and bad. 

when i frost a cake, i think of my mom. 
when i smell roses i always think of funerals. 
thai food reminds me of my brother. 
oreos and justin timberlake equal my bestie. 


it's automatic. your senses pull the trigger and memories catapult to the forefront of your conscious.  

i had a trigger the other week and it sent me spiraling into fear. with a heap of coaxing i calmed down enough to be rational. the trigger wasn't a spider web or tentacles {because les-be-honest, spiders and octopi freak me out} but something as simple as mr. k walking out the door. 

i lost it. 

i'm certain every adult feared being left at the grocery store as a child-- that's why you kept a death-grip on the shopping cart or mom's purse. for me that fear never went away. i wasn't worried about being left somewhere; i was afraid of being left entirely. 

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

you learn to adjust. siblings get married, friends go on missions,  life goes on. you eventually acclimate with time until suddenly you're the one up-rooted.  after a bewildering first week in the real world, frantically searching for solid ground, you begin that process of laying roots in friends. those relationships that started off so simply evolve into your anchor-- they keep you grounded and sane and happy. 

no one ever tells you that you have to dig those roots up one day.  often you have warning about the impending digging-up process--i knew well in advance of my sister moving to germay, my brother going to residency, my bestie moving to new mexico, my friends marrying their sweethearts. but even with the knowing beforehand, it's hard.  

the very worst thing is a sudden up-rooting. without warning you're alone. the giant fear of abandonment has happened.  it strips your roots to the core and you feel naked, humiliated, and raw. you can patch those roots up with sunlight and summer rain but it's never really the same. there's the residual damage and a terror of ever laying down deep, intimate roots again. 



mr. k simply walked out the door {to go next door} and it triggered that childhood fear of being abandoned. that raw ache of being walked away from. my heart literally hurt remembering those feelings in a rush and i choked on old grief and pain. 

he was obviously confused at the state i was in upon his return. he stroked my hair and told me to let it out. and sometimes that's what you have to do-- allow yourself to feel everything the trigger brings and then let it go. 


"people have scars in all sorts of unexpected places. like secret roadmaps of their personal histories. diagrams of all their old wounds. most of our wounds heal, leaving nothing behind but a scar. but some of them don't. some wounds we carry with us everywhere and though the cut's long gone, the pain still lingers."
-meredith grey

being heard

i think everyone has an insatiable desire to be heard. to be acknowledged. to feel support.

it is sad to see so many people dependent on the attention they receive in the cyber world. somehow getting 20 likes on an instagram picture boosts our self-image, and if there are multiple comments on a fb status? pop-u-laaar! you see my point? the satisfaction is fleeting.  will any of it matter 5 years from now? 

ali's dad joked that the day facebook crashes, people will walk the streets holding their family albums and shout, "look at these photos! do you like them? do you??". i wouldn't be surprised. people can get pretty nuts.

i'm not certain where i'm going with any of this except to say that for me the cyber world has lessened in personal meaning. i still look at facebook and i do love to instagram, but i don't have this dire urge to share myself with the world wide web. the cyber sphere can be so obtuse and superficial, simply a void filling a void. human beings are real and intimate. 

in the infancy of this blog i wrote to proclaim myself on paper. these days my writing frequency has diminished not because i don't have anything to say but because i've already told most of my stories and opinions to mr. k.  and he's the one whose reaction i care most about. he has my best interest at heart. he's not afraid to tell me when i'm being ridiculous but he's always there to help me catch my breath after crying. none of that can come from the cyber world. 

now here comes my little challenge to you-- don't hold yourself back in personal relationships. let the cyber world fall down a few priorities and focus on reality. focus on things that will matter 5 years from now. allow others to hear you-- the full unadulterated you, flaws and all. as corny as it sounds, you'll never understand the freedom of love and friendship until you give it your all. i didn't. but now i'm so grateful i tried. "because if you haven't tried you haven't lived."