A Not So Normal - Normal New Year's Eve

This year's celebration was not what I anticipated at all. I banked on it being kind of quiet and reserved, being that we were celebrating with people we hardly knew, if not at all. I thought I'd be saying goodbye by 12:02 and home by 12:45.

Who knew that instead we would make instant friends, and have one of the best New Year's celebration that we've had in a very long time? It was fantastic and highly entertaining. What a better way to start the New Year than good times with old & new friends?

I hope all of you had a great entry into 2009. This is going to be a great year!

Cheers!
Sandrine

Frienemies

I feel like I'm in easy to like person. I've never had an issue making friends. However, on the rare occassion that someone doesn't like me, I do one of two things. I either continue on with life and I don't give it a second thought or I look at it as a gauntlet being thrown and make it my mission to have the said person come to a place where they absolutely love and adore me.

A friend of mine has a frienemy. The frienemy has issues, it's obvious. But at the same time you can't help but to feel a little inclined to him. The first time I encountered him I thought we got along great. Only to find out later he hated every minute of it. (I personally think this is a lie from the pit of hell, but whatever, I'll let him have it). Our next encounter was without a doubt a good time, and if he says differently I will hit him. But I still feel like he is on the fence regarding me. Most people would not waste the time trying to engage this person. But I see it as a challenge. We will be friends. He will love me. I will become his bff.

His frienemy tells me that I need help and not to waste my time, which only inspires me more. I might change my mind, I might want to push him in traffic by next Saturday, but I will at least try.

If you have any advice, please share. And, I'll keep you posted on my progress. :)

Shake it like a what?

I read the following on CNN.com today...

"Sixty years after Polaroid introduced its first instant camera, the company's iconic film is disappearing from stores. Although Polaroid says the film should be available into 2009, this is the final month of its last production year. Eclipsed by digital photography, Polaroid's white-bordered prints -- and the anticipation they created as their ghostly images gradually came into view -- will soon be things of the past."

How sad is that?? I mean I love the digital camera, but I REALLY LOVE the Polaroid! Some of my most cherished pictures are polaroids! I even offered my polaroid photography at my friend Lindsay's wedding, when she was looking for a photographer. (I've got mad polaroid skillz just in case you were wondering) There is something so magical about taking a picture and getting something in your hand that is blank and gradually changes into a magnificent picture with just a few shakes.

My 8 year old & 3 year old cousin will never know the magic of a polaroid picture! Not to mention that "Shake it like a Polaroid picture" will mean absolutely nothing to them! I'm trying to decide which is sadder.

So while I am mourning the passing of the Polaroid, I suppose I should give a shout out of thanks to Andre 3000 for memorializing the fun of "shaking it like polaroid picture".

Here are the pieces of my heart.

I feel like my heart probably resembles this one in a lot of ways.

My heart has been broken, beaten, and bruised. I'm not talking just relationships. I mean life, job, friends, love, on and on I could go.

I think in the past I've been careless with my heart, flippantly carrying it in my hand from place to place, tossing it in my backpack as I encountered the issues in life. So I suppose I have myself to blame for it's current condition.

I am starting to realize that I have gone to the other extreme. Where I used to be careless with my heart, I am now over-protective. Where I used to allow it to take chances, I now keep it hidden from the world, so as not to inflict more damage. I tend to keep it wrapped in 20 lbs of heavy blankets and then locked away in a trunk.

I've done my heart a disservice both ways. So how does one find the balance? I'm not sure I know. I'm not sure I know how to, but I have to try. Because when I locked my heart up, I locked up a part of my great adventurer, I locked away the will to take great chances. I miss those things, I feel like they are suffocating and slowly dying in the isolation booth I have set them in.

So I'm trying to find the balance. I realize that my heart might get smashed to smithereens. I realize there might not be any great adventure, and I am aware that there may never be one great love. But what good will a heart in tact merit me at the end of my life, if it has not seen, if has not done, if it has not lived?

That's a chance I don't want to take....

Oh Crap

Do ever have that feeling of complete dread? Like the sh*t is about to hit the fan? You just know it's coming.

I am suddenly overwhelmed with that feeling. Except I don't know what it is. I mean I have a feeling some drama is coming, but I don't know what the drama could be. I just have this awful feeling.

I don't know what it could be, I just know I don't like it.

I'll let you know what it ended up being if anything.

- S

Upside Down

This is how I currently feel. Have you ever been on a path, just living life only to wake up one day and feel like you are in the Twilight Zone? The last week and a half have been my Twilight Zone. There are normal things happening around me, regular life stuff, so I know I haven't lost my mind. There have been happy things and things to celebrate and I think those are things that have kept me sane.

The other stuff? It's all just too bizarre to put into print. Give me a call sometime when you are ready for a, laugh till you cry and the scratch your head as you wonder what the heck just happened, moment.

I know that "they" say trials build character, but what does insanity build? I'd like to think that in some way I will be a better person on the other side of all of this insanity. But I can't think of how it would make me a better person.

As I type insanity has reared it's unstable head and is messing with my relatively calm evening.

Did you know....

That when insanity is around you shouldn't drink coffee - it's a stimulant and in the midst of crazy it messes with your nervous system

That your heart rate can increase rapidly in a matter of seconds when the insanity starts?

You are more likely to sleep better if you have a glass of water and say a prayer over the crazy before you retire for the evening?

(**please note these are not the opinions of doctors, nor professionals - just simply Sandrine-isms)

I don't know how to cut the crazy, but I have to. Somehow, someway! Isn't the Twilight Zone only a 30 minute show?? Cause my 30 minutes passed about 20 episodes ago!

Crossroads

Crossroads are amazing and scary things. They have so much potential and can lead you on great adventures or painful journeys.

I am standing at my own crossroads. It seems like more than one actually, work, life, relationships. Maybe they are tied together. Either way, I'm standing right in the middle, trying as hard as I can with my feeble human abilities to look as hard as I can to see what's along the journey of each of them. They all will contain some bit of heartache, that is inevitable. But will the joy outweigh the pain, will following the wrong path lead me to something miserable that I might not recover from?

I feel like the past 4 years I've made some monumental mistakes. Some of them knowingly, but most of them not. And although it has been miserable at times, I don't know that I would change the mistakes I've made for the lessons I've learned because of them.

I am standing at a crossroad bad decisions once again waiting for me to choose them, good decisions not pestering me to choose them, but standing there hoping I will. But they aren't giving me any clear direction. I have to choose a path, I have no way of knowing if it's the right one or not. But I will choose and I will drag those good and bad choices along with me and hope I choose the right one along the way.