The bonds between friends, family and lovers are like intricate threads shifting in the wind. Sparkling with all the colors of the rainbow. Like shimmering gossamer in the sun. If we could but see them.
Across the universe threads drift, connecting every living being together. Some loosing an all too light connection. Some ripping apart. Some holding on forever.
With every being we meet and seek; a new thread is created.
Those illusive threads that stay strong have knots that could tell a tale of rife, of sorrow, of forgiveness, of understanding and an unyielding strength – if only we knew how to read them.
These are the threads we knit together with those we love.
In the fiercest gale the threads are stretched taut but do not break. In the darkest night they glimmer to show us the way. In the farthest distance they reach our hearts.
These are the threads we knit together with those we love.
Time seems to have flowed past at speed the last few weeks. All the sudden it is mid-January already and no blog post has been written. Ouch! Not sure how that happened.
I spend Christmas with one of my best friends together with her boyfriend, who also happens to be a good friend of mine, and their two adorable boys. Two boys, who at the tender age of 4 and 7, were extremely excited about Santa coming. Their faces when we called NORAD’s Santa Tracker was priceless.
So Christmas was full of early mornings and lots of toys but it was also relaxing and with more food than it is humanly possible to eat. One thing to keep in mind: when putting a bottle of Bailey’s in the freezer… yes, the cream stays frozen but not the pure alcohol… it does give quite a kick!
Oh and this sweet shop is just fabulous. They have all kinds of chocolates, hard-boiled sweets, fudge, toffee, liquorice and so on. It feels like you are stepping back in time when you enter.
As usual the long weekend ended way too fast and it was time to go home once again. Back to a really busy week in work, which ended with a pretty chilled out New Years Eve. I really enjoyed spending it with a very good friend, just eating cheese and crackers and drinking some wine. I guess in a way I “should” feel a bit freaked out that I rather stayed in (like my parents) than went out into town (getting pissed in a crowded pub) but to be honest it was great just chilling. Hmmmm…. not sure what that says about me.
Well, I made up for it a bit the weekend just gone by. My sister and her partner came over for a weekend visit. It was great!! There was lots of fish & chips, Guinness (OK, not much for me as I still am not too keen on the black stuff), pubs and lots and lots of laughs.
My sister and I, in stitches as always.
Proper fry up’s (sausages, bacon, scrambled eggs and toast) in the mornings kept us going. We ended up in a variety of places. All from the traditional Irish pub with a traditional Irish music session to the heavy metal rock bar in town. It was brilliant fun and over way too fast.
So now I am sitting here, trying to survive the rest of the month. The January blues and all that. As most others I am properly skint and like many I am looking over my budget and mulling over various health ideas. Oh the joy…
But at the same time, it is a new year and new opportunities looming around every corner. I do not really do the whole new years resolution thing but I do try to keep some ideas in mind. I will make this year mine. Not decided how yet but if the world will end in 2012 (like some seem to believe) then I want go out with a bang and a smile on my face.
Or in the wise words of Eleanor Roosevelt: “Life is what you make it. Always has been, always will be.”
When I sat down last year to write the 2010-gone-by post it was about having started to blog, got a tattoo, laser eye surgery, Christmas parties and driving too fast.
This time… where to start. This has been a year of so many changes. Of heart-break. Of self-discovery. Of meeting amazing people who I will forever be grateful for. It has been an emotional roller-coaster.
As most of you know, this was the year that heralded the end of a 11 year-long relationship for me. I will not dwell on it in this post. It has been chewed through enough. I could spend the entire post on just going over how this year has been pretty tough. But you know what… it has been what it has been and I want to remember the things that made me smile, made me laugh and made me feel good.
I have an apartment that I love. A place that always makes me feel at ease (even with window vents from hell…). It is light, airy, has a south-facing balcony that is just fab. It is a place that went from feeling like a temporary hotel room, a refuge to become the place where I can relax and recharge. My home.
I share this apartment with my two furballs. They bring laughter, cuddles and joy together with unconditional love on a daily basis.
There is much more I could list here. However, the best thing this year has been my friends. From the ones that I have known for years, the ones I have met online through blogging and the new great friends that I have met. These are the people who have made me laugh, smile and feel happy throughout everything this year. And that is what I will keep with me from 2011.
Lately I have been thinking a lot about how easy it is to feel lost. Those moments when you don’t know whether you are coming or going. When you doubt everything and everyone around you, for no apparent reason.
I’ve been there more times than I like to admit but yet…
… sometimes not much is needed to turn the dark moments around. Some days it is those small things in life that can make a huge difference. Some days this is all that is needed, for me to feel good again.
Knowing someone cares that I am there in that particular moment
Having a coffee with a friend and just having a laugh
A heartfelt hug or just a touch
When someone makes the effort to try to make me smile
“I got lost to find my way/Still I’m standing in the dark/With the one hand holding on to night/And one to day…” – Ryan Sheridan.
The sun is setting over Dublin. Setting after a very sunny albeit windy day. It has been a great day today. A day filled with sunshine, great company, a nice long walk, good food in a cosy pub and a shandy to polish it off.
I am very happy with how this Sunday turned out… but I am finding myself bored stiff at the moment. No idea why. I do not even know what I would like to do right now. Going out partying does not sound tempting at all. Watching a film is equally uninteresting. If it was not for the late hour I would go to the gym or something I think – which is weird as I am tired at the same time. Maybe it is just that I feel like having some company to chat away to this evening… not sure. I hate it when I get bored and I cannot figure out what to do about it. So I decided to write a post instead. About appreciation.
Anyone who has met me knows that I like to talk. I like to interact with people I know. I am not as chatty when I meet someone for the first time, I can be quite the opposite even. When I was younger I was very shy. You could get about three words out of me if I did not know you. I came across as grumpy a lot (the wonderful teenage years) but in reality I just did not know what to say. As I have gotten older I am no longer shy but I can still be reserved initially. Very quiet and just observing – unless I feel some connection to the person I meet.
At the same time I like silence. I like being on my own as well and just chill but I also enjoy quiet-time in company of others. When you can have moments of silence in company of others without it feeling awkward are rare but very peaceful when they occur. It is something I have come to appreciate more and more over the years.
It is funny how things change of what we appreciate around us with time. I believe it comes with feeling more centered and secure in ourselves. Our experiences in life play their part as well. Some things will always be important, no matter what. The cornerstones I suppose you could call them. For me the cornerstones are: laughter, friends, honesty and an open mind. Pretty simple things but oh so important to me.
People are today being accused of being flighty and restless compared to previous generations. In truth, we are more restless today. The world is smaller and travel has never been so easy and convenient. This is a good thing though in my opinion. I love to travel. I love working in a different country. My appreciations have not changed though. They have actually become more solid. Traveling, meeting new people and having new experiences all contributes to an open-mindedness that was not as prevalent before. Being away from my place of birth has made the bonds of friendship that I have all the more vital and important to me. Without honesty, I would not have gotten where I am today. Finally without laughter neither honesty, friendship or an open mind would make a difference. If I cannot laugh at the world, the situation, with others or even at myself – then what good is there?
So I guess being able to smile is what makes the world spin for me. Funny how this post started with boredom and ended with a smile.
I was sitting 30 000 feet up in the air thinking about the people in my life. I realised that I am not very good at expressing myself when it comes to saying how much you guys rock, so I decided it was well overdue.
So this is to all of you that I count as my friends. Some near and some far away. Some of you I see almost everyday, some often and some hardly ever or I haven’t actually met you face to face.
You have all been there for me in the last whirlwind of my life. You have listened, advised, metaphorically held my hand, let me write, let me vent, let me wallow, told me that things will get better, given me hugs, poured me wine, offered me a bed, made me laugh, shared bad jokes to make me giggle. Taken my mind off things. You guys know who you are.
I cannot guarantee an end of my wallowing quite yet but feel that things would have been much more difficult without you all. I feel blessed to know such a great bunch of people. You are the best and I love you all to bits.
I am not a touchy-feely person really, never have been. When I grew up there was not so much physical contact. Sure we hugged but not often. Affection was more shown through humour and laughs. My dad would show his affection by ruffling my hair more than anything. He still laughs a bit embarrassed every time I give him a hug nowadays. My sister has always been the big hugger in the family and I have always loved that, still do.
Do not get me wrong, I felt loved at home but just always a little bit insecure when it came to showing it openly. I was quite shy when I was younger. Not so much when it came to communicating with my family (I talked non-stop then) but when it came to physical contact I mostly always waited for someone else to take the first step. In some sense I am still like that. I have had to work hard to open up more in this respect. It has taken quite some time and it is still work in progress.
I can sometimes long for that contact but am too shy to take the first step, even though this has improved a lot over the years. This does not mean that I want to hug everyone I see or be all touchy-feely or want others to be so all the time, as that would just really annoy me after a while but sometimes hugs are very, very nice.
For me it is a way to show that I love and/or care about a person, as I have always sucked at actually saying the words out loud. A hug shows affection and does not have to mean anything sexually (unless you progress that hug… mmm… but that is another topic for another day). A hug should mean something. A hug should be given and received freely. The worst thing I know are those meaningless I-will-hug-you-very-quickly-but-barely-touch-you kind of hugs that feel so contrived. That is almost as bad as a sloppy handshake. Shudder!
So to sum up my somewhat odd post ( I have no idea why I started writing about this now) all I want to say is; always make your hugs convey something and always mean them.
There has been quite a few emails going around today in regards to Thanksgiving and what to the thankful for. Personally I do not celebrate Thanksgiving, the obvious reason being that I am not American. However there is still plenty that I can say that I am thankful for.
What i most and foremost am thankful for today is the bunch of girls that I know, friends both near and away, that have spent the last few days emailing in a FB thread about all the wackos, weirdos and nutcases that we all have the “pleasure” to know or work with or have heard about. I swear I laughed so much I couldn’t breathe half the time.
It was exactly what I needed this week. I have spent the last few days doing +12 hours a day and still not been finished in work. So instead of crying in despair I cried with laughter whenever I had 2 minutes between processes to finish running in the background. I was shaking with laughter in front of my computer and I have never been more thankful for a laugh than I was then.
You made my week bearable. You are the best! Miss you all.
I have to confess, I am addicted to Facebook. It has become an important part of my life. I need to check it at least once a day if not more often. Thank god for mobile devices. For me, Facebook has enabled a feat that all the letters, emails, mobiles in the world have been unable to – keeping in touch friends near and far. It has become a vital tool for me to staying in touch, keeping track and sharing fun. Some friends I have gotten to know anew after many years and I have made new friends out of acquaintances. It is weird that some people I know better via Facebook than real life.
I love the fact that it is easy to use when setting up a night out between friends or just share tales and pictures. I am aware that Facebook has its privacy issues but in the end of the day it is an internet based networking site which is supposed to be “open”, even if you can modify the privacy settings a bit, so it is something to take into account. Just keep that in mind when posting cringeworthy comments or pictures, it is just like with everything in life that you don’t want to all to know, use some common sense… or just do not post it in the first place.
Living abroad with several friends in many countries has made Facebook invaluable to me. It adds to my social life, brings many laughs and keeps friendships alive. It is not perfect but does what I need most times… except when I am extremely bored and no-one has any new status updates…come on people, say something! 🙂
The bonds between friends, family and lovers are like intricate threads shifting in the wind. Sparkling with all the colors of the rainbow. Like shimmering gossamer in the sun. If we could but see them.
Ivy Blaise's Blog 