The Last Few Days

The last few days for me have been interesting and kind of amazing. I find myself in these ruts often where I sit at home and I don't know what to do with myself. Considering this sometimes mundane existence I feel like sometimes the husband and I run out of relevant things to say to one another. I believe this is one of the big reasons that I encourage him to go out with friends and live life outside of work and home. If we never do anything it's really hard to talk about our lives. I was thrilled to randomly find a new friend on Craigslist. Look, I don't typically use craigslist but after I heard that love connections were made at Walmart and through people posting in the missed connections section I became curious. I started to read that section on a regular basis, partially because I was curious as to how many of those people had seen someone they would like to get to know more in a Walmart, and partially because I was entertained. Some of the posts were sweet and romantic, others were down right inappropriate, and others were just plain funny. Once I had read all of the recent missed connections I moved on to the platonic relationship section. Some people obviously do not know what platonic means based on their postings, but one in particular caught my eye. It was a search for friends who like coffee and books. Of course I had to respond, because not enough people love coffee and books, and those of my friends who do I don't really get to see anymore...uhmmm KATIE. ;-)
Back to my story....anywho...So I responded by saying that I loved coffee and books. What happened next was a crazy coincidence...this person and I have so much in common that I am really completely dumbfounded as to how I have lived so many years and not once in my life met someone who I've had virtually everything in common with. There are some differences mind you, we aren't exactly alike but so much so that it is just crazy. We met at the mall yesterday and ironically enough showed up color coordinating unintentionally. Both of us had noticed this crazy coincidence but said nothing until we were in V-Stock looking at all the random movies, and mentioning various ones we liked and just having conversations about anything and everything when a woman about 40 said, "Aww you two match." In which he replied, "I wasn't going to say anything." Neither was I but there it was, that unspoken odd coincidence that had been in the back of our mind, further proof to me that I was destined to meet this person that was so like me in so many ways. Friends like that for me are so rare and honestly I never believed it could happen. Things that I like that I thought were completely just off the wall I actually share with someone I met so randomly.
In other news today the event of Daylight Savings Time has really thrown me off. I woke up at 10 o'clock this morning apparently missing my mother's visit for coffee as nobody was awake to answer the door. It is occasionally on a Monday that she would pop in, but usually she will tell me ahead of time, so it is by fault of daylight savings time that I was not awake to open the door. She never even texted me to tell me she had stopped by so I said, "You know, you could come over for coffee." That is when the phone call came where she proceeded to tell me that she had already showed up at my door this morning with no answer. My daughter Jade, whom likely is trying to suck up so I can take her to the mall offered to make coffee for me this morning. Regardless of her reason I was shocked. First off Jade has never before in her 10 years made a pot of coffee for obvious reasons and I guess I still believed that she was too young to take on such a task. However, I relented after she convinced me she could do it. She did a good job, no grounds in my coffee and it tastes pretty good. She even brought me a cup with an almost perfect ratio of coffee to coffee mate creamer. I was quite impressed. Jade also offered to help with some dishes for Zack when he made the decision to make scrambled eggs and biscuits. Now Zack has been doing minor cooking for awhile now, but the fact that they decided to do these things on their own and even worked together to get it done is awesome. Sometimes I get a bit angry with their lack of effort in school but I am really impressed with their effort in being self sufficient and even doing something for the family. It's been a pretty good couple of days.

Random Short Poem

The cold sets in, chills upon my skin. Reaching for something not

To be found in the fondness of memories abound. Taken the path

Of higher learning while simply waiting with endless yearning.

A passion unfulfilled by lack of motivation and time, to journey without

Heartache divine. Divided our wants our needs, and discrimination when

All we've found is elimination. No truth exists in midnight confessions

Despite all former and previous concessions.  

Silence

Silence...when in your life can you recall not hearing anything including your own thoughts? This is a rarity that happens only a select few times in life. Monks meditate and try to surround themselves with it to reach enlightenment, a higher level of consciousness. Trying to clear the mind and thus purging the body of unnecessary thought, suffering, stress, etc is not the easiest task in the world. Yesterday was one of those days for me. I went through bouts of highs and lows searching for what sounds like something so simple...silence. Unfortunately it was not to be found. A nearly impossible task made even more impossible due to my surroundings. I always find myself reflecting, over analyzing, and just thinking far too much. Turning off my mind is like trying to stop the rotation of the earth.
However, occasionally I find that my constant thinking leads me to some epiphany or clever idea and the story that I had most recently started became more clear to me. I saw actions and conversations play out in my mind like a movie, clearly and very distinct. It is those moments of inspiration that I wish came oh so more often than they do. It gives me some sort of hope that perhaps this time around I will finish what I've started writing. Only time will tell of course if this will actually happen, but to see the clarity of the idea unfold in a matter of minutes when I was just so recently stumped is amazing. In my opinion it is in those moments that the characters really come to life, instead of planning every single thing they think and do they plan it for you it seems. They start to take on a life of their own and go from a thought to something so much more. It also didn't hurt that someone told me yesterday that I was a writer. This person's opinion matters as not only is he an avid reader, but also studied English Lit. I can claim to be a writer all day long, but it seems that there is no validity behind that statement until it comes from other people.
So even though on my quest to find silence, at least momentarily, and finding none I found something else. Something much more precious and rare, the ability to meet the characters that were once only words on paper struggling to find their place in the story. To have the story told to me instead is far greater. Inspiration definitely trumps the silence.