4/52

Someone got up at five a.m. to get photos at sunrise. And then someone felt like a zombie all day. The end.

Soul searching or something.

I've changed blogs a lot. Like a lot a lot. It's always something. And if it's not something, I'll make something up. It's too visible and I don't want anyone to know I exist. Or it's too hidden and hey, world, look at me! The name doesn't suit me or I've just come up with a better one. I don't like the platform. But the new platform is too sophisticated (I'm lookin' at you Wordpress).

What this all means is I have posts all over the web. I've been blogging since 2006. Almost 10 years. (You'd like the 10 years ago me way better. She was way less worried about Every. Little. Tiny. Thing.) I hate that the many blog posts I've written over the years aren't all in one tidied up little space. But do I want to keep dragging all that baggage around?

I thought I did. And I started to. I imported hundreds upon thousands of old blog posts right here. (Where "hundreds upon thousands" actually means "hundreds upon hundreds" because I don't blog nearly as often as years pass.) And then disaster struck. I noticed a link in an old post was broken. So I went in to fix it and when I did I found some old, embedded Blogger code. And when I looked at another post to see if it was on that one, too, it was! And on another, the Flickr equivalent of a broken link had happened and a picture wasn't showing! And then I had to start going into EVERY SINGLE POST to make sure everything was working because I need to sleep at night!

Which leads me to the here and now. 100+ old blog posts read and it has occurred to me: I'm lonely. And not very happy. (Don't get me wrong. There are people and moments and a dog named Friday that bring me happiness. But.) And the maddening thing of all is I saw this coming a long time ago. Right about the time I got divorced. I knew I needed to make adjustments, changes, make a life for myself... But did I?

I've been adrift in this rank sea of divorce, hoping to find shore (where the normal, happy people reside), and instead of using these useless appendages called ARMS AND LEGS and trying to SWIM FOR IT, I allowed that stupid divorce to do the one thing I swore it wouldn't. Pull me under. And I'm not the same carefree, happy girl I once was. (I'm not a "girl" anymore, either. Now I'm a 32-year-old woman. Grody.)

I need to make a change (she said for the 819th time). I thought: I need to travel. Get out and see some new sights, meet some new people. I need to be like that girl in the sales department that's always traveling and journeying to far off places like Machu Picchu. I need to be like the people in the pictures I scroll through on Instagram when I'm lying in bed at night and watching Friends (again). (And I'm not talking about selfies. I can take selfies.)

But then something else occurred to me. That more important than traveling to far off places was to figure out if that was really going to make me happy. Because, sure, I can get on a plane tomorrow! (Or in a month, after I've made arrangements to take time off work.) I can fly off to anywhere I want! (Well, just as soon as I get my passport.) But is that really going to make me happy? Like, happy happy? Because, just like all these abandoned blogs, I can jump around from one far off land to another, trying to find the unicorn, but unless a unicorn is really what I want, it's not going to make me happy when I find it. (Or something.)

So, this has all led me to one final conclusion. It's time to figure shit out. Like, for real this time. ('Cause so help me, if I write this post again in 2016, I will take a deep breath.) (Read the part about drowning again; it'll make sense.)

3/52

Alternative title: "Bleh"

The bright afternoon sunlight was just that. Bright. Blindingly so. Next time I want to take photos of the beach, I'll try to wake up before noon.

2/52

Do not open until 2022.

I have an envelope that's marked with those very words, the sealed contents of which I wrote when I was just fifteen. Maybe sixteen. And then promptly folded up and tucked away, not to be opened again until I turned 40 and felt like being really, really embarrassed as I'm sure I'll be when I finally read whatever nonsense it is I felt was important enough to write down when I was only a baby. Fifteen sounds so incredibly young. I didn't know shit back then. Unfortunately, at 32 (WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN) I hardly feel like I'm all that much wiser. [Insert one of those straight-mouthed emoticons here.]

Somethings take work.

There's nothing like a rough night's sleep + a long list of excuses to put off writing to really make you put off writing. Writing more wasn't even a New Year's resolution, but I'm holding onto the fact that this still could be the Something I do in 2015 that here I am. Writing. And reminding myself why it was exactly that I wanted to write more in the first place. Although "write more" implies that there was some sort of writing taking place and, well, that's laughable. But then I was talking to my mom whose incredibly awful memory is just one of the many awesome things I inherited from her- along with social ineptitude and a complete lack of patience for stupidity and bad drivers- and we both decided that we should start journaling. Our conversation went something like this: her asking me a question about something that happened recently and me not remembering because neither one of us can remember anything and then both of us agreeing that we should write shit down because then, maybe, we'd remember. (Miracles do happen.) So I decided to start blogging again. Because it's 2015 and who uses pen and paper anymore? But then I had a terrible night's sleep and when I got home I found a clean pair of socks which meant I could put off laundry for one more day and I promptly zoned out in front of Modern Family for an hour before I finally kicked my shoes off and reached for my laptop and gave into the tiny, irritating man inside my brain that keeps reminding me that if I write something then that would be every other night since the 1st of the year that I posted something and this could be SOMETHING. Truth is, this is 300 words of nothing. But it's still something.

1/52

And every year a new year begins

Every January the fresh-startedness of a new year overcomes me and I get the overwhelming urge to start something. And every year: failure. And every year I lament the disturbing fact that I can't seem to finish anything I start. And every year I write a variation of these same exact sentences. And every year every year THE END except it isn't 'cause, look, Ma! Here I am, once again vowing to do something. Write more. Take pictures. Lose weight. Punch myself in the face. Except not really on that last one (I'm saving that for 20-sixteen). Something is going to happen in 2015. And it's going to be exciting. And if it's not exciting? It's at least going to be finished. Because 2015 is the Year of Finishing What We Start. Because the thing about not finishing goals you've set for yourself is there's no one to blame but you and there's no one more disappointed in you than you. And we're not going to spend the last ten months of 2015 being disappointed in ourself. Also, we're going to stop starting sentences with conjunctions. Happy New Year!