The equal

It's the little things like this blog app that make my day. Like the things that never get posted:

"Tonight was solace. I watched something scary that made me, at the same time, at peace with everything scary in the world.
It's a fact that I miss my grandfather's spirit. I miss him being the person I could always count on when I was little. He was me hero and my inspiration. He kept me strong and loved my spirit.

I was thinking about him yesterday as I was talking to my dad. Sometime between him lecturing and my mom staring intently, I saw his picture and got side tracked. He was always someone that forced me to smile. I loved that about him. He was a constant reminder of each blessing in my life.
A lot of people say we forget things about our loved ones when we lose them, but I promise I can still imagine his face looking at me when I'm being too silly. I remember his smile and his forced smile, the way his thumbs looked to the way he sat in his chair and loved to talk.
I miss his stories the most. He will always be the most wonderful story ever told.

If he was here I wonder what he would say about my life. I wonder what advice he would give and I wonder which story he would fall into telling.

Its as simple as this: i don't really think anyone deals with death. I think we all just keep going and never stop thinking about the ones we truly loved, and more importantly -- the ones that loved us back."

What I think.

I think I will never stop listening to Coldplay.

I thought about that band this morning and how much I really enjoy their words. Even now, after listening to them since high school, I still find their words extremely meaningful. Love songs are what I love the most. Not just those mopy I love you songs but all the ones that shy away from telling you they love you. It's those songs that use different words than love.

It's possible to say I love you and not say it.

It's also possible to say I love you with out words.

I guess I just miss play my music loud and all the time. I miss singing passionately before work. That's honestly how I love to start my day and finish it.

I can't sing, but I love to do it and I think I always will.

On Monday, my grandmother showed me where I got my love for music. At 93, she was still dancing and tapping her foot.

LYDIA

This week.

When it comes to love, I am super cheesy.

This week I thought a lot about how I was when I was younger.
I sang like Whitney Houston. I believed that I was truly amazing at everything. With all of my talents I envisioned myself as a star. At a young age I honestly felt like people would know my name and I was only a couple of years away from being completely famous. Achieving this fame would be easy, of course. I was a singer, a writer and only one foot away from being a model. My possibilities were endless.

Yesterday I had two conversations about love. I tried to be insightful but I think deep down, I wasn't. I know I am in the thick of it but so many words can describe it.

There is not one true meaning of love.

I have never been the girl who got roses on Valentine's Day and now this guy makes me the girl who gets two dozen roses on Valentine's Day. To me it has never been the act — it's the simple thought. Love is an act but I love the thought before the act, or the thought that produces the act. The beginning.

This weekend I really felt like a grown up. I took care of my taxes. No more H&R Block for me. I grabbed those W2s by the horns and punched in those numbers! RA!

And so it's Mardi Gras. I remember missing this day last year and aching to be home and now that I am I still feel so far from it. I love the Mardi Gras music. I think that topped with king cake really charms me.

I looked over my blog this morning and was a little sad to say that this was it, after all I have learned about blogs and websites. I think it's time to get my self in the game...

Here goes...

LYDIA

I can't help it.

A part of me still considers still living in New York. I remember what it was like a lot. I was so busy and so on track. I had everything mapped out and all my time was usually filled and the time that wasn't I filled with my time. I used to have that time before I moved into a house.

I've been considering lately. Maybe that should've been my new word for this year. I've taken a lot of things into consideration for the future and for my life. When things happen or problems arise you have to consider. Don't mistake this for second guessing, considering is just a form of "thinking extra".

Since moving here and taking on this new job I've become more of the business woman that I seek to be. I'm not scared to call. I'm not afraid to ask questions. And most of all I am confident in meetings and commanding a room. I used to think that means to amp up my bitchiness. Now I know its all about knowing.

It took me 26 years to learn how to do my hair the right way. The high school version of me would've never imagined this day would come, but yet, here I am hair curled the right way — finally.

With everything that I have been considering the main thing that I always and will always think about is love. I've been considering every aspect of love for most of my life. It's weird how so much of love can fill a person up. I've always been one of those people who hated when a couple doesn't work out. I think about how much time and effort they possibly put into the relationship and then I begin to wonder why they gave up so easily. Perhaps if you always put in the same amount of effort as you did in the beginning, you will never feel the end of a relationship.

Heidi and Seal made me sad. Especially because of Seal's song that I am not afraid to admit is one of my all time favorite love songs. Listen to the words and then tell me you can't feel love.

"I need love, love's divine
Please forgive me now I see that I've been blind
Give me love, love is what I need to help me know my name"

I promised myself I would never be embarrassed to love this song.

My Sundays.

I miss my special Sundays.

Those days where I would wake up and spend as much time as I could in my big puffy white sleigh bed. It was always my version of the happiest times.

There I go missing my apartment life again. I miss my bachelorette pad. It was my own special place that I could decorate with everything and anyway I wanted. I miss that independence. I miss that place that I could fill with fresh flowers and write and look out the window at the same time. I miss the mountains in the distance.

I'm craving the very place that I wanted to escape from. And I always would wonder if I would miss it. Now I know. I miss waking up and always having some job to go to and some place to not go to.

My life was simple because I was still searching. I was searching for that ground that would keep me grounded.

I miss my sister. I love her. I love seeing little girls with messy braids who love mischief because that used to be us. Little girls, singing just to sing and exploring just to waste time until we grew up and could leave.

babies will crawl.

Tonight I remembered for a second how things were three years ago.

A lot was different. Businesses were just starting and more people had time. Since when did people become so business? I think a lot about that term. We think business and then we think impersonal. I can tell things have become more impersonal.

These days we only scratch the surface. That is business.

I keep trying to think of something better, some better word to accurately represent a personal business. Friendship maybe?

When you are thinking of doing business with someone, what truly comes first...the act of business or the act a friendship. Maybe that friendship is a sham but either way you are doing business.

Are all relationships just business? And the act of handling business is furthering the relationship.

Being in the business world has really made me think about this. When you are trying to get the business you are pretty much required to form that immediate friendship right off the bat, because if they trust you — they do business with you.

That was my mini Jerry Maguire moment. My small part where this small ray of insight becomes a mission statement.

In other news I've stopped a lot. By that I mean I'm stopped doing the things that give me the most joy. I blame no one but myself. I havent written, ran, listened to great music or hung out with good friends. During most weekends, I feel the most inspired but only for a short period.

I think I blame living with others. I am the most motivated when I am alone. I shine during that time. I can make myself do everything that I love and be with everyone that I do too.

Once I get back to my own place, I'll be back to me.

It's not that I don't love my roommates, it just that feeling of being more independent that I crave. I miss being in my own space and with my own wonderful items.

I miss all of my little pieces.

Reading somewhere.

I pictured my life at age 26 when I was 16. That was my cool age. I pictured that as the age where I would be set. I would be happy in my career and know where my future was headed.

Not the case.

This week everything was stripped from me. The things in my life that I had worked so hard for now are nonexistent. It's kind of like the feeling when you can't see any of your accomplishments anymore. Every little penny you earned suddenly doesn't matter as much. You are strapped.

I remember reading some blog, it was a Q&A entry about this woman's life after working for an advertising agency. After staying with the company for about three years, she moved away with her fiance to Tennessee. She started interning for the zoo, of all places. She recalled her time spent with the agency and then her life now. It made the zoo seem like a vacation. From advertising to sea lions. The way she spoke you could tell she was truly following her passion for animals.

As I read this entry, I was working for the same company, not the zoo though it felt like one. For a split second, I thought about working as a sea lion volunteer. That's not for me, but in that second I saw my self much happier than I thought I would be at the advertising firm.

That's when God made the switch for me and had a blond fire me.

One thing that will always stick with me is when she said that we aren't married yet after working their for three weeks. Now that I think about it -- should we want to be married to our job? Are we supposed to get that sort of fulfillment from our occupation?

So now I'm unemployed. This is usually that time where most people have that AH HA! moment and follow their passion to own their own business or they go to Barnes and Noble and read about people who did until they find a new job and settle.

You get a lot of advice when you are not working. You also come up with a lot of unemployment jokes too. It's the advice that is hard to take. You start to feel like advice is the only way people think they can help you. A lot of them even act like you have no clue what to do and they look at you like you are lost.

That's when you consult an unemployed friend. At this point, the jobless are leading the jobless, like the blind are leading the blind. They know what you are going through and can be cynical with you. And it's OK to be a little cynical -- just don't let that define you.

Bad things usually lead to greater things and I'm counting on that.