Poor banana

Today I went on a great run and got an amazing facial and made lunch for my darling girlfriends and went to the temple (and it was nice and very holy) and performed in a beautiful play. Then I came home and cried my false eyelashes right off. Literally...they slipped off my lids and down my lashes due to my powerful, seemingly bionic, glue-eating tears.

Why, you ask? Is your uterus bleeding? Are you a victim of a sublime, destructive unrequited love? Are you just bored and tired and inferior and lonely?

yes yes yes.
 But I'm also a beneficiary of a very nice life.
So why is it such a poor, sad, desperate little banana?

HMMM?

The thought occurred to me while I was dish washing today, this very nice little day, that I need to start writing.
I need to start writing.
I NEED TO START WRITING.

What should the poor banana start writing about? She's awfully tired of her weepy little self. 

Here it Comes...

A better version of me.

Happy Belated New Year, I guess.

The sun has been incessantly flirting with me. It's toying with my affections, giving me a beautifully bright false hope that perhaps this winter might just be a little less miserable than the last.

Well, maybe it will be.
I will be, anyhow.

And you know why? Because "The strongest and sweetest songs yet remain to be sung" [via Walt Whitman]

And I should at least be humming along.

...Don't you think?

Resolutions, renovations, and hesitant hopings,
Banana

P.S. I'm moving to Paris with Gracie in the Spring. Have you ever heard such a lovely sentence?

oh, the horror!

I suppose this is my annual post on fear.

Last year I took a slightly humorous approach regarding nonsensical phobias. 

That seems to be my idea of defensive coping skill.

You see, during my most intense moments of heartache, hurt, or panic I have always found myself satirizing the whole ordeal. Describing it as a tragic farce; a clown with a painted purple tear on his cheek. Morbidly funny. Self-deprecating. I find that if I make someone else laugh when telling them of the things that truly strike fear into my heart making my knees and chin tremble and lightning flash and the walls cave in all around me in a cloud of nasty black smoke and charred ruins of life ambitions, well then, it can't be that bad. That way I've (sort of) vented, and am justified in keeping the rest in. To fester, probably.

But the new me won't allow it, I keep telling myself. Someone wise probably said once something along the lines of, a life lived in fear is no life at all. Yes, I'm sure of it now. Maybe it was Dumbledore or someone.

So... what am I afraid of, you ask?

Well, the problem is that the answer is probably everything.

Uh oh. I'm afraid of EVERYTHING?

yeah, kind of.

Here's the thing. I've never successfully explained to anyone the world in which I live. It's just... so personal. Its borders are completely within my own mind and idiosyncratic tendencies.

But people have definitely made attempts at describing it.

"spacey" "reclusive" "creative" "silly" "private" "shy." I've even got "inconsistent" at worst ["bi-polar" at very worst] or "dynamic" at best.

no, no, no people. the truth is I'm just terrified of being ripped out of the very deliberately crafted existence within my brain.

I surface on my own from time to time, just long enough to apply to college or get a job or feed myself or whatever else I figure must be done. But, honestly, I feel very much detached from most of those lifely duties.

Sometimes I feel like my dreams (day or night) are more tangible than my waking hours. Which is weird, I suppose.

Yeah, probably really weird.

I've always had this talent of falling asleep as soon as I decide to. As soon as my head gets anywhere near the pillow (sometimes before). I feel like an inability to sleep is for people who are involved in this world. Whereas I am just slipping naturally back into my own.

Anyway.

That may or may not explain why getting out of bed in the morning gives me the heebie jeebies from time to time.

let alone becoming the grown-up I'm supposedly supposed to be becoming.

or the fact that, as tough as it has been to be living at home much of the last two months,

I'm a little scared of the move I'll be making on Sunday.

With friends, fun, summer delights, and an adorable lovefriend waiting for me,

it still scares me a bit.

Now that's just silly.

...right?

Banana

Wait....what am I waiting for, exactly?

I spend a great deal of my time these days lamenting.

It's pathetic because I'm only twenty, I'm healthy, relatively strong (albeit totally scrawny, but, you know, no parasites that I know of) and have a long, lush existence to look forward to.

And yet I'm like a bitter old woman, taking out my disappointment with my diminished youth on everyone else.

I'm like the witchy motor-chair lady on Waking Ned Devine.

I sigh about my high school exploits like they were my golden years.
I'll quickly note that the purse one just said one liked was, in fact,  purchased in EGYPT.

I'll explain to anyone who will listen how cool I am.  [and I can prove it too! I can I can I can!]

I wake up in the morning actually angry that I'm not waking up to the call to prayer with Jerusalem waiting outside my window.

I find my self jealous of anyone and everyone who is talented, motivated, content, or just, I hate to        
[my foot]                                                                                     admit it, happy. 

yep. children. celebrities. the UPS guy. my grandmother. my dog. you name it.

I hate that.

 

I know that I have:

talent

energy

promise 

motivation

friends

passion

And yet, all I can seem to think about is the past. It's all wadded up into a great big confused ball of ticket stubs and playbills and logged away in my locked-up filing cabinet labeled "romanticized."  

It takes a lot of prying and twisting and head-bashing to remind myself that not everything was perfectly peachy back then either.

I've always known my wander-lusting, sensitive disposition was a bit of a liability, but it's starting to feel like I just can't be happy if I'm not moving across the world every few months.

or winning things.

or proving how very interesting I am.

or living in Hawaii.

or committing to a kajillion high-profile things every day.

or dazzling people on stage.

or wearing a crown and sash.

or...whatever.

Last night I went to the phenomenal Celtic Woman concert with my mama and family friend, Marilyn. It was, very literally, breathtaking.

But I had to keep reminding myself how much I was enjoying it  because I was sitting there, all hunched up, resenting the sweet old lady next to me singing along to "Danny Boy" with gusto because she was, of course, so happy.

And I absolutely [I'm not proud of this] hated those incredibly talented singers and musicians onstage. They were, after all, enjoying themselves. And, you know, doing what they love.

How dare they do that in front of me!!! The audacity.

No, but really. I'm desperately tired of being miserable, and of allowing myself to be so.  Day after day. So what if I'm in Spokane? It's pretty.

So what if I don't get a lot of social time [and by some, I mean none]? I finally get to hang out with my family. I'm not here often.

So what if I'm not famous? Most people aren't.

So what if I'm not actually better than everyone else at everything?    ....well, you get the point.

Or I should, anyway.

Here's to being happy! It's time to live this life of mine, methinks.

love and stuff,

Banana 

p.s. I'm going to the Spokane Symphony tonight. Goal: no frowns and a smile exchange with the patron next to me. 
p.p.s any inspirational quotes/ pics/ smacks upside the head= totally appreciated.

Nina

I'm going to go by Nina. Just for kicks.

It's kind of a fusion between my two names: Anna and Kristine. ...kind of.
It was Alyssa's idea (oops, I mean "Gracie")

Adventures of Gracie and Nina in the Holy Land coming soon!

Nina Ricci: how I smell when I smell my best
The Niña, with which Christopher sailed the ocean blue

♥ ships, smells, and pending adventures, ♥

Anna
(I mean Nina)