it's a musical monday

I have a lot of songs that I just can't stop listening to lately, but here are a few:

Young and Beautiful by Lana Del Rey

Darling Dearest by Xylos

Windows Are Rolled Down by Amos Lee

Something Good by Alt-J {Also Breezeblocks & Fitzpleasure}

Big Jet Plane- Acoustic by Angus and Julia Stone

What are you listening to on repeat these days?

pain/beauty

"It is in dialogue with pain that many beautiful things acquire their value."

I just started reading The Architecture* of Happiness, and this is one of many passages in the book that resonates with me. I have spent a good deal of time searching for meaning in the pain, disappointment, and loss I have felt over the past year and a half. This is a big one. In the midst of the chaos and the hardest trials of my life, the world has become more beautiful. I'm inclined to feel more gratitude and satisfaction in the small things around me. {Most of the time, at least. I do still have relapses of the why-me?'s and seriously?!'s} I'm finding truth in the statement that you must know the bitter to know the sweet. When we experience pain our interaction with beauty becomes more meaningful- whether that beauty is in the form of art/architecture, or of nature, or of the people around us. My heart is somehow empty and full at the same time, and this is a very strange and beautiful feeling.

We all want to avoid pain. I myself was recently complaining, "Couldn't life just be easy for a little while?" But maybe the pain is worth it. Because even though sorrow often feels like it is breaking you into small pieces, it is actually making you whole. Pain helps you feel the whole human experience; it helps you love more fully; it helps you turn to and rely on God; it helps you to truly learn who you are and what you want and what kind of stuff you're made of.

*Did you know that I am a great lover of architecture? I very nearly chose to become an architect.  I was vacillating between health care and architecture, eventually choosing healthcare. But architecture! Oh I love it so.  And this will likely be another post for another day.

India

People selling flowers in Old Delhi

Market day in Old Delhi 

The Taj Mahal

Mr. Sheva, our rickshaw driver, and Gandhi, our Taj Mahal guide

 View from our tuk-tuk ride in Agra.

Jaipur train station 

Feeding monkeys at Galta

Hindu worshippers leaving Galta

Elephant ride

Train ride

Leaving Delhi for our flight to Kathmandu

My dad and I mostly decided to go to India so we could see the Taj Mahal, and I would say it was worth it. We started out in Delhi, and I could hardly believe how huge and crowded it was. We spent Sunday on a tour through Delhi, which was perfect because it wasn't too crowded. The sights were interesting: Gandh's cremation site and memorial {Rajghat}, Old Delhi's Red Fort and the Jama Masjid mosque, the President's house and India Gate in New Delhi, and Humayun's Tomb, which was a precursor to the Taj Mahal. 

The next day we were in Agra for sunrise at the Taj Mahal and then went to Fatehpur Sikri in the afternoon. The Taj was incredibly beautiful and seemed completely out of place in dirty, frenetic Agra. We rode all the way out to Fatehpur Sikri in a tuk-tuk {about 40 km}, but getting out of the city was the best part. The driver took us through parts of the city that we never would have seen otherwise. We ended up in a traffic jam with tuk-tuks, bikes, rickshaws, people walking, cars, and a herd of cows. There were no other tourists to be seen. Trash, animals, people everywhere. As we traveled through India I realized that I didn't care much about the tourist sites. Fatehpur Sikri was interesting enough and pretty, but I enjoyed the ride through the city so much more.

We took a train to Jaipur early the next morning. I love riding trains. It's so fun to look out the window, and to watch the other people on the train.  Jaipur was more calm than Agra, but still there were animals everywhere. We went to Galta, a Hindu pilgrimage site outside the city. The setting was so beautiful, and it feeding monkeys was both awesome and creepy. I loved seeing the people worshipping and studying. We also loved exploring the Amber Fort, which seemed to have passages and new rooms going on forever. Here we also rode an elephant, which was actually a strange experience and very typical of India weirdness. Jaipur had some of my favorite sites and favorite food. 

We made the trip back to Delhi on the train and spent our last day taking a very slow, congested drive into Old Delhi, and then only having time to get lunch. Our destination was a restaurant called Karim's, which is tucked back on a side street near Jama Masjid and has been there for over 100 years. At one point it was named on Time Magazine's list of the ten best restaurants in Asia, and the food was phenomenal, authentic Mughal dishes. This was our last night in India and we weren't very hungry after our amazing lunch, so we got a little pizza from Domino's by our hotel and watched Modern Family for a little slice of America before heading to Nepal. 

India was fascinating and definitely an experience. Even though I had seen poverty like that before, I don't think it's something you can ever get used to. It assaults all your senses, and it's a lot to deal with emotionally. The thing I missed in India was interaction with people. Everywhere we went, people were constantly trying to scam us or get money in any way. We found we couldn't talk to anyone without being expected to give them money, and that was disappointing to me. We kept ending up with drivers who told us it wasn't safe to walk around in the markets, which was something I really wanted to do. Even people, like these drivers, who put on a guise of trying to give help and advise all seemed to be working an angle and we had very few interactions that felt sincere, except maybe a couple people at our hotel in Delhi and from people on our flight. 

I didn't experience any of the Indian hospitality that we kept hearing about. I'm sure this is not the experience of everyone who visits India, but it left me feeling somewhat ambivalent about the country. Still, it was an adventure and an experience. I always think there are things to be learned from seeing how different people live, and it hurt my heart to see the state of desperation in which most of these people were living. I left feeling very grateful for my life. 

change

The question is:

Do blondes, do they, like, really have more fun? 

{I will love you if you know the movie I'm quoting here}

Side notes:

1. This was my first time dying my hair. Eek!

2. I never {ever, ever} thought blonde would touch my hair, but I am loving the change.

3. I can't seem to get a decent picture of my hair that also includes my face, so that is awkward. But these pictures are really about the hair. 

on breaking up {a TMI post}

I haven’t had many break ups in my life, but the ones I have had were mean and nasty. Travis and I broke up last night, and it was rough, but it occurred to me that this break up was different. Rather than nasty and mean, it was honest and loving. The pain is just as intense, if not more, but I think it’s a better pain because there is no anger or bitterness attached. {I don’t tolerate anger well; it makes me feel dreadful.} Still, this hurts like hell. Between 10pm Friday and 10am Saturday I slept less than three hours and cried about seven hours. The “worst day ever” banner is back up in our apartment and I have that pit-in-my-stomach feeling where the thought of eating anything other than a smoothie makes me feel ill. Loving someone who doesn’t quite love you back is heart-wrenching. 

Breaking up felt nothing like a fight and everything like a wholeheartedly honest moment, which is both comforting and painful. Comforting because fights make me sick. Painful because at the end of that caring and open talk, it was determined that there won't be anymore between us. I started thinking that if I had been brave we wouldn’t have broken up; I would’ve fought for it and kept us together. I wouldn’t have let him go. But, actually, I was brave. I was brave because I think breaking up is the hard thing and the right thing this time. I was brave because I was more honest and {mostly} more vulnerable with him in that moment than I’ve ever been in a relationship, and that was damn hard. I was brave because I didn’t try to be tough or pretend I wasn’t hurting. I cried like a baby, and I let him hold me for a while. I told him, genuinely, that it was okay and I understood. I was brave to let him go, because I need to wait for someone who loves me back instead of waiting and pushing him. I’m proud of myself for the way I handled it {tears and all}, and I’m thankful for the way he handled it. 

This is going to hurt for a good long while, but I know it will start to fade and eventually I won’t feel the sting of this loss anymore. He was a special person in my life, and I still love that. He helped me heal and he made me happy. He accepted me completely and taught me a lot about what I need to expect from relationships. I fell in love with his fun personality, his sweetness, his patience. I have some really treasured memories from the nine months that we knew each other, and that will have to be enough. 

For now, I’m trying to get over that little {or maybe big} part of my heart that hopes he will change his mind and show up on my doorstep because my head really does know that he/we made the right decision. I’m accepting the mourning and experiencing the sadness that I feel. Even though I’m sad, I meant what I said to him. I understand, and it’s okay, or at least it will be. 

So, I will keep crying whenever I need to and listening to the theme song of this break up, which is Walk Away by Ben Harper. Oh how I relate to this song. “It’s so hard to do and so easy to say, but sometimes, sometimes you just have to walk away.” Sometimes you have to move on, even if it is the hardest thing. 

   

As I walked away from his car I felt like I was leaving my heart in the passenger seat. It was the hardest thing. And that’s okay.