A week of variety

It's been an interesting week.

It's been painful. It's been joyful. It's been stressful. It's been relaxing. It's been a week that has hurt me so deeply that I thought my heart might actually break in two, and then flooded me with so much joy that I thought I might lift off like a hot air balloon and play in the sky. 

It's been a week full of new experiences.

Some of these experiences I would have rather not had. Like having my heart broken. That happened this week, so suddenly that it felt like a slap in the face. It left me so angry that I wanted to throw things recklessly, like glass bottles against walls, just to hear them crash into a million different pieces. I didn't, because my mom is a bit of a clean freak and I kept hearing her voice in my head telling me to clean it up. Somehow the thought of breaking bottles and then sweeping them up didn't sound as appealing.  

Instead, I allowed myself to drink more coffee, and eat more bacon, and take more hot baths.

Other experiences were so unexpected and so much fun that I felt like a child being spun around in circles, getting dizzy and laughing.  Like being asked out for a night of dancing in a hip-hop bar. With a guy.  Who can dance.  Or spending time with a new friend, slacklining for an afternoon in the sun, getting to talk one-on-one and connect. Or just spending time by myself with the blessed Seattle sun, layers of outdoor clothing, cool air and a slackline, and being grateful that I'm alive to have those simple joys.

I cut bangs. Myself. And everyone asked me if I colored my hair.  

I bought red lip stick. And wore it.

I celebrated my 31st birthday. Kind of.  I did my best.  Meaning that I put on a new dress, my new lipstick with my new bangs and went to work with the intention of celebrating myself that day.  I did pretty well.  But then I got stuck at work that night and ended up at a sushi restaurant with my ex, having the "I need closure" talk, instead of out to see music with my roommates.  The owners of the sushi place gave me ice cream with a candle and sang me happy birthday. I have never had any of those experiences before, but now I can cross them off my list.

You never know what life is going to throw at you.  You can only choose how you react. I'm realizing that the pain that this week brought on hasn't completely gone away, but that doesn't mean that I can't still be my happy, healthy, annoyingly-cheerful-in-the-morning self. The more that the pain fades, and the more that I let the past fade away, the more I allow myself to open to new experiences and the more capacity I have to enjoy them.

I don't have a big, profound message for this post. I'm working through life just like everyone; I'm just choosing to share it here. I think that sometimes we feel really alone in our processes, and while being alone is just fine, sometimes we can feel so alone as to believe we're isolated. A friend argued to me that we are all alone, but I disagree. I believe we're all cells of the same organism, and the more we can share and connect and learn from each other, the easier this whole human experience might be for all of us.