I'm Losing Things

They are little. 

A sock, a key, a hairpin.

I tear apart my room searching for the one little thing. I will be that woman from the Bible story, the one who cleaned her house looking for a little coin. But while trying to be that woman, that determined, detailed, clean freak- I've been ignoring the big things. 

Today, I finally stopped looking for my slippers. I walked into my closet, and suddenly they were there. Put away. In their place. Some little things find their own way home. 

Either that or I've been cleaning in my sleep, which wouldn't be surprising.

I feel like a grinch this year. So motivation for optimism is great, right?

Fears Fade

 I may be losing my arachnophobia. Today as I was lying on my front porch, soaking in sunshine so unsuitable for december, I watched a spider the size of a 50 pence piece climb onto my book and explore the page. My hands were less than six inches away, and yet they sat there unafraid. For the first time, when confronted with a spider, my body wasn't covered with goosebumps and I didn't shake.

How exactly do we lose our fear? Does a new sense of confidence push it out like a grown up pushing away childish habits? Or is my arachnophobia simply being replaced by a new and more ominous fear? Why do fears fade, and where do they go?

Recipe For Me, Running.

1 Cup Boredom

1/2 Cup Frustration

2 tsp. Anger

3 Cups Motivation

1 Catchy Song

2 Tbsp. I-Don't-Care-What-I-Look-Like-Running

1 tsp. Let's-Do-This

1 Glorious Liquid Gold Sunset

Slowly mix all ingredients throughout the day, adding in the sunset and catchy song by 6pm. Keep in temperature of not-quite-freezing but not-warm-enough-for-a-t-shirt. Serve immediately before a dinner of garlic pasta and a book in front of a fireplace.

Oh, Glorious Water!

Yes, i went swimming. 

Yes, it was marvelous. 

My inner fish is satisfied. 

Segue

 I have stopped stopping to smell roses, stopped noticing if they're red or painted impostors of red. The eerie dreams have returned, now taking their cues from Plato's The Cave and Grimm's Fairy Tales. Today I spent my time doing white rabbit things, but tonight will see some change. My room is cleared and ready. I'll tie up my hair like Violet Baudelaire and begin the first painting of winter break. The first of many, i hope.

Like so many things that have to change, I want to spend my break feeling more like a contented to wander Alice- never fettered to a pocket-watch. 

And it all begins when i move my white rabbit habit to the back of the closet.

Home is not where you live, but where they understand you.

My parents brought flowers to the airport. 

Flowers make even the most exhausted version of me feel fresh.

Today I'm baking gingerbread and listening to Sufjan's Christmas album(s).

It's good to be home.

Setting My Toes Westward

The running conversation here goes something like this: 
-So, how are you doing?
-(sigh) I'm just so ready to go home. 
-Yeah, me too. I can't wait to see my family, it's been hard being away for so long.
People have been asking me if I'm ready to go home. And I've felt a bit conflicted about the subject. I feel like I have more than one home, every time I leave one I miss the other. My home is in the upstairs art classrooms at jbu, my home is in the pool, my home is the field outside of my bedroom window. 
For the first time this semester I have begun to really miss things that are not locations. I miss walks with my dad, running errands with my mom, listening to my brother explain cell biology , laughing with my little sister...
The list could go on but I think it's obvious. People are what matters most, home is wherever I'm with them. Ireland is home, and these people are home. 
But now I just want to see the people that loved me from day 
one. 

These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence: the connections — sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at great cost, but often magnificent.

quote from "The Lovely Bones"

Best Christmas Song. Best Version. Enjoy.