Just crossed something off my bucket list. Went to a huge swing dance event called Swing Diego. Best part is I had an amazing front row seat to watch (that’s twice this week for good seats!) and was around all these professional dancers–and I barley even know how to do this dance. Thanks to my cousin for getting me there!

A love for dancing began when I started looking for reasons to live. I didn’t even know all these types of dancing existed–like salsa dancing and country two step — and that you can find people dancing in every city. It’s like this underground world.

You are stronger, better, wiser, and more connected to everyone than you know.

“I don’t disagree, but I don’t want a store that is nothing like this.”
~Best confusing email of the day.

I think this breed of dog is so cute.

Um, so if anyone knows anyone who knows ANYONE awesome who lives in San Diego and wants to date, you just let me know. I know a couple girls who are looking, one of which is right here.

“What is REAL?” asked the Velveteen Rabbit one day… “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you.

When [someone] loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful.

“When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”

“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept.

“Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand…

once you are Real you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.

~Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit or How Toys Become Real

Today my coworker Katie told me she deleted her Facebook account. She said it was one of the hardest things she has ever done — but she was tired of looking at other people’s posts about the grocery store, trips to Maui, and her drunken college days at parties.

I told her about last year when I disciplined myself to only go on Facebook 2-3 days a week (or whatever is was) and then kept cutting it down. A year later, it’s 2-3x a month. I hope in another year I will delete it for good. It has completely lost its appeal to me, other than occasional emails from friends.

Ever since that full moon last week, I feel this fire in me. I want to DATE. I want to say YES to more things. I want to LIVE and interact with more of life.

I don’t want to be afraid anymore. Of anything. I mean, what is the point of being afraid? Self-preservation, I suppose. But sometimes the self needs to CHANGE.

Today I said YES to going out to happy hour with coworkers and it was actually fun. After isolating myself so much it is still weird to be out and about with “normal” people. I am SO unconventional and a free spirit and sometimes I forget that the rest of the world are kind of like sheep… and it’s okay. Sheep are comfortable. They enjoy life. They might not do extraordinary things or think outside the box, but I think a lot of them are content.

I know that spending my 20s and early 30s screwing around without a real job was the BEST thing for me. It’s like I’m in this corporate world now and I’m definitely not doing it forever, but it’s nice to be new here. In my 20s I worked for the Forest Service and spent a summer traveling around Nevada, Idaho and Montana. Yes, I had to hike every day and pee in the woods, but you know what I LOVED it.

I saw sunrises and sunsets on old dirt roads in the middle of nowhere.

Allowing myself to actually go and have this experience I so much wanted to have was awesome. It got it out of my system. I don’t lay in bed at night wondering at night, “what if?”

Except… I do wonder “what if” when it comes to dating. I hardly dated in my 20s. I mean, I spent one summer in the woods. I spent a few others living with my parents or working on a novel or being otherwise isolated. I didn’t really even know how to order a drink at a bar without feeling like an idiot. Somehow I managed to get asked out a bit, but mostly it was short term. Then I slowly started to get boyfriends and keep them longer, but it wasn’t necessarily for the right reasons. Sometimes it was just to keep from being alone.

Dating is WAY harder for me to pursue than looking for a job, moving across the country, or talking to strangers on an airplane. I think there is some part of me, maybe, that just hasn’t completely opened up. But I know if I can build enough strength inside of me and believe in myself, that

no rejection and no one’s opinion of me can take away my essence

and that I can do it.

The last boyfriend I had I knew within a month that it just wasn’t right, but I held on to the relationship anyway. One night, I woke up at about 3 in the morning and went into the bathroom and it hit me as clear as daylight that THIS WASN’T RIGHT. I had moved to another state to be with this guy and all of a sudden I knew I’d made a mistake — except I really had no proof, other than this strong feeling inside.

So, I choose to stay with him and let it play out.

And sure enough, we broke things off about a year later and soon after I left that city. I don’t regret a bit of it. I learned things from him and had an experience. Even though we never exchanged “I love you’s” or had a very deep connection, I am glad I did it.

We went on trips all over Idaho, went to hot springs, cross country skied in the deep snow and even over a frozen lake (!). Sometimes you forget these things when you lose people, but many of us have lived a lot more life than we give ourselves credit for. A few years ago when I was depressed and felt like I had no life and nothing to live for, I dug through old photos and realized life had given me a lot more memories and experiences that I’d given myself credit for.

Somehow that experience of being entangled in other people’s lives helped me realize I’d lived and am STILL living. Letting someone into your world (even for a short time) is a beautiful thing.

Forget regret. Or life is yours to miss.
~Rent

San Diego Padres game today. Best seats in the house.

This week I am jekyll and hyde. I said yes to someone I’d said no to. I told the therapist I needed to cancel (she was lame). And I realized that sometimes you just gotta have fun (wink, wink).

Nobody can save you but yourself and you’re worth saving. it’s a war not easily won but if anything is worth winning then this is it.
~Charles Bukowski