Tuesday, November 16, 2004  3:39 pm  <|>
<198> Past moves forward: No matter where you end up in life. where you go, what you do, how you go about it. one aspect that you should never forget about is who you do it with. Those people that you encounter, whether they seem to have an impact on your life or not, you just never know when you will meet them again or how they might help you in the future. I've recently been falling back into talking with people I haven't for a long time, in some cases, in over four years. Some of these have come about from chance encounters or links I happen to click on or be sent to by, who else, but other friends, where I find people I haven't talked to since we graduated high school. I'm sure it's not uncommon to go through a period like this, especially after graduating college where you realize it has been four years since another lifetime. In another year, I'll be attending a high school reunion. four years ago that seemed so far away didn't it? I've said before how sometimes I feel like I wake up one day and wonder where I've been all this time? It's like a different part of me was resting up while all the hard stuff happened, just to come out stronger in the end. I used to talk about becoming stronger all the time too when I first starting writing online regularly. But it's no real surprise to note that it wasn't until I STOPPED talking about stuff like that that I was really actually doing it.

The parts of me that want to be awake now are the parts that really count - my creativity, my drive, and my desire to make an impact on whatever I touch. For awhile, understandably I guess, those parts of me just couldn't break out of whatever shell they were hiding behind, because other parts of me had to stay at the front to just survive. and they did their job, they're getting their rest now though never completely. They're always on guard. I am always aware of my situation. I was reminded of it recently when I went through the acute rejection. It was only a couple of weeks (though I'm technically still dealing with the side effects), but still it showed me how run down I was already without truly realizing it. and to look at it afterwards it's something hard to explain and, actually, hard to accept. For weeks, no months, I was feeling more tired than I should have been, less energized and excited about life somehow. But that's something that you look at later and wonder how you lost that mindset or control over yourself. Each time something like that has happened in my life, I've vowed not to let it happen again. The truth is, I have always tried to learn how to recognize such problems, but at the same time the problem in itself it that it's something I cannot recognize fully, because if I did it wouldn't happen in the first place. It's a weird kind of thing to accept. It's not a depression, though it must be similar to one, it's just an exhaustion that creeps in and surprises you one day. Story of my life.

But really, this is a positive post. It's kind of like that whole hit rock bottom to go up kind of thing, without actually having to hit bottom. It's this give and take that you learn to balance, again, the story of my life. But living life about balance is a tricky thing; I've always pointed that out. For lean too far EITHER way and you can't be sure where you're going to end up next. Living life in that balance doesn't have to mean playing it safe or being boring at all - you just gotta know where you are at in life, or have a plan to get somewhere, at least most of the time. Everyone loses sight of things sometimes. Everyone will have those periods in life. but all I know is I'm the happiest when I have a goal (or really goals) that I'm working towards. I don't have to get upset if I don't make it. chances are I found someplace better to head while I was on my way there.

I read 103 pages of an online book from Seth Godin, whom I am a fan of his writing, that is available for free for two weeks. It talks about starting a business and what you can do to try to succeed. His writing is always very inspiring. I have both of his latest books actually. It makes me want to work on Sticky Art all the time, which I've been doing a lot in the last few weeks actually. I was really trying to get it to print by December, and it's coming along, but today I had the realization that if it takes longer, I should let it. because good work doesn't always come from deadlines, sometimes it comes from knowing when to push and when not to too. I guess I'm going to keep contacting all my artists and see where I end up in the next few weeks. If I can get everything ready in time, then I will and if not, it can wait a little longer. What I'm wrestling with right now is how to fund it. I'm actually getting a lot more interest in selling the packs than I thought I would so quickly and I haven't even really advertised it again at all. But I can only get so many printed to start. Now, I could wait and use my holiday bonus from work to fund it a little better, which I'm really going to do anyway, but then I have to go into borrowing money until the new year, etc. etc. etc. I'm trying to be really smart about my spending. I'm really only investing what I need to and I'm fortunate enough to have some things already bought and paid for since I did it for school the first time around. I'm sort of letting those things become assets or something so that I don't have so much of a startup cost if this is able to go somewhere. So really I'm just going to have to play around with a couple approaches and see which one works out.

I'm planning to attend the opening of a very cool looking Sticker Art show, called StickerThrow, in Brooklyn on Saturday. This will be challenging however, because we're planning a potluck Thanksgiving gathering for Sunday for those of our friends who don't go home for the holiday or who we just haven't seen in awhile. Kind of a way to bring the group back together since many of us still live close by, but don't see each other all that often. So that means we have to have the apartment cleaned up before Saturday since we'll be in NYC all day. We're going up early to walk around since the opening isn't until 8pm. But that means we're not getting back to Philly until late that night. The last Chinatown bus leaves at 11pm, so that'll put us in Philly around 1 in the morning. Poor Dan, the things I drag him around to :o) It's not like we'd be asleep at 1am if we just stayed home all day anyway. Then Sunday morning we must cook. though I think we can have some of the food ready before hand. Dan's in charge of the real turkey and I'm in charge of the Tofurkey. I've had this before a few Thanksgivings ago. my mom made it one year. I really liked the vegetarian gravy it came with. I've been getting back into eating "fake" meat products again. I figure it's good for my protein and such. I had stopped because they were high in things I wasn't allowed to have a lot of while on dialysis. Actually I've been buying groceries again, which sounds like a normal thing someone would not stop doing, but for awhile we weren't really doing it on a regular basis to stock up, just getting things as we needed them. My refrigerator is looking pretty full right now and I have things in my freezer besides ice cubes and frozen drink mixes (that we haven't touched in a long time either) finally! Ah, to get excited about a little thing like food purchasing, haha. I won't think this way when I notice my budget was actually supposed to have money put aside for food each month. though I have been budgeting pretty well on all things for the most part (except that damn sticker addition).

Anyway, I have my usual HiNgE meeting tonight and then I'm going to hang out with my friend Christian who's working with me on Sticky Art things a lot now. These meetings are always great because I come home and all I want to do is be productive, plus I usually have a million more ideas or directions to go in too. The problem is, by the time I get home on Tuesdays there isn't so much day left to actually do the work. But the ideas carry over for the rest of the week of course. I got the last bit of my important files transferred over to my (not so new anymore) computer. I went to backup and transfer my Outlook Express messages and accounts yesterday only to discover Outlook Express decided to stop working on that very day. This is always what happens when I intend to back something important up, just before I take any actual action. I was worried for a little while, but it turned out ok, I just backed up the files manually instead of exporting them the usual way. It wasn't such a big deal. So now I'm back up and running and this should allow me to stay on top of everything a lot easier. My new heater should also help with that, seeing that it still gets pretty cold in the bedroom ;) So now I shall get on with my day. I guess I've officially returned to my online life. c'mon you know you couldn't get me to stay away forever. judging by the length of this post, I guess you should have tried a lot harder :o)