Magic Spells

I admit, most of the time when I begin to write these posts I try to have some spark of an idea... well, sometimes... okay, so the novelty of it would be nice every once in a while!

I'm getting married in 11 days.

10 days, 23 hours, and 24 minutes, to be exact. That's when the ceremony will begin... (that was almost a very emphatic statement--I slipped and hit the capslock button, it was scary even for me!!)

The rsvps have been coming in steadily--we sent out 105 & I've received back 25... then the whole church family has yet to respond via email. Then again, they probably will just show up, as family is wont to do... bless their hearts.

There are certain questions I keep getting asked: "Are you excited?" "Are you nervous?" "Are you ready?" and the ever dreaded "Where's your honeymoon going to be?"

Please. Like I'm telling ANYONE where the honeymoon is going to be! Even if I had all the particulars (which I don't, and I'm fine with, though I do have more of them than I've been letting on), whyever would I tell?? I've been privy to far too many prankster's secrets to fall prey to that kind of trick.

Is it paranoia if people really are out to get you?

I'm feeling oddly uncreative today, which sucks. Especially because I keep getting the itch to write, but all I have to fuel it is this irritating buzzing noise going around in my head. You know that buzzing...

Like a monster mosquito that has its own personal invisibility cloak.

How to swat that mosquito though?

I was reading back over some of the ramblings I've subjected you all to on this blog (ugh, still an awful word!), and rediscovered one of my favorite quotes:

"Know all the Questions,
But not all the Answers.
Look for the Different
Instead of the Same.
Never Walk where
There's room for Running.
Don't do Anything
That can't be a Game."

It's a magic spell from a book called "The Changeling" written by Zilpha Keatley Snyder--a spell to keep people from Growing Up. I know I wrote on this before, but I wanted to touch on it again from a different perspective. After all--new day, new point of view. I am no longer the same person I was yesterday, I'm an entirely New Creature.

I've been slacking off as far as my goal of Never Growing Up is concerned. I've allowed myself to get caught up in all kinds of grown-uppish pursuits, and I'm really not very happy about it. (That capslock key again...)

I haven't gone running or skipping in forever--I have a job behind a desk now, so the movement I do is mostly just walking. I should change that. I want to skip more, to run more, to jump around and swing on the monkeybars more. Aside from the grown-uppish motivation of "this will help me stay in shape!", I want to see and laugh at the looks on people's faces when they see a 20something skipping down the sidewalk... and, oddly enough, skipping just makes me happy. It feels like I'm flying a little bit when I skip...

Games! I used to play games ALL THE TIME... everything was a game--from talking to the Naiad who lived in the drainage ditch, to writing a whole new character when I was supposed to be doing my math homework. In college if we had down time we would play Signs&Signals, or chess, or cards, or even DuckDuckGoose. I played pretend under a variety of guises, word games, board games, card games, and video games... And the work we had was turned into a game too... Treating things like a game adds an air of carefree boldness to life that I feel I've been lacking. When did I start taking myself and the world so seriously? It's not like any of us make it out alive anyway! ;) Now the question: how do I find that attitude again?

I think that knowing the questions & not knowing the answers is something that I never really lost--I admit, I do enjoy being able to share the Answers I've found, but I still enjoy asking Questions more... :)

Look for the Different instead of the Same... now there's one to chew on! In moving back to Illinois I think I've been doing a lot of seeing the Same, which is quite probably why I felt so intimidated and angsty at moving back. But here it is--there's always something Different to find. Fiance (still not sure on the ee's there...?) has been telling me this for a while, and I should have been listening: "It's not the same place you left behind." So there's the Question: what's Different? What's New? There's a lot, I know there is, but I should never stop looking for it. When I make the Same Old Thing my confort zone, that's when I run into trouble.

Instead, it's the inquiring mind that stays young. Asking Questions, seeking out Differences to learn from, playing Games, and always Running forward.

Or skipping. ;)