Chasing the Sun

So I have been trying to decide for the past week if I wanted to write about this or not. It's a hard topic, however in light of many current issues across the world and locally, I decided to give it a try. A childhood friend of mine died last weekend in an awful car crash. It was very sad. I missed his funeral by a day since I couldn't get off work. Joe and I were never very close but he was always with my brothers causing trouble around the neighborhood. As I have grew up, I realized death is all a part of living. It goes hand in hand. My father performed part of Joe's funeral last Wednesday. It just happened to be dad's birthday. The irony speaks for itself. Where there is life, there is death. Every single day. 

Sara Bareilles is one of my favorite musicians. I refer to her lyrics often because they often explain emotions that are tough to verbalize. Her most recent album has a song called "Chasing The Sun." Below I posted the lyrics. I encourage you to take time to read them and even listen to the actual song. About halfway through she sings the following, "There's a history through her

Sent to us as a gift from the future, to show us the proof

More than that, it's to dare us to move

And to open our eyes and to learn from the sky

From a cemetery in the center of Queens"

The part that really got me was "it's to dare us to move." Deaths that are sudden like Joe's or the shootings in Kenya or the ones in Washington, they remind us just how fragile life is. Death shows us life stops for nothing. Sometimes we even get angry that life continues on as if nothing happened. If life stopped for us when tragedy happens, we d never get going again. It doesn't make it any easier. By no means, no. It does allow us to move towards healing. Everyone always told me "time heals everything." It bothered me a lot to hear that phrase. A decade later, I would like to correct it to say, "Time dulls the pain." And with that, we ve got to keep moving. Not forgetting, just encouraging each other to press on.  I encourage everyone to know the air we breathe is a constant reminder to keep chasing the sun! 

Philippians 3:14 

"I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."

                                          Cheers! 

 

   Chasing the Sun by Sara Bareilles 

It's a really old city

Stuck between the dead and the living

So I thought to myself, sitting on a graveyard shelf

As the echo of heartbeats, from the ground below my feet

Filled a cemetery in the center of Queens

I started running the maze of

The names and the dates, some older than others

The skyscrapers, little tombstone brothers

With Manhattan behind her, three million stunning reminders

Built a cemetery in the center of Queens

You said, remember that life is

Not meant to be wasted

We can always be chasing the sun!

So fill up your lungs and just run

But always be chasing the sun!

So how do you do it,

With just words and just music, capture the feeling

That my earth is somebody's ceiling,

Can I deliver in sound, the weight of the ground

Of a cemetery in the center of Queens

There's a history through her

Sent to us as a gift from the future, to show us the proof

More than that, it's to dare us to move

And to open our eyes and to learn from the sky

From a cemetery in the center of Queens

You said, remember that life is

Not meant to be wasted

We can always be chasing the sun!

So fill up your lungs and just run

But always be chasing the sun!

All we can do is try

And live like we're still alive

It's a really old city

Stuck between the dead and the living

So I thought to myself, sitting on a graveyard shelf

And the gift of my heartbeat sounds like a symphony

Played by a cemetery in the center of Queens

You said, remember that life is

Not meant to be wasted

We can always be chasing the sun!

So fill up your lungs and just run

But always be chasing the sun!

All we can do is try

And live like we're still alive

   Lyrics from azlyrics.com

Dating

I am so excited about this new blog, I am going into overdrive on what to write about first!! Coffee? Wine? Scarves? New restaurants? Friends? Dating? Omaha? Jobs? Babies? The list goes on!

Well, lets start with one of the new occurrences in my life. Dating. This concept is still quite foreign to me. It is not at all what I know or grew up around. People were boyfriend and girlfriend. You hung out a couple times and then it was "official." And if it ended up on Facebook, then you might as well start a board on Pinterest and begin planning your wedding. I look at my family and four of them married their high school sweetheart, 3 married their college sweetheart and the others are either dating seriously or recently engaged. My mother always insisted that I "never date anyone you wouldn't marry." As a teenager and high schooler, this made sense because so many couples I knew then, ended up married. As I got a little bit older, I felt the extreme pressure that type of mindset put on me. I have been blessed with wonderful male role models in my father and brothers. This led to high standards. Literally. I don't date short men. Its like an unspoken rule. Until of course, I inform them I have a 6 ft rule about dating guys. Hahaha! What can I say? Its a great ice breaker. My point is that I ended up waiting a while. I didn't really date in high school or even when I was in Portland, OR for nanny school. It wasn't until the first 9 months of my job in Colorado that I met my first official boyfriend. He was a great first boyfriend. I had so much fun with him and we learned a good deal from each other. After I moved, we tried long distance twice before calling it official quits. After breaking the boyfriend seal, I guess I was officially inducted into the dating world. Since then, I have found myself on numerous coffee dates, drinks at local bars or dinners. I keep feeling it is a big deal and dating should be this complicated process full of questions and suspense. However, what I have found is how simple it is. I love meeting new people. Talking and hearing where other people come from, their stories, experiences and opinions intrigue me. It is as if each person is writing their own book of life and I love being a part of someone's chapter. And I love remembering the impact they have had in mine.

Dating seems to be a touchy subject for many. Somewhere in our lives, we were told that if it doesn't work out on a date, it means there is something wrong with us and it is considered rejection. SO not the case. In meeting people over my life, I have found interactions are these weird combinations of not being personal to being one of the most intimate experiences humans go through. If you go out on a date and it doesn't work out with that person, it isn't personal. It means that one side or the other wasn't feeling it. And that is perfectly okay. It is actually a good thing, in my opinion. There have been a few dates that by the end of the night, I found myself looking forward to the second date already. Sometimes it happened, sometimes it didn't. If it didn't, sure I was bummed, but it only meant there was someone even better out there, not that I was this socially inept ogre. Or even better, I ended up with one more great guy friend. I truly cherish my male relationships. They are unique and special in their own way.

I guess what I am discovering is that the concept of dating isn't nearly as scary or sketchy as our society can make it out to be. I felt at first as if it was wrong or weird that I had been out on numerous dates with a few different guys. Then I realized, how else is this suppose to work? We aren't in school, or in the work place or in any other setting to get to know each other day in and day out, other than dating. Think back to all the people you may have dated in high school or college. You didn't just walk up to them and ask to hang out. You had the same classes or homeroom. Were both in the same after school club or met through your roomates' girlfriend or boyfriend. Out here in the world away from school and work, this is how you get to know people. As a nanny, I am absolutely in love with my little co workers, I just can't date them. :) You get my point. So for anyone who is a lonely soul out there wanting to date but are afraid to give it a try, I encourage you to go for it. Just remember that if it doesn't work out, it doesn't mean anything is wrong with you. It only means they like salmon and not tilapia. And if you really look at the other person, you will see you would rather have another type as well. So brave up, my friends! Life is too short to spend it alone.
  Cheers!

A Whole New World

So over the past few months of being in Omaha, I have been mulling over the idea of a new blog. There are times and places for everything and I feel as if my other blog is more my outlet for the ins and outs of life. I need a place I can talk about all the little parts of life I love and not have it tarnished by times I need to write out a bad day. So here it is. Like all other cliches in my life, I figured going with a small tribute to Julie Andrews, I would title my new blog- These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things. Over the past few years, my eyes have been opened to a whole new culture of good food, new coffees, wines and experiences that are just too good to not share in its own forum. So heres to a whole new world of experiences as I journey through adulthood. Cheers!