Odds and Ends

Time is moving so quickly these days, and I feel like I am swimming in a list of stuff that gets longer and longer, living out of boxes of things that never seem to get organized. Moments where I am by myself, alone, and with my own thoughts are so rare. I find myself in my car, and when not on the phone with my fiancé, not even listening to music... just enjoying the silence and offering up little prayers of gratitude and pondering this crazy life of mine.

I started packing up things in boxes a few weeks ago to get ready to move it all into a storage unit for the summer. It was nice going through all my stuff and throwing a lot of it out. While packing I came across this rock that has been sitting on my shelf for about a year, and was baffled on what to do with it. I love that rock... I found it on a hike about a year ago, on the other side of the mountain from my shack. It was just sitting on the trail... all shiny and bright, waiting for me to pick it up. It didn't look like it belonged to the scenery at all. It was on a dirt trail, on a dirt packed side of a mountain. No other white rock in sight. I figured someone must have carried it up there, and it slipped out of their bag, or they got sick of holding it, and let it drop. 

What do you do with a rock like that when you are packing up and moving a couple states over? It's just a stupid rock. I carried it home with me to remember that awesome hike I took by myself, and put it on that shelf simply because I had a shelf it could sit on. Now what do I do with it? I mean, I can't keep everything I have ever picked up, or else I will die an old woman surrounded by weird rocks! But I really like looking at that rock, and seeing it on my shelf. But packing it up in a box, then un-packing it, and having to put it somewhere in our new apartment, wacky woman!

I remember learning this fact a long time ago that men think in categorized boxes, and woman think in one big box. One thing I absolutely love about Dan is how very manly he is. While some men may probably try to cultivate more balanced natures or skills, Dan is almost unapologetic in his manliness and has all the  stereotypical man qualities, and thinks like a stereotypical man... which I love, and interestingly enough, being around him makes me want to be more womanly.

Anyways... it's interesting how men and women think so differently. Both ways have their own strengths and weaknesses. Dan thinks about something, and can't think of anything else sometimes, because they are two different things in two boxes. To me it is mind-boggling how he does that. I think of everything all at once, and continue to think in a big loop, one thought leading to another, then to another. If something comes up in my day at work, or with Dan, or with wedding plans, I start thinking about it... and as I think about it, my thoughts churn and lead me through all the other things I need to make decisions about, and how they all effect each other... questions like "Whitney, what is your wedding dress going to look like?"... in my own head I would answer, "Well, something with ivory lace... but what will I do with that rock sitting on my shelf at home?"

Yes, perhaps, the ramblings of a crazy woman. But that is how my brain is working these days. So much to do, so much to decide... and for some reason rocks connect with everything else going on in my head... packing for Fiji, thinking about my darling Dan, and planning a wedding.

So what do I do with the rock? I take a picture of it, write a blog post about it, and then toss it into my neighbors flower garden (where it matches the other white rocks and has friends). Hopefully by documenting this rock, and the memory associated with it will help pin my other thoughts down and help me cross more things off my to do list.

Here's hoping.