Give and Take

I'm not a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of girl. I'm more of a plan-every-moment-obsessively kind of girl. And I'm good with that, mostly. But sometimes I just have to let go, at least partially. I've hosted more than a few parties in my lifetime, and I'm not bad at it, to be honest. But I have made the mistake of trying to over-schedule, Let me tell you something right now, if you didn't already know: guests at a party care about a schedule a whole lot less than you do. And they tend to stop and talk a lot, exactly when your schedule says to move on. But after a few slight mishaps, I've realized this isn't a problem as much as a fact about parties: your schedule should revolve around the guests, not the other way around.

And this year, I think I've finally found that balance. I threw a Valentine's Day party yesterday and it went pretty smashingly. I'd planned enough stuff to break the ice but there was still a lot of "unscheduled" fun. 

PC was there. My close friend C. basically forced me to invite him. She knew I wanted to, I just didn't have the guts to. I guess I'm grateful. I think even he had a pretty good time. 

The only downside was the fact that I've given up all sweets for Lent. Which for me, even normally is a huge deal. I practically live on sweets. I'm pretty skinny, mostly because I don't eat very much and have a crazy fast metabolism. But I eat way too much chocolate and candy. I can just get away with it, I guess. But on a spur-of-the-moment decision (one of the few I make that way) I heard a friend was giving up sweets and I decided to as well. 

Today is my seventh day without any sugar and, well, I'll be honest and say it's really hard. Especially when you host a party and you bring out platter after platter of cupcakes, chocolate, and cookies and you can't eat any of it. But I've almost made it through one week. And the second week should be easier, right?

I don't know really where I'm going with this. Just that I've realized life is much more give and take. That however much you try to schedule things, in the end they have their own way of working out. To set limits on things and make goals is way easier than carrying them out. But if you set your mind to something, and want it badly enough, it will happen.

xoxoxo
Angel

10 Things You Wouldn't Know

I feel tired of hiding behind a mask I don't even like, but yet not brave enough to take it off. Luckily, you guys have never seen my mask because I've never seen you. But, I digress and present you with this:

10 Things You Wouldn't Know About Me Just By Looking (or even talking to me for a while without getting to know me really, really well for a long time)

1. I am incredibly stubborn to the point of mulishness.

2. I am a perfectionist, but not the good kind. If something screws up, I either want to give it up or restart it but since I'm stubborn I keep going while hating it anyways. In other words, if something doesn't work out perfectly, I'm not a happy camper.

3. I like writing, but I don't do it as much as I should. I've been writing fiction since I was 8.

4. I have written, co-directed, and performed 4 of my own plays. 

5. When I was 12, I had around a six-month battle with anorexia that left me at around 5'6" and under 100 lbs. To this day, even at 5'9" and 130 lbs, I still see parts of myself as fat and ugly, and I still feel bad eating anything unhealthy.

6. I'm pretty much the klutziest person you will ever meet.

7. I get mildly ridiculously good grades in school and I honestly don't find it that hard. Over 95 % good. 

8. I play violin at an ARCT level and Piano at a Grade 9 Level and sing badly too.

9. I have perfect pitch.

10. I learned to read at age 4. 

Chain Reactions

It's funny how one thing can so easily trigger another, sometimes without us even noticing it, until, like a train of dominos, we reach the end result. One of the most powerful things I've found I can do to get results is to figure out what my 'trigger' is, or what tips over the first domino. 

It's funny, because I'm not a morning person at all. Because I have a 50-minute ride to school every day, I'm usually up at 6:30, but not because that's when I'm actually fully functioning. During the weekends and holidays, I could sleep in till 11:00 every day even if I go to bed at 10. It's slightly ridiculous. But I've also realized that if I do sleep in till 11 I hardly get anything done and it takes me forever to get the day started. It makes me feel lazy and unproductive before I even do anything.

This morning, I woke up at 8:00, read for a half hour, and then got out of bed. And just getting up at a decent hour inspired me to eat a good breakfast, which inspired me to practice violin for an hour right aways, which inspired me to eat an apple instead of chocolate as a snack, which inspired me to blog. 

I love feeling productive, organized, and ontop of things. I hate feeling like I'm wasting time. But I've learned that if I make sure to make good decisions first of all, I can actually do something to change that. And I've also learned that I can't work, work, work without breaks, as much as I'd like to. And there's nothing wrong with rewarding myself with a half hour of time, doing, well, nothing. 

I feel ready for a good day. I think I'm going to have one.

xoxoxoxo

Angel

Not Real Decisions

You know those great decisions that aren't really decisions? When someone else decides something for you, or when you don't have a choice, or when it's not really a decision, it's a realization. That's what happened to me. The last one, that is.

And I know this is not a real decision because it is the worst decision I could have possibly chose to make in this situation. Because even though he doesn't like me, and even quite possibly hates me, I have come to the inevitable conclusion that I like him. PC, that is.

I don't really know what to think of this. On one hand, I think: "Well, that is just my luck. To pick the one guy in school who I've got zero chance with."

But the other part of me, the more depressed part of me, is saying: "It's your fault. You had your chance, and you screwed it up. He probably did like you and it's your fault that he no longer does,"

At this point, it probably doesn't even matter what's true or not. But what makes me sadder than the fact that I like someone who doesn't like me at all is the fact that I lost the chance to make a real friend. An intelligent and geniunely good person, one of the few in my school, and he's the one that hates me.

But then, I always was better at screwing things up than making things go right.

Angel

Early Bird

The moment when you first wake up in the morning is the most wonderful of the twenty-four hours.  No matter how weary or dreary you may feel, you possess the certainty that, during the day that lies before you, absolutely anything may happen.  And the fact that it practically always doesn't, matters not a jot.  The possibility is always there.  

~Monica Baldwin

I like mornings, and this quote sums up a lot about the way I feel. I think we often forget the beauty of mornings, of sunrises, and of waking up, lost in the blaring of our alarm clocks and world-weary routine of our morning habits. But there is a certain beauty in mornings, as Monica says: "No matter how weary .... you may feel, you possess the certainty that, during the day that lies before you, absolutely anything may happen." Absolutely anything! That's a wonderful possibility. We take that for granted way too much. The next bit of the quote is also wonderful: "The fact that it practically always doesn't, matters not a jot." When one wakes up hopeful in the mornings, open to new things and new experiences and excited to watch the day unfold, you'll almost always find something meaningful, even if nothing wildly extraordinary does. And even if you don't, there's always tomorrow.

I think we, as humans, depend an awful lot on possibilities. Is it intrinsic in our nature to be hopeful? It's a nice thought, but doesn't always lead to nice consequences. Gambling, lottery tickets, reckless driving—in some ways, those are all playing with the possibilities. Logic says: don't play with these odds, and yet we do. Over and over and over again. In this context, it might seem depressing, but in the context of mornings, it seems comforting. What do we have to lose by envisioning endless possibilities for our day, or remembering that "absolutely anything may happen"? 

Do you remember any mornings when you got up to do your morning routine and suddenly the entire day changed? Maybe your parents told you that you were going on a surprise holiday or some other exciting news. Perhaps your job was cancelled for that day. Most of us have had this experience, and mostly, it's a wonderful feeling. The day suddenly seems endless, stretching out before us in hours and hours of unplanned-ness. 

That's what happened to me this morning. I was up at six-thirty, perhaps more awake than I usually am, but certainly not in a hopeful or happy mood. I was halfway through washing up when my Dad told me school was cancelled due to weather. 

Perhaps it shouldn't have been as surprising as it was. It took me a few moments to process this, and then go through my now-empty-ish day. Being up before seven with nothing to do till much later is quite a freeing feeling. It's shocked me out of my routine mornings, and I'm grateful for that. One of the benefits to being up so early is that on the ride to school, I always get to see the sunrise. Then I can take a moment to really soak in the beauty of  morning. But why does the beauty of morning have to wait till eight o'clock? Why can't it start the minute you first open your eyes? Next time a day takes a different turn, I don't want to be as surprised. I want to face my mornings with much more hopefulness, eagerness, and anticipation. Because you really do never know what might happen.

-Angel