i guess if i am going commit to someone it might as well be myself.

…fade in:

hypothetically, i have recently become single. this provides me with a perspective that i am not prepared for. but, as i have learned in the last 26 years of my life, this is where life teaches [the hypothetical] me the best lessons.

at a certain point in this hypothetical situation, i had believed in a forever kind of thing. and when you get that wrong… well, my suggestion would be to not get that wrong. hypothetically.

in real life it’s not a sob story, it’s the culmination of a thousand conversations, a couple of love stories, an amazing adventure and the only reasonable end that anyone could ask for.
but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.

it’s no one’s fault and no matter how many times i try to put my finger on one thing that may have driven it to the brink, there isn’t one. it’s us. and it’s not us being us. and it’s real and sane and the right thing to do and it blows. hard.

i’m a tough cookie, i can handle this shit. I know that people get over and give up so much more and it makes me feel like a pansy sometimes because, hypothetically, i am still heartbroken.

____________________

we maintain balance, poise and a sense of security only as we  move forward.
____________________

so i guess this is me discovering me.

hypothetically.

high school was an agenda that I had to keep: early mornings for early classes or birthday breakfasts or sporting events in other cities. this was when the snooze button and I really became acquainted, however under the roof of my parents, there was still little “snooz”ing to do when the schedule actually existed.

in college, the drill became about the skill of the late-wake-up; pulling sweatpants and a tank or jacket on only to run out the door and a block (or ten) away to slink into a seat only to, then, hit the figurative snooze button. college-life taught me about the “nature sounds” alarm clock that I still own today, although in those times it was more about being transported to s different place with the ambient noise than a change-of-pace from the standard beeping that jolts me out of sleep these days.

in the first few years of working, as I am sure it will be in the future, I have become accostomed to being slave to the sounds and glow of my alarm clock. It wakes me up with whatever noise I choose in the evening, to match the mood that I believe I will be waking up with, of course. It is also the glowing beacon in my bedtroom telling me to go to bed, or that I can’t sleep, or that I am waking up each hour and, finally, that I normally wake up naturally about 5 minutes before it goes off and then can not bear to wake up with it at the scheduled time (this is where the college plan-to-wake-up-late technique really comes into play again).

more recently, I have left my job. The comfy-cozy life of the urban design studio and print shop has been traded in to work from, well, bed. Not really, but I totally can if I want. Like right now-granted, this isn’t paid work, but I think you get it. This being said, my alarm clock and I are transitioning into a new relationship. We don’t fight nearly as much anymore, slapping her across the face over and over seems to be a thing of the past. Because the business is my own and starting up rather slowly, at that, the only time that I am forced out of bed at a specified time is when I have a meeting, a breakfast, a due date or am going on vacation: all things planned by me!-making them so much easier to accommodate!

receiving a wake up call this morning from my boyfriend who had left a couple of hours before (which is unbelievable if you have met the two of us) triggered the memory for me of a time when things were not as they are. A time will come when, once again, I am bound by my alarm clock as the access point between me and the rest of my day; but this isn’t it! It’s not that I don’t want to get up and get out of bed, I am simply attending to the idea that I am now at a time in my life in which it is worth paying attention to the subtleties that differentiate it from the rest.

sometimes it’s the way they make me feel about love, other times about hate- and if you know what I am talking about, then you know. they make me think about how I interpret my circumstances and religion, individually and combined. often I find myself thinking about the rest of his life, outside of these songs; outside and around and in his life.

presently, I have nothing profound to stumble upon through this entry, however, I believe that’s kind of the point…

listen to Bob Marley.

or don’t, but either way, be grateful and think kindly.

as far as I could twist this into a story about finding the ‘easy button’, so to say, it’s really about expectations. recently, life – more specifically, a man, threw me a curve ball that completely shattered expectations that I had created. left confused but confident, i was proud to know that i could reset the expectations of myself, and him, into a more timely, realistic framework. these things aren’t easy.

in my work, setting expectations is straightforward and necessary. ‘by when?” “what can i expect from you?” seeking clarity is vital to demonstrating expertise, and yet that is where the similarities between the practices of work and personal begin to dwindle.  opening the door between the two worlds is where I find myself and where I seem to be learning the most.

everyone creates expectations of themselves and the people around them. whether it is as simple and ‘treating people like you expect to be treated,’ or as complex as gauging if someone will “say yes” to that big question, the way that we formulate our expectations directly effects how we react to the situations in our lives. and how these reactions shape our character.

in work, it’s work. in our personal lives, it’s personal. resetting expectations at work calls for a shift in priority but is most commonly oriented around a certain task or set of tasks. (unless, of course, it is personal and that’s a whole different issue that you should take up with HR…) resetting expectations in our personal lives, though, is rarely approached with the same understanding. everything is taken “personally”. feelings and emotions become involved.

in my personal life, my initial reaction to being let down or feeling like I have set “the bar” too high,  is to abandon expectations of the people around me, but  abandoning those expectations does not create room for those individuals to communicate their expectations of me or to be held accountable for themselves; it places a burden on them that says, “you messed up once and now I expect much less of you.”

to ask someone to manage my expectations means sharing with them mine and allowing for open communication about what they are able to expect from me. it also means understanding that as much as I often desire a second chance, of sorts, so do the people around me that have, often abruptly and temporarily, lowered my standards of expectations.

instead of thinking about it as lowering my standards, which is the opposite of how I would prefer people to think of me, I am learning to see it as being groundless.

Here, groundless and floating around in my twenties, I believe that I will be able learn about myself and others as whole people, not based on the unrealistic pedestals that we may put each other on, and push each other off.

and THIS is what I take with me in this supposed-to-be-futuristic year: people with two feet on the ground, can’t change their underwear.

As with anything, with new experiences come new challenges, followed by new solutions and new outlooks; shared outlooks. At least this is what one can hope for. Sometimes it’s hard to remind myself of this passage that, at one point, I was so familiar with- but inside of a different kind of love.

The love we have for our families as we grow and learn from them teaches us many different things; about the difference between liking and loving someone, the struggles to find common ground and something that is known as unconditional love- something that I, personally, search for outside of my family. “You can love someone and still not like how they act or what they do,” was a concept that my mother revealed to me at a young age. How interesting, and here I am, reverting back to words of my mother and passages from the Bible that I, and most others, have heard many times over.

I Corintihians 13″4-8:

“Love is patient, love is kind.

It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

This is the love I hope for. As my eyes wander over these simple (dare-I-say) truths, I am able to take a deep breath and put faith in them- outside of and, perhaps in spite of, their source.

Love is my religion.

Before my camera died, I was able to capture their adorably hand-painted sign and a still of the color section of the web-press, oozing red and blue inks. But like one of my favorite photographers once told me, take the picture like you only have one more shot. And I did. And it takes me to a certain place, of ink and machines, and ideas.

I think it’s fitting, seeing as I haven’t written in over a year… I guess we all get busy, but today is the day that I start anew- and that doesn’t exclude my former passion project blog. I still love West Colfax and dreams of pawn shops still inspire my art, but it’s become- yet again- more of a highway than a home.

The best responses of my work came from the painted drawer and its (re)placement  back with the rest of the destroyed chest of drawers.  They seemed to appreciate the contrast of the abandonment of the object with the care taken to paint and replace it.  The website documentation has allowed me to share the real meanings of some of my art with people that may never be able to see it in person; creating a site completely separate from the one that effects the people who encounter the art in real life.

The success is rooted in the ability for the object to take new life within its old environment. By removing and restoring or replacing the meaning of the object, when it is returned to its original location, it can no longer hide behind its surroundings; it has been given new meaning and a new purpose.

There are flaws in process of the artwork that lend to it not being as successful as possible. The lack of feedback is a concept that seems difficult to tackle because I want people to experience the artwork on their own. The feedback I have gotten, except for one terribly short-tempered individual, has been positive and inquisitive. Both adults and children have seemed to notice the art, and have reacted in respect to its presence among them.

I think that the bigger pieces (trashcan, tire) may have, ultimately, been more successful than the smaller ones (pizza box, coffee can) if only for the sheer size. The larger pieces are harder to move, and more awkward to be caught carrying, so they may have the potential be in the public eye longer. I also have thought of narrowing down the idea that I want illustrated on the “found” objects and making a stencil, or set of stencils that could be used in any number of spaces; that could tie all of the pieces together visually.