The Friendship Stalk

November 29, 2011

I value the friend who for me finds time on his calendar, but I cherish the friend who for me does not consult his calendar. –Robert Brault

When it comes to friendship, I haven’t considered myself an expert.  I am not the kind of person who has been inseparable from my best friend. I am not the kind of person who has that one friend who knows most things about me and we whisper secrets to each other.
As a child and a teenager, I steered in that direction.  I had friends where I used to spend every school afternoon at their house, spend weeks of my school vacation at their house, talk on the phone everyday and late at night, and gossip and giggle over the girls we didn’t like.  To be honest, I had a new best friend every year.  There were fall outs with some or growing distance between others.  When I started to attend a university, this is when I stopped having “best” friends.  First of all, I moved to a city where I only really knew my sister.  Second, college, for me, was more of a place for group socialization than individual friendships.  Third, due to the falling outs that occurred prior, best female friends left bitterness.  It is not to say, I didn’t have best friends, but they began to consist of males; guys who taught me how they view friendship and relationships.  Besides, I didn’t need a best friend—I had my sister.  My theory is every person seeks out a best friend.  If you have a same sex sibling, and you are close, you won’t seek it as much.  If you have an opposite sex sibling and you are close, you will seek out a same sex best friend.  Also, from my observation, the older we get, people already have best friends from years before; they aren’t in need of another one, so it is difficult to foster close friendships.

After college, close female friendships began to develop again to where I did have those girls I went to parties with, talked all night with, watched silly movies with, called on the phone every week, and cried with.  Then…I left for China.  It was at that point, my friendships completely changed shift.  The lack of accessibility for phone calls while I lived in China and traveled through Australia, big part to do with that.

Since my return, I am still not making those weekly phone calls even though I felt justifiably busy a year ago too.  I am not making the connection on social media sites like I used to, and I am not setting up events like I enjoyed.  Yes, residing in a different city can affect that.  However, maybe the distance and lack of communication, assists with not making the connection.  As women, proximity and bonding play a big role in friendship versus men who can hang out together one night, barely speaking, and remain best friends.  Similarly, as a relationship consists of passion for one another, so does friendship for example, the passion to want and make the time to connect; the passion to want to know everything about each other.  Now, my priorities have changed.  The entertainment of going out drinking and meeting people, is not my scene.  My preference is to drink a glass of wine and talk with small groups of people or watch movies. It can make it complicated when your friends are into going out compared to staying in or they live far away.  Where I stand at this point, is my friends and I know there is love and concern for one another although the passion has fizzled but not respect or laughter–similar to a relationship.
Hmm.  I wonder if she’ll call…

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Thanks Giving

November 24, 2011

It has been almost two months since I have written a blog.  Besides the hectic task of moving, working, and becoming acclimated to my new city, there is no reason for it.  Since it is Thanksgiving today, I wanted to make sure to write my blessings and show my appreciation as my life is dramatically different from  last year’s Thanksgiving  blog. When writing that blog, I was isolated from people and the things I loved, so to express my appreciation for the simplest things seemed necessary.  A year later, that feeling hasn’t changed.  My emotions and my experiences haven’t changed at all since that time.  If anything, I am more cognizant of it as life events occur.

I am thankful for my wonderful, supportive family who stands by me and my decisions.
I am thankful for the wonderful, supportive family of my boyfriend who have helped me feel welcome and loved on Thanksgiving and in the past.
I am thankful for my amazing,, caring boyfriend who is everything I asked for and more and shows me that love does exist.
I am thankful that my sister is my best friend.
I am thankful for my health.
I am thankful for the health and strength of my family
I am thankful for my job, which is closely aligned to what I have wanted to do and I am skilled at.
I am thankful to have a job that affords me my expenses and a comfortable lifestyle.
I am thankful for my friends who have stood by me despite many changes and been there when I needed them.
I am thankful to the new friends I have met and bonded with since I moved to my new city and proved themselves trustworthy and positive.
I am thankful for my home that makes me feel cozy and is close to proximity to excitement.
I am thankful for my vehicle that not only gets to where I need to be but looks good while doing so.
I am thankful to able to afford my vast assortment of clothing in different sytles and clolors that no matter how much I give away, they seem to breed onto each other.
I am thankful for my taste buds wanting to eat nutritious food.
I am thankful for living in a state where I don’t have to shovel snow three months out  of the year.
I am thankful that I am able to take walks down trails and beaches.
I am thankful for sunsets that take my breath away.
I am thankful to be capable of reading books that make me laugh and/or make me cry.
I am thankful for books.
I am thankful that I have the opportunity to attend graduate school for my well-being.
I am thankful that I was and am able to take trips to countries around the world.
I am thankful for the fresh air I can breathe and the sun that beats down my back which influences me to want to be outside.
I am thankful for food that satisfies me.
I am thankful for the individuals in the world who have good hearts and good intentions.
I am thankful for morality.
I am thankful for not having to use medical insurance.
I am thankful for being able to hear music that elevates and empowers me.
I am thankful that music exists in order to elevate and empower me.
I am thankful for the employees who work on Thanksgiving because we need and appreciate you.

In conclusion, what am I not thankful for?  I wake up every day with appreciation for the blessings of my life and my loved ones.  Whether or not, you have all these things yourself, life was meant to be enjoyed and savored.  I know what I didn’t have, so this is why I express my appreciation as often as I can–especially on the day of thanks.  With this being written, thanks once again for the amazing bounty of my life and making 2011 the best year yet.  I can’t wait for what is next.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

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Reconstruction Zone

September 30, 2011

Six months of angst. Six months of adaptability.  Six months of progress.  That is how long I have lived in Tampa with the lifestyle of a girlfriend, worker, student, daughter, and survivor.   It hasn’t been easy nor pleasant the entire time.  There have been the adjustments to make such as living away from my family as it seems I gained another one, the adjustment of the growing distance of friends—some of which have been more contributed to emotional than physical distance, the adjustment of balancing my independent self with the domesticated self, and the adjustment of discovering who I am when who I was was sacrificed.  On my own to strengthen, deepen and enlighten on my own terms.

This is perhaps the best path I could take.  How often do we feel oppressed, stifled and self-conscious because of the image we portray to others or of who others portray us to be?  Reinvention is not just a concept for Madonna.  Reinvention is for everyone who desires change, evolution, and excitement.  My upbringing taught me that if I didn’t like who I was, if I didn’t like something about my life, change it.
Since I was fifteen, I have taken this concept and parlayed it into almost a career.  I changed jobs, relationships, and attitudes as easy as changing my haircolor to dark brunette.  One thing: I didn’t really change my attitude like I thought I was.  This could be why I still wasn’t content.  I wasn’t ready because I was still living a similar life.  I wrote in a former blog, “I made a joke in my twenty-fifth year that I was having a quarter life crises since I was turning twenty-five.  Now I am realizing, I have a quarterly crisis.  I say that because, for a few months I am content and happy, then all of sudden, I am bored and restless.”
This was written in July 2010.  It was a merely a year ago yet this could now be further from who I am.  As I arrive home from my job consisting of monotony, cook and eat dinner, watch a movie, or do schoolwork, I find myself content with the mundane and boring.

There are times the ambitious girl peeks her head out and craves adventure and a more exciting career, however,  the majority of time I am perfectly okay with where I am and not having an idea of what is my future.  Living day by day, taking on piece by piece, is soothing.  Although I lived in China, the most hardcore place in regards to adaptability, and traveled through Australia, which is pretty simple adaptability, growing accustomed to Tampa was more of a struggle.  I suppose, because of my relationship and the job I liked, it was reality and harder to escape in case I didn’t like it.  It seems that six months is fair breathing room.  It gives a realistic estimate of the adaptation timeframe, of the length of time you stop thinking of your past as you attempt to live in your present, and the timeframe of when it starts to feel normal compared to strange.

As the six months of uncomfortably has past, the amp up for me to move to my official new home with my boyfriend, I have stopped longing for a life that is no longer mine, and I am able to think about my future in my new city, my new life.  The friends that I have left behind and those that let me down, I don’t concern myself with as much as I tend to the ones I have.  Coming to the realization that after my travels, if I returned to my former life, I wouldn’t have felt as much as an intense change from it and I wouldn’t have felt such a desire to change because of it.
“Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning,” Benjamin Franklin.

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Contra Strong

August 31, 2011

It finally happened: I agreed to attend a contra dance with my mother when she was visiting.  She had been dancing at them for fifteen years–at the time I was really good at saying no to anything my mom asked me to do. To explain: contra dancing is partnered (groups of four) folk dance styles with the couples dancing in two and facing lines, which is called a set.

My navigational skills were a bit skittish arriving there.  Not surprised?  Okay, then.  Once I arrived, I walked into a big room with a concrete floor.  My mother mentioned that it was a benefit dance, so the circumstances were not the same as prior dances. For one, it was a smaller venue and there were less attendees. 
I arrived at the time for the lessons, however, since it didn’t seem that anyone was teaching it, so my mom decided to do that. She quickly ran through popular moves, which was good since I wasn’t briefed much once the dance officially began. It begins with a caller. The caller’s main task is to call the steps over the microphone; some dances the callers even make up.  The first dance wasn’t so difficult in steps.  It was more the constant spinning where I was literally out of breath and disoriented by the second dance. My thirst was prominent as well.  Contra dancing involves a figure or eight counts. It is a dance measure comprised of steps. The caller gives the dancer a few steps that are repeated until the groups have danced with each other at least twice. There are also actives and inactives. Each couple will become inactive as the other couples dance the formation, and then the formation begins again. The set changes throughout the dance as the partner remains the same. Each dance formation down the floor leads to another set until the couple dances with each couple two times. It adds to a different experience each time and definitely is not a monotonous kind of dance. The main contra dance steps used during my experience:

Balance and Swing
Partners step up
Partners step back
Woman holds the shoulder blade of the man
Places feet parallel to the man
Spin together

Swing
Same as above except it is just spinning

Hay
Ladies pass through right shoulder to shoulder
Gentlemen pass through left shoulder to shoulder
It creates a weaving type motion.

Gypsy
Partners look at each other, not touching, while circularing around each  other

Left/Right Allenmande
Two dancers join together in a left or right thumbs up grip and walk around each other

Courtesy Turn 
The gentleman takes the lady’s left hand in his left hand, and puts his right hand behind her back to take her right hand at her waist and the man walks backward as the woman walks forward.

There were gentlemen who were friends of my mother who asked to be my partner and were patient to show me how to contra dance properly. Because of them, it helped in my amateurism. I also danced with my mother for a few dances, which was comforting since she knows what she is doing and guided me. Although it is considered a pastime for older individuals, there were younger people there on their own accord. Some of the ladies wore flowing skirts with flat shoes, which adds to the whole thing. I pillaged through the majority of the contra dance. The last dance was the one that broke me.  The steps were:

Balance and swing your partner
Women Right Allenmande
Hay
Balance and swing your shadow (dancer who follows behind on the floor)
Turn to partner
Balance and swing your partner

My partner for the last dance was quite a character. He requested to pick me up and pretty much balance me on his knee as my head was almost to the floor. That was fun but distracting. You can imagine with all the spinning, I was extremely dizzy. I remembered and followed the dance moves pretty well despite not being able to see straight. A great aspect about contra dancing is when you don’t remember or understand the steps, a lot of times, your partner will guide you to the correct step anyway. During the dance, I couldn’t tell if I liked it or not since I was hungry, dizzy and confused.  Once the dance completed, I realized, it was a really fun. It was good exercise too since I already was experiencing soreness in my muscles afterwards.

I enjoyed it, and I know my mother is very happy that I participated in it with her.  I was even showing some of the dance moves to my boyfriend when I returned home.  He says, he may try it with me next time. Contra strong, for sure.

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