Karma.

Karma is a strange idea. There are various definitions....

Karma is a sum of all that an individual has done, is currently doing and will do. The effects of those deeds and these deeds actively create present and future experiences, thus making one responsible for one's own life, and the pain in others.

Supposedly, karma explains "evil." It explains why bad things happen to silence our whining, "Why me? Why me?" All of those sayings..... "We reap what we sow or What goes around, comes around" roll into one larger concept: karma. So yes, bad things happen to bad people and good things happen to good people. But at the same time, karma explains that our lives crave balance. We need both the good and the bad. We need to hurt and to be hurt. We need to love and to be loved.

And here, I don't really know what to say. It was a time of growth. A time of daily ups and downs. I was working on figuring myself out. Figuring out what I wanted from life. And what was best for me. I was longing for my good karma to kick in. I'd made bad decisions before and I didn't want to repeat those bad decisions. So then, I open up. I decide that I need more to life. I attempt to ask for what is good for me and to avoid all of those other things. Yet, I get no response. My karma must be waiting. And waiting much more patiently than I. Nothing bad is happening and nothing particularly good is happening. I, for one, do not want to wait any longer. I'm tired of sitting and waiting for answers. Tired of waiting for all of the perfect pieces to fall in place. It'd be nice if my karma could drop me a note. Let me know that it hasn't forgotten about me. That the natural ebb and flow of life is at a lull right now but will soon pick up its pace, whether that be good or bad. I'll take that note via snail mail or electronically.

Karma, where are you?

Good things come to those who wait....

Those three little words. A short story.

"Love is a crazy thing," I mumbled to myself as I stared at my flushed face in the bathroom mirror.

We had just finished a wonderful dinner that we had cooked together. It was our attempt at making tasty thai food. It wasn't a complete failure, per se, but it was definitely not perfect thai food. We both love spicy foods but apparently I'd been a little too bold with the unfamiliar thai spices. We ended up with a fabulous smelling meal and one that we could hardly swallow as it burned down every inch of our throats. We had laughed if off and decided that the leftovers might be better off in the trash can. But it had been a great experiment and one of those bonding moments. We had been dating for a couple of months and I constantly had butterflies in my stomach. He was sweet and caring. He was the most wonderful man. And the way he looked at me made my heart melt.

And as I stared at my reflection, I felt a little panicky. I wanted to say those three little words. I wanted him to know that every second that I was around him was amazing. I wanted to tell him that there are days that I just long for his presence. I just wanted to be in the same room with him. Breath the same air. I want him to know that there were moments that he took my breath away when he would grab my hand unexpectedly. My body tingled at his touch. My dreams were filled with his images. I imagined us years into the future still as happy as ever. I dreamt of our children and our lives together. I wanted to explain the feelings that were bubbling inside of me. And those three little words were the perfect explanation.

I sighed and turned on the hot water in the sink. My palms felt clammy. I cupped my hands and splashed lukewarm water on my face. Turning off the tap, I reached for a towel and dried my face. I looked up into the mirror again. Staring back at myself, I watched my lips mouth the words. I could do it. I wanted to tell him. Why was I so nervous anyhow? It was a simple phrase but it was a phrase that made me more vulnerable. I had to admit that he'd shaken me at my core. That I was head over heels and all those other love cliches. There was always the possibility that he wouldn't say it back. And I would be okay with that. This moment was mine for the taking. If he said it too than I would be that much happier, but I knew that I needed to tell him. I wanted him to know that I was open to the possibilities.

I put the towel down on the edge of the sink and winked at myself in the mirror. It was time. I loved him and I wanted him to know.

So simple. My new jam.

So Simple. Alicia Keys.

It would be, it would be

It would be so simple

What it is ain't what it was

What should it be when it comes to you and....

How it seems ain't how it is

There's been a change when it comes to me and...

[Chorus:]

Oh baby you

Oh baby me

Oh maybe we can try another day

Another way

All in my mind

I'm wondering why we cannot find

What was left of the beginning

If I could

Meet you again,

Miss you again,

Kiss you again

It would be, it would be so simple

Cause I would love you again

Hold you again

Need you again

It would be, it would be

Could it be, could it be so simple

Now it's hardly simple,

It's just simply hard

When it comes to you and

I find myself not being myself

Just to avoid all this confrontation with

Oh baby you

Oh baby me

Oh maybe we can put this armor down

And settle down

Oh it's off track

That is a fact

Can we get it back

Get it back to the beginning

If I could meet you again,

Miss you again,

Kiss you again

It would be, it would be so simple

Cause I would love you again

Hold you again

Need you again

It would be, it would be

Could it be, could it be so simple

Don't you know that it would be

Don't you know that it could be

Don't you know that it would be

Meet you again,

Miss you again,

Kiss you again

It would be, it would be so simple

Cause I would love you again

Hold you again

Need you again

It would be, it would be

Could it be, so simple

Eaten out of house and home. (literally)

Normally, my weekends are pretty uneventful. I make up for the sleep that I didn't get during the week. I think about going out to some bar or club. And sometimes, I do. I leave the warmth (or rather not-so-warm due to a dysfunctional heating unit) and comfort of my apartment and head out to enjoy the city's nightlife. Normally, I'm with at least one person I know but since I moved to this city for my job I do not know that many people. But the club/ bar scene bores me. It's the same scantily clad women and the same drooling men. It's not the place to attempt to pick the "searching for more than a one night stand" from those that are merely there for the eye candy. And it's definitely not the place where I even care to try to figure that out. So, most of the time, I chill out. Watch a movie. Read a book. Stay in and enjoy the peacefulness that silence imbues.

But this weekend turned out to be much more eventful than I expected. I woke up on Saturday morning and laid in bed thinking about what I was going to do with my day. After a couple of minutes I noticed a flying bug over my bed. I attempted to catch it but missed. I didn't have my contacts in, so my depth perception was off. I rolled over to the nightstand and grabbed my glasses. My re-focused eyes were horrified to see a black mass moving above my door inside my bedroom. The floor was a moving carpet of blackness. The flying bug flew back by me and I screamed. It was all too much. They were everywhere and they were termites.

I had told my landlord about my new roommates. I'd found a couple of these termites caught in a spider web and some others still chewing there way from the inside of the wall through the door in my bedroom. I had called my landlord over 5 weeks ago and showed him that there were termites. So immediately, after being horrified at the infestation, I was pissed off. I jumped in the shower. I needed to feel cleansed from the hundreds of thousands (not exaggerating here) of termites that were now all over my apartment. I quickly dressed and put on shoes so that I didn't step on their little winged bodies as I made my way to the door. I called my landlord and demanded that he come over and fix this problem.

When he walked in, he seemed to be just as dumbfounded as I was. Except that he doesn't live there and he didn't wake up to it. He told me that he'd never seen anything like that. He contacted the bug guys and got them over there as I vaccuumed up both live and dead termites. Their little wings and bodies were everywhere. I vaccuumed multiple times and still, still there are termites everywhere. And I have discovered that I am quite allergic to their dead little bodies. When I addressed this issue with the landlord, he informed me that he could rent a carpet cleaner from Lowe's and I could clean it. What?! So, I'm about fed up. I vaccuumed the dead termites. I told him about the termites in the first place and he did nothing. Now, I'm taking benadryl like it's my job and attempting to stay awake so that I can do my real job. And I have clean the friggin' carpet?!

Isn't there some law that I get compensated or don't have to pay rent for a termite infested apartment? Oh, and the kicker is that the bug guy came and told me that the termite mound was 2 and a half years old and that there were probably 5 million termites in my apartment. Fabulous, eh?

sleepless.

It is the middle of the night and I cannot sleep. I hate these nights. My mind is so restless but there's nothing coherent enough for me to write a story or anything that really makes any sense. I feel tired but unable to actually fall asleep. Looks like I need me some Lunesta.... ha.

I think about where I am in my life. My job. My desire for a new one. My social scene in the city I live in. And my desire to leave that. Ex-es. And my desire to not have to run into them again. And the funny thing is that it was only recently that I seem not to be able to maintain a healthy post-relationship relationship with ex-es. I think, previous to last year, I have always been on good terms with ex-es after the dreaded break up. Actually, I can think of one exception to that and we've mended our bad blood since then. But I disgress.

Right now, life is interesting. All I know is that I am not where I want to be. I am not in the job I want to be in. I am not in the relationship (or any relationship for that matter) that I want to be in. I am not geographically near my close friends. I am not being intellectually stimulated and I crave it. And yet, I have no idea how to find those things. I can move closer to friends. But it's hard to get a satisfying job in a new city. I can do it. It just takes time. I can't just pluck a relationship from a field of wildflowers. But that can wait.

I am preoccupied. I am concerned.

I miss companionship. I want a puppy. Anyone selling yorkipoos?

Imploding. A short story.

Anger boiled over inside of her. She could not remember when the flood gates poured open. But they had and she wasn't sure that it was all that healthy. They say that the way to process things and letting oneself really feel things is a healthy way. But what if one could not figure out how to come back out of "dealing" with those feelings.

Nina had always prided herself on the fact that she was not easily angered nor did she stay angry for long if she was angry. It was a passing emotion. Her parents had told her that anger was not a bad emotion to have, per se, but one that had to be reigned in before hurting other people. Nina had done that for years. She was very conscious of the fleeting moments that she felt angry but she quickly shut it down. She did not like to be angry. She was afraid of hurting others.

Now, all of that had changed. She had decided that part of the reason that she didn't really get over or deal with certain aspects of her life was because she did not let herself truly process all of the emotions. So finally, she let go. She let herself be angry about the past. She finally let herself acknowledge that she did get angry. And that most of that anger stemmed from hurt. She had to let herself grieve.

It had been two months since she let herself feel. Two months. And still, she did not feel like she was on her way to being any healthier. She actually felt worse. She cried more. She was angry with friends, family and coworkers in a split second. She had not been happy before but she definitely wasn't happy now. She wanted to cut people out of her life. Those people who hurt her. Those people who triggered her newfound anger. Realistically, she knew that was all part of it. She knew that life had its ups and downs. She knew that there were people who would hurt her and people she would hurt. Even though it all made sense in her mind, her heart just ached. It was hard to wake up in the morning knowing that the day would seem bleek and consumed by her brewing anger. The problem was that now she was feeling it all, she had less control. Nina wanted to be able to lock down her emotions again.

And there was not just the anger. Feeling the anger had allowed her to acknowledge her loneliness. It was such a strange emotion. It drove her to strange actions and reactions. It tempted her to latch on to any and every thing or one who will take her. There was some kind of power in that desire. It impassioned her to illogical conclusions. She wasn't even lashing out like she thought she wanted to. She wanted to hurt those who hurt her. She wanted to make them suffer like she did. But Nina knew it was wrong to want to lash out like that. So she did nothing. She could not talk to anyone about her thoughts and feelings. She did not want people to know how bad she was falling apart inside. But she did not want anyone to know. She wanted to pick up the pieces. Now, she was feeling drained and on the brink of giving up. She felt like she was slowly drowning in her overwhelming feelings. Nina did not know what else to do. She was not coping well. She was not the resilient person she knew herself to be. Any second she felt she was going to implode.

Rotation of people.

Sometimes, there are people in your life that you cannot figure out exactly why they are a part of your life. That is, of course, only if you think that all things happen for a reason or that there is always something to learn from the individuals in your life.

Right now, I'm going through a bit of a funk. I don't really know where I am going with my job. I don't know if it's really time to move on or if I should just suck it up and enjoy my good insurance and 401k plan. And I really want a puppy but with my job in limbo and the possibility of moving on elsewhere to a new apartment, etc, I'm afraid to commit to a puppy. All of my near and dear friends are not so near. But that's not their fault. I moved away. Now, I miss them. And then there's my love life, or rather, my not-so-vibrant love life. Here, by not-so-vibrant I mean does not exist. Fabulous, eh? So I would say that right now, I'm not all that satisfied nor all that happy with my current situation across the board.

But I got to thinking the other day, that there are some people in my life that I cannot figure out why they are in my life. Supposedly, we go through the ups and downs in life to learn things. Ideally, of course.

For example: I get into a relationship. I'm crazy about the guy. I finally let myself feel and care. Then I learn that he's a really angry person who hurts other people instead of dealing with his own issues. So, I get out of it. Personal issues that he refused to deal with. Cared about me but not enough to not physically hurt me. Ok, lesson learned. Next.

That's a pretty cut and dry thing. Not to hard to comprehend. Then there's the other situations that are more convoluted than not. Relationship goes well. Lack of communication. Lack of a relationship at all. It ends. He holds on. Still doesn't communicate. Finds a new girl. Expresses that he wishes it was me. Part of me likes to feel wanted. Part of me wants to puke in my hands. Here, I don't see the lesson. Clingy people suck? Sometimes, I wonder if some people just need to be cut out of your life. Move on. No talking. No seeing. Complete and total rejection. But not rejection in a pro-active sort of way but just simple rejection. It being time to move on. Time to not think about how to figure out this stupid dysfunctional relationship/ whatever. Why should there be unnecessary people in our lives? Just to piss us off?

Maybe relationships and people should be like a med students rotation. You stay just to learn enough about the person to be able to consider yourself a well-rounded individual. If you like the subject, you decide that will be your speciality. If you know it's not a good fit, you move on. Surgeons don't go back to geriatrics. They stay surgeons. If we know that a person is no longer a good fit, why should we continue to entertain their presence and frustrations in our lives?

A scare at the drive thru.

So I had an interesting, frightening experience yesterday. I was up to the drive-thru of an awful fast food restaurant to satisfy a craving. As I pulled up to the window, I was just getting off the phone so I slowly pulled up to the menu. I had noticed a stumbling woman carrying newspaper as I drove up. But it was only after I hung up that I realized that the woman was coming towards my car. I immediately hit my power lock and locking all the doors. She had just gotten to the passenger side door and was yanking on the door handle saying something that I could not decipher. I thought shooing her off and then ignoring her would work. So, I rolled down my driver's side window and ordered my food. Apparently, the woman was considerably inebriated because I had finished ordering by the time she realized that my driver's side window was down. She released the passenger side handle and walked around the front of my car. To her dismay, I'm sure, I had my window rolled up by the time she stumbled over to the driver's side of the car. She started talking to me and slapping the window again. This time I understood her. She wanted a ride. A ride just around the corner supposedly. I'm not too sure that she knew just exactly which corner she was at in the first place. That particular area of town is known to have a decent amount of prostitutes and although she didn't really look like prostitute material, I didn't want to take my chances. I can just see myself getting collared for solicitation.

So she's talking loudly at my window and I'm trying to tell her to move away and she's not getting it. So I slowly start to drive off. She tried to hold on to the car which knocked her off balance and made her drop the newspaper she was carrying. Immediately, she dropped to the ground to pick them up. By this time, I'm seeing her in my rearview mirror. Thankful that she did not drop to the ground like that before I passed her. When I pulled around to the window, I told the employee that there was a drunk woman hanging out by the drive thru and that it might be better for business to not have her there. The employee hollered back at a male employee to go out and convince her to move on elsewhere.

The whole experience really got to me though. I felt a little guilty that I didn't help her out but then I rationalized that it might have been stupid to do anything other than what I did. She could have been armed. She could have been faking. I doubt that it was fake at all but you never know. She could have been crazy. Legitimately crazy. So after I stopped feeling guilty, I couldn't shake the image of her trying to yank the passenger door open. The entire time I had some irrational fear that the lock wouldn't work and that somehow she would get in the car and high jack me or something. Maybe she had cohorts lingering in the bushes. My creative little imagination had me going on all kinds of maybes. Being high jacked or robbed at home was already a fear of mine. By the time I got home, I had mostly pushed the thoughts out of my head. But only temporarily. I jerked awake in the middle of the night because I was dreaming that I was being robbed. For the next hour, the slightest noise made me jump. I did not sleep well at all after that. I tried to figure out where the closest weapon was located and how I would defend myself. Eventually, I got back to sleep for a couple of hours.

After I got in my car this morning, I immediately pushed the power lock. It amazes me the affect that not-so-significant events have on behaviors and thoughts. And I wouldn't consider myself a particularly paranoid person.

Any one looking for a roommate? Are you 6'5", strong and scary enough to frighten the bad guys/ gals??