Time.

Time moves.  It is a continual force that cannot be stopped, and we shouldn't want to stop it.  Living, growing, aging - these are all beautiful things that require the movement of time.  Sometimes I want time to slow down, and sometimes I want it to speed up.  In all these wishings, it remains constant, it continues to move at the same pace it always has.  There are some moments I want captured forever and others I wish I could quickly forget.  Still other moments leave me bewildered - I'm not sure what to think.  Life is rarely as simple as we would like it to be, or as complex as we can make it out to be.  Sometimes, sometimes I just have to wait and see.  Patience may not only be a virtue, but a key.

to be stunning

Wow.  My 101st post.  Maybe I'm actually getting the hang of this blogging thing.

This morning I'm thinking a lot about something I don't really talk much about because it's a sensitive topic for women... or maybe people in general who face any kind of struggle with it.  I've always had some issues with body image and weight - particularly weight, because I think I look frickin' awesome, I would just look frickin' awesomer at 135-140 lbs.  I've decided that one of my goals in life is to be absolutely stunning.  Stunning personality, stunning looks, stunning life -- to be someone that others look at and have to take a half step back (almost falling) and go "woah!".  Well, college totally ruined that with the freshman 15 that for me became the like freshman 20 or 30 (I don't know, I didn't have a scale)... and then my sophomore year I got up to 200 lbs.  (actually probably 205 or something, but I was completely horrified by this)  Basically, my life was a whirlwind of crazy and I didn't know how to cope with it.  And we had a fully stocked buffet style cafeteria where I was required to have a meal plan.  You know, living on my own and having to buy all my own food would do wonders for my waistline.  Moving home has done wonders.  Having a job that keeps me busy has done wonders.  Leaving the stress of school behind has helped, too.  Anyway, I write, because in the last two or three years, I have lost about 20 lbs - a little more possibly depending on how high I actually got in 2009/2010 - maybe even 25 lbs?!?.  I really don't like weight to be a main life focus so I rarely admit to people that I actually think about it, but I would like to be a fit person - it's part of the stunning goal.  In the last couple weeks I finally broke 180 - in the lower direction. (I dropped to 179.8)  Today I reached a new low.  I am excited to keep seeing the numbers drop.  It's a slow process, but thankfully it's been a steady one, and with this sort of thing to actually be a real life changing forever thing, it needs to be slow.

questions

I know this is a stupid thing to say because it seems so obvious, but it can also be obviously overlooked.  If you want answers to questions, they have to be asked.  If you aren't sure, don't ask.  There are some things I have thought about asking recently that I haven't because I'm not sure I want the answer, and other things that I am glad I found the answer or at least some answers to.  Asking questions also happens to be the best way to get to know someone.  I'm kind of a volunteer of information myself, but I'm discovering that most people require that we dig.  And sometimes it's the digging that says that we care, because if I'm willing to ask questions and listen to the answers, then not only do I find interesting insight into someone's life, but they feel valued.  Life is about living and valuing people.  That's hard when we spend so much time living for and valuing only ourselves.

Edit: I may be good at volunteering information about myself, but I love it when someone cares enough to ask me about stuff.

blast to the future of the past

I have this weird urge every once in awhile to try to find people from my distant past - like that I knew when I was six - who I've fell out of touch with.  I think it's a desire for closure that I was never too good with.  It seems like goodbyes were always "see you later" and more often than not, that later never came.  I have kind of a mental list of people I remember from school that have just disappeared from my life, and I kind of like the challenge of going off very little information in a great big cyberspace of an internet.  Tonight I finally tracked down my crush from kindergarten.  He got married last summer.  Darnit.  Not that that really matters, I never really knew him.  He left in elementary school -- initially I was thinking second grade, but I think he may have been there in fifth as well, and we weren't even really friends.  It was more of an admiration from afar, though I feel like we maybe would have been friends if we lived in the same place for longer.  It was haunting to see a photo of him again, all grown up, and to still vaguely recognize his face.  It seems like it's probably creepy of me to look random people up, but I genuinely wonder sometimes about people who just seem to have fallen off the face of the earth.  You know, what ever became of them?  Sometimes it's nice to have questions answered even if only partially.