Things I Love and Things I Notice

The prompt for DOCUMENTED LIFE (DLP) this week was to "Fill the page with numbers that relate to your week (e.g 4 trips to the grocery store)."  Can I just tell you how much anxiety this filled me with?

First, I hate...HATE...lists.  And no matter what you tell me, this prompt wanted me to make a list.  Not only that, but this prompt wanted me to tabulate various things that occurred in my week.  This may not seem like it should be a big deal, but about the only thing I do is go to work, eat and make art.  There's not a lot going on.  PLUS...keeping track of things!?!  I'm lucky if I remember what year it is...  There was a lot of resistance happening for me concerning this prompt...

So, in order to break it down to my level, I decided to number various things that happened in a single day this week.  ...and then I made up fictitious numbers that corresponded to the amount times I feel like something happened:

1 day in numbers at age 31

For instance, 800 is the number of times I thought or felt something completely inappropriate.  But out of those 800 times, 376 is the number of times I actually said the inappropriate thing out loud.  As you can see, I say a lot of horrible things, but not near as many as I think...

This picture is the most true to color...I don't know why the other pics look so dingy...

Everything about this prompt was troublesome, including the background, which is why the #4 on the above page stands for the number of times I COMPLETELY overhauled this spread...

Check out that sweet "2" from the "25" though, it's rocking my socks off!

The one thing I actually enjoyed about this spread was practicing my lettering (or would it be numbering?)...I was pretty happy with the way some of the numbers turned out...especially the 2 in 25 in the above picture!

"Times I questioned my sanity in a given hour."

I glued down my tags on one end only, so that they would flip up and reveal the writing that went along with them on the reverse side.  As you can see in the above picture, 25 is the number of times I questioned my sanity in a given hour on that particular day.  I was being conservative...

After I finished doing this spread, I realized that what I should have counted was the various art related things that happen in my week...like how many faces did I make, how many different pages I completed, or how many different colors/media I used.  But it's all over now, and here we are...  Maybe one day in the distant future, when I've grown as a person, I will have the patience and memory to keep tabs on that info...but it is not today for sure! :)

The prompt for JOURNAL 52 (J52) this week was "Gratitude-include something you are thankful for on your page."  There was actually a similar prompt for DLP a little while ago, which you can see HERE.  

I think I've mentioned it before, but I have a hard time with the word 'gratitude'.  It's one of my many foibles, I'm sure, but there's just something about that word that sets my teeth on edge.  I suppose genuine gratitude isn't the problem for me...that's a good thing.  But for some reason, when I hear the word, it makes me think of lazy people.  (SO NOT saying that truly gratitudinous people are lazy)  The word just reminds me of people who sit back and wait for things to happen instead of getting up and working towards good things for themselves...and then when something does just happen by chance to them, they say 'oh, I'm so grateful to the cosmic space turtle who made this happen'.    I honestly don't know why my brain chooses to associate those two things, but it does.  Maybe I feel like real gratitude can only be achieved through hard work.  Like when your parents told you as a kid...if anyone was raised like me..."You'll appreciate it more if you have to work for it."

I've noticed that I say I'm glad about things a lot.  I imagine it's my substitute word for gratitude.  I'm grateful when all my hard work pays off...I'm glad when something out of my control happens.  As in, I'm grateful that I got a raise at work (cause I TOTALLY deserve it), but I'm glad it's gonna be fall soon (no personal control over that).  I don't know...all I can say is I told you I was weird...

At any rate, I came up with something I am both glad about and grateful for to use in this week's J52 page:

"A good long laugh"
I really liked this as a sketch, but when I went over it in pen, there was an incident with the eyebrows...
Maybe it adds to the comedy of the page...the eyebrow situation...yeesh...

There is just something to be said for a really good belly laugh.

The older I get, the harder it is for me to get that real deal, from the heart, eyes watering laugh.  I must have become more cynical or something.  I'll give things a little chuckle, and that's the end of it.  The weird thing is I laugh all the time...well giggle.  I hate to say it, but I tend to be a giggler.   But it's been a while since I REALLY went all in on a laugh.

I'm good at getting other people to laugh though, and I suppose that's better than laughing myself.  I made someone laugh so hard this week that he had to crouch down against a wall because he couldn't breathe and tears were streaming down his face.  I am a merciless clown!

I think my problem is I get bored easily.  I like to figure people out, but when I do, a lot of the thrill is gone.  (How horrible does this make me sound?  Really stinking horrible...)  I think I've been around the people I know now for so long they have no good comedy for me anymore.  I know what these people are going to say, down to the point where I can mimic them word for word.  I know it's my problem...there's not anything wrong with the people in my life...I like them quite a lot!  It's just...frustrating at times.

I recently came back into contact with someone who hasn't spoken to for a long time.  This person was at one point, very important to me, but there was a rift in our friendship.  I really enjoy this person, because he says things I don't expect.  That's a rare commodity for me!  I think I've always been attracted to people who are...outside the norm.  I find people on the fringes of life to be very interesting.  I like people who challenge my thinking...who surprise me and keep surprising me.  I've been laughing a lot since coming back into contact with this person.  It's been nice.

I'm trying to remember to temper myself.  It's another one of my personal quirks...that when I'm in, I'm all in.  The past doesn't matter.  The future doesn't matter.  The only thing that matters is how I feel right now.  The problem is that the past HAS happened.  The future, whatever it may be, WILL happen...and the past repeats itself so very often.  I'm guilty of forgetting all that once I've gotten my interest peaked.  

I don't like being fooled, and I especially don't want to be fooled twice.  But I want to believe that people are capable of change...especially in this instance...  The crap part for me is that I know I'm an all or nothing kind of girl.  It's just no use in telling me not to get too attached...I have never yet been able to follow through on that advice.  

What do you think?  Do people change?  Should I give this re-budding friendship another go or just cut it off before I get carried away?  Any words of wisdom for a girl in need?