When I got married, I knew that Skaja and I would be taking our two separate lives weaving them into one. That we would become accountable to each other and that we would have to communicate and work out our differences, but there were other things that took me by surprise. It demands more trust than I ever thought I would extend to any human being other than my parents. It has meant that there’s another person with more influence over me than I thought I would allow anyone to have ever. It’s led me to tolerate and deal with issues that I thought I had refused to ever allow into my life again. It has given me a new perspective on me and forced me to see some flaws in my character that I’ve been more than willing to pay any price to ignore until I finally learned that when someone loves you and you do something wrong, they pay the price when you do something wrong. I hope to be able to apply that lesson to my relationships with other people I love.

I try very hard to not take it for granted that she’ll always be there no matter what and to not lose sight of all of the things that she brings into my life. I try to make sure that I’m always finding things of value to offer her and that I’m making myself into a better partner for her and myself. I hope that as we change, we’ll be able to keep communicating with each other and making the best of the circumstances that we find ourselves in and that we step forward to meet our life; building and shaping it to make it our own.

It turns out that while the the location we’d driven to is listed on google maps, it had closed quite a while ago. I decided not to let that stop the two of us from enjoying tasty Chinese goodness so I searched for the next nearest location and dialed the number to make sure that it was open, it wasn’t. The next listing, while an open restaurant with people answering the phones, was too far to drive so we would go somewhere else. We would go to Einstein’s Bagels, where I hadn’t been in a very long time and we could settle for a while to talk out some things that are going on in the studio.

We went into Einstein’s, decided what we would have, and learned that we couldn’t have it, they were out of plain bagels and panini bread. We made substitutions, got our drinks and learned that they were going to close in ten minutes, so they would pack our food up in a bag for us so we could eat in the parking lot. Awesome.

So one might think that I would know a thing or two about handling liquids in a car properly. Ha! Actually, it seems that I’m destined to douse the interior of each car that we own with a different sticky liquid. Today, that liquid happened to be root beer. Seriously root beer, fuck you. What makes you think you can spill all over the place like that?

That moment turned out to be a transition from bad to good oddly enough, because while I was sitting there in my car with the stuff drying out on me and getting sticky, I just had to laugh. I laughed harder than I had in a long time and the swearing in the car tapered off to a normal level.

It’s all because I made a wrong choice a long time ago. Instead of being willing to take risks and push myself to reach further, I chose to make myself comfortable, to be safe and sensible. I thought I was well behaved and smart, but really I just didn’t understand that for every risk that I took along with a chance for something bad to happen, there was a chance for me to learn something new and challenge myself. I let my life shrink around me until it became so small, there was no room around me to breath.

I want to do something better for myself than that. I want to act, to leave something behind me after I leave, hopefully something of value. It’s not easy to make that choice to expend the effort from one moment to the next. to risk trying things for fear that I won’t be good at them, but each time I do it, it gets a little easier. I find myself getting absorbed and wanting to elaborate more on what I’m trying to say. To be more specific, more persuasive in my message. I want to write words that will make people sit up, act, think differently and just maybe take a few actions of their own so that they can share this feeling of being at the wheel with me instead of just following directions.

With my ex-husband.

Today marks three years since our divorce was finalized. It’s taken a lot of effort for my ex and I to maintain a friendship. I suspect there are many people who know him who would ask him if he’s crazy. After all, the split was really initiated by me.

Only he can really answer that question, but I do know that I value him as a person. And he wouldn’t remain my friend simply for kicks.

Maybe it took a divorce to make a friend. It took a divorce to get me on the path to Sam. There’s been a lot of hurt and tears. And laughs and understanding.

I think my fortune cookie from yesterday’s lunch sums it up perfectly:

you may now refer to sam and me and Mr and Mrs Wills.

it’s true we had planned our wedding for October. however, while we were here for my sister’s wedding, sam and i had a chat and decided to just ‘take the plunge,’ as it were. wedding was May 23rd.

back to your regularly scheduled Monday.

Anyway, Sam and I have been debating and discussing the various products that we’ve been buying over the past year, and the blogs/websites we read as we figure out what it is we want to do with our life. We’re in a relatively bittersweet situation that affords us to not have to hold down a “real job” right now, although I do want to point out that I have a freelance “job” doing various admin tasks for one of my best friends. Sam holds a very valid concern that we are taking on too many things (spoons). And I understand his concern, however I know enough about myself that if I’m not kept very busy I will fidget or get easily caught up reading Facebook all day. (Don’t get me started on playing the games on there for 3 weeks straight. What a waste of time for me.)

Most weeks, we don’t have many days that are unscheduled. I mean we have a mostly unscheduled life, with not many scheduled commitments, but most days we have a list of things we want to do. You probably do, too. Besides our usual housekeeping and errands, care and feeding of our cats, and other small tasks, we also enjoy supporting a local theater company by going to performances, we go to the opera and to concerts, art festivals and coffee shops. We’re also working on downsizing our possessions and still unpacking from our move in February. There are also other daily life things that don’t happen often, but can be time consuming (there’s a story about buying our car coming soon). On top of those things are informational calls, keeping up with blogs of interest, and thinking a lot about what we want to do with our life.

Granted, these are things we’ve chosen to do. No one forced us to buy tickets to the theater or a concert. No one made me sign up for calls. No one twisted my arm to read blogs or buy ebooks. No one has made us sign up for the things we’re doing now (and that are coming up).

These are things we have chosen to do. I guess my point is that at what point do you say that you’re committed to enough? Or too much? If you look down the list of products we use, you’ll see what I think is an impressive (and mind-boggling) list. Of course we’re not actively doing some of these things everyday. Some are occasional tools in our “life toolkit” that we pull out when we need some clarity. Others are everyday, no matter what things that we choose to do.

I told Sam on the day Chris Guillebeau’s Empire Building Kit launched that I was planning to put a personal moratorium on committing to any more classes or courses for a year. Which is a long time. There are a couple of exceptions, which we were aware of when I made this declaration. And I even felt like I was breaking my own promise when I talked to Sam about Question the Rules [affiliate link]. (He assured me that I wasn’t.)

Because he knows me. I have to keep busy. When we watch tv (yes, we still have one, though it’s used mostly to watch Burn Notice on dvd or for Sam to unwind playing video games), I’m usually just listening to it in the background because I’m either reading, or listening to something else.

Silence does not work well in the O’Brien/Wills household.

Returning to The Spoon Theory, it could be argued that I use up a number of my spoons just functioning everyday, leaving me with few to use to do anything with the business Sam and I want to start. On the other hand, I’m a fairly high-functioning Borderline on most days (in my opinion) and I have a lot of energy and spoons available for everything I want to get done. It’s on those days that part of me fears I might take on too many projects and get myself in over my head. It’s very easy for me to start things, and more difficult to finish them (a classic Aries trait). And I believe this is where Sam gets most concerned.

For now, I feel like I have enough on my figurative plate, and enough spoons to handle it all. The next time one of my internet heroes announces a call or a class, though, and I’ll have to stop and consider it all over again.

What about you? How do you determine whether you’re doing too little, just enough or too much? How do you get through the day without running out of spoons? Let me know either through email (blog at banterstudio dot com), or leave a comment below.

And don’t forget to make some art. Write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. May your coming year be a wonderful thing in which you dream both dangerously and outrageously. I hope you’ll make something that didn’t exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you all have people to love and to like in return.

And most importantly, because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now, I hope that you will be wise and that you will always be kind.

And I hope that somewhere in the next year that you will surprise yourself.

This week, I noticed that our bedroom gets a lot of natural light. The room having two windows would certainly help with that fact, but what I really noticed is that the light is perfect for making art. In actuality, the layout of the apartment is such that the room we use as the office/studio is likely meant as the master bedroom, with its own walk-in bathroom. However, when Sam moved in a few years ago, he opted to make the other bedroom his own, because of the quietness of being on the corner of the building.

I was in no way suggesting that we swap the rooms (mostly because of the effort involved in such a feat), and told Sam that what I may do is lay down a drop cloth and paint in the bedroom.

I’ve noticed that since buying the laptop, the amount of time I spend in the (rather dark and drab) office/studio is nearly nothing. The sole window has the balcony/steps overhang over it, so while light does come in the room, it’s nowhere near as bright. The living room window is the same, except that it is larger.

I’m trying to reconcile the fact that 94% of the items in the apartment preceded me and belong to Sam. I, of course, have free use of just about everything, but it is difficult for me to start rearranging space without his input, because, well, he was here first. I de-cluttered so much of my stuff before I made the move, so I have little to pare down now. Unfortunately, this leaves Sam to do most of the work of sorting, because I don’t know if some book that hasn’t moved in the last six months is a book that was a gift, or if he was ready to part with it ages ago and just hadn’t. Then I’d have to interrupt him to ask, and the whole process would just take eight times as long to do.

My part is boxing/bagging up what is leaving the apartment. It’s about all I can do right now.

Anyway, I feel stifled creatively in the office/studio, so very little was done the first few months after I moved. Jewelry has been made since moving out to the living room, but the light in here isn’t the best, either.

Something Sam and I agreed on early was that our bedroom was to be a sanctuary. No video games, work, etc. Books are allowed, because we both like to read, and we’re reading through The Princess Bride right now together, as well as reading our own selections. The laptop has made appearances in there, but mostly is in other parts of the apartment. So, I feel mixed about taking art supplies into our sanctuary. On one hand, the light should be wonderful for working. On the other…it’s our sanctuary. No working.

For the sake of art actually being created, a compromise will either need to be made, or I’ll just have to get over my reluctance.

What do you do for creative space?

Now, then…

Today Sam and I celebrate one year as a couple. I’m going to take a bit and tell how we got where we are today.

It was February, 2008. Sam and I both play a “game” called Second Life. I was DJing a party at an inworld bar called PIER. Sam, or xquitz, requested a song from me. My name ingame is Skaja. I think he ended up leaving before I could play the song, but I saw him a few days later, when I was DJing again (and I did that a lot in 2008, as in nearly daily), I played the song for him. We started talking and he asked for a version of Peter Gabriel’s In Your Eyes, but as done by Jeffery Gaines. I found the song and we kept talking.

In April, I opened my own bar and xquitz showed up a couple times with a female friend. I wasn’t interested in him, so it was no big deal. Within a couple months, my bar was closed, and I was spending a lot of time at PIER again. By mid-July (still in 2008), Sam started coming to PIER more often. Our avatars would dance and we would talk. One night, probably in August, I didn’t want to type, and voice chat wasn’t working for the umpteenth time, so we moved to Skype. And since I wasn’t interested in him, really, I told him about everything going on in my life. All the turmoil, happy things, whatever. I was also DJing 25 hours a week, and he would log in just to come listen to whatever I was playing.

[The picture to the right is our avatars on Sept 4, 2008.]

A year ago, September 2nd, he shows me a prim sculpture someone made of the Buddha, and tells me that if he wanted to date someone, he’d ask me, cause I’m really nice. He had previously stated that he wasn’t looking for a girlfriend. And I wasn’t interested anyway. But, that night, when he told me that, I started to wonder. The next night, we were talking in instant messages while I was working at a club, and indicated that he was interested in me.

I knew in my heart that I shouldn’t blow Sam off. And, really, I think I was starting to fall for him (yes over the internet). On the 4th, we became a couple. By the 16th, our avatars were partnered, which is to say that Sam went to Second Life’s website and checked a box and the website sent me an email asking if I wanted my profile to tell the world that I was involved with him in some capacity. At this point, we agreed that we wouldn’t date other people in Real Life, even though the question of us being a Real Life couple was still unclear.

On the 28th, our avatars got married. Yes, it sounds silly and possibly deranged. However, I know and have talked to in Real Life (via the phone and skype) several couples who have met in Second Life, and are really together in Real Life as well, so it doesn’t sound so hokey. Also, I met my ex-husband on AOL back when that was the rage, so it’s not like this was anything new for me anyway. [end rant.] Anyway, that night we talked and committed ourselves to each other.

After further discussion, by the way, we decided that we had really decided to be together as of the 4th, as a Real Life couple, and just took awhile for that to become clear to us.

Next step: meeting in person. It was important to me that Sam make the trip to see me. One of his friends was pushing him to meet me, too.

Sam flew to Minnesota in early November, 2008. I took the weekend off from work and we spent about 4 days together. The picture here is from the 8th, when we stopped at my place to hang out in between different activities. Among them were the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, an independent film, dinner out, and driving around Central Minnesota, so I could show him where I grew up.

By the time he left to return to Florida, I knew I was in love. We started making plans for me to visit in the spring.

Fast forward to February. Things were not going well for me in Minnesota, and I was getting the feeling that I should get out of Dodge, so to speak. Like my time in the state had passed, and I was supposed to be somewhere else. After a lot of discussion (days of it), we agreed to move in together. I had many days in a row off from work, which worked to my advantage. I reduced my belongings by 2/3 and mailed everything I wanted to keep to Florida over the period of several days.

A week before my flight (which I had scheduled before any of this moving talk had been decided), I donated and shipped the last of my belongings, during a blizzard. My last visit to my brother’s house was to pack up the things I was giving to Vanesa, and what I needed for the next week.

On March 4th, I got on a plane for the first time and made the 3.5 hour non-stop trip to Tampa.

The day after I left Minnesota, the area was hit with a blizzard. I celebrated my shortened winter, in a sense.

I celebrated my 33rd birthday.

It’s been interesting acclimating to the more intense heat. My pale European skin has burned a few times. I’ve not lived with cats growing up, and now there are two (though adorably cheeky). Those close to me have noticed I’m happier overall.

The picture to the right is one of our trips to the local park, before the summer got too hot for me to spend a significant amount of time outside. We do most of our walking around the local malls (where we spend little money, because we don’t actually go into the stores), changing up the location for variety.

And, as I mentioned in my last post, we’ve done more “event” type things (theatre, etc) than we had before I moved. It’s given Sam an excuse to explore the area in which he’s lived for nearly four years.

A couple weekends ago, we had tickets to see The Wizard of Oz on a big screen at Tampa Theatre. Afterward, we took a drive across the Sunshine Skyway. This picture, to the left, is us sitting at water’s edge on the access road to the west pier on the bridge’s southside.

I took  this picture. Yes, Sam’s face is cut off on the original photo.

[Surprisingly, we don't have a lot of photos of ourselves together. We take many of the cats and things around us, but not many of us. In fact, we have no pictures of us displayed in the apartment. Is that strange?]

So, we come to today. September 4th, 2009. Six months in Tampa. And 365 days with Sam. We’ve grown more in love over the past months. We’re pretty inseparable.

He’s got this sense of humor that’s not easily described as witty and cheeky. Some of the stuff that he says is so odd, or unexpected. Or, it’s how he says it. Imagine the most stoic person you can think of and imagine that person saying “Woot.” That is my boyfriend, y’all. Except he’s not stoic. Sam’s patient with me and my periods of flakiness. He’s calming.

And I should bottle up his laugh and sell it. I’d be a rich woman.

Here’s to another year.

* title comes from a line spoken in the movie Juno.