The art of dating your best friend.

Listen, you dirty minds, it’s not what you think.

Sarah Bramer and I have been friends since our first date (we call it that, stop asking questions) in October 2010. And the rest is pretty much history.  I know, you’re feeling conflicted…you think it’s totally adorable but super uncomfortable, simultaneously.  We like to laugh about the level of discomfort our open love for each other causes onlookers.  We even were, for a not-so-brief-time, in an official civil union via the Facebook world.  Please tell me you can see the humor in this.  However, last weekend while visiting Santa Fe, we had to (ahem) really clarify our relationship status.  While sitting across the table from a friend she finally just had to ask.  ”So this whole…civil union thing…you know, it’s not..like, real…right?  You guys aren’t actually dating.”  Errrkkkkkkk [brakes screeching] wait, was she being serious?  And then I laughed uncontrollably.

My apologies if we confused anyone.  Sarah and I and both [sadly] maintain our futile and useless interest in the man type. So you can breathe your sigh of relief, or disappointment, depending on what you were banking on.  We are, indeed, not dating.  This topic, however, raises some interesting points. I am not much for dating, really.  Mostly because a date these days consists of Joe Blow approaching you at a bar, unable to mask his sloppy drunkenness, breathing his fiery dragon breath in the general direction of your mouth and proceeding to  hit  you with a line like “nice ass!”   (Seriously, they count that as a line).  So, naturally, I prefer staying at home and banging my head against the wall.  But when I look at my friendship with Sarah, I think hopefully to myself..”man, I hope that dating is this good someday!”

I mean, technically, it really is what dating should look like.  Dating should be like my friendship with Sarah Bramer!! I mean, not to brag, but it’s a rocking friendship!  It’s an honest friendship.  For real, we just don’t lie to each other!  We laugh uncontrollably, we cry even more so.  It’s simple.  Not a whole lot gets in the way of that kind of friendship.  There’s a mutual respect between the two of us. We both have different beliefs and values, and neither of us push those onto the other.  And girlfriend (no pun intended) spits nothing but pure truth at me, I appreciate this above all else.  Not many people get to have great friends like Sarah Bramer; friends they get to be proud to call friends.  I’m lucky she’s around.  And, while it might raise some eyebrows, I have no problem admitting that we have mastered the the art of dating your best friend.

Drake and Lindsay

Images taken in Point Reyes, California.

Two weeks notice.

A two week’s notice is normally an office place protocol. A curtesy, if you will. It occurs as a forewarning to those around you that you’re moving on to greener pastures. These are often followed by many a bitter (but well-masked) congratulations and some sort of cake passed around from cubicle to cubicle.

Two week’s notice, apparently, likes to occasionally make its appearance in your normal, non work-related life. Incidentally, I’ve just received a rather unforeseen two week’s notice that was most definitely not followed by any kind of cake (that’s just rude). Unlike an employer, I am not personally equipped to deal with the loss of those who just decide to drop out when the opportunities for greener pastures present themselves. I most certainly am not able to simply hire someone new. Hiring someone new in the case of a personal two week’s notice requires the scrapping of something you’ve spent time on and put heart into building, which is no easy task seeing as it’s not business it’s personal. I wish I had an HR department to deal with the formalities of cutting the ties–basically, I’d like to cop out and pay someone to do the dirty work.

Instead, I’ve settled on an alternative solution. I’m not rehiring. The “help wanted sign” has been stripped from the store front. I won’t be accepting resumes. I refuse to take on the task of sifting through a sea of overly-padded resumes and picking a candidate who claims greatness only to catch them months down the line with their pants down and unable to speak a lick of Spanish (hey, buddy, your resume said you spent the summer in Spain).

The position has been filled, y’all, by me. However, I hear McDonald’s is hiring and their standards are sub-par at best. Good luck to all who find themselves unemployed.

untitled.

I don’t have anything witty or pleasing to start this post with.  It’s been kind of hard for me to write lately (and by kind of, I mean I’ve got writer’s block like it’s my job)… I try to make excuses for myself all day long for why this may be.. “I’m too busy. I’m too tired. Writing it all down for strangers to read doesn’t matter. I don’t have anything important to say anyways.  Nobody cares.”  I have a list of excuses a hundred miles long (I’m super good at excuses these days, they’re kind of my thing. They’re so much easier than having to explain).  But truth be told, I’m just kind of lost. I didn’t feel like a had whole lot to say, or rather, that I didn’t have the ability to say what I needed to.  A lot has happened to me over the past few months.  Six months, it’s been six months since I’ve written anything..a friendly someone reminded me of that today.  And as the last few months unfolded, I got further and further away from writing about them.  It’s like how you stop going to the gym and a day turns into a week and that week turns into a month and by the time you’re ready to go back, you’re afraid people will laugh in your face when you finally show up.  But here I am–I showed up tonight. I hope you don’t laugh at me.

In January I lost my grandma.  Let me clarify by saying that I didn’t just lose her, I watched her pass. And it scared the living shit out of me. I know nobody wants to read that and I’m sorry.  I realize that saying it like this isn’t really a pretty way of putting it, but I keep trying to think of an eloquent way to write about it, a more gentle way to express what happened  because nobody wants to read the gruesome details, that’s not fun for anyone, but I cannot. I cannot.  So I’m just going to put it all out there, incomplete sentences and lack of fluency not withheld.  Perhaps it will alleviate some unseen weight that lies in my soul. The honest truth is that the day my grandma died I was forced to stare my biggest fear in the eyes, to face it like a person who has the capacity to face the scary shit…and my biggest fear won.  I mean, it just straight up and walked away with someone I love.  It made me really mad, and really sad, and speechless.  I didn’t know what to say.  I don’t know what to say.  I feel like a kid who wants to hold onto the fading notion of butterflies and rainbows and laughter in a land where nothing sad ever happens.  Where my mom and dad will forever be able to tuck me in.  Where I will be able to hear the voice of the people I love for my whole life.  Where feeling sad lasts about as long as the snap of a finger.  It’s real hard for the little kid in my heart to deal.  She just is not ready to grow up and face it.  But I’ve decided that it’s okay.  It really is okay. I have to let little Caity take her time in dealing.  And the adult Caity will deal too, in my own time and manner..and someday, the two [of me] will meet in the middle with some sort of grand understanding of the whole thing.  Here’s hoping.

If there’s one thing that is essential for me to say now, it is this:  although the loss of my grandma has been overwhelming and, quite frankly, unfair, it has given me a sliver of clarity.  Insomuch that I have now faced my biggest fear, and although one day I will face it again,  it hasn’t yet defeated me.  Going toe-to-toe with what which scares you to the core and being able to walk away to tell the story..well, that’s really something, right?  I think so.

And to my Grandma Sara:  Thank you for my mom.  Your life gave me my mom.  The most wonderful woman I know.  No description is adequate to describe the tremendous nature of my mother.  And that was all you; she came from you and she will carry you (as will all of us who love you) for the rest of her days.  Without you, I would not have her.  And I really feel like that’s important to say to the whole world; that you gave me the gift of a mom who surpasses all moms. I never got to thank you to your face, but I know you knew it.  I love you.

“How to live before you die.”

“When I was seventeen I read a quote that went something like: ‘if you live each day as if it were your last, someday you will most certainly be right.’ It made an impression on me and since then, for the past thirty-three years, I’ve looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been no for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything, all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment and failure..these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked, there is no reason not to follow your heart.”

-Steve Jobs

;

Time for change.

Ramona Moon(shine) Chatham

Nothing reminds you to live more than a new life being brought to the world.  On January 25, after hours and hours of a tedious and difficult labor, one of my best friends in the world gave birth to one of my newest best friends in the world, Ramona Moon.  Since the day I knew this little cheese was coming to meet all of us I had been so excited to finally welcome her.  She comes from great stock, so I knew she would be a sight to see.  But that turned out to be the understatement of the century when I finally met her.  She arrived one week after the passing of my remarkable grandmother, one day after my twenty-third birthday, and not a minute too soon.  I know it’s so cheesy, but I had had such a rough week leading up to her birth… dealing with the loss of the loved one in the midst of new life is a strange feeling. But the day I got to hold that little life in my hands and sit with all the potential she possesses, man, it just blew me away.  It all came full circle, life has a way of doing that to us.

Love is moments like that. Life is moments like that.  Welcome, Moonshine. You are so loved.

 

Hiatus is what they call it in Hollywood.

Sorry for my abrupt return to blogging–as far as an explanation goes, I hereby deem your imagination in charge of what took place on my temporary hiatus (you know, the thing movie stars take when they need a break).

I’m back and in action.

Here’s some Reserved Threads love to spread all over your day.

xoxx