I like me for me....
It was good. It was needed. I managed to have an absolutely peaceful sleep that I can't say I've even come close to for a while, so that was pretty excellent. It was followed by some pretty excellent hangout time with some people that are very dear to my heart, ending with a dinner over at Joe's with Sarah and her beloved K, who I finally got to meet. Times were good, and it was nice to get out after my work stint and really just relax and enjoy life.
There was a shoebox sitting on the bed when I came back home and it was an absolute time capsule for me. I'd already been thinking along nostalgic lines since last night when i was realizing how happy it made me to think that there were people in my life who have just always been around (or have since the beginning of the friendship) and in your life ever since then, and it's not a big effort or a strain. Just the more you think about it, they haven't missed any big moments in your life since you met em in high school. And that at least 96% of the memories are great ones. It's nice when friendship just ebbs and flows but remains a constant, like the waves hitting the beach year after year. It sits in the back of your head, but it isn't anything to be questioned or tended to. Just an easy relationship, for the most part.
This particular box had a few movies in it, including some Invader Zim and Edward Scissorhands (didn't know I owned either anymore!) and has a blank videotape as yet to be watched (the mystery meat of the box, I guess). It has a particularly summery nailpolish I remember painting on super often one summer a long time in the past, and a Wingnut visor I got when I was being a groupie and going to nearly every show my boss' band put on. I also found my Love notebook. I usually keep some sort of notebook to scribble things on. If you were to look at it it probably wouldn't be decipherable. Just quotes, books, albums to listen to, movies to see, places to go an dthings to do, the start and end of writing projects, little doodles... To me it was like my whole life from all of that time just came back to me. It's amazing how different things can be and yet be all the same. I was reading something I'd written in a place of frustration and lost direction, wanting to know what was going on and how it was going to turn out and just feeling....kinda scared and lost. And a part of me still is right there, wondering, wanting to know, hoping for something big and bright in that future.
I found old signs of lost loves, and something that reminded me that I've always known that my heart leaves me too easily and is hard to gain back, and to some extent never recovers. But it reminded me of the part I love about that, too. I know it gets me in trouble, and I know it sounds cliche, tired and hippie-tastic, but love is like air, we all just need it, and one of my hopes has always been to be the person that tries to live by it....to love and be loved in return, though I have no control over that last part. And since that notebook I've loved more deeply than I'd even expected possible, and found out what it's like when love gets shoes on it, so to speak. Messy, unpleasant, horrible at times, but... It's not as if I don't know the pain that comes from it, and it's not like I'm dying to be some doe eyed cupid groupie either, it's just....I think it's worth it, and beyond that, I think people need to know they're loved, in all different sorts of ways.
So all those negative connotations....heart on the sleeve, naive little girl...fine, i'll take em. I know where my heart is and isn't, I know what I need and I don't, and I know what's true. I'm past the point of denying it.
I think something looking through that box taught me is this: I think even considering the strides in my life i took in new mexico, to some extent i'm still hiding it from where I used to be when I was younger.
And I don't think it's wisdom, I think it's just...bitterness and lack of tenacity. And maybe it's time to change that.
That's a lot to find in a shoebox.


