it just comes natural

I, like any other normally sane person will tell you that I do not yearn for treacherous events to occur in my personal life, and would typically never intend to cause that in anyone else’s life for that matter. (Of course I do enjoy a good dose of trashy “reality” television, which is usually oozing with crude, overly emphasized situations. It’s always easier dealing with compromising situations as they arise in my own life, knowing that it will never be as bad as that of a real life reality star.)

I hope you noticed that I did not use the word “drama” in the above paragraph. That is because I hate the negative stigma that we have tagged to the word. If someone is dramatic, they must be crying over spilled milk or a few gray hairs. If a situation is dramatic, you’d better stay away because there’s either going to be a fight or a meltdown. The word drama in the dictionary is explained as “vivid, emotional, moving, highly effective, striking”…these are words that I have always found to be positively perfect to explain myself on my better days. Some people are born to cause drama. I was born to live it. Therefore I have decided to embrace the words “dramatic” and “drama”, and fill my life with them, just like the movie-esk dream that I have deiced that it is…now if I can just get a little better lighting…

My parents will roll their eyes and laugh at my honesty when they read this blog about my love of drama…but let me just share with yall two simple ways I come by it easily…

It was referred to by my close friends as the “Lisa-look”, and I knew it all too well. One cut of my very own eyes looking back at me and it was enough to make me weak in the knees. My mother has never been very good at hiding her emotions. Nor have I. And apparently I can even convey emotions that I didn’t even know I was feeling without ever moving a muscle. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been doing something as simple as eating a sandwich or picking out which shoes to wear when someone asks me “what’s wrong?” Turns out I don’t need facial muscles to show the world exactly what I think- I’ve got Lisa’s eyes instead. Curse or a blessing; I’m still deciding. [Dramatic facials and gestures: check.]

“Like hell it’s yours.” The uniquely audacious phrase used by my dad (along with the infamous “you’re burning daylight”) to ensure what it his. The first time I heard the phrase, he was saying it to my brother, Spence, who decided he wanted to wear dad’s cowboy hat. Dad is protective over few things- his hat is one of them. I’m not a super bold person when it comes to voicing my opinion, as discussed in the previous post, but this is one phrase that if given the right moment, I would say with all the zest and gritty smiles I could compose. [Dramatic phrases: work in progress, but good exposure.] (Note: though dad is less dramatic than mom and I- probably due to his lack of estrogen in our case- he has earned the name “Diva David” on special occasions. I won’t go into detail for his sake….he doesn’t even like his name or pictures being made public. Hence why he doesn’t have a Facebook, refuses to let us post pictures of him on OUR Facebooks, and will probably not like this post very much.)

Now onto “More Dramatic Topics by Addie”:

I realized last night that my toenails have had chipped paint on them ALL WINTER. (No, seriously-they haven’t been properly painted since early November, and in Mississippi, winter doesn’t start until December.) I have had time to take care of them, but apparently I found something better to do with my time (not likely) than take care of my gnarly looking digits. For someone who bites their fingernails and depends on the prosperity of their toenails to boast new nail trends, you’d think I’d be a little more up on the times down there. I imagined a giant and very sad Buddha (like the ones in the nail salon) shamefully shaking his head at my feet…so I quickly polished them up. Whew, that was more than a close one!

Some people get inspired by nature or music- quiet places in the mountains or under the sun. Some people need alone time. Some people need a giant break down in a room full of noise and throwing things and jumping around. I used to like to think I was one of those people. I could just run away with myself to a place as quiet or not-quiet as I wanted it to be and draw out all the “juices.” How hip of me…but I don’t think that anymore. I need people. The play of conversations, the bouncing molecules, the edge of emotions, the waves of differences, the chemistry. That’s where it is, for me. Besides, without someone else to share your inspirations with, it’s just not worth it.

Sometimes if I am allowed to think without being expected to speak anytime soon, I start the weird “what-ifs”. I will look around me and think of every possible weird what-if situation, probably just for self-entertainment. Or probably my ADD. What if I could swim down a well and look around the water table? What if I asked the person next to me at the restaurant if I could try her pasta before I order it for myself? What if the book I’m reading has a crappy ending? What if my dog suddenly started talking? Some people suffer from what-ifs. I think I suffer from weirdness.

Meaningless things don’t stick with us. Or me, anyways. I’m no good at remembering something unless it was really awesome. I usually can’t immediately tell you what I did on a given weekend and we’re lucky if I remember what I ate for breakfast. If something doesn’t impress me, I let it go. But we aren’t super stars. We aren’t supposed to have outstanding moments every day. We are supposed to take the moments that we are given and appreciate them enough that they become outstanding to us. Another new years resolution to tack onto my list: hold MY moments with more weight. Give the regular days more accountability. Afterall, that’s what the majority of our lives are made of. If we can find more glitter in our regulars, we will never waste a day.

I’m done for today. My shoulder hurts from shooting a whole box of skeet yesterday..and I feel like being dramatic about it.
Maybe I’ll go throw some glitter in the air and then whine because it hurt my shoulder.

Love always,

Addie

“Be the person you want to meet.”

“why is my font so weird,” she thought…

Peanut season rush hour is over, along with the sickening Christmas blood sugar-edge-of-a-coma digust, and New Year’s hangover, giving my head and body a chance to breathe and slowly return to a somewhat “normal” state. Or at least as normal as I can get….

It starts off quiet: I’m sitting at work adding a few new contracts to the system, typing out a spread sheet for taxes, which reminds me that I need to type up the lease agreement for the apartments, which then gets me to thinking about my apartment, and lighting, and color swatches, and washing machines, and the next thing ya know, I’m searching for Turkish rugs on eBay…again.

Or I’m checking emails when I suddenly realize that I might need to pin a few things. As I scroll through the ecstasy of DIY’s on Pinterest, my “painting itch” starts to creep up and the next thing I know I want to bake a soufflé, try to prepare chicken seven different ways, and “pick” a massive amount of chalk board for little to nothing. And somehow I still haven’t realized it…the bubbling matter that has been stuck within me for so long that is trying every way possible to tell me to LET IT OUT! I brush it off again, assuming that it must be getting close to my time-of-the-month, not even stopping to consider the amount of time that that has passed since I last wrote a full anything besides my “notes to self.”

I hop in the shower to rinse off the day, eager to clear my head before crawling into bed. That’s when it hit me. Instead of freeing myself from anything, the thoughts and inspirations that I’ve kept locked up inside me (attempting to hold them off until after peanut season and the holidays, when I would have ample time to properly compose them) began to spill. It’s like the heat from the water was seeping the words out of my pores and suddenly I was afraid of their vulnerability. When I push thoughts to the back of my mind and refuse to think about them, they are safe until I’m ready for a creative brainstorm to perpetualize* (Yes, I believe I made up the word perpetualize. But it works nicely.)them on paper…or the computer. But when they start to erupt on their own, I am always afraid that I will think them and immediately lose them (like most NORMAL people do with weird thoughts).
So, I half-a**ed the rest of my shower to get out as quickly as possible before my thoughts (literally and figuratively) washed down the drain with everything else. I threw on a borrowed robe and rushed into the bedroom, stealing “play school supplies” from a 3-year old to scribble down the thoughts as fast as they came to me. Note to self- don’t go this long without writing. Ever. Second note to self- keep notebooks close by so you don’t have to steal Josie’s paper anymore.

Creativity is not something that can or should be withheld. It will find it’s way out eventually. Even if through another channel like Pinterest or apartment shopping. It’s like screaming, or pooting- you just gotta let it out. Or else you’ll explode. Possibly in the shower.

It’s not even like I have profound thoughts that really need or should be shared with anyone. Kameron and Payton followed me to the bedroom last night after watching me run like a banshee out of the shower, making sure I was ok. I explained to them that I had to write my thoughts down. I felt very philosophical saying it, but the looks on their faces quickly made me feel like a drama queen. Big surprise there. Then when they asked what I was thinking that was so important I needed to write down, I re-read over my short-handed notes and almost laughed. Because nothing about it was important. But not writing it down somehow made me feel like I was going to lose that part of myself in that very moment. I guess I like to write because I can make little, nothing moments seem so much bigger, at least to me. And from then on, every time I re-read my thoughts, I can reflect and know exactly where I was in that moment.

I’m in love with words. And language. And cues. I’m not very good at using them and often times make them up, but I love to read them. They’re like music because they can make you feel. Or interpret. Or both. I love to write because it’s somehow an appreciation of the things I love the most. (Or possibly a depreciation from anyone else’s point of view after reading the things that I write.) When I don’t have time to really write the way I like to (in a non-rushed manner–the way I like most everything), I make stupid little notes to myself to return to later. I’m weird because I don’t like for people to read my notes in rough draft form. It’s like I am wary of them until I finalize and read over them again to make sure I still like what I thought I liked..I thought…. Because of this, I (purposley and subconsciously) write my notes in a cave-man like manner that makes simply reading them hard, and understanding them like trying to focus inside of a kaleidoscope. Sometimes I find the notes and can’t remember what on earth I could have possibly meant. Other times I read them and instantly know what I meant by “I wish I was strawberry cake.”

Nevertheless I need it like a drug therapy. (Yeah, we’ll go with therapy because that’s definitely more relevant in this case.) Some people enjoy hunting and the sanctity of nature, others enjoy the beach or retail therapy, while others simply prefer the burn of bourbon. I can’t say that I dislike any of those “therapies”, but my primary one is and always has been writing. I can remember sitting in my room as a child, mad at the world for who knows what, and unable to write my feelings because I couldn’t spell to save my life. So I started scribbling as hard as I could, sometimes ripping the paper and breaking the pencil lead or forcing in the marker tip beyond use. Then I started drawing. But I’m not a very good artist. But once I got the basics of language down, I started writing. And it’s all downhill from there. (I always wonder why we say it’s all “downhill” to explain something that’s easier/better. I get the easy part, but if something is better shouldn’t it be “uphill”. When I say “We finally made it to TJ Maxx and it was all downhill from there” it sounds to me like it went “down” in a negative sense, but in truth it went wayyyy up, because seriously, what’s better than TJ?!)

I am pretty sure that I use writing as an outlet because I cannot speak. Those that know me might initially disagree about me claiming to be shy, but after they thought about it for a while, I’m pretty sure they would agree. As bold as I would like to be, and as many awesome come-backs and introductions and speeches and prayers and probably-not- so-witty remarks that I have composed in my head, I cannot find the courage to vocalize them. Which is pretty dumb because I can write some of the weirdest things in this blog and publish them on the Internet for virtually anyone in the world to see, but to say the actual words out loud to even a tiny audience gives me the heeby jeebys. If my voice is paralyzed, at least my thoughts aren’t. Maybe it’s an accountability thing. Maybe I’m afraid that people won’t like what I have to say or will disagree with me. Maybe I’m afraid that they really will like it. Either way, writing lets me be more anonymous with the placement and usage. And the best part is, I don’t even have to be part of what’s going on in your (the reader) comprehension process…I think I just had an epiphany- my New Year’s resolution need to be to speak more. That includes having the courage to speak. What a good one!

Now that I have taken up all this space to express my undying and unnatural love for words and creativity, I think it’s time to draw this post to an end. I have formalized my bubbling thoughts in another document on my computer (and feel much better), which will be added to future blogs. Soon, I promise. But this one is getting weird and needs to stop. I think I think too much. Or maybe my ADD is getting worse…I wonder what I thought about in class when I was a small ADD kid that wasn’t paying attention….

Yeah, definitely time to stop.

See you again soon.

Love always,

Addie

“I wonder…if the rent in the canvas of our life’s backdrop, the losses that puncture our world, our own emptiness, might actually become places to see. To see through to God. Through the earthly trappings into glorious moments beyond. Through which His light is bursting through the openings. This was a see-through place, but until I opened my eyes, I would not see God.”– Daily Devotional, Girlfriends in God