i'm heading to seattle for the weekend. these semi-regular weekend vacations to the emerald city are one of two good ideas i've ever had for little things that make me a lot happier, the other being when i discovered that rearranging my furniture makes me feel like i have a whole new apartment (in a good way), which i also do every few months. i highly recommend trying both of them, possibly with something substituted for seattle (i doubt the friends you have there are nearly as awesome as the ones i have.)
one of the key points is that being in seattle is an excuse to do some serious hardocre relaxing. i could stay at home and relax, but in seattle, we overdose on board games and generally hang around the house chilling, and it's pretty much fantastic. somehow the plethora of actually doing something options that exists in one's home environment seems to prevent at least me from truly relaxing, what with the pressure and the panicky feeling that every day i do nothing is a day i'm falling behind. i'm learning how to take mental health days, but ultimately the weekends at home never actually succeed in taking the tension out of my shoulders.
there's a lot of that these days. i'm alternately frustrated and competent at work -- it's a great job, but sometimes i have serious doubts about my ability to do it well. my life has settled into stable and boring, which is mostly good, but occasionally i yearn for a spark of randomness. which i guess is tied into my declaration that i'm not looking for a relationship right now. it's true, but i still can't stop my heart from irrationally jumping, and on some level i can't stop myself from feeling the pull of those irrational jumps. i'm pretty sure that right now not actively looking for a relationship is my best option, especially given how wishcasty i can get at times, but yeah, i miss it.
i think one of my problems with relationships but, even to a greater degree, also friendships is that people outgrow me. ultimately i have very simple goals in life. i like playing board games, i love anagrams, and i love staying up late into the night talking. it seems that one by one all of my friends replace games with significant others who don't play games, and replace staying up late with home ownership or child ownership. and while i want all of those thigns -- significant others, children, maybe not the latter imminently -- ultimately i plan to keep playing board games for the rest of my life and i don't think i'm going to really be a true morning owl anytime soon.
so the question is, all i want on some level is an awesome girl who wants a life filled with anagrams, extreme relaxation in seattle, and conversing until two in the morning, not just a courtship phase filled with those things (which seems to be the norm.) i don't think that's necessarily too much to ask for.