As I type this it's almost 1:30am on Saturday night (or Sunday morning depending on how you look at it). I'm in Northern Virginia at a after attending the TGEA Holiday Gala in Alexandria, VA earlier this evening. I'm chilling for a few minutes before going to sleep....
I was talking with a couple of gals when one of them says to me, "That's a beautiful wig!" I looked sort of incredulously at her and told her it wasn't a wig - that it was my real hair. She seemed to not believe me so I offered for her to tug on it, which she did. She proceeded to ask me if I've had any surgeries. Oh brother....where to start. Later someone stopped by to tell me that "She's new". No worries. :)
This is my first weekend at "home" in well over a month (which is odd to say given the fact that I'm in a hotel room that would seem to indicate otherwise). I could very easily have driven home after the event tonight but I decided that it'd be nice to do just what I'm doing - relaxing for a little while - rather than get back into my car for the two hour drive back north.
Speaking about my car - I had some more work done on her last week. Little by little I'm working through the list of things that need to be done and have to admit that she's driving like a dream. The car has been quite the investment in recent weeks but I've mentally made the commitment to stick with her while she gets better. Friday's fix was "upper spring seats" - something having to do with the front suspension - and an oil change/fluid top off to get it ready for the months ahead.
One of the things that's hard to learn is when to let go of something and when to stick with it. That's as true of a car as it is of relationships and other aspects of life. Even when you approach things logically and weight all the pro's and con's in the end it's little more than a crap shoot. In this case my fingers are crossed that getting past this jag of expense will keep her happy and healthy for quite a while.
Monday 12/6
Man - it's brisk outside. The temperature isn't that big a deal. It's the wind that's killer. I hear that Buffalo got 2 feet of snow, and Rochester got almost a foot today. So by that standard I suppose we're fortunate. We haven't seen much more than a stray flake here and there. But it's friggin' brisk out there.
Last year when I left PA to go back to the Phoenix area I got rid of most of my winter stuff. I never expected to be back in this climate again (which is probably silly of me) so as I decided what to keep and what to give away almost every wintery jacket I owned ended up finding a new home. I've got a couple of nice coats, but what I don't have is a good, warm, all-purpose winter jacket. I mean, what do you put on when there's a foot of snow outside and you need to go out and shovel? That's the kind of jacket I'm talking about....
So yesterday, with all this chilly wind going on, I decided it was time to get a new jacket. Comfort was important, as was warmth, fit, and of course cost. It took the better part of the day. I tried on dozens of them. Long ones. Short ones. Puffy ones. Down filled ones. By mid afternoon I was at REI with a couple of friends and we found "the One". It's made by Columbia - a good name. It was on sale - that's a big plus in my book. It was comfortable. All things considered - it seems perfect.
I don't think the fact that it's technically a man's jacket should matter. I tried on women's jackets but typically they were shorter and tighter. Men's jackets seem to have more room, be more comfortable, and be generally longer. I don't really care one way or the other as to the "gender" of my jacket. I'll be the first to admit that I like men's bikes too - the ones with the bar across the top - better than women's bikes any day of the week. Perhaps it's just what I'm used to but I don't assign gender-ness to my athletic gear any more than I do to my jacket. Anyway, for anyone who's curious as to what I bought, here's a link.
As I type this I'm listening to a mix of Christmas music. Chloe Prince has put together a very nice collection on the PinkEssence website.
To revisit something I said earlier: Part of what I'm thinking about at the moment is this process of letting go. Learning to let go of things in life is an important skill. Somehow it's easy to forget that and there's often some misguided sense that letting go is a sign of weakness or of failure. Even if that's true, so what? How does anyone expect to be able to grab new things if they're unable to let old things go? We often outgrow things during the course of our lives but we can't or won't recognize it. Relationships. Careers. Interests. Lots of things. That's not to say that any of us should give up on something the moment things get hard. Learning when to let go is probably harder than learning how to do it.
The reason this has any relevance to me right now is the need to let go of parts of the life I led in Arizona until recently. Many aspects of that life are gone forever. They just are. I could certainly go back there and live there again but aspects of my life that were simply part OF my life there are gone. In a way, a good example is the transition process itself.
There are some examples in my life right now of things that I've let go of, but that I have subsequently come to embrace again. Like wrestling. That doesn't change the fact that part of my own survival instinct involves consciously letting go of things rather than allowing them to fester too much. Granted, things can bubble over in my world before I shut it down but that's a whole other discussion. The main point is that letting go is sometimes followed by subsequent engagement again.
That's probably a bunch of mumbo jumbo to most, but some will know what I mean.
No comments:
Post a Comment