Am I Too Young for a Midlife Crisis?

It's the first day of fall.  And two days before my birthday.

And for whatever reason I can't seem to shake this feeling of stagnant funkyness.  As though something awkward is growing in me, overshadowing what should be the youth and faith of the season.

Normally the fall is my favorite time of year- the world is cooling off and summer is fading into a warm, wistful memory.  The days seem clearer yet stormier; they seem full of potential even while tapering off to earlier and earlier sunsets.  In a witchier calendar, it's the time of collecting, gathering, and internalizing (maybe that's the problem?!?!... errrrr....)  Regardless, the fall is special to me, meaningful.

Except for... well, this one at this moment.

There's something amiss and I suspect it is just me.  Just me being me.  I suspect the stagnant funkyness is a condition to being still for too long and quiet for even longer.  I suspect that my fitfulness and strained reaction to, literally, everything is a form of self destruction.  I am very good at self destructing.  I could almost make a career of it.  It is just me being me: inhaling, exhaling, overthinking.

My ricochet brain is in overdrive because of that cooler weather, those quicker sunsets.  And it's spiraling all around a sense of timelessness- or time standing still.  Me standing still within time, witnessing the passage and power of it, the ultimate passenger.

There's also a chance that I'm having a midlife crisis.

So there's that.

The Rejection Collection.

You know those moments of abject rejection?  The ones that you just have to let go of?  Or else you'll sit there and stew and stew and stew, and plot and plan and devolve into cartoonlike sinister musings, until two days later you've come up with an equally abject counter-rejection?


Well... I didn't let go.

Instead I crawled into some terrible corner of my mind and considered all the terrible things that live there- and how to use them to exact my sweet rejection machinations.

I have to say... my brain can go to some pretty bad places.

Which should come as a surprise to exactly no one.

I know it's childish.  I know rejection is only as bad as you make it and that really, the whole self-love and appreciation thing should be enough.  Theoretically.  For most people.  Who aren't me.  But sometimes it just stinks.  And evilly, and awfully enough, sometimes it's a little satisfying to stew.

And until next time.

Don't worry- it's not you.

Oddly Enough...

Last night I had a long long overdue Skype chat with my oldest and dearest friend.  We talked about life, about things, about directions.

It cemented something I've been mentally chewing on for the past couple of months.  And then that cemented something plummeted to the bottom of my belly and now sits there, waiting to disintegrate and reintegrate.

I'm the villain and I should confess, I liked you better before... 

Lately I've been thinking about who I am, what I am, and what I was.  And I'm realizing that the path of my development has not quite gone the way I thought it would.  I miss the way that I was- I miss who I was.

Don't freak out.

I don't miss being sick.  I don't miss starvation, self punishment and abasement; I don't miss the constant battery of badness that I let into my brain.  I don't miss what I was.  I miss who I was.  At the very least, I miss what I found in myself when I was nearly sick to death.

In the healing and revitalizing of my body, I seem to have lost some part of my... self.  Does that make any sense?  Probably not.  Let me try again.... When I was ill and having to navigate that illness, I happened upon some well of intuition, cunning even, that drove me to uncover how strong, how capable I was.  How much I could do, the depths I could reach within my own self, was at times alarming, but ultimately reassuring.  Even though physically I dwindled to a frail bag of bones, something in the ether of me grew stronger and stronger.  Something reached out and commanded a connection.

I miss that.  I miss the space inside of me that kept me alive.  I miss the bottomless well of whatever that kept me from permanent failure.

It's capped now, that well.  Cut off, I've been struggling a lot lately with a sense that something fundamental is now lost to me.  Something special is removed, remote.

And maybe I'm not supposed to be able to just dip in any time I want.  Maybe that's not how this works.  Maybe we get what we need when we need it most- in my case when something had to nourish me when I couldn't find the interest, will, or desire, to nourish myself.

Or maybe I'm being punished for wanton excess.

How's that for you daily zen?

Obessions Confessions, Vintage Style.

One way or another, I've confessed to all of these before... well maybe not all of them, but some are just so old school that they count as vintage-style confessions.

A couple of September's ago, Mom and I met in Salem, Mass, to see The Gaslight Anthem at the House of Blues.  It was an early birthday trip- and a worthy one.  I had already developed a longstanding obsession with the band, and their live show did nothing to help it.  They are my go-to fall band (really anytime band)- something about the lyricism and passion and guttural romance of Brian Fallon's voice drives memories, feelings, of youth and youngness.*

And fall is for the young.

And... also for pumpkins.  Definitely for pumpkins.  Some other blogfession revealed that I have a serious seasonal issue with Pumpkin Spice Lattes- specifically the cheap versions you get from the Cumberland Falls gas station retreat (lol) in Windsor, Vermont.  This round, it's all things that can be made of pumpkin puree.  I have already tried this recipe- as a loaf rather than muffins.  De-lish.  I'm excited to try this and this as well...

Which brings me to my next obsession.  Baking.  I forgot how much I loved it.. even with our godforsaken oven that doesn't heat to the correct temperature.  Even with my husband who is not a fan of baked goods.  I love making something from many other somethings else.  And go figure- I'm not terrible at it.  This and this happened the other week, followed by this and the aforementioned loaf.  Yeah, I might also have an obsession with 101cookbooks.com.  I've yet to make a bad dish following her recipes.

I recently saw the latest Star Trek incarnation.  It was as good as that genre-slash-redo can be by the third installation.  But it was great when it killed it with one of the best nods to early-90s hip hop I've seen in a Sci-Fi Action flick.  Yeah... raise your hand if you, like me, somehow manage to periodically blank on the awesomeness and cosmic rightness that is the Beastie Boys.  (I am ashamed of myself but it happens).

Come on... you know you love them.

Boots boots boots.  There's no better time for boots than the present (I live in Norway, so, you know...  it's nearly always boot season).  These are my current loves.  There's something super grand about chucking a pair of boots on and being set to go.  Especially in the land of ice and snow... okay, mostly rain.

So that's me with a long Long LONG overdue Obsessions Confession.  It's been a crazy couple of months and my feet are finally starting to find the ground again, so here's to more writing, more exploring, and more...

living.



*Also sometimes they hash it with The Boss.  So, I mean, there's that.

It's September.

Well.. yeah, for the past three days it's been September.  So this should not come as a surprise.  But it is September, fact.

Which is, for me, the best time of the year.  It's the transition month- in with the fall, out with the summer- when the world gathers itself up in a huge inhale, anticipating it's final exhale before the winter sets in.

It the month when the atmosphere begins to become dense- with learning, with storms, with expectation.  I've chronicled my romance with the fall on many occasions- verbally and in writing.  Over and over again I have spelled out it's nature and it's presence in my life.  Over and over and over again.

This year is no different.  The winds shift (endlessly here in Norway, but more meaningfully this month), the colors change, and life begins to quiet down.  Or, if you're me, life gets a little louder as anthemic music pours from the computer, car, iPod, any place it could possibly come from- because this is my time, my month, and I will celebrate it however I like.  The sounds and the songs remind me of footloose and fancy-free and a time when youth wasn't a thing, it just was.  I just was.

I hear a voice and it tastes like candy corn; it smells like bonfire and smoke.  It feels like a memory come to life- vibrant and fleeting and fast.  It feels good, and strong.  I feel less good, and less strong, but the season is just ramping up.

It's September, and September is my month.