1.11.2011

Come See Me Now!

If you have found your way to this blog please come see what life is like for me today...

Ruffles and Toes

Thanks for dropping by
Amanda

5.15.2007

The End

There is a moment directly before a song ends where my finger flits up to press the repeat button. I have found that right now i have done enough repeating in my life, and now it is time for a new venture. I have decided that this will be my last post on A New Normal. This blog has offered me an incredible insight into a way that my mind can work, and how I am able to process things. This blog came about as a direct response to three very significant losses in my life. While writing on here for a little more than a year, I have been in relationships that have indeed ended as well. A lot of my writing on here was a way for me to sort through my feelings without getting too a head of myself. I am grateful for the opportunity that I was able to take away from having a blog. I think it is the best work someone can do. It is amazing to learn what things, as a writer, you filter out. I have put some awfully personal things up here, and yet left out some of my most common experiences. I have a sense of the kind of writer that I am, and what I am also capable of becoming. I feel that while I continue to write in this environment I will continue to hold myself in a place that it is obviously time for me to move on from. I will never stop writing, and now I will be able to focus much more energy on the writing that I feel can take me places.

For the few who have stumbled upon here that I do not know, I thank you for reading. And for those of you I know that read this, what an incredible thing to be carried by those closest to me. All of you are deeply cherished. Thank you!!

Cheers,
Amanda

4.30.2007

Memories Committed

It seems life happens during the most obscure moments, spaces, places. Memories created after a split second interaction. Music plays the overture to these thoughts, times. I have always had a very strong associative memory. It is probably because this way I can insure that I will never disappear. I remember dates that remind me of other dates. I get that dates in themselves are arbitrary. They are simply a way of keeping everything from happening all at once. But I am marked by dates. I can rattle off to you the anniversaries of my life... first hospitalization, first kiss, first love, the day I met my best friend August 15, 1992. I can tell you that 4 years and one day later we documented this friendship in the form of a scrapbook that sits safely in my home, tucked away with other mementos from my life, more dates. This affinity for calendar days is one that I do not necessarily understand but it is also making an anniversary of something always about to pass. Happy ones, tragic ones, and very minute ones that somehow mean everything to me. I know I should be looking forward and focusing on what is to come as opposed to celebrating what has already happened. Yet, I don't feel as if i am living in the past I am simply finding small ways to celebrate what has happened and bringing it back into the present, bringing it back from somewhere so far away. I want to hold on to so much that I forget in order to embrace new things I need to let go a little bit.

Why is there so much fear in letting go? Is it necessary that i can tell you the dates of all of my major breakups? April 15th, July 8th, March 2nd, August 14, September 29... Those are memories that surely must clutter out other more important things, like the day my little brother took his first step or uttered the first word of a complex language. Sometimes I would like to just watch a sunset on fire, ignited from the underbelly of the setting sun; and not worry that I have to commit the date to memory, or how it reminds me of something that has already happened. Can I, Should I, let go? Probably. I just don't want to feel as if I am losing parts of myself as if they were dandelion seeds caught in the breath of someone else's wish.

I am not at a crossroads, I am not in trouble, peril, confusion... I am still just me trying to let go of some of the excess that no longer needs to be held on to. I have a lot of great new dates that await me. The aforementioned best friend who has many memories etched into my heart, categorized by dates, songs, and laughter; is expecting. A baby. She is having a baby. I joke with her, call her, ask how our baby is doing. It makes me giggle, the same way that our childhood memories make me laugh out loud. But she has 9 months of dates, already approximately 112 days have passed, to remember this journey. I wonder what memories she discarded in order to make room in her head for all that is about to come. I know that i am attempting my own spring cleaning of the brain. What a great time today is. April 30, what will I remember today for. Maybe I should just remember the carefree feeling and not the obligatory thoughts of committing this day to memory. I am trying...

4.10.2007

Characters: Fictional and Real

In ten days I read 4 books. Though it would seem antisocial to read this much, ironically it was through this action that I was able to meet all of my neighbors. Yes, all of them. But first, the books. They are easily four of the best books that I have read in a long time; and to read them back to back is something that may never happen again. I should say here that at this moment, though I have purchased a couch, there is absolutely no furniture in my home; aside from my bed of course. There are chairs outside of my apartment, so that is where I generally reside with a great book. There have been many characters that have accompanied me on the porch. There was Alais and Alice; who lived 800 years apart; but their drive to protect the Holy Grail was quite an achievement. I met them in Labyrinth, by Kate Mosse. Phenomenal. Upon putting that book down I literally picked up the other one and nestled back into the arms of a world so different from my own. The book Dogs of Babel plucked me from my life and put me into a place where a man is desperately trying to teach his dog to talk. Though this sounds like the beginning of fantasy babble, it is in an effort to find out what happened the day his wife died. Their dog was the only witness. It explores a journey post-death and pre-death and a man's search for any clues that his dead wife left behind. Beautiful, just beautiful literary work and also a storyline that is so abundantly full of life while death hovers over the whole story.

After Babel, I changed gears a bit and picked up Running With Scissors; a bizarre account of one man's childhood. A memoir that in itself seems born of fiction. I have read many memoirs and it seems as if their goal is to break your heart. That is not the case in this one. I reveled in the hilarity and the odd happenings in this youth's life. After finishing this book it was incredible to look back and see what this young man had actually endured; and the environment he in turn thrived in. Augusten Burroughs has written several works in the memoir genre, this was the first I read. It will certainly not be the last. After putting Augusten's trials aside I moved then to a book called Case Histories. It pulled me in like the comfort of a mother's arms enveloping you in love and safety. Yet with the warmth that it tucked inside of its reader the plot was about a private detective and the cases he was working; families came to him in search of something lost or found, desiring answers that the graves would not tell.

I met these characters while I was meeting my own characters intermittently. Porches and patios, the basic building blocks of a neighborhood forced me to experience what it means to be a neighbor and above all what it means to make friends. I visited many people in these books and in between the spaces I met my new neighbors. It has been a great couple of weeks learning about people that never existed and then hearing stories of truth and life from those that really do exist. I am making great friends.

3.31.2007

Moving On...

I remember reading somewhere that one of the greatest stress inducers besides death and public speaking is moving. After moving for the 11th time in 9 years, I believe that I can attest to this theory. However, there is an immeasurable amount of relief when one has completely moved out of an old dwelling and into a new one. I am again living by myself. It is the first time in 4 years and even though I am far from being settled I feel a kind of peace that has been lacking in my life for some time. It has nothing to do with the fact that I had roommate issues or anything like that, but has everything to do with taking one more step and being able to create a home that is in itself a great sanctuary.

I moved into this great complex in Old Town Scottsdale. It is a space of great energy and awesome tenants, two of who came to introduce themselves carrying three vodka tonics to my front door. We did the regular introductions followed by a toast to my moving into this community. Really? This actually happens to people? As the three of us sat overlooking the pool trading stories of how we all ended up here on this beautiful evening, our landlord walked up and welcomed me with a hug and a nice bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon. I hadn’t even lived here for more than 12 hours and I was already among friends. For me to live by myself is a personal accomplishment that I am not taking lightly; financially, I am secure enough to live here, and socially there is no room for loneliness with the incredible friends I have around me.

The process of moving is a really hard thing for me to do. I notice that I tend to walk around in circles wondering where to start first. I believe everyone needs a friend that is willing to come over and keep you on track. Consider the bottle of wine they bring a sign of a great friend. The people that came to help me in my final hours at the old place was one of those things that just made me feel good. I always manage to find something in my life to be insecure about and it is usually that I have a very small group of friends, though, they are as solid of 100 friends. But I could not find an ounce of insecurity as I sat cleaning side by side with these people who mean so much to me.

The weather is getting warmer and my life is in the spring stages, blossoming in so many ways. I really feel as if I have come full circle. The phase of my life in my old apartment was full of tumultuous and wonderful memories tucked into a nice part of my mind. But moving out of there was equivalent to shedding this shell that I have constructed over the past few years. I noticed ways in which I still grieve for the people I lost in my life. I know that I will continue to heal in my own little ways but this time I get to come around when I choose to, and in my own space. Which happens to be such an incredibly intimate and caring environment. Right now, and how it just so happens to have been for an ongoing amount of time, I feel both blessed and proud. This pride is a new thing; it comes from acknowledging that I am where I am because of specific actions that I have taken. I am now able to say that I have a fun life because I do. It is only now that I know I have worked to create it and I feel like I deserve it. A toast: to finding comfort in personal space and holding onto the peace it creates.

3.16.2007

Straight Up

Today is a Paula Abdul day. Not the American Idol Paula; but the Forever Your Girl Paula. The Paula that I had routines perfectly choreographed on my Minnie Mouse roller skates. The fact that I am listening to this album makes me feel, simultaneously, young and old. These songs can resurrect the exact feelings of my nine year-old-hip-self; i was the empress of cool. Her words channel straight to the euphoric part of my brain where my biggest concern was how to finagle my parents into letting me play outside later. One of my stock associates just came into my office while "Straight Up" was playing. He looked at me, then my speakers, chuckled, and then said, not asked, "What is this". Shell shocked, I responded that it was Paula Abdul. I said you don't know Paula Abdul? He said of course he knew who she was... I think his words were, "I watch American Idol, yeah I think I know who she is." I could have slipped in the puddle where his dripping sarcasm had collected.

Paula, for me, ranks right up there with Tiffany and The Bangles. I swear that those women shaped my life. Okay, maybe that is taking it a step too far, but they surely built a great city of memories in my mind. Side note from my head, celebrating the little things. Find something little to celebrate on this Eve of St. Patrick's Day!!

3.05.2007

Past Life

We are interesting creatures, us humans. We have varying degrees of depth, love, understanding, and pain. We have even more ways to handle these emotions. In every encounter, no matter how great or how small, we gain insight into the people around us but more importantly we, ourselves, become magnified. We can gain infinite knowledge to who we are when we walk away from someone or even when we are the one being walked away from. I choose to believe in the power of a moment, because in that second of realization, it is already gone. A moment becomes the past, immediately. I made a choice when I chose life. I decided I would never again waste one second on regret, on thinking I hadn’t given everything I could to something. Things as small as reading my brothers a bedtime story, or even as great as choosing whom to love, I approach each of these instances with the exact same passion. This fervor does not come without its own set of complications. I have seen that there are few who approach life this way. I think that the combination of recognizing inflicted scars, loathing life, losing someone; it is through these tumultuous experiences those of us who survive are granted a beauty reserved for very few. Yes, I have been hurt and will be undoubtedly hurt again, but I will heal just as I always have. By having the ability to believe in the power of an exchange, the power of an opportunity, I will always have something to look forward to.

Over what has been nearly a year of writing this blog I have disclosed some very personal thoughts, thoughts that at times were truly unbearable. I found myself in chasms where breathing was the only connection holding me to this world. I have allowed hurt to creep into my life in various forms, various relationships, I have felt broken. It is only now that I am beginning to see that the shades of what I consider to be one of my greatest strengths entirely misunderstood. In my constant faith in goodness I have come across as being fragile, breakable, even unstable. This idea of holding onto something and being comfortable with the unknown allows me to be cognizant of my present. This awareness lends me to feeling things very deeply. I understand that by witnessing undeniably deep feelings ranging from elation to profound sadness, some may see these emotions of mine and label them as weakness. For reasons I can understand it seems I project this need to be rescued. Oddly enough it is I who feels that does the rescuing. This is certainly an in depth analysis brought about by a very recent break up. Yet, there is such familiarity in the words that are spoken to me, echoes of others wanting to save me and protect me. What a silly thing to focus on when the once shared experience has been finalized. I wish others to stop looking at me and my supposed need to be saved and start looking at why there seems to be more devotion after the fact. Yes, I am hurting right now, but I am not consumed by sadness and certainly not regret. I am creating my past, day-by-day. I am building my life, something that is uniquely mine. I have loved hard, and I promise I will never stop loving hard. It is with a distinct sadness that I move forward knowing that others shut down on purpose, never to be reopened. What a futile way to build a past.

This post is dedicated to many, all of whom I love, and will continue to love until the moment my life is nothing more than my past.