Lisa Marie Blair

Category: Journal

Daily-ish personal updates on my comings and goings, ups and downs, successes and failures.

  • 101 // Not the Snow Day We Hoped For

    So, we didn’t get that snow day we’d all hoped for. The storm blew in on time but just didn’t develop the way meteorologists predicted. The rain changed over to snow too late and the ground was still warm, melting much of what fell through the evening. This morning we woke to what looked like nothing more than a typical Colorado spring snow.

    And as if it weren’t bad enough I had to go in, the powers that be in pay grades well above mine decided to put us on a delayed schedule. The transportation department’s worst nightmare.

    To be honest, though, this particular worst nightmare wasn’t so bad. The bus was nice and toasty; the roads weren’t too bad, and many of our kids actually ended up staying home.

    I took a good book along with me to read while we waited and the sun came out and melted all of yesterday’s accumulation in record time. I got to enjoy a good breakfast and a warm cup of delicious green tea with my girlfriend, and now that I think about it I kind of got paid more to do the same amount of work I always do.

    And now it’s over and tomorrow is Friday and nothing can ever be wrong on a Friday.

    These entries are inspired by Thord D. Hedengren

  • 100 // Loneliness is Not Personal

    Today was a lonely day. You know the kind. Days where you want to talk, to laugh, to be with someone but there is no one around to fill up your time with. Your favorite coworkers are out, your spouse is preoccupied, your family is busy.

    The solitude makes the hours drag and as it does the wholly coincidental fact that there is no one available to fill your needs, your void, starts to feel personal. You begin to take it as a sign of being unloved, abandoned, forgotten. You begin to feel hurt.

    I got hurt today, but I’m crawling out of it. I know that loneliness is not personal. I know others need solitude and they may need it just when I need them. I know that other people get busy, just as I do when I can’t be available to them. I know that today is just today and not every time.

    Sometimes we simply have to occupy ourselves, sooth our own wounds. We have to get comfortable being uncomfortable. We must accept that people cannot bend to our will. It doesn’t mean we are unloved, abandoned, or forgotten. It means we are human and living among humans, never really alone at all.

    These entries are inspired by Thord D. Hedengren

  • 099 // Summer-Like and Suffocating

    The weather was nearly summer-like today! We reached close to 80 degrees, and the air felt heavy, almost suffocating, and in our sweating exhaustion, we felt afraid for what the true summer would bring.

    But, in true Colorado fashion, the weather will swing back to the other end of the spectrum by tomorrow afternoon. The forecast calls for a 30-degree temperature difference and my phone has been ringing with blizzard warnings and closing alerts. We may see somewhere between 5 and 10 inches of snow by Thursday!

    I’m devastated that winter has found a way to hold tight a little longer, but at the same time, spending another day snowed in at home sounds really nice.

    I love this state and I hate this state and the things I hate about it sometimes make me love it more.

    These entries are inspired by Thord D. Hedengren

  • 098 // Life on Easy Mode

    In a since-deleted tweet, or perhaps it was a since-deleted Tumblr post, I’m not sure and I can’t for the life of me find it now, I read something that changed the way I look at my life. It said something like: “People that have the support of their family/friends really got life on easy mode.”

    My youngest sister, just out of high school and coping with a new job and the confusion of the adult world managed to plan a surprise party for my mom the night before her birthday. We all, despite our pasts, our harsh words and traumas, did what we always do. We came together in forgiveness, compassion, and love determined to make a member among us feel special. There was no bitterness, there were no grudges, and I realize now that there will never be, no matter what.

    I never considered that my life was on “easy mode” in any way, shape, or form but reading that post and juxtaposing it against the love and laughter I experienced tonight I know that in at least one way I kind of do.

    These entries are inspired by Thord D. Hedengren

  • 097 // Sunday Isn’t Enough

    I’ve never been good at Sundays, I’ve always known this, always lamented this, but something has changed. Now, I think, I never want to be good at Sundays. I am fed up. I am giving up on everything Sunday is supposed to be.

    Sundays should not be peaceful days to while away reading, walking, resting with our heads in the clouds or lounging on couches. We should be up in a panic, rushing, worrying, frantically trying to hold on. We should be fighting and wailing against the not just the end of the weekend but against a society in which we are given so little time to rest, to create, to ourselves.

    I don’t want Sundays to be enough to get me through until Friday. I want more.

    These entries are inspired by Thord D. Hedengren

  • 096 // Weather Report

    The days have been warm but spring clouds of doom and gloom hover about. Sunshine bring hope but the depression of winter hasn’t lifted yet. There is a regular chill that blows through the city and on it a feeling of uncertainty rides. Winter still stalks and we’ll see snow by next Thursday. It is that time of year when life must fight to wake up and begin, again and again.

    These entries are inspired by Thord D. Hedengren

  • 095 // The Gift of a Project

    I received a wonderful and thoughtful early birthday gift today. It’s something to do, which I have come to realize are among the best kinds of gifts to get, especially if it is something to make.

    A gift like that is a gift of inspiration and motivation. A gift like that is a gift of accountability and new beginnings.

    Too often we get stuck along our creative journeys because the end goal seems too vague and all roads begin to blend. We’re afraid to choose a path and the longer we wait the more obscure the way becomes. Complete freedom and the option to choose from infinite modes and mediums can paradoxically leave us with no way to proceed. The gift of a project shows a way that can lead us to the way.

    I’ll admit I’m a little overwhelmed and afraid but more than that I am intrigued. I have a lot of ideas floating around already and since this gift comes complete with a deadline and a community built in I feel both eager and supported too. I’m ready to get started right away!

  • 094 // Communing With the Past

    I’ve been criticized for buying the books I read rather than borrowing them, but despite all the good reasons why, this last book reminded me why not.

    I have developed a habit of reading with a pencil, writing in the margins, and, as it feels to me, reading each book as a conversation between the author and me. I read by writing out my own thoughts too.

    I borrowed Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge from my little sister last week and since it wasn’t mine, I couldn’t read it with a pencil the way I normally do. Well, it turns out that the habit had become absolutely crucial to my comprehension. It turns out not being able to write, argue, or think in the margins made it impossible for me to engage with the material on a deeper level.

    Worse yet, I would read something that stuck in my mind and not being able to store it anywhere I could not move past it. I had to resort to taking pictures with my phone and writing notes on scraps of paper just to refocus my attention.

    I’m happy to be done with that book and on to reading a book that belongs to me again, this time Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. I have my pencil sharpened and look forward to communing with the past again.

    These entries are inspired by Thord D. Hedengren

  • 093 // Shifting Perceptions

    Time has been passing and shifting in strange ways lately. It used to be that the days were long but weeks and months flew by before I knew it. Now, the days are short but the weeks and months are dragging. I’m not sure which I prefer but for better or worse a change is refreshing.

    As I am aging, and I do consider myself to be aging now, I worry that there will be less and less change and nothing but more and more monotony to slog through. It’s nice to know that life is a perpetual puberty and my mind and body, as well as my place and perception, will always be changing in ways I cannot understand.

    These entries are inspired by Thord D. Hedengren

  • 092 // Grateful for the Frustration

    The week was going well until I was informed it would inevitably end on a hectic note. A new class of employees is starting and my team and I are needed to train and test them. It’s a bigger class than we’ve had in a while and that means more hours must be given up for the task. Hours I would normally spend reading or writing.

    It’s hard to plan my weeks, make progress on projects, or reach goals when my schedule keeps changing so much, but maybe that’s life. Maybe I’m lucky to have any semblance of a routine to impact in the first place. I suppose there are people whose day-to-day is more chaos than calm every day. I wonder how they cope?

    But, once again what frustrates me also serves to remind me how lucky I am, how far I have come, and how much I have to be grateful for.

    These entries are inspired by Thord D. Hedengren

  • 091 // I Can Move Again

    Starting new medications means trading one set of side effects for another, and this causes the paradoxical condition of both feeling better and feeling worse at the same time.

    My energy has returned, my joints so much feel better, and I’m no longer feeling bloated and heavy from the moment I wake up to the moment I lay down to sleep at night. Instead, though I have rolling headaches and nausea, and sharper pains in the belly that come and go.

    It’s hard to gauge whether one medicine or another leaves you better off or worse but for me and for this medication, the relief from joint pain alone is a godsend. Not only can I move again, but being still is no longer painful either.

    These entries are inspired by Thord D. Hedengren

  • 090 // Sunday Night Rage

    As usual, the weekend flew by too quickly and, of course, I didn’t get to even half of the things I’d hoped. My next chance won’t be for another 5 days now and, at this moment, looking down the long length of those five days, I’m filled with righteous indignation. Five days of every week I must give up and just two are left over for me? Half of which I need to use is in recovering from the five!

    Sunday nights and all the required preparation only remind me how bleak and pitiless this reality really is.

    These entries are inspired by Thord D. Hedengren

  • 089 // Me and Myself

    I’m surprised by how much I’ve come to enjoy my time alone. Of course, I miss my girlfriend, and the dog is here to provide a sense of security, but the silence rather than being unsettling is quite calming and comfortable.

    I used to hate being confined to my thoughts but slowly I’m becoming one of my own favorite people. I’m enjoying my own company and seeing the value in companionship with myself. Me and myself have finally, it seems, come to a place of understanding, non judgement, and embarked on a burgeoning friendship.

    These entries are inspired by Thord D. Hedengren

  • 088 // Disoriented

    I finished Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude today and I have to say, no other book has ever left me feeling so disoriented and wretched (in the best possible way) as this one.

    I was so enthralled by the Buendía family and so ensnared by Marquez’s writing I more than half believed it was all true. Not just the events but the wisdom and the warning of it all. I lived through those one hundred years and witnessed such fascinating and terrible events only to wake up to this reality. What a colossal disappointment in comparison.

    This is both the reward and the agonizing pain of a damn good book.

    These entries are inspired by Thord D. Hedengren