What I Love, #1

I've been reading lots of self-help lately, because I feel restless and unsettled. All the advice I've read has blurred together in my little brain, so I couldn't say which source it was that told me to do a simple exercise (they're all listed as simple, frequently untruthfully) and list the things I love.

Not things I love in a general sense, like family, friends, or cheese, but very specific things that I love, that I can clearly picture or remember or hearken back to. So, in an effort to help myself and to try and untangle the mazes in my head, I'm going to try it.

I love the freeways in Albuquerque. They are not the drab grayish greenish concrete of Californian freeways, but a bright and rather cheerful reddish clay color, with energetic turquoise trim.

This is where the 40 and the 25 meet, between my workplace and my apartment. I took this photo when I was driving back home yesterday, after my whirlwind week in LA. It made me smile to see these freeways, and it was then that I realized- I love Albuquerque.

I love Palms Boulevard, between National Boulevard and Motor Avenue, in Los Angeles, just off the 10 freeway. (Apparently, this is my streets-and-freeways edition.) Seven years ago, while sniffling with a cold, I got into my first (but not last) fight with Dear John. It was the first time I realized that fights are not the end of the world, and certainly not the end of a relationship. It was a big moment for me. Even with my runny nose, congestion, and wooziness, I recognized that it was something to remember, and I have always kept it with me, remembering it.

I am struggling with relationships right now. I don't have any serious ones here in Albuquerque, nor do I want them, but I feel like I am gradually cutting myself off from the people that I was once so very close to. My two best friends are in San Francisco. My other friends have scattered, to New York, Korea, Japan, Canada, or other places not easily visitable. I have not helped matters, of course, by moving into the Midwest Southwest (thanks, Amanda and my co-worker!), where I am surrounded by desert and not much else.

During my random browsings online, I also read something about friendship being a choice. It is a choice. Do I make time for my friends? Or would I rather go home and sleep? Do I make time to do things with my friends? Or do I go home and draw? Particularly as we get older, and people start to pair off and get married or move in together, it comes down to consciously choosing what we want to do with our time.

I'm not sure what I want to do with my time yet, and am retreating into work until I figure it out.

Meanwhile, I'll be thinking about things that I love, and why I love them, and hopefully, that keeps my thoughts from wandering into anything too dark.