(twenty) Three simple words.

How often have you said 'I love you' and meant exactly and only that? Far more often, in my experience at least, the words 'I love you' are followed by a silent clause. I love you, when... I love you, unless... I love you, so... I love you, if... I love you, because...

I love you, when you're sober. I love you, unless you're with somebody else. I love you, so you have to love me back. I love you, so you have to commit to me. I love you, if you'll change. I love you, if that's what I have to do to make you love me. I love you, because you love me. I love you, because you'll never leave me. I love you, because you're my family, so I must, right? I love you, because what if you're the only person who will ever love me back?

I can think of very few times in my life when I have said 'I love you' without silently completing the sentence in my mind, whether I knew it or not. 'I love you' without expectations, conditions, specifiers. No 'ifs', 'but's, 'when's, 'only's, 'because's, 'so's, or 'except's. But the moments when I have said 'I love you' and meant simply that, those have been the best moments. Because loving someone exactly as they are, no matter what they do*, is incredibly freeing, both for the lover, and the loved.

My life** resolution: drop the rest of the sentence. Only say 'I love you' if I can say it without a silent clause.  Or, if there must be one: I love you, completely and utterly, exactly as you are, no matter what*.

*unless they kill my bestie or purposely run over a hedgehog.
**yes, LIFE resolution, because the odds of me saying 'I love you' in the foreseeable future, even with an entire list of clauses, are so small we might as well just go with 'nonexistent'.

All right, Mr. De Mille.

Yesterday's challenge - 'Where you sleep' - filled me with turmoil and despair. I have no bed: I own no bed. For the first time in my life, nowhere in the world is a bed that is mine. A bed just for me. My bed: there isn't one. I have no home, no roots. I am floating, wandering, lost: but worst of all, the destination I seek is one I dread. I do not want to land, to settle, to arrive. It is a horrible state, and I don't know when it will end.

I did, however, take a nap yesterday, on this.

While waiting for people to arrive at my old flat to pick up my belongings they had purchased. Has anyone ever had anyone arrive on time to pick up something they've bought from you off TradeMe? I'm yet to have one. But that's okay, because I had a cushiony thing to nap on, and Eugenides for company.

Today: close-up.

We care a lot.

For a terrifying moment, I thought I was going to have to get all creative with today's challenge. My 'Childhood' was recently packed into boxes and sent away, and I write this from my barren shell of a bedroom: nothing but rubbish bags, and assorted furniture patiently awaiting collection from its new owners. Nothing here feels anything like my childhood.

But then I remembered my Emergency Kit. Knowing myself and my rather fragile-at-the-best-of-times nature, I left myself some treats stashed in my room just in case, one day this week, it all got a little bit too much. And in that box? This.

I'm not even embarrassed. This movie was such a staple of my childhood, and, due to my indisputable Peter Pan Syndrome, is still a feature of my adult life. This movie, Care Bears Adventure in Wonderland, Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer, My Little Pony: The Movie, and It Takes Two (Olsen twins, Kirstie Alley), are the movies I have brought with me into my adult life purely because they make me feel young and safe again, and for that ninety minutes, whatever's going wrong in my life becomes somebody else's problem.

Routine checkup.

Today's challenge stumped me a little. Most obviously because I am currently living out of a suitcase in a faraway part of Wellington, and eating and sleeping and waking and rising at all kinds of strange hours. Not to be gross, but I haven't even showered today. My world is off its axis, but in a perfectly okay kind of way. The less obvious issue here is that even when my world is firmly on its axis, I'm not a daily routine type of girl. I do not apply makeup, or cleanse, or moisturise. I wash my hair a couple of times a week, but I don't brush it every day. I eat when I'm hungry and sleep when I'm tired and shower when I'm dirty (or not, as the case may be). But then I remembered: I do have a daily routine. A largely unbroken one that I go through almost no matter where I am and what I'm doing.

Gmail, Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, Blogger. In that order, the first time I open my computer, every day.

212 in 2012.

It is no secret that I am not looking forward to this year. I am leaving behind all that is simple, familiar and comfortable and entering into a whole new world. If you know me well, you'll know I do not like change, and I do not like new people. These small inconvenient dislikes are going to make the coming year more than a little challenging, and it is not a challenge I am eagerly anticipating.

However, there are things I can do to give myself a quiet sense of achievement, even when life is overwhelming and placing me firmly in the depths of despair.

In 2012 (starting today) I will do the following 212 things:

- Take, and blog, 50 photos (not including those taken for the Photo A Day challenge)

- Write 50 letters

1. 15/01
2. 21/01
3. 27/01
4. 20/02

- Watch 50 movies (at least 30 of which I haven't seen before)

1. X-Men: First Class (unseen)
2. The Muppet Movie (unseen)
3. Jumangi (seen)
4. Our Idiot Brother (seen)
5. Morning Glory (unseen)
6. Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (unseen) (and godawful)
7. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (US) (unseen)

- Read 25 books

1. The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy - Douglas Adams
2. Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death - Kurt Vonnegut
3. The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee - Sarah Silverman
4. The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins
5. Catching Fire - Suzanne Collins
6. Mockingjay - Suzanne Collins
7. Fry - Stephen Fry

- Bake 25 times

1. 2/2/12
2. 11/02/12
3. 17/02/12

- Try five new foods

- Call/Skype my bestie five times (I'm scared of the telephone, and even more scared of Skype)

1. 15/02/12

- Buy a plant and keep it alive for at least a month

- Kiss a girl

If you wish to be the recipient of a letter, message me your address. I'm sure the main two recipients will be glad to share the load. Alternatively, if you wish to participate in my challenge but hate receiving mail (freak) you can suggest (or send me) a movie, book, or food I'm likely to enjoy that I'm unlikely to have tried. 

Or you could just sit back and watch me fail at keeping my plant alive. Fucking plants.

Favourite sky.

I have meant, over the last 48 hours, to take photos of many favourites. My favourite person (my bestie), my favourite animal (a hedgehog - I saw TWO and it was oh so very exciting), my favourite chocolate (Whittakers, dark, eaten for dessert this evening). However, each of these passed without me remembering to take a picture, and now my photo is horribly late. I have, however, finally captured a favourite on (metaphotical) film - my favourite t-shirt:

which can be seen in a far more illuminated fashion here and can be purchased here.

Today's challenge: my sky. Tonight's sky is not photo friendly, as my camera is not waterproof and neither am I. However, this is my 'sky' at present: the ceiling of my friend's room, where I am spending my final week in Wellington (only nights, really, he lets me out during the day).

Triple shot.

Been away from life a couple of days. Time to play catch-up.

Letterbox:

Yes, my letterbox number is a post-it. Classy living, right here.

Something you wore:

Something I'm currently wearing, even. BIRDS. I wear this pretty much everywhere. Thanks Fi <3

Makes me smile:

Ador(n)ed.

Today's photo challenge is 'Something you adore'. For me, this carries the weight of the world on its shoulders. Something I love? Sure, I can do love. I love a multitude of things. Someone I adore? Again, simple. I adore more people than I can count on my fingers. But a thing that I adore? One simply needs to look in the dictionary to see that 'adore' is not a word that can simply be placed upon an inanimate object without careful consideration:

To love with one's entire heart and soul; regard with deep respect and affection.

To regard with deep, often rapturous love.

To regard with the utmost esteem, love, and respect; honor.

Is there, then, a 'thing' that I adore? Well, I'm not sure about 'rapturous love', but I found something that comes pretty close to the first and third definitions.

This necklace was a gift from my grandmother at my first of what will be four graduations. While I love the necklace itself, I adore what it stands for. Education. Knowledge. Perseverance. Achievement. My commitment to the field of psychology. Family. Rare and all-too-fleeting satisfaction. Pride. Joy. Progress.

When I wear it, I remember three things. I am educated. I am capable. I am loved.

This is the song that doesn't end.

Once, long ago - years ago, it feels - a '30 Days of Me' challenge prompted the creation of this blog. Now, months after I closed it, a similar challenge had necessitated its revival.

I will be doing this.

I will probably also be writing, because writing comes far more easily to me than taking pictures, and I am coming to a point in my life where writing my thoughts may serve a very important function indeed. I am approaching a scary time; a lonely time; a time where the illusion of human contact may be more needed than ever before.

But for now the scary, lonely time simply looms in my future, barely touching my present, and I am not scared, and certainly not lonely. This is me, at this moment:

That is the face and hair of humidity. I complain endlessly about Wellington's complete inability to ever heat me to excess, but right at this moment I cannot remember why on earth I thought that might be something I missed about home. I am currently heated to excess and pining for the cool Wellington breeze.

I wasn't aware at breakfast that I would be partaking in this challenge, but here is what I ate:

When I wind up in Hell, I think we can safely assume 'gluttony' was on the list. Now I need to go an find something I 'adore' for tomorrow's photo: fair warning, it may be breakfast food again.