the thin line between optimism and delusion…

I had a well thought out interesting post about my thoughts on how I was going to live the next year, and I deleted it by accident.  This really irks me. 

So instead, I will make this decision, out loud, for y’all to hold me to:

I will not let my fear of failure keep me from pursuing the things that I want to do.  I think fear has been holding me back for a long time, and this is something that has to change.  Just because I might not be the best at something, doesn’t mean that I don’t have something to contribute. 

Just because I’m not the MOST qualified doesn’t mean that I’m not qualified. 

And just because I know that my confidence and/or lack of confidence in certain areas is all in my head doesn’t mean that it doesn’t manifest itself in my decisions. 

Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean someone isn’t following me. 

Just because I think I’m hungover doesn’t mean I don’t have a fever.

Just because swatch watches are the best doesn’t mean I don’t secretly covet nike watches.  (OMG, Lenox is getting a SWATCH STORE!!  The ATL is moving up in the world of fashion). 

Just because people that hold hands on campus in broad daylight should be shot by a firing squad, doesn’t mean that holding hands is always bad (jennifer, feel free to disagree). 

Just because the heat index is 110 degrees outside, doesn’t mean that people don’t still drink coffee. 

Just because I’m taking 17 hours worth of class doesn’t mean that I’m going to study.  Okay, maybe I will.  Or maybe I’ll drop a class.  Did I tell you I’m taking 17 hours?  Last fall I took 12.  I’ve lost my everloving mind.  I think it is the heat. 

Just because my thoughtful post was deleted doesn’t exonerate me from the commitment I have to keep y’all updated on my thoughts.

This is my favorite time in the semester, only because exams seem so ridiculously far away and it doesn’t seem real.  I love it.  I’m in a fantabulous mood.  I might even go for a run in the heat. I could do without the heat.  92 degrees, feels like 99 degrees.  Looks like this:

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I get an email from Story People every day with a new story.  Today’s story is one of my favorites and also rather appropriate for how I feel today.  I slept for ten hours last night and I could have slept for 8 more, I think I might be getting sick.  But regardless, here it is –

There are some days when no matter what I say it feels like I’m far
away in another country & whoever is doing the translating has had
far too much to drink

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I am happy to inform y’all that I am making a conscious effort to act
like a grown up today.  I got to work before 9 am, and I am just
now putting my socks on, I am making a conscious effort not to sit on my feet,
and I am drinking decaf coffee. 

I have already order the gift for the wedding I am attending this
weekend, and I have no pressing obligations that I am failing to do by
writing this post. 

After sending a sob email from yesterday (I apologize to those of you who received it, I have basketcase tendencies sometimes, but just a little EDD), I went to run in the rain,
where I ran into bambi and a bunch of other deer.  Bambi was on
the wrong side of the path from the adult deer, and I was on the
path.  I respectfully backed up, having heard it is a bad idea to
get in between a wild animal mother and child, and even though bambi was
too afraid to cross the path (even after I gave him some space), mama deer was not, and they were reunited
on the wrong side of the path in the trees that were planted all neatly
in a row and looked very pretty with the sun shining down and the rain
dripping off the branches.  Because, yes, it was raining.
The devil was beating his wife the whole of my run, or at least two
minutes into it, and stopping two minutes before I did.  There is something I enjoy about the oppression of humidity and heat, I know, it is sick, and I can promise 95% of the general population would have deemed the conditions under which I ran yesterday as  MISERABLE, but I have to say, as a whole, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The upside to running in the rain is that at the end of my run I got to
see an entire half of a rainbow, from one side of the sky to the other,
stretched across the horizon.  Then I walked
around and picked a big magnolia flower for my adoptive summer mom,
stretched out my calf muscle that I pulled while I was running, and
drove home. 

And I watch The Empire Strikes Back last night, and Yoda made me want to cry because I miss Jim Henson and it is painfully obviously what is missing from the new Muppets now that he is gone, and obviously, what is missing from the computerized Yoda.

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My mom called me with some sad news the other day.  One of the enormous hackberry trees in our backyard finally fell down.  According to the tree people, hackberry trees are not suppose to grow as large as ours have, and this is dangerous because hackberrys do not have deep roots, and having a large tree with shallow roots leads to trouble.  We have (or had) 4 or 5 enormous hackberrys all in a bunch inthe far back part of our yard, and they are the focal point of the entire yard, and very pretty.  Mama has been meaning to have them taken down for years. 

This particular tree is on the edge of the bunch, on the left side if you have your back to the house. It had been leaning for years, and in recent months had started to sink.  The sinking was easy to measure, due to the remenants of an old swing still hanging from one of the branches.  All that is left of the old swing is a thick rope, with a loop at the bottom, and a knot about a foot above the top of the loop.  In the past six months the loop has settled into the leaves on the ground. 

Mama is always worried that one of the trees is going to fall on one of us, or even worse, fall on one of the dogs – particularly Bella. 

But in the end it didn’t fall on any of the members of the family.  It fell on a piece of our past.  It fell on the tree house.  Our tree house has actually outlived the other treehouses I grew up in, the Allen’s amazing treehouse fell years ago, and the Nalley’s treehouse also collapsed a while back (although, I think they have both been repaired).  And our treehouse wasn’t suspended in a tree, it was basically a treehouse built from the ground up with a tree growing in the middle of it.  It was actually converted into a dog house/tree house about ten years ago, but the dogs never liked it much and it wasn’t used for that purpose for very long.  Our treehouse was built around a carolina cherry tree, and I have always loved the way carolina cherry trees smell when you break a branch and smell the wood. 

I haven’t been out there very often in the past ten years, but it still made me happy that I could go back there if I wanted.  I’m not at home, so I don’t know the extent of the damage, and maybe it is easier that way.  The last time I did go up there I laughed at the spray paint graffii and the carvings of initials into the wood. 

Oh well, things change.  But that doesn’t mean I have to like it when they do. 

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Good morning everyone!!!  I am in a fantastic mood, and I have great plans of being super productive and useful today.  It is raining outside, but I got lots of sleep last night and am feeling well rested and refreshed. 

I have a cup of hot coffee, and my office hasn’t gotten too cold yet, and my only complaint is an injury I sustained to my thumbnail which hurts. 

Other than that, my bug bites are getting better, my hair is being cooperative (my best hair days are when it is raining, isn’t that weird?), I like what I have on, and I have a shiny new website. 

But I must give a large thanks to my wonderful friend Pete for helping me move my site.  And when I say helping, I mean, doing it for me.  He is oh so very clever. 

Okay, I’m off to be terribly intelligent and highly verbal. 

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There is a billboard coming into Augusta on I-20 that says: CLIMBED EVEREST – BLIND, and has a picture of a man sitting on top of a mountain staring out (but I guess he isn’t staring out, because he is blind). Now I don’t want to diminish this guy’s accomplishment, because it is amazing to climb Everest, even with 20/20 vision. But I also know that my reasons for climbing mountains have everything to do with the view from the top and along the way. Sure, it is the accomplishment as well, but mostly it is the exhilaration of the view that gets me past 11,000 feet. It is awesome that this guy doesn’t let his limitations limit him, but it is kind of like, would you pay for an expensive meal if you couldn’t taste anything?

It is amazing when it becomes summer I start to notice all these little imperfections about me that I never notice in the winter, like a patch of dry skin on my shoulder, or the negativity of all the bruises I seem to accumulate, or the state of my cuticle (gah my nailbeds suck!).

aspirin is a miracle worker. Really. Wonderful stuff.

My dogs are clean. This is exciting because they were very dirty. Mama washed them today.

Mary Beth graduated from nursing school today!!!! Congratulations Mary Beth!!!!

Daddy went to Vienna today – he and Dick are biking from Vienna to Budapest – down the Danube. I’m jealous, I miss Europe.

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How come, if my alarm is set for 8:15, I wake up wide awake at 7:30? And if when I wake up at 7:30, I curl back up into the covers with plans to doze for the next 45 minutes, I am incapable of getting up at 8:15 and end up hitting snooze for half an hour? I don’t even know if Clocky could help me with this.

How come there are certain people in my life that cause me to lose my ability to exercise reasonable judgment? Put another way, why do some boys make me crazy? I guess I should just be glad that they don’t all make me crazy.

How come the water pressure at my apartment is so terrible? Is there something they can do about that? On that note, why does the hot water in the girls bathroom at the law school (the one by the deans office) only come in two temperatures, scalding and boiling? Washing your hands is a great way to get second degree burns.

How come it was 45 degrees and raining yesterday and today it is sunny and suppose to be 80?

How come I am the only person in america that gets sunburned from riding around with the sunroof open in march?

Why did my dad think it was a good idea to put paint thinner on Bo, our dog, when he got into the green paint on saturday? This is a dog who gets a rash when we wash him with pantene.

How come it is so beautiful outside, and I have to be inside pretending to be productive?

I would ask how come I am late every where and how come I wait till the last minute to get anything done, but I was given the answer by my therapist friend Ivy the other day. She said that because I am ADHD, I wait until the last minute all the time and I am therefore late everywhere because if I am always in a rush, I am never bored. And the adrenaline is worth the stress. I thought this was quite profound, and I agree 100%. Learn something new every day.

p.s. I love how at chik-fil-a, the lemonade has a fat lemon with wings and a face, and the diet lemonade has a skinny lemon with wings and a face. Like little lemon angels. Also, I had the mini chik biscuits this morning, and they were okay. I thought they were like chicken nuggets in sister shubert biscuits.

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I get a daily inspirational email, it is normally Christian based, but not always, and it ranges from fictional excerpts to famous speeches. I received one the other day about being real and sincere, and I liked it because I have been thinking lately about being lovable and being sincere and being at ease with myself and with others. My whole life I have been trying to get control of my awkward tendencies, and I think I have a better grip on them now that I ever have had before, but at the same time I think something is lost with the loss of nerves and awkwardness. But it is all a mind game. I’ll tell you about my mind game with myself.

Tricks I use to not feel awkward in life.

1. In social situations I assume that everyone in the room is excited to see me and wants to talk to me. Most of the time if people don’t want to talk to you, you never really know it, so you might as well assume that they do want to talk to you. Especially if I don’t know people, if I am nervous about going in somewhere (because I definitely get nervous, paralyzing nervous) – before I go into the room or where ever, I take a deep breath and convince myself that everyone in the room wants to meet me and that everyone is going to like me once they do meet me. Now, as you can see by the title of my blog, I am overly optimistic, and I have an overly active imagination. Having control of my imagination is important, it is important for me to focus on the positive and imagine the best, or my imagination might run away with me in the other direction.

2. I try really hard to not react to the way people respond to me if it is negative. Most people are pretty self absorbed (I know I am), and because of this, people’s actions are much more heavily affected by the things going on in their life than they are by me. So if one of my friends is being abrasive or difficult or mean, it probably isn’t my fault. They probably aren’t mad at me. Of course, this isn’t always true, but with regards to the people in your life who you interact with on a regular basis but aren’t really close to, it is a pretty safe bet.

Sometimes I take this one too far, because I don’t react to much of anything. Especially with boys. Because most of the times when girls react they act crazy. And when I mean crazy, I mean jumping to conclusions, either by assuming a seriousness that isn’t really being implied, or by assuming a personal offense that was not intended. Because boys are stupid.

But overall I think with regards to reacting to people – less is more. It helps me stay in a more stable form emotionally. I’m sure this isn’t always good, but this is what I think today.

In the end I think there is something to be said for not being awkward, but it is also easy to end up being one of those people who are terribly intimidating because they seem to not be affected with the difficulties with which the rest of the world struggles. Maybe this doesn’t make sense.

Okay, I have to go do real work now, because I am going to fail out of school.

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