365 Project: Day 138

This is what I do when I've been working at my computer for WAY too long. I roll my desk chair away and lay on the floor with my feet propped up on the desk and I stare off into the distance. Its the only position that relieves the pain in my back and gives my eyes a much needed rest. Thankfully the cord for my headphones is long enough to accommodate my need to be periodically horizontal. 

I don't know how people do it. How do people sit at a computer in a desk chair for 8 hours a day, 7 days a week? Aside from the physical pain, it stresses me out. I go stir crazy when I'm chained to my desk. I desperately need a laptop so I at least have a little flexibility. I could sit in my new favorite chair, or in bed, or go to a coffee house. Working in front of a computer for hours and hours like this only adds to my already erratic sleeping habits. My exhaustion then makes my stress and frustration more intense. I try to take breaks, go outside, walk around, lay on the floor. I do everything I can to relieve my discomfort, but after a week straight of long days, I'm pretty much fried.

However, there is light at the end of the tunnel. The result of all this work and pain is what makes it worth it in the end. I photographed, retouched and laid out my very first catalog for Dream Mullick Collection's Fall line. I'm so excited to see the final printed catalog. I'm proud of myself. I think it came out really great! And I'm sure I will only appreciate it more when the pain finally stops.

365 Project: Day 102

I wish I could just stay like this for just a few days. Curled up in bed, headphones on, iPod in hand. Content. But, you know, life keeps on going. You can't stop it. You can't slow it down. It moves on dragging you along with it whether you need to stop for a breather or not. Time keeps passing. New days keep beginning and ending and beginning again. Life doesn't care if you are tired. It doesn't care if you aren't ready. It doesn't care if you want to stay 26 a little longer.

Tomorrow is my birthday. Yep. In a few hours I'll be 27. I don't feel older. I just feel like I'm not living my life fast enough to keep up with my age. I haven't accomplished everything I wanted to accomplish by the time I turned 27. But somehow I'm supposed to accept that I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be at this point and be ok with that.

Last year I went skydiving for my birthday. What better way to celebrate your life than by doing something that could end it? Short of driving into oncoming traffic, I can't top flinging myself out of a plane at 18,000 feet this year. I'm not even going to try. 26 was a tough year for me. Come to think of it, so was 25...and 24. Your 20s are tough. There is so much to learn about yourself. You do a lot of growing in your 20s. You're becoming this person. This adult. I'm still just trying to get my head on straight and get a grip on what I'm doing with myself. I feel like I'm going to look back on these years through the eyes of experience and shake my head wondering, why was I so worried, why was I so confused, why was I so stressed, why was I so hard on myself, why did I take things so seriously?

Honestly, I just want to stay right here, eat a cupcake, and let my biological clock tick over to 27 like a dream. Another year of my life. Gone. Lived. Here I stand on the brink of another beginning. Oh, 27, please be kind.

365 Project: Day 92

I am a list maker. I always have been. I live my life task by task, checking things off of a never ending to do list. I was thinking, if I make a daily to do list, why shouldn't I make a to do list for my life. So, I've decided that I'm going to make a running list of all the things that I want to experience or accomplish in my life. Dreams, goals, travel destinations, milestones, landmarks or places I want to visit, things I want to photograph. Sort of a map of the places that i'd like for life to take me. Sort of a bucket list I guess. But I don't want to think of it as a list of things to do before I die. That just feels like I'm working against the clock. I'd be checking things off my list as more of a means to an end. Who knows when I'll die anyway? That could happen tomorrow for all I know. I want to think of it more as a guideline for living my life. I have so many random things that I want to do or projects I want to start, and as life goes on, those things get forgotten, or put off until another day. You know, that magical day when everything is finally perfect, the stars align, I have more free time, more money, etc. I hate to break it to myself, but that day may never come and I can't just keep waiting for it. So, its time to come up with a game plan.

By the way, these headphones are my new favorite toy. Well, I guess my new favorite old toy. These were mine a really long time ago and I gave them to my sister for whatever reason a few years ago. She just found them in a box yesterday and gave them back to me. I love the way music sounds through headphones like these. Earbuds are just not the same. Listening to music with these headphones is like hearing your favorite songs for the first time all over again! If you are a music lover and don't own a really good pair of headphones, I highly suggest you rectify that situation immediately.