What's New?

Lately, I've been paying more attention to questions such as "How are you?" and "What's new?" I've always been able to give a pretty standard answer and not feel weird about it: "I'm fine" and "Nothing new, just school and work." When I answer that question now, I answer it in the same manner, but I am lying now. I'm not "fine" per se-- not fine in the way I used to be--and everything is "new."


I lost one of my best friends in February. Best friend not necessarily meaning a person I talked to daily and saw frequently, but best friend meaning a person that I had always been close to, no matter how often we interacted. Best friend meaning the keeper of most of my good memories from high school. Best friend meaning the person I ached for when things were bad, and cried tears of joy for when things were good.


To say it has been a difficult time would be an understatement. I miss her more than I ever thought I could miss someone. I honestly thought that I would handle this differently than I have. I thought that since I did not talk to her frequently, that it would be easier for me. I have always prided myself on my ability to be positive when I have to be, and take care of everyone else before I take care of myself... but this (understandably) has thrown me for a loop. I think about her all the time. When I am not thinking of specific memories, I just find my brain repeating her name over and over again. I want to talk about her all the time. I tell everyone stories about her, and anytime someone says anything that jogs a memory of her, I mention it. It is so difficult to deal with real life at this point, because my life is centered on this.


What no one really tells you about these situations is the good that can come from them. I have been able to reconnect with so many old friends that I thought I had lost and have been so comforted by all of them. I have literally never felt this much love in my life. I love everyone, and I feel like everyone loves me. It has also been remarkable to watch my own personal changes. Shortly before this happened, I started to feel as though I had lost sight of myself; like I had lost my spirit, and was becoming a shell of my former self. The years made me negative, pessimistic, critical, and downright boring. Now I feel my bounce coming back. I feel positive once again, despite my sadness. It’s such a crazy feeling to have, and honestly, I never want it to leave. This has been the hardest couple of months that I have ever been through, but I never ever ever want to forget this feeling. I don’t know if that makes sense to anyone else, but it sure makes sense to me!


So that, my friends, is what’s new.

Oops.

Remember that time I said I would blog once a week? Yeah. I was just kidding.

January was an absolutely insane month, with extreme highs and extreme lows. I've become superstitious about January; I consider it the most dreadful month, where everything that can go wrong will go wrong. This was definitely true for January 2011.

And that's all I have to say about that.

I've been focusing on myself a lot lately. I've spent the past year or so not doing enough for myself, and I need to change that before I go crazy. I started running, a little obsessively. I've never been very active before, so running 2 miles is a big deal to me. But I'm doing it! I wish I could say my goal is just "to be healthy," but really, I just want to look okay in shorts this summer.

I also chopped 6-7 inches of my hair off. I hate it, but at least it dries quickly now.

Until next month.

Resolution-ary Road

I've decided that blogging is an efficient way for me to talk about things without actually having any human interaction. In middle and early high school, I wrote very detailed journal entries in little spiral bound notebooks that usually had a furry cover and the word "Princess" or other generic tween phrases on them. My sophomore year of high school, I made the switch to online journals-- first Blurty and then LiveJournal. If you knew me in high school, you know that my LJ was an amazing record of my adolescent thoughts, feelings, and experiences. I wrote in it at least one time a day, and I am so thankful that I have such a great record of what I consider the best years of my life.

So what happened?

Simple. Facebook happened.

After signing up for Facebook the summer before I went to college, I neglected my little LiveJournal that had seen me through the years and instead used Facebook to catalog my life. As easy and useful as Facebook is, I feel like it has made me disconnected from my own life. Instead of sharing my thoughts with other people, I just write a status about it. Instead of announcing big occurrences to my friends and family, I just write about it on Facebook. When times are hard, I just write a cryptic status about it and move on. As a result, I don't talk about things anymore, which is very strange for me. At first I thought that I was just growing up and had nothing more to talk about, but I've realized that I'm just completely out of touch with how I think and feel.

So this brings me to resolutions, specifically ones for a new year. I always make several resolutions, but this year I have one main resolution with smaller secondary resolutions that stem from it:

Blog at least once a week.

I realize this is kind of a pathetic new year's resolution, but I think it would be helpful to my sanity. I want to use this blog as a blank canvas to talk about anything I feel like talking about-- just like the good ole days of LiveJournal.

Along with blogging, I also resolve to:

• Make better use of the clothes that I have. I spend far too much money on clothing, mostly because I don't plan ahead well enough and don't utilize enough pieces in my closet. The first step I need to take is to organize my closet more efficiently. I also need to stop buying clothes and start spending a little money on accessories.
  
• Save, save, save. In exactly a year, I will be forced to give up my job and start student teaching; therefore, I will be broke. I need to plan for this.
• Take better care of myself. I've made great strides in this area in the past year. I don't really drink anymore, I try not to eat out as much, and I go to the doctor 3 times a year. I really need to start an exercise regiment though. Hopefully 2011 will be the year for it.
• Read more! For a person with a bachelor's in English, I really don't read enough. Hopefully my nook color will inspire me to read.

So there you have it! New year, new Erin.