Tag Archives: random things

Thoughts

Things That Still Happen When You Are an Adult (But Are Easier to Deal with Now)

Tripping in public.

During a conversation things are coming out of your mouth that make you feel surprised as you hear them. Cue the (equally) strange behaviour and (somewhat offensive) departure of the other party. OK, so we obviously can’t be weird together, and I will laugh about it later. Because I am an adult.

It’s easier to steer your emotions now. As a result it is easier to have outbursts about things that aren’t really worth having an outburst about, like people shaking off their wet umbrellas directly in the vicinity of your new shoes or the delivery guy leaving your package with a neighbor who’s never home when you are.

Not knowing what to do and knowing that you will need to do something to know.

Unflattering or plain bad outfit choices. Most times it’s just overthinking, though. Or creativity. Don’t be hard on yourself, just reconsider the whole neon is back thing.

Objects breaking. You’re an adult, you can hopefully buy another one or throw a dinner party.

Own it!

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Thoughts

Some of My Favourite Things

Besides “raindrops on roses”, of course.

Warm toast with anything you choose to put on it. It’s one of the fastest comfort foods I know, and it never fails to make me feel content. Having toast or sandwich bread in your cupboard is a sure-fire solution for those evenings when the supermarke is already closed. Toast makes scooping out the last contents of your Nutella jar more fun and the last slice of cheese goes from blah to bam. Also, toast with mayonnaise and tomato is one of the most fantastic things on Earth – something I got hooked on after reading Harriet the Spy (though I’m not sure her sandwiches included toast).

An apartment filled with sunlight.

Knowing that I still have enough left of an enjoyable book and still reading quickly to get to the end…and ready it again, because I love re-reading.

There isn’t a question that Google hasn’t been asked and typing that makes me remember this sketch by CollegeHumor:

There’s a wonderful website called Visual Statements, which is an online haven for lovers of words, slogans, life truths and humour. They also have a shop where you can get STACKS of postcards with their statements, or cute ear studs with tiny print.

It’s the small joys.

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Style?!

5 Exasperating Style Moments

Buying nail polish because of the shimmering, irresistible and thick way it rests in its little bottle. Eagerly applying said nail polish during an evening in. Discovering it doesn’t look shimmering, irresitible and thick on your nails, but rather dull, off-putting and half-transparent.

Why do I always feel incredibly energized about styling my hair on a windy day? This adrenaline-fueled fast-paced switch between elation and the swooping setback that follows as soon as you set foot aside is really too much on a workday morning.

You pull up your tights and they tear. And you don’t have a spare handy. Enough said.

The jeans that used to be perfectly alright and adaptable to everything keep getting untucked from your ankle boots as you attempt to strut your stuff. It’s demeaning. It’s uncomfortable. And it lets in that damn little autumn breeze that is just looking for a way to make sure you sniffle all day.

Secretly too-low jeans that slide down with the speed of lightning once the person in front of you bends over, revealing all manner of undesired insights (it’s amazing how much is visible on the human almost backside once in a close-up, unasked for view). I mean, really, that one is so old. What would happen if I just tapped you on the shoulder and described in detail that the hairs on most of what I can see of your butt do not go well with your choice of underwear, judging by the generous Snoopy-covered band of it I can see? If I asked you how you felt about the possibility of your pants simply sliding off right there on the bus stop? And don’t try to tell me I shouldn’t look if it bothers me. I’m not the one who bent over. You have invaded my personal style space. Instead of unobtrusively tucking my own decent jeans in to my boots or pulling up a sock, my thoughts have been sidetracked by this disturbing display.

 

 

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Thoughts

The Giving Up Thing

So one of the things about life is that from time to time we think about how it actually works. For example, this whole thing about giving up.

Have I ever given up? Was I ever close? The second question produces memories more quickly. As is often the case, a lot of these memories are connected with areas like university studies or work. The interesting thing is, in my mind it has often applied only to “big decisions” that affected my life trajectory, decisions that manifested change outwardly. The truth is, the question of whether one was ever close to giving up applies to a lot of issues and aspects, not just the ones that result in moving to another city or getting a raise.

When was I close to giving up? I was applying for scholarships to pay for my Masters degree and I was rejected for every single one of them. I remember very clearly how I got the last rejection letter, about three months before the application deadline for my chosen course. I had read it through and was sitting on my couch, a mixture of bewildered helplessness and unfamiliar lack of inspiration filling me up. I had tried for so long and so hard, what if this was a sign my aspirations were simply not going to work out? The voice did whisper – from very far away, from the deepest recesses of my brain: maybe I should give up?

Those two words have always carried such a strong sense of finality and that terrified me. The terror would make me stir inwardly and always bring me back to confronting the same two choices: let go and start the what ifs, or just do it again? There was nothing epic about it, no film-ready soundtrack in the background. It was real, in my face, and I had to deal with it. This scene would repeat itself several times over the course of the next few years.

I may not have gotten those scholarships, but I got a job straight out of graduation, samples from which were actually helpful in the application. I also had a family member say, “Don’t be paralyzed now.” My choice university accepted me, and looking back I wonder just what I was thinking, as it was the only one I applied to. For various reasons it did indeed turn out to be the right choice, or at least I didn’t have a massive list of things wrong with it and got the absolute best out of the years I spent there.

I was close to giving up when I was searching for a place to live after my second graduation (who hasn’t been). The process simply has no rules, only tips, and it’s an incredibly tiring experience. I was already expecting to have to figure out whether I could stay longer in my student dorm, though there was this one place I kept inquiring about. So maybe I wasn’t that close to giving up after all.

The what ifs come back after you succeed at something you might have let go, in a different way. If I hadn’t tried again, we wouldn’t be sitting in this park, having this conversation, laughing until we cried. I wouldn’t have seen this band in this arena. I wouldn’t have met several more mentors. “I wouldn’t have…” and so on, and so on. These moments are still exciting to me.

But to be able to take on something you do need to be able to let go, and that’s where giving up does come in. But not on yourself or what you want to do – for yourself. Sometimes you do really need to give up. On contacts that leave you with the wrong feeling no matter how often you try to make it work. On doing things that make you feel continuously uncomfortable. On saying things you neither really feel nor think. On holding on to destructive experiences, bad relationships.

Maybe the trick is simply listening to the inside. If the feeling spreading through your veins is verbalized with “I still need to do this”, then you haven’t given up, regardless of what is happening around you, regardless of whether you think you have. Whether it’s a mindset, an action, a project, a person, a letter you want to write, a conversation you need to have – we usually know inside. And we might even be lucky enough to have people around us to point us in the needed direction.

The possibility of grand things unknown is a very powerful competitor.

 

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Thoughts

Five Things That Make One Feel Exposed

Being halfway to work and realizing you left your phone at home. Wanting to go back and get it but knowing you’ll be late otherwise. Wondering how you’ll coordinate getting to tonight’s spontaneous get-together at that new cafe. Forgetting things like email. Feeling so alone. I forgot my phone, alright?!

Your longer socks sliding down from underneath your pant legs. While you’re trying to walk through the city like a put-together human being. All the pulling up in the world won’t help.

People with time on their hands who want to tell you their life story and who don’t see that your hands don’t have time on them.

Hearing questions like, don’t you want to be doing something else for a living?/ you really think this city is cool?/ do you know (insert any male or female name from the country you’re from if you’re a foreigner). Get me out of here.

Suggestions at a flea market stall that you try on a skirt or trousers right then and there, and you know that asking, “Uh, do you have a changing room, or something?” is not a valid option, based on preliminary scanning of the perimeter. Oh, well. We’re all just doing the best we can.

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