Nostalgia.

The older I get, the more nostalgia rears its ugly head. I miss all the happiness I once had because those moments have become very few these days.

When I’m out in the wide open desert, it reminds me of Rawhide – a place where I gained friends that became family and a sort of home I was lucky enough to once have – and I become calm. That feeling fades once I’m back to reality; back home in the overcrowded city rat race that is currently my life.

I have a love hate relationship with my current job. I adore some of the people I work with, but I cannot stand the callers and their anger. Essentially, that us the reason for customer service I suppose, but with my empathetic heart it has ground me down mentally to almost nothing. I’ve come a long way from being the angry person I once was, and that guarded, pissed off at the world person is coming back.

Some people love having an ever-changing, fast-paced lifestyle. The constant grind of city life calms their frantic mind. For a while, that worked for me as well. More and more I realise that’s not who I truly am. I’m not even 40 years old and my heart and mind scream, “take me away from all of this madness, I’m too old for this shit!”

I, as well as my lads, frequently reminisce about our lives in Minnesota. While it wasn’t perfect and we had our obstacles, we all miss the deafening silence of St. Paul nights and snowy days – the weather, the history, the bonfires, the lakes, the calm. We didn’t have much there but it felt like home. I wish they could’ve grown up there. We needed to go but a part of me regrets leaving and wishes we would’ve tried harder to stay.

My body craves colder weather and a greener climate. I find myself daydreaming of a place I can live in and call home, not just a place I can sometime visit. I long for a home where I can write, take photographs, relax with my family and friends… somewhere that can calm me and my thoughts.

I need a life that I don’t want to escape from.

My heart, mind, body and soul need to be elsewhere. I’m holding onto the hope that I’ll eventually find that peace again.

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Home.

It’s no secret that I’ve always hated the desert; the vast open spaces filled with dirt, cacti, sun and heat was always disgusting to me.

Today I realised, whilst waiting for TJ in a doctor’s waiting room, that this place no longer sickens me like it used to.

After having worked in dirt, heat and sunny grossness for well over a year, it’s taken until this day to actually *GASP* appreciate it. Now I even sort of miss working outside in it.

This is the view from the waiting room window. It’s oddly calming.

That realisation shocks me more than anyone else, I’m sure.

Classical music is playing over the speakers, which is further calming and causing me to reminisce…

The long, amusing, hilarious, informative, genuine talks we had on overly sunny days.. Us all melting into human puddles together… Working raves even though techno isn’t good like it used to be… Caring for farm animals.. That’s what this view reminds me of – my favourite humans and the moments we’ve shared.

Even though working there was physically hard on my seemingly ailing body, and it caused tons of heat and light triggered migraines, I wouldn’t trade those people (or the growing I did) for the world.

Don’t get me wrong… I still hate the heat, and sweat is the bane of my existence. But, until I can be a forest dwelling crazy cat lady witch of the night, this is my home and I’m okay with that.

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New year, but not a new me.

I could never get into the whole “new year, new me” bullshit. I’m constantly working on myself during the year; not just at the beginning, not just for a “resolution”. Bettering yourself has to be a conscious effort throughout your entire life or what point is there really?

A while back I started writing down the goals I wanted to achieve each year, ticking them off the list as I accomplished them. Well, I’ve lost last year’s list at some point so I decided to graduate to making a mental list of everything I want to accomplish this year. As I thought through the last year of my life I realised I’ve accomplished a lot more than just what I wanted to and that I’ve started actually planting roots somewhere.

As much as I dislike Arizona and nearly all of the people I meet whilst out in public, I’ve managed to make my life pretty great in 2016. I’ve made amazing new friends, my family is doing well, I love my job, I’ve gotten a new vehicle (that’s actually in my name) and my family has lived in the same place (with rent constantly on time) for the last few years.

We’ve come such a long way it’s mind blowing. To actually be happy the majority of the time brings me to tears because I never thought that could happen. All we’ve went through, all I’ve endured, has brought me to this happy place and it’s beautiful.

Painfully long explanation short, that’s the goal of this year for me… To make life beautiful. However I’m able – whether it be giving strangers compliments, buying beautiful wee trinkets, doing a friend’s makeup or appreciating more sunsets and cloudy skies – whatever will make life more beautiful, I’m going to do it.

Life’s too ugly and short to be caught up in the grossness. Screw the drama, the hatred, the bullshit. Make life beautiful and it will be.

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