I need to write

I admit it. It's been....9, 10 months since I've written? And since the onset of FB Scrabble, I've barely read any books. Busy, busy, busy...writing and reading have been low priority. But lately I've been getting subtle messages that I need to get my ya-yas out...in any creative outlet. I've thought about painting again, but I know I need to flex my writing muscles soon or any of the progress I made in the last 3 years of writing will slip farther away.
My mom sent me an article by Ann Lamott, a favorite author of ours, about making time to write. That people have the absolute best intentions. That they have ideas churning and burning in their heads, just waiting to be released. But the busy-busy-business always comes first. She said you have to decide on something busy and give it up, or you will never get to the writing.
I read this article and thought, yes, yes, that's me, I'm always making excuses....
This year has been even busier. I've spent oodles of time and money on my health. Losing weight, balancing hormones, detoxing, yogaing, making smoothies, packing a days worth of food to cart around on my busy day...even watching Big Love on the treadmill takes 53 minutes. Plus taking car of kids, dog, the yard.... no wonder at the end of the day all I want to do is play Scrabble on fB.
But enough.
I have been feeling a void. Or a surplus. It's my creativity. It's starting to back up...I need a creative outlet...soon.
But what to give up? I only sleep about 6 hours as it is.
Oh, I get it...it's doing this, blogging at the car wash in 45 minutes. It starts here. Because the more I say, the more I have to say :)

Say Anything

Last night Ryan and I watched "Say Anything." Let me clarify- we watched my 22 year old VHS tape of  "Say Anything". I wondered, as it crackled, if it would explode right there in the VCR, but it chugged along through a preview of "War of the Roses" and into the most influential movie of my teenage years.

Much like my junior high viewing of "Labyrinth" sparked a lifelong obsession with David Bowie (if you've seen it, all I have to say is David in grey tights, either you love it or it grosses you out!) this movie was my high school relationship model. Shockingly, with Lloyd Dobler as my standard , I barely dated in high school. I crushed from afar on the unavailable types- the drama nerds, the preppy religious types who I shared honors English with, the bad boys, most of whom did not know I existed or wouldn't have given me a second thought if they did. The one semi-boyfriend I had turned out to be gay...which explains why all we ever did was play tennis! I wanted a guy like Lloyd...basic, as Diane calls him in the movie, trustworthy, sensitive, goofy. The climatic scene where Diane and Lloyd make love in his car on the beach...sigh. I rewound and rewatched that scene hundreds of times, thirsting for a boy who would cradle my chin  in his  big, strong hands as he kisses me and shake because he's happy. I would get a  bursting, ecstatic feeling in my chest, (where I now know the heart chakra exists) a feeling I thought I would experience with the right lover.

 I held this as my ideal for decades...wondering why I hadn't found that one yet, even as I married and had children. I married out of familiarity instead of passion.  I had still not experienced that ecstasy, that overwhelming, all encompassing feeling of safety, excitement and satisfaction that I yearned for yet had pushed to the back of my heart, doubting its' existence.  It was frustrating and sad.

And then I met Ryan. 

As we watched the movie, I told him all of this. 

"The world is full of guys...be a man!" Lloyd's girl friends tell him.

"That's you! That's you! You're a man in a world of guys!" I tell Ryan.

"Am I basic?" he hesitantly asks, not sure if that is a good or a bad thing.

"Yes" I answer. It is a good thing. 

Basic is good, he's simple and uncomplicated. Basic doesn't try to be something he's not and he loves you for who you are. He soothes your fears and loves you even when you are mean and crazy, and makes you feel safe and beautiful, always.

He holds your face in his hands and makes your heart giddy.

I will never, ever break up with him by giving him a pen and telling him to write me.