Author: thewrinkledbrow

Oof.

 

Boyfriend and I had to have a difficult talk. The kind of talk that is bound to leave at least one person feeling like they have been kicked in the stomach. I am the one that wound up doubled over this time.

But.

I am a girl who, when she says she genuinely wants to know what someone honestly thinks, means it, and means it big time. I don’t want to be placated, and sugarcoated information just leaves me with a stomachache. If left to my own devices, I will imagine worst-case scenarios, and the truth is often less painful than the anxiety-fueled horrors I can dream up in my head.

That wasn’t the case this time, unfortunately. This time, the truth totally sucked.

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Sunshine for a Rainy Day

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Photo Credit: Erunks, Deviant Art

Not so many years ago, I found myself in a very dark state of mind. Circumstances had led me to a place where my perspective on my self-worth had grown terribly cloudy. I know many people have visited this same place, as the result of break-ups, or complicated familial relationships, or eating an entire box of pasta.

(Those last folks are my people. Fellow lovers of digestive science. “Can you actually fit a whole pound of cooked bow-ties in a human stomach?” “Yes! Yes, you can!” Just for the record, that doesn’t mean you SHOULD.)

When the mirror you are peering into gets so dirty that your vision of yourself starts to become distorted, it can be incredibly difficult to remember why you are worth loving — not least of all, why you are worth being loved by yourself. Though I tried to offer myself compassion and to remind myself what I brought to the world around me, dirty, warped mirror-me just kept smudging and smearing out each ray of sunshine.

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Take My Money, Internet. Right This Minute.

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Thanks to Gizmodo, my kitchen now feels lifeless and empty. How I survived soup-making up till this point without a Nessie Soup Ladle I’ll never know. I must have it.

Need one, too? They will be available in February!

Need the soup? Might want to try this amazing roasted red pepper and carrot soup, or this silky, perfect-for-winter butternut variety.

On a Lark

 

Several years ago, I realized that engaging in grown-up life left me with no extra energy to spend on tip-toeing around difficult subjects, or in pretending to be something that I am not. I started moving toward more straightforward and genuine interactions with people whenever possible.

And that was when most of my friends discovered that I am a seventy-year-old woman trapped in a mid-thirties body.

I am most centered, and most alert, at the start of the day, and since I’ve always been an early riser this works to my benefit. I have no problem getting up while it is still dark out. I cherish the first quiet hours of the day, when everyone else is still asleep. I get more work done in the two hours before my co-workers arrive than I do in the six hours we then spend in the office together.

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Flight Pattern

 

I’ve got a best friend in Texas who is chock-full of awesome ideas. Living in another state means I can unabashedly steal them and pass them off as my own. Currently, I am working on a project involving the ingenious method she — I mean I — created to corral and share travel pictures. Doing so means sifting though images from a few recent vacations with Boyfriend, and remembering how much I sucked during the lead-up to each trip, particularly the one we took out east.

Our first visit to Boston was, in the end, a fantastic week of awe-inspiring history, gorgeous architecture, and perhaps most importantly, cheesecake; but not one of those things, all of which had been promised and talked about with many exclamation points in the days leading up to the trip, had left me feeling even remotely excited as I packed for our flight.

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