Little One

I remember seeing this poem that my dad wrote, framed and hanging on the wall when we lived in Centre. I hadn't thought about it again until I recently went through some artifacts that I had mish-mashed in a bag in my room. The book that it was published in is currently in Madison so I asked Alexander to take a picture of it for me. (Thanks Bruv)
It's sometimes hard for me to imagine the man who wrote this poem as my father. Sometimes it's easy to remember him in this light. Memories are strange.

 
 

Little One

I want to thank the good Lord above, for giving me this little one to love.

I am as proud as any daddy could be!

It is amazing to watch her and see how wonderful this little one can be.

She is as smart as a whip, as bright as the sun.

It warms my heart to watch her have fun.

She is just learning to talk, and has so much to say.

She says it all in her own special way.

She likes for me to read to her, so she sits upon my knee.

She likes to be there so she can see.

I have her full attention while I read from the book.

She can't read yet, but she likes to look.

When it's time for work and I must say goodbye,

She doesn't want me to go and starts to cry.

She loves her daddy and doesn't want me to go.

But she will be happy and smile, when I return in a little while.

She is learning and growing, more and more every day,

Into a little lady with her own special ways.

Someday soon she will be a woman with little ones of her own.

Maybe she will pass on to them some of the good I have shown.

I want to thank the good Lord above, for giving me this little one to love.

--William L. Barrow

single and relationships

I went on this binge-a-thon of The School of Life youtube channel and they have this super long playlist on relationships. What I really like about the videos is that they portray a lot of opposing ideas. For example they have a video called "Reasons to Remain Single," which is kind of self explanatory, and conversely they have another video called, "Why It Probably Wasn't Better Being Single," which illuminates how our memories are unreliable.

The comments on the "Reasons to Remain Single" are incredibly sad. It feels like a bunch of broken people proclaiming boldly that they are unwilling to be vulnerable with another person. Lots of stating opinions as facts. Just exactly as I am doing right now. Ha.

It feels wild to me, to say something like, "I'll never get married." That seems like something you assess on a case-by-case basis in your personal life. Like maybe you don't marry that one person. Maybe you re-evaluate on a different person. I just don't understand such sweeping statements like that. I wouldn't even feel good about asserting that I'll never be a christian, even though I feel pretty strongly certain that I won't ever proclaim to be a christian. Also, it seems like people that say "never" are really into loopholes and that is very suspect. I don't know, is this just me being non-committal? Maybe. I just don't think that most things in life are binary so it doesn't make sense to say always or never.

I have a good friend that is pretty adamant on his stance that he'll never get married and whenever I ask him why, his reasons always suck. They're usually something like, "marriages are only beneficial to women; they'll just take half of everything you own" or "men have so much more to lose than women." They're just like the comments on that video. They're all so generalized, which makes them meaningless to me. If he said, "I don't ever want to get married because I'm scared," that would be so much more reasonable. I don't mind a strong stance, as long as the reason is good.

lists to live by

sandwich buddies

 I accidentally turned the sound off when I saved this video, but it's still just as good. The end when you can tell that the sandwich is too hot for his mouth is my favorite part.

Breakfast sandwiches <3

His face tho :)

BLT with bacon (leftover candied bacon, actually)

Even though he was just showing off this clever trick that he knew how to do with bread, not like professing his love or anything... this heart shaped sandwich was the sweetest thing.

A classic example of a TP sandwich. Lotta cheese, lotta meat, lotta condiments.

My pitiful attempt at a TP sandwich. Not enough meats and cheeses.

He's gotten pretty used to my camera shenanigans by now, but this was still early on when he wasn't sure what I was up to.

The cheese melting down the sides and onto the grill is a good sign that your sandwich is nearly ready for optimal consumption. Many sandwich trials have proven this to be the case. You def want that melty cheese. 

:)

To Rosh

Enough

I'm trying to remember that I'm enough. Especially now that I don't have a daily purpose.  Or at least, what I thought was my daily purpose is temporarily paused. About a week ago, my days were guided by tasks that needed to get done. And now... no tasks seem very necessary. I have a to do list and each day I cross one thing off, but mostly my days are now filled with nothing-ness. I'm not sure what to do with myself when I'm not able to be in service of others. I've had a lot of time to think.

Why do I feel so inadequate? Is this my brain chemistry being off? Or is it something else I'm doing to make myself feel this way?

The action that seems to help the most is talking to loved ones. We don't even have to talk about this idea in particular, but the reassurance of people actually loving me is a pretty big relief.

There's so much good in life. There's so much good in my life. I have so much to be grateful about.

I bought a wellness package from a local yoga studio and they sent me this quote today. It seemed fitting.

guess who's back

During this super strange and slow season of life, I'm nostalgically revisiting my old friend, the blog. I'm reading content that I posted like I'm discovering lost texts because unnervingly enough, I can't remember any of this shit. It's pretty weird.

This same kind of feeling I've had recently when I was talking to TP and I was like, "wait did I live that or do I just vividly remember the story you told me?" It's not a perfect analogy.


I can tell you've been waiting with bated breath to see how my 2018 goals turned out. There were only 3 things on the list... surely I accomplished all of them with ease, right!?

Well. There's something to be said about writing down your goals. There's even something more to be said about looking at your goals often. Because otherwise you'll forget them, like I did.


These were them: 

Top 3 Goals for my 2018:

• Open an online store
• Get better at applying eyeshadow
• Purchase a good cell phone

It turns out that, even 2 years out, I didn't find that these were things that I wanted to actually spend time accomplishing. It was very interesting to see where my mind was 2 years back. So much has changed. More than I can even fathom.

Here's to new and current and evolving goals.