Much Ado about 27

I have bronze fingernails with sparkly blue bases... Why is it that the only place my creativity is willing to surface lately is in nail art?

I have a confession. I love glow-sticks. I love glow-sticks so much that I hoard them, not wanting to waste them on a night where I don't spend enough time awake in the dark. Which is pretty much every night, I think. Maybe I should turn off my lights at night... save energy and rock out the glow-sticks.

I swear sometimes I really am 7.

Ok, fine. 27. At least for one week and one day more.

So something recently brought to my attention... Have you heard of the 27 club? With the death of Amy Winehouse I've seen in the news and on facebook a couple of articles referencing the 27 Club... which is a group of musicians who died at the age of 27. Many of them were considered to be geniuses. Many of them were manic depressive. Many of them were substance abusers. This list includes Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendricks, Jim Morrison, and Kurt Cobain. All died at 27. Maybe it's a good thing that my birthday is coming up... maybe it's a really impressive thing that I've gotten through these last 6 months... maybe 27 is a more tender age than it seems... it's mind boggling to me that all of these people were only 27 though... They were able to make such a lasting impression by the age of 27... What have I done? I've been so happy and I've survived... I guess that's more than they can say.

I think I may need to be careful there...  It may become really easy to idealize how happy I was when I was married. I mean compared to where I am now I was blissfully happy... but part of that is that I'd never had a major grief event in my life. I'd yet to accept that someone I loved could die... I thought I could keep them here just by sheer force of my love... that didn't work. And while I look back and pretty much only remember being happy, I still seemed to have plenty to complain about at the time. And though I do think that Nathan and I had extra grace because God knew we wouldn't have as much time with each other as we would have liked and so we wouldn't waste it fighting, we did still fight. I had frustrations with him, he had frustrations with me... yes, we were happy, and yes we were in love, but he really could drive me up a wall. I hated how his phone was always on vibrate so I couldn't get a hold of him half the time when I wanted him. I didn't like his temper at all, and the way he drove when he got mad about something would in turn make me so mad that I fumed. I mean... marriage isn't all sunshine and rainbows. Sometimes it's silent fuming and pouting and snapping at each other... but it's also settling into love... getting comfortable in it and wearing it around like a Snuggie. It's trading in some of those butterflies for knowing looks and inside jokes. It's easy to look back now and see how happy and wonderful things were even when they were tense and grumpy... but at the time I just felt tense and grumpy. I think I need to remember these things, cause while laughing with each other at 1 AM happens,  offended silences happen as well, and it could be easy to cultivate unreasonable expectations that a human being wouldn't be able to live up to.

Come on, 28. You've got to be better than 27 in terms of life events. All you gotta do is not completely suck. Ready? Go!... ok fine, you've got one week and one day to get ready and then... Go!

You know if I weren't 2 weeks late this wouldn't be a problem. Sheesh, baby me, what were you thinking??

PS I watched 5 episodes of Dawson's Creek tonight... Good use of my time, eh?