not to brag or anything, but my life is great.

So I was looking through facebook today, as I do everyday when Im bored at work, or just procrastinating, and it actually made me a little sad. I was looking through "friends" profiles, and browsing through pictures of their lives, and to be completely honest a lot of them just seemed so depressing to me. Now obviously this is just my opinion, but where else can you openly say your opinion if not your own blog that no one reads (: Anyway, I see people my age with a 5 year old child, a baby, and one on the way. I see their houses, their husbands, their lives, and I just feel sad. What a sad exsistance to be bogged down by kids and an ugly husband and an ugly house at 26 years old! Why do people jump into that shit? Why do people screw their lives away so quickly. I mean I like kids as much as the other guy....well that might not be entirely true, I might not like kids at all really. Hm..no, wait! I do like kids, I just dont like babies. AT ALL. And I dont see the reasoning in having kids early. I mean, having kids in your early 20's seems CRAZY to me. I dont want to seem like one of those selfish women who say they will never have kids. Thats not my shtick at all. I want kids, someday. Not to-day. I feel young, vibrant, full of energy, ideas, and adventures. Im in the prime of my life. I have a great job, that pays me...not well (: but it pays me. I have a husband, who keeps getting better looking every year that I have known him, who loves and understands me, and lets me live my life the way I need to in order to be myself. I live in a city I hate, with people I love, I have a house that screams LARA, I have a dog, I travel, I party, I go out with friends, I have drinks on the weekend, I do what I want, when I want. My life is so close to perfect that if I were a pessimistic person I might be waiting for the other shoe to drop. Fortunately thats not who I am, instead I bask in the glory that is my life, knowing, that far too soon in the future, all this greatness will end. The time will eventually come, when my ovaries will start speaking up, and I will jump on the baby train with gusto. I know this day is coming, and I know with each passing year it is getting closer and closer, I also know that life isnt to be rushed. I, along with a lot of my "christian counterparts", who were told not to have sex before marriage, rushed marriage. Now, in my case, with the grace of God, this has turned out well. I still love my husband, and I have struggled through feelings of regret for rushing such a huge decision, and have found myself on the other side, full of the knowledge that I chose the life I did, I followed my gut and it didnt lead me astray.

However, I degress.

Learning from mistakes is important. I dont consider my marriage a mistake, quite the opposite actually. However, perhaps I got married as young as I did (age 22), for the wrong reasons, with limited information about how the world works. Perhaps I would have made a different choice if I had had more life experience, if I knew what was waiting for me on the other side of 22 years of age. What Im trying to say is, I'm not rushing another HUGE life decision. Im taking my time on this one. I have my whole life ahead of me. To be a mother, a woman, a friend, a wife, a human. And it can only serve to benefit any offspring that I have in the future, for me to understand as fully as I can, the crazy world that I call home. It can only serve any children who make their way into my home, for me to understand myself, as fully as I can. I want to learn about people and communication, I want to know about cultures, and how they worship God, I want to learn about people, and the struggles they go through just to live life. I want to know what it feels like to be centered and balanced on a daily basis. I want to experience life, to experience living, to not be afraid, just because I was told to be. I want to find ME in everything else that is going around. And to be honest, I think Im doing a great job. Every day, every year I do more and more that scares me. I stand up for myself, I love myself, I take care of myself, and the more I dont these things, the more everyone else benefits as I have more to give.

Someday I will have children, and I know that they will be my life. I think about being a mother and I get excited and feel at peace knowing that it is my purpose in life to love children. But I am willing to wait. I am going through the school of hard knocks, and when I graduate, no matter how old I am, I will be older and wiser and more prepared to take on the hardest challenge of life; raising a child.

So dont rush me Calgary, dont push me into a decision that only seems normal to Southern Alberta and some of the Southern States. Children in your 30's is normal and healthy, and when the day comes that I am ready for the adventure of parenting..youll be the first to know, so please stop asking.

thanks.

FOUND IT!

For a minute there, I found myself. I found myself.
For a minute there, I turned a corner, and cant turn back. I grew up, found wisdom, found perspective. Found free will. I found what was missing, and instead of turning away from what I know, I turned toward it, I turned toward comfort, and familiar, and home. My heart was my guide, and it didnt let me down. I have no more struggle, no more wanderings, no more dreams of what might have been. I know as much as I know, and that is enough for me. I can rest easily in my lovers arms, with the knowledge that he is whom I choose.

The boy who walked with the trees.

There once was a boy who walked with the trees. Who whispered his secrets to the quiet of the forest. Who rested in their branches. The trees in return supported his sorrows. They sheltered him from experiencing any more pain. They knew his story and they did not murmur it amongst themselves as they do with other mortals secrets. They knew his pain was sacred, was important. They saw his heart and shuttered at how deep the pain went. It went deeper than the deepest flesh wound. They recognized that this boy, was dug up by his roots. He was hacked to pieces, and left to dry out. His heart was as dry and hard as petrified wood, and just as beautiful. The trees wanting to help would pick up the boy and sway his sorrow in the crooks of their branches, they would let the wind make sweet lullabyes for the boy, by dancing between their leaves. But sometimes, mortals are left alone for too long to be saved. Sometimes, they dont want to be saved at all. Sometimes their sorrow owns them, defines them, becomes their blood type. Trees have powers; to lift, to protect, to heal, and perhaps someday, the healing they can provide will soak in, so that it becomes real, but until that day the boy who walks with the trees, will wait, and listen, and learn to be.

Vancouver

So Vancouver. For the first time, I knew what it meant to be centered. To not worry about expectations, social requirements, attitudes, shoulds and should not's. I felt truly centered for the first time in my life, and it was freeing. I could look within, and listen to my heart, instead of listening to opinions, and pressures, and other peoples agenda's. The calmness of my heart was palpable, in a way that it never has been before. I have tried to explain to people how my soul felt in Vancouver, but I dont think I explain it well, as no one seems to catch my enthusiasm (well besides my father, but he feels the same way I do about Vancouver, so our souls speak instead of our mouths). Ill end this post by trying to explain it like this: In Calgary my soul feels dry, almost brittle, as if the lack of moisture in the air, not only dries out my skin, but my very essence as well. In Vancouver, my soul is like a sponge, absorbing the vibe of the city, the salty damp air, and the glory of a city that seems never ending with the options it has, for all.

Van City

So I'm going on a trip, and for the first time in my life, I am going alone. I am so excited. It's funny how when you ask for the best life possible, and know (trust) that the "universe", too, wants you to have the best life possible, what oppurtunities come around for you.

Vancouver is my happy place. In a large, busy, city, where very few people know me, I feel anonymous. I can shake off the shackels of pre-concieved notions and monotomy of Calgary, and just BE. When I think about what my weekend is going to look like in Vancouver its funny, because all I can think is that I just get to BE. Ill do anything I want to do, whenever I want to do it, not thinking about anyone else's schedule or preference. This is deep, true, unadultured self care. Im so excited about the lessons to be learned. Lessons about myself, my relationships, my god, and the universe. I know that this will be life changing as I am open. Open to new expereiences, people, places, interactions. Im open for the universe to move through me (in the way it does when your paying attention) and take my life to extraordinary places.

Lets go. Lets start.

On to the Next

Hawskley Workman.



I continue to be consumed with desire for this man. And that desire permeates every level of desire that a human can feel. I was trying to explain to a friend the appeal of Hawksley, and for me it is that tension between his sweet, romantic, chill inducing songs that are whispered softly, as if he is in bed with a lover and his lusty, salacious songs that bring out the carnal desires of even the most virginal prudes. If we are honest, all women are looking for just that from their men. We want our men to be sensitive, listen to our deep thoughts, tuck stray hair behind our ears, while looking into our eyes, telling us soulful romantic things that make us melt at their touch and then in the next moment, turn on the swagger, call us nasty names and make us feel like objects of sexual desire. Its a delicate balance.
A balance that Workman has down.


Besides his talent at song writing, I just listened to an interview with him. He's a smart guy! He was getting into some thangs that really resonated with me, its funny how the universe is connected in such a weird majestic puzzle that you hear interviews, or songs, or read a book at the exact right time, right when you need answers, or suggestions, or need to know that you aren't alone. Let me see if I can explain what Workman said in his interview, as it is eerily similar to everything that has been on my mind lately:





As a child, you are breed to believe that one day, you will arrive. You will find your niche, and there will you stay. You will go to school, find a career that defines you, know what your 'calling" is and be eternally happy in you little niche in the world. Parents antagonize this belief system by asking children "what do you want to be when you grow up?", or by telling kids that "God has an amazing plan for your life". Unfortunately, the older you get, the more questions there seems to be, not more answers.

All this to say, as an adult, coming to the harsh reality that maybe there isnt a huge exciting plan for your life gives you two choices in how to respond. You can choose to constantly loath over the fact that this "life" you have been waiting for is never coming. Or you can choose to see the fact that this fantasy life you imagined up for yourself is not going to turn out, and that that is a blessing in disguise. In this latter mind set you will begin to see that by constantly try to progress, intentionally never arriving, you are pushing yourself to always be something new, something different, something transcended. I would never want to wake up and feel complacent. I would never want to feel completely satisified with where I am spirtually, or emotionally or relationally. To be complacent with life, to feel as though you have "arrived" is to give up; give up on feeling deserving of something better, something new, somethings more authentic to who you are. I vow to always push myself, to never settle for status quo, for good enough, for almost. I want to be consistantly, as Jay-Z would say, on to the next....

I now hope that I never arrive, that I am always, as Jay-z would say, "on to the next".

You're going to reap just what you sow.

You're going to reap just what you sow,
You're going to reap just what you sow,
You're going to reap just what you sow,
You're going to reap just what you sow...